Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Just What They Have Been Looking For: The Significance, Importance, And Journey Of The Negro Motorist Green Book In The State Of South Carolina And The City Of Columbia In The Twentieth Century, Justice Iyana Briscoe

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Travel and tourism in the United States had become an essential pastime for all social classes by the end of the nineteenth century going into the twentieth century. Due to segregation, however, only whites were able to thoroughly enjoy this glorious luxury openly. African Americans during this time had to find ways to enjoy this pastime while avoiding the constant discrimination, humiliation, and embarrassment that came with traveling. From this need were created black travel guides such as the highly successful Negro Motorist Green Book produced by African American businessman and entrepreneur Victor Hugo Green. From 1936 to 1966, Green’s …

Smoke Shows: The Sexualization Of American Women In 20th Century Cigarette Advertising, Kellan Jenner

Voces Novae

No abstract provided.

Children And The Cold War: Race & Hypocrisy Amid Fear Of Nuclear War, Richard D. Mctaggart Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

During the Cold War, American propaganda centered the wellbeing of the child in its messaging warning of atomic attack at the hands of the Soviet Union. However, despite American claims that all children were valued by the United States, this was proven untrue by its unequal treatment of Black children.

America, The Beautiful: How American Cosmetics Companies Advertised Femininity In The 1950s, Bridget Beavin

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

The 1950s were an influential decade for cosmetics in terms of sales and social impact yet have received little consideration from historians. This paper explores how cosmetics companies reflected and directed ideas about American women, femininity, beauty, consumerism, and race in the 1950s. Using cosmetics advertisements in magazines, business newspapers, cosmetics packaging, employee manuals, and secondary literature, this paper analyzes tone and content of messaging published by cosmetics companies and reactions to the sale and use of cosmetics by public commentators. Analysis shows cosmetics were marketed as a necessity for achieving ideal femininity, yet women were largely criticized or belittled …

"A Kindler, Gentler Time": How Pleasantville And The Truman Show "Fix" The 1950s Suburban Ideal, Sophie Cohen

English Honors Theses

The Truman Show and Pleasantville both present a vision of the 1950s that is manufactured and mediated by television. I attempt to explain this using Lauren Berlant's model of the pilgrimage narrative, in which a character encounters true America in Washington, DC. Instead of locating America in the nation’s capital, though, I argue that these films locate America in the idealized suburbs of the 1950s. I propose that this pilgrimage differs from the one Berlant outlines in one crucial way: the capital can be visited at any time, but if America is really located in 1950s suburbia, then citizens of …

Phyllis Hammel Oral History Interview April 19th, 2021, Henry B. Hammel

Oral Histories HIST300, Spring 2021

Oral History Interview with Phyllis Hammel.

No Longer, Not Yet: Retrofuture Hauntings On The Jetsons, Stefano Morello

Publications and Research

From Back to the Future to The Wonder Years, from Peggy Sue Got Married to The Stray Cats’ records – 1980s youth culture abounds with what Michael D. Dwyer has called “pop nostalgia,” a set of critical affective responses to representations of previous eras used to remake the present or to imagine corrective alternatives to it. Longings for the Fifties, Dwyer observes, were especially key to America’s self-fashioning during the Reagan era (2015).

Moving from these premises, I turn to anachronisms, aesthetic resonances, and intertextual references that point to, as Mark Fisher would have it, both a lost past …

Divorce As Liberation: Marital Expectations Among The Working-Class In The 1950s, Kristin M. Catrone

Theses and Dissertations

Divorce was a remedy employed by working-class Americans in the 1950s when their marital expectations went unmet. Spouses left emotionally, physically, or sexually abusive marriages. Expectations for marriage also centered around assumptions based on gender. Working-class women showed how divorce could be used as a tool of liberation and empowerment.

Y'All Like Ike: Tennessee, The Solid South, And The 1952 Presidential Election, Cameron N. Regnery

Honors Theses

This thesis examines the changing nature of politics in the American South, specifically through the 1952 presidential election in the state of Tennessee. For much of the South’s history, the region was dominated by the Democratic party, earning it the nickname the “Solid South”. Following the Civil War and Reconstruction, the South became an aggressively one-party region in which the Republican party found little electoral success and the Democratic party reigned supreme. This partisanship began showing signs of fracturing in 1948 when southern Democrats began to leave the party over racial issues. The presidency of Harry S. Truman (1945-1953) further …

Enduring The Unendurable: Examining Cultural Trauma In Postwar Japanese Film, Joseph Worstall

Capstone Showcase

WWII and its aftermath fundamentally changed the collective consciousness of the Japanese people. For the first time in history, and at a tremendous cost, the country was vanquished. By the end of the war, sixty-seven cities had been firebombed, three million people had been killed, and millions more found themselves suffering from poverty, hunger, and homelessness. Most controversially, the USAAF dropped atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—two acts which have been so universally condemned that they’ve never been repeated. For the next seven years, the U.S. armed forces occupied the country and charted its course, effectively operating …

Treasure Hunters, Adventurers, Sport Divers, And Archaeologists: Influences On Early Underwater Archaeology, Henry Kennell

Honors Scholar Theses

This thesis shall explore the role treasure hunters and academic archaeologists played in developing the field of underwater archaeology in the 1950s and 1960s and the relationships they had with each other. The phrase “treasure hunters” refers to amateur divers and salvagers who took an interest in uncovering underwater archaeological artifacts while having no official academic qualifications for archaeology. On the contrary, the phrase “academic archaeologists” refers to those who received professional degrees in archaeology through the traditional academic methods as well as those working for various research institutions. While treasure hunting has and continues to be a hindrance on …

Black Women As Activist Intellectuals: Ella Baker And Mae Mallory Combat Northern Jim Crow In New York City's Public Schools During The 1950s, Kristopher B. Burrell

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Baby Snooks And Daddy: A Little Gal's Journey To Joy And Jell-O, Sofia Luella France

Senior Projects Spring 2019

A little girl in pursuit of Jell-O can do anything! In this Theater and Performance project Baby Snooks just wants a happy, gelatinous Halloween, but will Daddy’s petty pranks get in the way? Worry not, Baby Snooks saves the spooky day, and finds herself along the way. Come on pumpkin heads! It’s time for a treat!

American Dream Gone Wrong: Patricia Highsmith’S Dark Suburban Domesticity, Katie Liggett

Honors Projects

This thesis explores how Patricia Highsmith’s novels, The Blunderer and Deep Water, critique the American suburbs and show how the American Dream is more of a fantasy, than a realistic goal that people can achieve. Her novels reveal how the American dream becomes unattainable, or one’s pursuit of it somehow goes wrong, leaving their lives unfulfilled and them resentful. Furthermore, I argue that the American Dream, itself, goes wrong for some individuals, and the pursuit of this unrealistic Dream can lead individuals to trouble in their personal or professional lives. Ultimately, through my analysis of Highsmith’s texts, it becomes …

Ike’S Constitutional Venturing: The Institutionalization Of The Cia, Covert Action, And American Interventionism, Jacob A. Bruggeman

Grand Valley Journal of History

U.S. covert action from the 1950s onward was shaped, in part, by the success a CIA-orchestrated coup d'état in which the United States deposed the popular Iranian nationalist Mohammed Mossadegh. Ordered by president Eisenhower, the coup in Iran set the precedent for utilizing covert action as a means of achieving State goals. In so doing, President Eisenhower overturned the precedent set by his immediate predecessor, President Truman: that is, the precedent of using the CIA in its intended function, gathering and evaluating intelligence. The coup, then, is an exemplary case of venture constitutionalism. Eisenhower, in ordering the coup, extended his …

To Be Everything: Sylvia Plath And The Problem That Has No Name, Alanna P. Mcauliffe

Student Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores, in depth, how the poetry of Sylvia Plath operates as an expression of female discontent in the decade directly preceding the sexual revolution. This analysis incorporates both sociohistorical context and theory introduced in Betty Friedan’s 1963 work The Feminine Mystique. In particular, Plath’s work is put in conversation with Friedan’s notion of the “problem that has no name,” an all-consuming sense of malaise and dissatisfaction that plagued American women in the postwar era. This notion is furthered by close-readings of poems written throughout various stages of Plath’s career (namely “Spinster,” “Two Sisters of Persephone,” “Elm,” “Ariel,” “Daddy,” …

The Game Warden's Gun, S. Ray Granade

Creative Works

Growing up in 1950s Evergreen, Alabama, meant more than growing up in a small, South-Alabama county-seat town. It meant growing up in a rural environment where hunting and fishing were never more than a few minutes away. Field and stream activities lured mostly males above the age of eight, and generous game laws did not obviate a brisk business in poaching. Since it was a poor county, Conecuh had its share of those who poached to put meat on the table as well as those who poached because they did not believe that game laws applied to them. Some prime …

A Time Of Change: Public Education In Galena, Illinois During The Postwar Era, Brett H. Noble

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

The years after World War II brought profound changes to American society. The expansion of government power, the influence of experts, and the demand to conform joined with technological innovations to revamp institutions throughout the United States. Public education underwent sweeping changes during this time. The revision of tax codes, curriculum initiatives, and improved transportation brought about the end of the one-room schoolhouse.

In Galena, Illinois, a small city in the state’s northwestern corner, the school system emerged from the war years in need of reform. Overcrowded schools and a skeletal and outdated curriculum brought calls from residents for improvement. …

The Grand Gallery, Nicole Roché

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The Grand Gallery is the story of a woman coming to terms with her identity and purpose in a small town in Kansas during the post-WWII boom. Astrid Grand is the heiress apparent to the family business, a gallery that has been at the center of the town’s operations from the time of its founding. The gallery displays a person’s “collection” at the time of their death. The townspeople collect everything from Victorian mourning jewelry to gum wrappers to objects found in trees. “In many ways,” as the novel’s opening chapter states, “the collections displayed at the gallery served as …

The Need For Neal: The Importance Of Neal Cassady In The Work Of Jack Kerouac, Sydney Anders Ingram

MSU Graduate Theses

Neal Cassady has not been given enough credit for his role in the Beat Generation. This paper discusses Cassady's importance on the life and work of Jack Kerouac, especially focusing on his most famous novel, On the Road. Cassady lent himself as the hero of On the Road and supplied Kerouac with the spontaneous prose style that made him famous. This look at Cassady puts him into the context of the time period in which he lived and in which On the Road was written. Cassady is compared to the ideal American male of the day and those traits are …

Following The Androscoggin, Molly I. Parent

Senior Theses and Projects

Following the Androscoggin is a historical fiction novella that takes place during one summer in the 1950s. It follows a fifteen-year-old named Tommy and his parents after they’ve moved from Massachusetts to the mill town of Lewiston, Maine. It is told in retrospect by a much-older Tommy, who reflects on the oppressive elements that were at play in the structure of his family, particularly during the summer when they all tried to find their way in a new town. Through Tommy’s recounting of his story, we also learn about the ethnic tensions of ‘50s Lewiston concerning the Franco-American population, and …

Was It All Just A Hallucination? The Cia's Secret Lsd Experiments, Brittanny Grant

Senior Capstone Theses

For my senior thesis project, I researched the CIA's LSD experiments on unwitting human subjects in the 1950s and early 1960s. I asked why the CIA carried out these experiments, what the impact on the victims was, and how the CIA was able to get away with breaking the law in this egregious way. These government-funded experiment were code-named MKULTRA. My thesis is that the CIA conducted these experiments as part of the American's Cold War struggle with world communism. This is also the reason why they were able to get away with these tests. The fallout for the human …

Writing The Script For A Children’S Book Based On Bulee “Slim Gaillard” Rothschild, 1930s-1950s-Era Jazz Performer, Thomas J. Samuels

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

This project focuses on the creative process behind my writing of a children’s book themed around the work of Bulee “Slim Gaillard” Rothschild. Over several years, I conducted meetings where many ideas for such a book were generated. In this paper, the process of writing the script is described in detail. This paper includes the children’s book script, which benefits the legacy of Slim Gaillard.

1 1/2 Years In Death Valley, Louis T. Gentilucci

Student Publications

This paper is an exploration into the historian as an independent source of history. Homer T. Rosenberger was an amateur historian in Pennsylvania during the better part of the 20th century. His works on Pennsylvania history, early American history, and contemporary historical events are valuable, if unknown, resources in those fields. However, Rosenberger becomes his own source of history when his battle with cancer is examined in the context of the American 1950's. Rosenberger's reactions to his plight help illustrate the mindset American brought to cancer in the 1950's and the transition in American society since then.

Aaron Kohn Attacks Corruption In New Orleans: An Intersection Of Media And Politics, 1953-1955, Kyle P. Willshire

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Aaron Kohn’s career as a driven professional crime fighter with the Special Citizens Investigative Committee, and later the Metropolitan Crime Commission, began after the Kefauver Hearings on organized crime, one of the first Senate investigative committee hearings broadcast on the evolving medium of television, gripped the American public in 1950. Sen. Estes Kefauver’s committee visited cities across America, including New Orleans. The hearings’ popularity revealed public thirst for coverage of sensational topics like organized crime, and established how Kohn would soon approach the SCIC job: with force and bombast, featuring flair and sometimes bended truth. Aaron Kohn combined Kefauver’s crusading …

Limited War, Limited Enthusiasm: Sexuality, Disillusionment, Survival, And The Changing Landscape Of War Culture In Korean War-Era Comic Books And Soldier Iconography, Joshua K. Akers

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

This thesis investigates how Korean War-era comic books and soldier-produced iconography between 1950 and 1953 reflected the conflict and helped construct ideal soldier masculinities. Differentiating between romantic, soldier-produced, and realist imagery, this thesis argues that comic books—traditionally treated as low-brow children’s literature—articulated diverse and sophisticated discussions about the nature of warfare and its impact on manhood. Soldiers and artists reflected a war that came on the heels of World War II, and the disillusionment expressed in these sources reflected a broader cultural conflict between representing World War II sentimentalism and the new, limited war in Korea. This struggle resulted in …

Interview With Barbara Stephens Haigler - Oh 295, Barbara Stephens Haigler

Winthrop University Oral History Program

Barbara Stephens Haigler is a Winthrop University alumna from the class of 1957. In this interview, Mrs. Haigler discusses her decision to attend Winthrop, her arrival, dorm life, working as a hall monitor, her host mother, the blue line, campus rules and regulations, gym class, the dining hall, social events, concerts and recitals as a band major, practice teaching at Winthrop Training School, teaching music as a career after graduation, and meeting her husband.

One Nation Under Salary: Business, Critics, And The Body In The 1950s, Thomas Andrew Joyce

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

The 1950s was period of dramatic social upheaval. The massive changes brought on by suburbanization, the G.I. Bill, postwar dislocation, the rise of the white-collar worker, the cold war and more significantly impacted ideas about gender. This thesis explores the meaning of corporate work and its impact on masculinity from 1946 to 1963. During this period a group of public intellectuals attacked corporate work as unmanly and white-collar workers as effeminate. These intellectuals believed masculinity was in decline, and that white-collar men were no longer men. While commentators challenged postwar masculinity, business leaders rallied to defend white-collar men’s masculinity. Pro-business …

Crossroads: New York's Black Intellectuals And The Role Of Ideology In The Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1965, Kristopher B. Burrell

Publications and Research

This dissertation studies the importance of New York City, and the black intellectuals who gathered there, to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Studying key activist-intellectuals from across the ideological spectrum allows for a more complete understanding of the importance of ideas propelling the movement. The dissertation also contributes to the growing literature on the civil rights movement outside of the South.

Rigorous Honesty: A Cultural History Of Alcoholics Anonymous 1935-1960, Kevin Kaufmann

Dissertations

Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in 1935 and a great deal has been written about the program and its membership, but little has been done on how it reflects the 1930s and Depression Era culture. Using Warren Susman's writings as a starting point, this dissertation investigates how AA reflects 1930s American culture and what the group can tell us about the era as well. The dissertation begins with examining the temperance and prohibition eras and how they impacted the initial design of the program, especially the writing of the text, Alcoholics Anonymous.

With the advent of World War II, AA, like …