American Studies Commons^™

Beyond The Exit: Moma Design Store & The Extended Museum Experience, Anna C. Wershbale

Undergraduate Honors Theses

American art museum attendance soared following World War II as museums became popular education and entertainment destinations for the growing middle class. Shaped by the influence of 1980s Reaganomics and the effects of neoliberal funding policies, museum shops developed from small information desk ventures into a vital source of public relevance and financial sustainability. When given creative liberty and economic attention, the now standardized amenity presented the opportunity to sell institutional ethos. In light of neoliberal capitalism’s tendency to construe value primarily in economic terms, shops reveal how the art museum strategically assigns new meaning to its collection, mission, and …

Behind The Brick Walls: On “Hearth” And Slavery At The William & Mary, Terry L. Meyers

Arts & Sciences Articles

Excerpt from the article: "The William & Mary was the second university in the U.S. after Brown University to establish a funded, institutional examination of its dark history of complicity with slavery and Jim Crow segregation. After resolutions from the Student Assembly and Faculty Assembly, the Board of Visitors in 2009 established the Lemon Project: A Journey of Reconciliation, named after Lemon, a man enslaved by the College..."

W&M’S Memorials To Benjamin S. Ewell, Terry L. Meyers

Arts & Sciences Articles

"As far as I can tell, Benjamin S. Ewell, the College’s sixteenth president (1854-1888), has been memorialized at William and Mary more than any other person. That is not surprising given his long tenure as president, his dedication to the College, and his titanic efforts on its behalf, especially in the decades after the Civil War..."

Speculations On Structures Once Near The Site Of Lemon Hall, Terry L. Meyers

Arts & Sciences Articles

"One of the most intriguing views of Williamsburg in antebellum days depicts a series of large and small structures along Jamestown Road, roughly between where Barrett Hall and Lemon Hall stand today.

Made between 1859 and 1862 by James Austin Graham (1814/15-1878), the panorama presents Williamsburg as viewed roughly from where the law school is today and sweeps along the entire southern edge of town, from the Capitol on the east to, on the west, about the site of the College’s Lemon Hall..."

On Joe And The Burial Place(S) Of The Enslaved At William & Mary, Terry L. Meyers

Arts & Sciences Articles

"It is possible that in the 17th or 18th century W&M opened a burial ground on its 330 acre campus and that it buried there those it enslaved over some 172 years. We have no documentation of that, although we have several references to the College’s providing coffins.1 Since those record no further expenses such as transport to the grave or digging the grave, I presume there would have been no such expenses--other of our enslaved would undertake such tasks as part of their job..."

Writing At The Williamsburg Bray School?, Terry L. Meyers

Arts & Sciences Articles

"I’ve become interested recently in whether writing was taught to the pupils in the Williamsburg Bray School. I had assumed all along that it was, and that the discovery of 40 some slate pencils at the Bray School Dig was confirmation of that.

I’d not been alone in my assumption about the teaching of writing, for the great majority of those interested in the Bray School have affirmed that the curriculum included writing..."

Race, Childhood, And Native American Boarding Schools: A Case Study Of The Hampton Normal And Agricultural Institute, Tyler Norris

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

To Seek The Good, The True, And Beautiful: White, Greek-Letter Sororities In The U.S. South And The Shaping Of American 'Ladyhood,' 1915--1975, Margaret Lynn Freeman

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

This dissertation examines the role of white, Greek-letter sororities in the creation and enforcement of standards for white women's behavior during the twentieth century. While sororities at white, southern universities first served as supportive networks for the few female students on newly coeducational university campuses, I argue that they transformed into spaces that promoted "heterosocial" activities and enforced members' heteronormativity through "lessons of 'ladyhood" and required attendance at fraternity parties and participation in heterosexual dating. as a means to guarantee their popularity among students on their respective campuses, sorority chapters sought the attention of the campuses' fraternity elite. This national …

Recipe For Citizenship: Professionalization And Power In World War I Dietetics, Kathleen Marie Scott

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

This dissertation is an analysis of the professionalization tactics of white, native-born, Protestant, middle-class women who served with the U.S. armed forces as dietitians during World War I. Through the overlapping rubrics of maternalism, citizenship, and professionalism, I examine the ways in which dominant race, class, and gender ideologies inflected their quest for professionalization. I specifically examine the way hospital dietitians infused their expertise with rhetoric of race betterment and national security to acquire distinct status and authority in relation to other female medical/health practitioners. In this study, I locate the ideological origins of Public Law 36, 80 th Congress, …

Pleasure And Peril: Shaping Children's Reading In The Early Twentieth Century, Wendy Korwin

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Postbellum Education Of African Americans: Race, Economy, Power, And The Pursuit Of A System Of Schooling In The Rural Virginia Counties Of Surry And Gloucester, Benjamin Andrew Swenson

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Schoolhouses Remembered: The Story Behind The Nostalgic Image: An Active Pursuit Of The Truth, Michelle Dawn Cude

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Literature As A Tool For Cultural Analysis: A Post-Processual Examination Of The Ante-Bellum Tidewater Elite 1830-1860, Shirley Kathryn Holmes

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Presenting The Past: Education, Interpretation And The Teaching Of Black History At Colonial Williamsburg, Rex Marshall Ellis

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation began in 1926. Within four years after its initial construction, the need to begin some means of presenting information to a growing population of visitors became apparent. In this study, an attempt will be made to answer the question, "How has the history of interpretation at Colonial Williamsburg influenced its teaching of black history?".;The major research question and the subsidiary questions were prompted by the recent inclusion of a black history program at the foundation. In this study, primary focus will be given to the history of interpretation at Colonial Williamsburg. An attempt will be made …

Maurice Francis Egan: Writer, Teacher, Diplomat, Caroline Patrice Peck

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.