Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Cultural Heritage Destruction In Middle Eastern Museums: Problems And Causes, Evan A. Wright

Museum Studies Theses

Destruction of cultural heritage sites and museums in the Middle East has become increasingly prevalent in the recent decades. This thesis aims to unravel the causes for these violent acts. It uses a socio-historical perspective of how culture, religion, and politics have polarized people and contributed to the ruination. Three museums are examined through a scope of progressive violence: The Kuwait National Museum, The National Museum of Iraq and the National Museum of Afghanistan. This thesis shows that both secular and religious factors have contributed to this destruction, and faults by international governing agencies and of investment of mitigation strategies …

Making The Grade: Do Art Museums Have An Impact On Student Achievement Within Low Socio-Economic Communities?, Alison M. Rebmann

Museum Studies Theses

This thesis evaluates the connections between art museums across the country with their communities. With many of the country’s museums located in city centers, there is a large population of children who live within the vicinity of art museums. Many of these children also come from low socio-economic backgrounds. They may not have access to the resources needed to gain access to art museums. This thesis examines what art museums are doing to ensure all community members can experience what they have to offer. Four main categories are examined in this research: (1) the price of entry to the museum, …

Portraits With A Posthumous Voice: Reinforcing And Contesting Social Norms In The Heterotopic Museum And Cemetery, Matthew J. Crissey

Museum Studies Theses

Abstract

The following paper qualitatively analyzes and documents over 500 memorial-photographs/etched portraits on tombstones in ten Western New York cemeteries. This paper covers fourteen topics, ranging from religion to gang-violence. A juxtaposition of portraits exhibited within the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery with memorial-portraits on tombstones revealed heterotopic environments creating a public forum enabling the reinforcing or contestation of social ideologies. In other words, the author observed the similarities of identities and social norms publicly expressed on tombstones and gallery portraits.

A Social Constructionist approach enabled the study to examine how one social phenomenon contributes to the shaping of a culture. …

A Larger Table: Fostering Inclusion In Museums Through Hiring Directors Of Community Engagement, Hannah M. Page

Museum Studies Theses

Museums have undergone a transformation over the course of their existence, shifting from inwardly-focused private collections to organizations working to represent and advocate for the diversity of human existence. While professionals in the field have become increasingly aware of the importance of expanding beyond traditional audiences, there is little consensus about the best methods of achieving this goal. This thesis proposes one potential solution, the creation of a staff position dedicated to engaging members of the museum’s surrounding community through relationship-building. After a brief exploration of the history of the museum field, this paper delves into the benefits of developing …

An Architect Of The New South: A Case Study Of William Lawrence Hill And Sharon, South Carolina, Paul Laffredo Iii

Graduate Theses

This is a case study of William Lawrence Hill and Sharon South Carolina. Mr. Hill was born in 1866 and grew up under the harshness of Reconstruction which taught Hill that above all else he did not want to become a southern farmer. At the age of ten, Hill was operating a mercantile, for the benefit of the Blairsville, South Carolina community. In 1898, Hill relocated about twenty miles away to the community called Sharon. Hill along with four other men incorporated the Sharon community into a town and served as a member of its first city council.

William L. …

From Riots To Sovereignty: United States Policy Makers Ideas, Perceptions, And Reactions To The Panamanian Struggle For Sovereignty, William Edward Humphrey

Graduate Theses

After the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty of 1903 the Panamanian people had to live in an occupied country. The U.S. took control of a ten-mile stretch of land surrounding a canal of immense importance to world trade. The U.S. policy makers ignored the pleas, complaints, and demonstrations of the Panamanian people as they struggled for sovereignty in their country. This thesis will show, through the use of primary sources from the U.S. government that U.S. policy makers refused to see the importance of sovereignty to the Panamanian people until the 1964 Panamanian Flag Riots. After that episode, U.S. policy makers dramatically shifted …

Remembering An Invasion: The Panama Intervention In America’S Political Memory, Dave Nagaji

Senior Theses

In December of 1989, the United States launched Operation Just Cause, a military invasion of the country of Panama, capturing Manuel Noriega and overthrowing his government. This research project examines how Colin Powell, Richard Cheney, James Baker, and George H.W. Bush presented Operation Just Cause in their memoirs. It attempts to determine how these senior leaders’ depictions of this invasion incorporated it into the Bush administration’s overall foreign-policy strategy. The research finds that their general approach was to present the Panama intervention as an isolated incident which had no intentional link to other major events at the time, was not …

The Sea Ranch: Unforeseen Failures And Statewide Successes Of An Ecologically Conscious Coastal Community, Robert Daley

Senior Theses

The term “residential development” or “planned community” brings to mind images of a stereotypical suburbia. The planned community of The Sea Ranch, along the Sonoma County coast in Northern California is a direct challenge to the suburban ideal. Construction of the nearly 1500 homes began in the late 1960s and continues to present day. All of the homes must meet specific design requirements including being ecologically sound and they must fit within the landscape. The strict architectural elements is what provides the distinct look of the community. The construction of a housing development along a ten-mile strip of untouched and …

Abraham Lincoln: Making A Man Of A Legend, Owen Martinelli

Senior Theses

Abraham Lincoln’s legacy has been in a near-constant state of flux since his death. Despite his status as one of the most notable presidents of American history, modern day historians have been unable to develop a complete understanding of Lincoln’s character. In various biographies of Lincoln throughout history, he has been portrayed in every way from a melancholic, faithless, and depressed nobody who fumbled his way into crisis after crisis, to a puritan driven by God to abolish an evil institution. Public views of Lincoln have varied dramatically from veneration to disgust, and everywhere in between. In this essay, I …

Two Cases Of Intellectual Continuity Between Mental Philosophy And Psychology: William James And Charles Grandison Finney, Zachary Zschaechner

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The history of American psychology was once dominated by a narrative that emphasized the unprecedented nature of psychology at the expense of its relation to mental philosophy. Contrary to this narrative, this discussion offers two cases of intellectual continuity between 19th century Protestant mental philosophy and the new psychology as it emerged in the United States in the last quarter of the 19th century.

Divided Agencies: Internal Strife In The Fight Against Castro, Stephanie R. Schmidt

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. State Department differed in their approaches to dealing with the Castro regime from 1959 through the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Using declassified documents from the CIA and State Department, I argue that the approaches of the CIA in dealing with the Castro regime were more aggressive than the approaches of the U.S. State Department. Many of the primary sources used in this work were accessed in the CIA electronic reading room and on the office of the historian website. The office of the historian is an …

Conquerors Or Cowards: The Role Of The Kentucky Mounted Militia In The Indian Wars From 1768 To 1841., Joel Anderson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The thesis argues that Kentuckians developed the myth that the Kentucky Mounted Volunteers were the most effective troops to fight Native American warriors in the Northwest Indian War of 1790 to 1794 and the War of 1812. The idea that these troops were the best fighters originated in the decades following the War of 1812 as Kentuckians generated a communal history. Residents of the state listened to orators mythologize the successes of mounted Kentuckians in battle, while remembering the foot militia for their sacrifices rather than their shortcomings.

A New Brand Of Men: Masculinity In French Republican Socialist Rhetoric, Randolph A. Miller

Theses and Dissertations

Social theorist and activist, August Blanqui, used his appearance before court in 1832 to lay out an argument that condemned the present political and economic system and demanded emancipation of the male worker. During his monologue, along with his devastating portrayal of worker misery and systemic corruption, Blanqui made comparisons between the male bourgeoisie and the male proletariat. Recounting the recent overthrow of Charles X for his audience, Blanqui described the “glorious workers” as six feet tall, towering over a groveling bourgeoisie who praised them for their “selflessness and courage.” According to Blanqui, the workers, unlike the aristocracy of wealth …

Measuring Rural Revolutionary Mobilization: The Militiamen, Soldiers, And Minutemen Of Fauquier County, Virginia 1775 - 1782, Jason Fackrell

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The story of the rural soldiers and militiamen of Virginia that served in the American Revolution remains open to historical research and exploration. Recent scholarship of Virginia’s military contribution to the Revolution focuses heavily on relationships of power among social groups that operated within the colony’s hierarchy, concluding that a lack of white, lower-class political and economic representation disabled mobilization among the Old Dominion’s more settled regions. My study emphasizes the revolutionary backcountry’s story by using Fauquier County, Virginia as a case study.

A study of Rural Virginia during the Revolution presents scholars with significant challenges. Literacy rates among the …

Did Hollywood Take Theatre "By Hook Or By Crook?", Catherine S. Wright

MSU Graduate Theses

Hollywood and Theatre have been partners in producing entertainment for over 100 years. The relationship was fruitful for both parties, but Hollywood moguls and playwrights battled over ownership of the work and crafting of its creative nucleus, story and character. Theatre was the dominant entertainment right before the rise of motion pictures. Once Hollywood’s talkies closed the curtain on silent films, playwrights had a high creative worth to movie makers. In the cinema, story and dialogue were essential for its survival and growth. Playwrights were courted by the Hollywood studio heads but were not offered equal partnership as they were …

Whose Monster? A Study In The Rise To Power Of Al Qaeda And The Taliban, Nicholas Kotarski

History Theses

This thesis seeks to determine which factors and parties were most responsible for the transformation of the Mujahedeen who pushed the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan into what would eventually become al Qaeda and the Taliban in the 1990s. First brought to America's attention due to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, they would gain increased notoriety as the decade progressed due to the Taliban's treatment of Afghan women, and finally culminating in the tragic terrorist attacks on September 11th 2001.

Dayananda Saraswati And The Colonial Machines: Vedic Reformation, European Science, And Modernity In Colonial India, David Tauber

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The relationship between European science and religion has varied considerably through time and among different traditions. This monograph attempts to catalogue one such variant by exploring the context entrance of European science into the Indian subcontinent, at the beginning of the British colonial period, by focusing on how a single religion leader drew upon European notions of science in building his reformed Vedic theology. Dayananda Saraswati (1824-83) spent much of his life traveling northern India as an itinerate ascetic and ultimately founded an intellectual lineage that was instrumental in the Indian Independence movement. Despite having no formal British education included …

American Hatred: Wild West Myths, Color-Coded Rhetoric, And The Shaping Of The Aryan Nations, Alisha Graefe

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the way the Aryan Nations from Northern Idaho used the Wild West mythology of independent cowboys and color-coded rhetoric popularized by Conservative politicians to form a unique white separatist group that has influenced current racist groups.

Military Working Dogs In The United States Armed Forces From World War I To Vietnam, Tristan J. Kelly

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

At the beginning of World War I, the only military working dogs the United States owned were sled dogs. In comparison, European nations in World War I used canines as sentries, messengers, ambulance, and draft dogs. In 1942, members of the American public, created Dogs for Defense Inc. to help recruit dogs for military use. By the end of the Vietnam War, dogs no longer were donated by the American public for use, rather the American military owned the dogs they deployed.

This thesis examines the use of dogs by the American military from World War I to the Vietnam …

A "Real Social & Political Revolution": Nativism, Class Conflict, And Urban Reform In Portland, Maine (1840-1923), Thomas R. Macmillan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 1923, Portland, Maine voters approved passed a ballot measure that jettisoned the nearly century-old Council-Mayor plan in favor of a Council-City Manager form of governance. This dramatic alteration was supported by the Portland Chamber of Commerce and the Ku Klux Klan; it allowed the centralization of political power in the hands of an appointed City Manager and a City Council dominated by business interests. Taking this campaign as its focus, the following study incorporates nativism, class conflict, and urban reform in Portland, Maine with a focus on the period of 1840-1923. It blends ethnic, political, and urban history to …

Irish Whips And German Suplexes: Professional Wrestling And The American Immigrant And Minority Experience, Colin Rush Walker

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Trends within sports and popular entertainment have long been regarded as great indicators of larger transitions in the social, political, and economic landscape of the United States. Repeatedly mined and often used for context, sports have become intrinsically linked to the broader discussions of people, their beliefs, ideals, and actions occurring in the historiography of American culture. However, one sport has regularly been passed over in these examinations. I argue that the modern day entertainment monolith of professional wrestling serves as one of the most important indicators of socioeconomic change in the history of the U.S., and that it plays …

Humor And Quiet Resistance: The Graphic Work Of Wilhelm Höpfner, Kelsey Jean Mccarey Soya

Theses and Dissertations

Humor and Quiet Resistance: The Graphic Work of Wilhelm Höpfner is an exhibition that was on display at the Emile Mathis II Art Gallery at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee November 15–December 20, 2018. The works consist of fine art prints produced Wilhelm Höpfner between 1921 and 1939 in Berlin and the smaller city of Magdeburg. The exhibition and this accompanying catalogue seek to introduce the reader to his work and to provide the cultural context for its interpretation. When discussing the artistic movements of Europe in the early twentieth century, there is a tendency to discuss them as discrete, contained …

Responding To Change: Girl Scouts, Race, And The Feminist Movement, Phyllis E. Reske

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the Girl Scouts of the United States of America (GSUSA) is to teach girls to be giving, self-sufficient, and independent in their homes and communities through volunteer work and earning merit badges. Open to all girls since its inception, the GSUSA offers Girl Scouts training in both gender-conforming and nontraditional vocations. However, during the first half of the twentieth century, segregation and domesticity was emphasized in American society. The organization began to focus less on careers, independence, and racial inclusion to preparing predominately white girls to be good wives and mothers. As Black Power and women’s liberation …

Forging With Embers: The Life And Pre-Gubernatorial Career Of Isaac Murphy, 1799-1864, Keith Joshua Lee Todd

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The gubernatorial administration of Isaac Murphy from 1864-1868, as Arkansas began emerging from the Civil War into Reconstruction, has had a thorough, if dated, examination in Arkansas historiography. However, Murphy’s life and pre-gubernatorial career, including his early political activities—being the first treasurer of Washington County, Arkansas (1836-1838), serving three terms in the Arkansas General Assembly (two in the House, 1846-1849, and one in the Senate, 1856-1857), and the totality of his action during both sessions of Arkansas’s Secession Convention (1861)—have been largely neglected. This thesis will additionally provide a biographical interpretation of Murphy necessary to fully understand his political actions—his …

Periodicals In Transition: Politics And Style In Victorian Higher Journalism, David Blaine Walker

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Covering a period roughly from the mid-1820s through the early-1880s, this dissertation investigates transformations in the style and substance of political discourse practiced in British organs of “higher journalism.” Animating certain key moments and figures along the way, it explains the shift from a periodical market dominated by the anonymous, lengthy treatises found in quarterly reviews like the Edinburgh Review (f. 1802) and its rivals, to an industry dominated by monthly reviews that generally eschewed both the anonymity of its contributors as well as the prohibitive length of its predecessors. In exploring this transition from the “Age of the Quarterlies” …

Washington Park Cemetery: The History And Legacies Of A Sacred Space, Terri Williams

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Washington Park Cemetery (WPC) is an historically African American cemetery that has struggled to endure countless years of mistreatment and negligence. It is important to identify not only the cemetery itself as sacred, but also the legacies and stories of those who are laid to rest in the space. Provided is a comprehensive history of the once prominent African American cemetery that examines its origins, various controversies, and current physical state. Since the history of this cemetery has never been collected and compiled into a comprehensive document, this research serves as a historical tool that allows individuals to learn about …

A Critical Exploration Of Costume Design Possibilities In Tolkien’S Legendarium, M. Grace Costello

Apparel Merchandising and Product Development Undergraduate Honors Theses

Tolkien’s Legendarium has in many ways codified modern fantasy. Illustrations and film adaptations of it have had far-reaching consequences on popular culture, building an 80-year tradition of visual depictions of Tolkienesque fantasy. Particularly, Elven characters are usually depicted wearing costume inspired by Victorian notions of Western medieval costume. In this paper I seek to approach the design of original costume for the Ñoldor from a different perspective, free from the established traditions of other designers’ and illustrators’ work.

The preliminary research focuses on searching the source materials of the Silmarillion and select texts from the Histories of Middle Earth. I …

Mergers Of The Utah Cooperative Association In Post-War Utah, 1940-1970, Emily Gurr Thompson

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Agricultural historians have long grappled with the causes leading to the dissolution of the farming community and their disassociation with their lands. Cooperatives were key to maintaining this relationship. The cooperative economic model sustained farmers to shape, negotiate and create a place for themselves in the 20^th century agrarian landscape. Long time agricultural leaders like W.B. Robins worked to bolster cooperative ideologies and prevent integration into large scale American agribusiness between 1940 and 1970.

This plan B paper examines a series of failed mergers that Robins had intended to thwart the decline of the Utah Cooperative Association (UCA). W.B. …

A Past Never Past: An Analysis Of Slavery And Reparation At The University Of Mississippi, Allen Coon

Honors Theses

The University of Mississippi was built using slaves, but the enslaved and their descendants were willfully denied admission to the university until forced desegregation in 1962. This interdisciplinary study employs a qualitative content analysis of antebellum university board of trustees and faculty minutes to investigate the benefits that slavery conferred to the university and the harms that slavery inflicted upon the campus enslaved. Analysis finds that slavery was a standard operation, that extrajudicial violence against slaves was a campus tradition, and that white supremacy was an institutional ideology at the University of Mississippi. This thesis integrates African American reparations literature …

Addie Graves (1922-2007) And The Creation Of Bethlehem Lutheran Church In Columbus, Georgia, Jesse David Chariton

Theses and Dissertations

Addie Graves (1922-2007) grew up in Wilcox County, Alabama, which at the time was a center of Lutheran African-American missions. After moving to Columbus, Georgia, in the early 1950s, she became the first black member of a Lutheran church in the city (Lutheran Church of the Redeemer). This is significant because most other churches in Columbus did not desegregate until decades later. It was also prior to any official desegregation action by the Lutheran Church -Missouri Synod. She could have joined a different church, but she evidently felt strongly about her Lutheran faith and identity. In 1963, she helped establish …