Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Model Minorities: Asian Americans And The White-Black Racial Paradigm, Jason Tom

Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines the racial wedge driven by Whites between Blacks and Asian Americans during the Cold War on to the present. Model minorities is a term coined by whites in the 1960s to suppress Civil Rights protests and Black demands. By elevating a minority group through success stories, whites constructed a means to suppress Black people’s organizing for change against systemic racism and oppression.

Sailing Illicit Voyages: Colonial Smuggling Operations Between North America And The West Indies, 1714-1776, Carl A. Herzog

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines colonial smuggling in the mid-eighteenth century between British North America and the Caribbean from the operational perspective of the captains and crews of the coastwise merchant vessels engaged in that trade. In doing so, this work seeks to recast these particular smuggling mariners as agents of a unique professional maritime skillset, whose expertise created paths for upward mobility in their communities and careers. Returning the mariners’ skills and core occupation to their historical identity refines and corrects arguments about mariners’ perceived attitudes toward the Navigation Acts, smuggling, and the American Revolution. Focusing on operational skills differentiates the …

'Seeds Of Happiness': An Oral History Of Members Of Soka Gakkai International-New Orleans, Lorvelis Amelia Madueño

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Soka Gakkai International (SGI) is a Japanese new religious movement present in 192 countries. Despite the substantial amount of academic work that has been produced on SGI’s overseas expansion, many scholars continue to overlook the local context when analyzing the organization’s global presence. This paper is based on oral history interviews and examines the experiences of five members of the SGI-USA New Orleans Buddhist Center, located in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana. This thesis argues that many SGI practitioners choose to join and remain in the organization because it fills specific spiritual and emotional voids in their lives, creates …

Body Snatching In Philadelphia: A Social And Cultural History, 1762-1883, Timothy R. Dewysockie

Theses and Dissertations

In 18th-century Philadelphia the first medical school in the thirteen British colonies was established. However, cadavers for dissection could only be obtained involuntarily, a posthumous punishment generally reserved for murderers and suicides. Body snatching, the disinterment of corpses for dissection, immediately became a problem because legal sources of "subjects" did not meet demand. Body snatching was resisted in popular representations and the actions of everyday citizens in riots, petitions, and other forms of protest. However, in the late 19th century the requisition of "unclaimed" bodies for dissection - that is, dead "paupers" - became enshrined in Pennsylvania's 1883 Anatomy Act, …

Women’S Impact On Cooking Culture During The Great Depression: Limited To Being A Homemaker, Unlimited In Their Authority On Nutrition In Their Communities, Michelle Molina

History Undergraduate Theses

This paper examines American cooking culture of the Great Depression, as the impact it had on everyday people’s diet was much greater than one may initially think. By analyzing interviews, photographs, and newspaper advertisements, and conducting archival research, I illuminate the public history of the Great Depression’s impact on diet and the roles women played during it. The existing scholarship on the Great Depression typically focuses on the relief efforts made to help people affected by this economic downturn, but this paper will focus more specifically on the cooking culture that involved women during this desperate time. Harsh conditions experienced …

Escrime Americana: The History Of Discrimination In American Fencing From The 1700s-1950, Alyssa J. Hirsch

Honors College Theses

This research paper will focus on the history of discrimination in American fencing from 1700-1950. The time frame covers the colonial origins of the sport in America, through segregation practices up to 1950. This project will analyze the origins of classism, sexism, and racism in American fencing, and how it connects to how racism, sexism, and classism have operated in the United States. There has been no previous research conducted into the history of discrimination in fencing exclusively, so this is new territory.

The research for this paper includes primary sources provided by the head historian of U.S. fencing, Andy …

The Republican Party: A Narrative Of Good And Evil, Lawrence Cranor

Theses and Dissertations from 2020

In 2020, there is a misconception that the Republican Party is still the party of Abraham Lincoln. The goal of this paper is to prove that statement incorrect and explain how it came to be incorrect by providing a detailed, methodical chain of evidence. It will separate the Party’s perceived image from reality. This paper will analyze pre-Cold War Republican Party and establish the party’s traditional policies before abandoning centrism in the 1960s and 1970s. Then the emerging Republican Party will be compared with the pre-1960 party. This paper will reflect on Republican Party power dynamics, economic strategies, social priorities, …

The United States And Cuba: A Study Of The Us’S First Military Occupation And State Building Efforts, James Guillard

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines the US-Cuban relationship during the first military occupation of Cuba from 1898 to 1902, to show the role of high modernist state building in the occupation and the scope of Cuban participation in this endeavor. This is evidenced by heavily examining the annual reports of the US Military Governor General of Cuba and the US appointed civil secretaries of the Cuban government. This research differs from previous studies in the field by introducing James C. Scott’s concepts of legibility and high modernist state building, as well as suggesting that the Cuban civil secretaries participated within a limited …

"Accountable To No One": Confronting Police Power In Black Milwaukee, William I. Tchakirides

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation uncovers the roots of discriminatory police power in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and traces Black-led efforts to make the city’s police bureaucracy more accountable to all citizens. It analyzes the politics of police reform in the century spanning the passage of two state laws that reconfigured Milwaukee’s law enforcement arrangements. The first (1885) removed City Hall’s managerial control over the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD). Corporate elites and social reformers fearful of rising working-class power and moral degeneration in the immigrant-industrial city lobbied for the statute’s enactment. The second (1984) reversed course, re-empowering non-police officials after decades of Black-led campaigns for …

Houses Divided: New Perspectives On Antiwar Dissent In The American Civil War, Mark Ciccone

Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACTHOUSES DIVIDED: NEW PERSPECTIVES ON ANTIWAR DISSENT IN THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

by

Mark Ciccone

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2020Under the Supervision of Professor Lex Renda

Since the conclusion of the American Civil War, antiwar dissent in the Union and the Confederacy has predominantly been viewed through the lens of political treason alone, with limited exploration of other factors—judicial, social, economic, personal—which motivated its expression. Both explicitly and implicitly, the individuals and movements that advocated peaceful negotiations to end the conflict, or protested what they viewed as illegitimate or unjust war policies enacted by Washington, D.C. or Richmond, or demonstrated …

A Call To Arms: A Comparative Study Of Mississippi And Kentucky Citizens During The Secession Crisis, 1859-1861, Amy Myers

Master's Theses

Many studies of the American Civil War have considered why Mississippi leaders voted to secede, while Kentucky politicians remained in the Union. Scholars have previously focused on political elites to understand the underlying motivations behind each state’s decision. These same scholars have often confined their studies to a synthesis of why secession occurred nationally or at the state level. The question remains as to what the common citizen saw and believed when faced with secession and if their views matched their delegates.

This study utilizes the governors’ papers of John J. Pettus and Beriah Magoffin, the Jefferson Davis papers, and …

Service And Citizenship: Examining The Historical Relationship Between Immigration And Military Service In The United States, Claudia Lynn Zibanejadrad

Master of Arts in American Studies Capstones

The purpose of this project is to examine the many different groups of people who used military service in order to gain the political and civil rights of citizenship. I begin with a history of immigration and military service, throughout American history. I particularly concentrate on World War II, a pivotal moment for immigration and the military. I will then cover the historiography that informed my research. I include some research on immigrants who used military service to become naturalized citizens, such as those from Ireland, Germany, and the Philippines. I also include those who were born on American soil, …

"Some Kind Of Socialist:" Lee Hays, The Social Gospel, And The Path To The Cultural Front, Elizabeth Withey

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In 1939, with sixty-five dollars and twenty pages of Commonwealth Labor songs, Lee Hays, youngest son of a Methodist minister, hitchhiked thirteen hundred miles from Mena, Arkansas, to New York City where he found stardom in the Folk Revival movement, first, as a founder of the Almanac Singers then the Weavers. Hays’ biographer Doris Willens and others, viewing Hays’ unabashed socialism, ribald humor, penchant for beer, brandy, and cigarettes as induced by the childhood trauma of his father’s death, argue Hays rejected his father’s beliefs: replacing religion with radical politics. This thesis, in contrast, argues Hays’ upbringing immersed in contradictions …

The Evolution Of Defining Rape In The United States, Sophia Rhoades

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

A Dogged Resolve: The Doctrine And Decline Of Mormon Plural Marriage, 1841-1890, Jaclyn Thornock Gadd

Graduate Masters Theses

A Dogged Resolve is an analytical micro-history of the theology and marital practices among members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1841 to 1890. In the spring of 1841, Joseph Smith, Church founder and leader, took another wife; an act which launched a long and controversial practice of polygamy by a small minority within the community. After the Latter-day Saints migrated west, the isolation of the Rocky Mountains fostered a period where plural families could thrive and the first generation endeavored to establish marital norms. However, with advancements in technology and transportation, the younger generations adopted …

Being Careful : Progressive Era Women And The Movements For Better Reproductive Health Care, Sarah Patterson

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

ABSTRACTFor American and British women, the definition of being healthy changed in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Previously, there had been a resigned acceptance of the fact that a woman’s reproductive capacity often relegated her to a lifetime of suffering and ill health. Certainly, individual women sometimes sought out solutions to their health problems, but there was no concerted social movement to help all women. Then in the Progressive Era that changed. The professionalization of medicine, combined with scientific breakthroughs, such as using Salvarsan to treat syphilis and urine testing to identify eclampsia meant that women could …

“They Know Too Much Already:” Black Education In Post-Emancipation Era Columbus, Ga, 1866-1876, William Dwayne Thomas

Theses and Dissertations

Despite local histories that have been published on the history of Columbus, Georgia, and its school system, very little has been written about Columbus’s freedmen schools created after the U.S. Civil War. As a result, a comprehensive history of Columbus’s freedmen does not exist, and those written are fragmented. The focus of this study is to document the beginnings of Columbus’s freedmen school efforts in the post-emancipation era, through those African Americans’ own historical voices and experiences. Though an analysis of archived unpublished letters, local and religious newspapers, census data, government documents, and meeting minutes, this study recovers the authentic …

The Chinese In California: Archaeology And Railroads At The Turn Of The Century, Evelyn Hildebrand

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Research on Chinese sites in California have focused on ethnicity, ethnic relations, and the material expression of ethnicity all of which are key issues in overseas Chinese archaeology. Chinatown sites produced data that helped define Chinese culture and experience in historical California. One railroad construction work camp site identified in 2016 located in the Cajon Pass in the late 1800’s offers the potential for insight into the lives of the workers. Chinese occupation in San Bernardino is not well understood, and the site may offer information on the culture, traditions, and integrations of the workers. Thousands of Chinese men left …

Women’S Suffrage Is “Nothing Less Than Treasonable:” An Analysis Of Rural Women And Their Group Activism In The Women’S Suffrage Movement In The Jackson Purchase Area, 1838-1940, Ashleigh Deno

Honors College Theses

The 1910s was a decade characterized by technological advancement, World War I, and a global movement for women’s suffrage, which would eventually culminate with legislation, most notably the 19th Amendment in the United States. In the United States, women staged protests throughout the country and were known to stand outside of the White House with taunting signs for President Woodrow Wilson to read. This movement came to the United States from other parts of the globe, particularly Britain, and suffragists from other countries were known to travel to the States to give presentations and provide guidance to suffragists on this …

Free People Of Color In West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, Evelyn Lenora Wilson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

“Free People of Color in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana” documents the presence, land ownership, business development, and personal relationships of free people of color in a rural Louisiana parish. Beginning with how free people of color came to be in the parish, it shows an absence of segregation by skin color in home ownership, business relationships, and friendships. Free people of color found themselves accepted in a community that valued their talents and skills and disregarded the color of their skin.

Free people of color bought and sold homes in whatever part of the parish suited them. Most lived surrounded …

"Second Sight": Acknowledging W.E.B. Du Bois's "Double Consciousness" As A Step Towards Dissolution, Alexandra M. Hudecki

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This project examines American scholar W.E.B.’s DuBois’ idea of “double consciousness”, from his book The Souls of Black Folk (1903). The idea of “double consciousness” has and continues to be utilized by Black scholars and artists in literary, theoretical, and psychological contexts, some of which I hope my paper will adequately survey. I begin by examining “double consciousness” from the perspective of particulars by understanding Du Bois’s original idea and the specificities of the American context he himself was a part, considering the legacy of slavery. Then, by focusing primarily on writers such as Frantz Fanon, Richard Wright and Paul …

An Empire Among Empires: America's Relationship To "The Other" In The Historiography Of Empire, Lynne C. Goldhammer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper outlines two different threads in the historiography of empires regarding their treatment of “the other.” The first thread begins with the early Chinese empires, the Qin and Han, which used diplomacy and tributes as well as repression to incorporate “others” under their imperial umbrellas. This thread was then picked up and modified later by the Mongols and Mughals, both of which showed a fair amount of flexibility and openness towards cultural difference. The second thread begins with the Romans (the Republic and Empire), who were largely flexible and inclusive towards “others” until the late Empire, when Christianity took …

Language, Identity, And Citizenship: Politics Of Education In Madawaska, 1842-1920, Elisa E A Sance

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The establishment of the international border between Maine and New Brunswick in 1842 through the signature of the Webster-Ashburton treaty divided the Francophone population of the Madawaska region along the Saint John River. As a result, each half became administered by an Anglophone government. The linguistic and cultural differences between the Madawaska French and the Anglo-Saxon Protestant ruling majority in both the state and the province complicated the establishment of new public institutions. The language of both administrations as well as the language of public education was English; a language that very few people among the Madawaska French spoke or …

Safekeeping: Slavery, Capitalism, And The Carceral State In Washington, D.C., 1830-1863, Brandon Wilson

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

By the 1830s, incarceration emerged as a two-pronged solution for racial control and economic expansion. Local and federal government built jails around the District of Columbia to detain "rowdy negro boys," men, and women, as a means to stymie their rapid movement and fuel a burgeoning domestic slave trade. People were jailed, fined, and often sold to the Deep South, providing a wellspring of capital for enslavers, justified through the lens of criminality. For the crime of petty theft, missing free papers, or in at least one case "using foul language," black people of the Washington region could find themselves …

Brewing History: How Local Option And Prohibition Altered The Texas Brewing Industry, Shelby Winthrop Dewitt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The prohibition movement began decades before the Civil War but did not gain considerable support in Texas until the late nineteenth century. While local option elections and calls for statewide prohibition in Texas failed, national prohibition efforts culminated in the instatement of the Eighteenth Amendment in January 1919 and the Volstead Act in October 1919. This thesis details the prohibition issue through an analysis of eight larger, better-funded Texas breweries who used evolving social and political conditions to combat prohibition and grow their companies, laying the foundation for the Texas brewing industry. This thesis and subsequent digital exhibit provide a …

Yaupon Drink: A Medicine Bundle In The Atlantic World, Steven P. Carriger Jr

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines yaupon drink, a tea made from yaupon holly along with other ingredients, as a medicine bundle in the Atlantic World. Originally a medicinal drink used by Native Americans across the what is today the American South, over time the tea became a trade good demanded by the Spanish and a medicinal herb sought by European botanists and medical practitioners. Chapter One traces yaupon’s origins across the southeast and bundles the drink into the many cosmic and social connections it held. Chapter Two shows how the Spanish colonial presence offered an alternative to yaupon in Florida, through Christianity …

The Aids Virus And The Galvanization Of The Lgbtq Movement For Equality, Michael Ernest Wachowski

Graduate Theses

The LGBTQ community was greatly altered by the AIDS crisis and the organizations that were founded in the 1980s. AIDS would become associated with those of the gay community during the early years of the crisis. The government and leading health officials perpetuated the public’s ignorance about the relativity new disease leading to more misunderstandings and mishandlings of the HIV/AIDS crisis. The disease did not discriminate among people, however, and quickly spread throughout many of the communities in the U.S. Organizations with roots in the LGBTQ community established themselves during the 1980s to deal with not only the AIDS crisis, …

A Unique Type Of Loneliness: Infertility In Nineteenth-Century America, Abigail Butler

Theses and Dissertations from 2020

Many diaries and letters written by nineteenth-century Americans display the aching for parenthood and pain of loss due to miscarriage. Though some women felt joy or relief when they recognized they had miscarried or were not pregnant, infertility negatively affected the everyday lives of many men and women in the nineteenth century. Infertility not only disturbed their personal beliefs of family and their role in society, but could cause marital discord, feeling outcast from society, and could lead to other health problems. Women in slavery faced even more serious consequences that included being sold away from their family and/or receiving …

A Study Of The United States Influence On German Eugenics., Cameron Williams

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a study of the influence and effects that the United States had upon Germany from the rise of eugenics to its fall following the end of World War II. There are three stages to this study. First, I examine the rise of eugenics in the United States from its inception to the end of World War I and the influence it had upon Germany. Then I examine the interwar era along with the popularization of eugenics within both countries before concluding with the Second World War and post war era.

My thesis focuses on both the active …

The Myth Of The Green Berets: How One Group Of Soldiers Helped Sell A Nation On The Virtue Of War, Rebekah Moore

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

While various types of American military units fought in the Vietnam War, a disproportionate amount of media attention concentrated on one group: the Special Forces. More commonly known as the Green Berets, these “elite” soldiers were lauded in the Vietnam era for their foreign language skills, martial prowess, and mastery of unconventional warfare. Their ability to live and work with local populations made them the favored–and famed–warrior diplomats of President John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier. During the 1960s, the Green Berets were featured in best-selling novels, a chart-topping song, comic book titles, action figures, bubblegum cards, and a successful film. …