American Studies Commons^™

Colonels, Hillbillies And Fightin’: Twentieth-Century Kentucky In The National Imagination, Anthony Harkins

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Beyond Domestic Empire: Internal- And Post-Colonial New Mexico, John R. Chávez

History Faculty Publications

The purpose of this paper is to outline the connections between internal colonialism and post-colonialism, two dimensions of an evolving colonial paradigm. To test these theories against historical reality, they are applied to ethnic Mexicans and Indians, especially Navajos, in New Mexico in order to ground them and colonialism in general at the regional level. This paper claims that internal colonialism continues effectively to explain the historic subordination of indigenous and mixed peoples within larger states dominated by other groups. This condition understood, the paper sees postcolonial theory as providing ideas to end internally colonized societies since the theory critiques …

Hillbillies, Rednecks, Crackers And White Trash, Anthony Harkins

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Aliens In Their Native Lands: The Persistence Of Internal Colonial Theory, John R. Chávez

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Acropolis Of The Middle-West: Decay, Renewal, And Boosterism In Cleveland’S University Circle, J. Mark Souther

History Faculty Publications

In the mid-twentieth century, Cleveland, Ohio’s University Circle exemplified an emerging trend in which urban universities and other private institutions engaged in urban renewal. Situating the story of University Circle within the context of contemporary concerns about urban decay, deindustrialization, and suburbanization, the author argues that University Circle institutions were not simply trying to facilitate their own expansion. Rather, they were equally determined to create a setting appropriate to their regional, national, and even international reputations, as well as to advance the idea that an educational, medical, and cultural district could help reposition and rebrand a …

Review: 'Storied Independent Automakers: Nash, Hudson, And American Motors', John Alfred Heitmann

History Faculty Publications

Nash, Hudson, and now even American Motors are automobile brands that have largely disappeared from the American memory. Yet, despite riding the twentieth-century economic roller coaster and operating in the shadow of the Big Three, these firms made sustained, significant technological and economic contributions. Charles K. Hyde’s Storied Independent Automakers is the author’s latest foray into the area of automotive business history, following work on the Chrysler Corporation and the Dodge brothers. A professor of History at Wayne State University, Hyde has written a needed critical business history on an important topic that complements the vast amount of “buff” and …

Review: 'Fighting Traffic: The Dawn Of The Motor Age In The American City', John Alfred Heitmann

History Faculty Publications

During the early 1960s, as the Golden Age of the automobile in America began to wane, several commentators, including Lewis Mumford, raised the critical question of whether the automobile existed for the modern city or the city for the automobile. How and when the automobile became central to urban life is deftly addressed in Peter Norton’s Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City. This study is certainly one of the most important monographs focusing on the place of the automobile in American society within a historical context to appear in recent times; it interestingly supplements …

The Automobile And American Life, John Alfred Heitmann

History Faculty Publications

This is the story of how the automobile changed the essence of life in America. Both a general history of the automobile and a broad-ranging analysis of its cultural effects, the text addresses such topics as cars' inception as a mechanical curiosity and later a plaything for the well-to-do; Henry Ford and the rise of the machine age; competition and the evolving consumer in the 1920s; the development of roads and the accompanying road culture; religion, gender, courtship and sex; effects of the Great Depression and World War II; the 1950s golden age of automobiles and the emergence of youth …

The Disneyfication Of New Orleans: The French Quarter As Facade In A Divided City, J. Mark Souther

History Faculty Publications

The article discusses the development of New Orleans, Louisiana as a tourist attraction. The author suggests that Hurricane Katrina allowed the public to perceive racial and economic divisions in New Orleans. He suggests the French Quarter of New Orleans was developed for tourism due to its historic architecture. An attempt to attract military bases to the region during World War II failed due to the labor market and competition, leading to a focus on tourism. The author compares the city's appearance to that of Disneyland and suggests urban renewal relocated African Americans to ensure the development of the French Quarter.

Danger On The Doorstep: Anti-Catholicism And American Print Culture In The Progressive Era (Book Review), R. Bryan Bademan

History Faculty Publications

Book review by R. Bryan Bademan.

Nordstrom, Justin. Danger on the Doorstep: Anti-Catholicism and American Print Culture in the Progressive Era. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006. ISBN 9780268036058

'The Senator And The Socialite: The True Story Of America's First Black Dynasty,' By Lawrence Otis Graham, Eric S. Yellin

History Faculty Publications

Lawrence Otis Graham attempts to tell the important story of the Bruces and their legacy in The Senator and the Socialite: The True Story of America’s First Black Dynasty. Starting his story before the Civil War, Graham follows the “First Black Dynasty” through its ultimate fall from grace in mid-twentieth-century New York City. As with his previous bestseller, Our Kind of People: Inside America’s Black Upper Class (1999), Graham takes on the ambitious task of capturing the meaning and importance of an underappreciated group of American’s.

Race, Nation, And Religion In The Americas, Edited By Henry Goldschmidt And Elizabeth Mcalister, R. Bryan Bademan

History Faculty Publications

Book review by R. Bryan Bademan.

Goldschmidt, Henry and Elizabeth McAlister, eds. Race, Nation, and Religion in the Americas. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

ISBN 978-0195149197

Reforging The White Republic: Race, Religion, And American Nationalism, 1865-1898 (Book Review), R. Bryan Bademan

History Faculty Publications

Book review by R. Bryan Bademan.

Blum, Edward J. Reforging the White Republic: Race, Religion, and American Nationalism, 1865-1898. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005.

De La Mujer Invisible Al Feminismo Ineludible: Política Y Antropología En La Historiografía De La Mujer, Robert H. Holden

History Faculty Publications

La historiografía de la mujer, desde el comienzo de su etapa contemporánea en los años setenta del siglo pasado, es analizada en dos vertientes relacionadas: Una, su politización al servicio del movimiento social que aboga por la extensión de los derechos de la mujer y que dió luz a dicha historiografía; dos, el papel central que ha jugado la pregunta antropológica, ‘¿Qué es la mujer’?, y la variedad de respuestas que esta pregunta ha generado. El autor sostiene que tanto la intensa politización como el desarrollo de una antropología cada vez más materialista, como tendencias interdependientes, han llegado a caracterizar …

From ‘Sweet Mamas’ To ‘Bodacious’ Hillbillies: Billy Debeck’S Impact On American Culture, Anthony Harkins

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

"Monkeying With The Bible”: Edgar J. Goodspeed's American Translation, R. Bryan Bademan

History Faculty Publications

Devotion to the Bible remains an underappreciated aspect of American religious life partly because it fails to generate controversy. This essay opens a window onto America's relationship with the Bible by exploring a controversial moment in the history of the Bible in America: the public reception of University of Chicago professor Edgar J. Goodspeed's American Translation (1923). Initially, at least, most Americans flatly rejected Goodspeed's impeccably credentialed attempt to cast the language of the Bible in contemporary "American" English. Accusations of the professor's irreligion, bad taste, vulgarity, and crass modernity emerged from nearly every quarter of the Protestant establishment (with …

The War That Wasn't: Religious Conflict And Compromise In The Common Schools Of New York, 1865-1900 (Book Review), R. Bryan Bademan

History Faculty Publications

Book review by R. Bryan Bademan.

Justice, Benjamin. The War That Wasn't: Religious Conflict and Compromise in the Common Schools of New York, 1865-1900. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. ISBN 9780791462119; 9780791484463

The Hillbilly In The American Imagination, Anthony Harkins

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Representing The Juvenile Delinquent: Reform, Social Science, And Teenage Troubles In Postwar Texas, William S. Bush

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Spain's Enterprise Of Evil, Charlotte M. Gradie

History Faculty Publications

Book review by Charlotte Gradie.

Rabasa, José . Writing violence on the northern frontier: the historiography of sixteenth century New Mexico and Florida and the legacy of conquest. Durham: Duke University Press, 2000. ISBN 978-0-8223-2567-3.

Good Friday In Omaha, Nebraska: A Mexican Celebration, Maria S. Arbelaez

History Faculty Publications

Mexicans and Mexican Americans in Nebraska commemorate Holy Week with a popular display of religious fervor. In semblance with the old religious traditions in Mexico, the Mexicanos, old and new residents, parade through the Omaha streets following the Way of the Cross on Good Friday. Processions, rituals, and plays are not only a yearly Catholic ritual in the streets of Omaha but an essential part of Mexican American and Latino cultural identity. Palm Sunday and the Way of the Cross are but a few of the constituent elements of the growing manifestations of Latino popular culture in the state. The …

The Hillbilly In The Living Room: Television Representations Of Southern Mountaineers In Situation Comedies, 1952-1971, Anthony Harkins

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Commies, H-Bombs And The National Security State: The Cold War In The Comics, Anthony Harkins

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Significance Of ‘Hillbilly’ In Early Country Music, 1924-1945, Anthony Harkins

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.