American Studies Commons^™

History: The Birth Of "America" In 1882, Robert H.I. Dale

Robert H. I. Dale

This article concerns a New York Times story about the birth of the female Asian elephant calf, named America, at the winter headquarters of the "Greatest Show on Earth" in Bridgeport, Connecticut on February 2, 1882. Phineas T. Barnum, one of the owners of the show, and one prone to self-aggrandizing bluster, claimed that America was the second elephant ever born in captivity. America was born only to months before the arrival in New York of the most famous circus elephant of all time, Jumbo, on Easter Sunday, 1882, and only two years before the origin of a small wagon …

Covers Uncovered: A History Of The "Cover Version," From Bing Crosby To The Flaming Lips, Sean Dineley

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis engages with the “cover version” as it has developed since the mid-1940s. This single term has survived across historical eras “so that it now indiscriminately designates any occasion of rerecording” (Coyle 2002, 134). This thesis views changing cover trends as aspects of broader cultural changes. In order to effectively illustrate the wide scope of practices to which this term has referred, the history of cover versions is separated into three broad periods: pre-rock, rock, and post-rock. This thesis explores the shifting attitudes toward, and motivations for, cover recording across these periods. It argues that it is more useful …

Rave Reviews The History Of Akron's Tuesday Musical, Thomas Bacher, Cynthia Harrison, Sharon Cebula

Thomas Bacher

The Tuesday Musical Club was founded in 1887 by thirteen young Akron women who had an overwhelming desire to share their love of music. With further support of Gertrude Penfield Seiberling, the wife of industrialist Frank Seiberling, the organization grew like many other musical organizations across the country. Unlike similar clubs, the Akron-based entity continued to expand and is one of a very few that have survived. Among the artists who have appeared as a part of the rich history of Akron's Tuesday Musical Organization are Vladimir Horowitz, Artur Rubinstein, Yehudi Menuhin, Yascha Heifetz, Glenn Gould, Van Cliburn, Isaac Stern, …

Kingsolver, Barbara, B. 1955 (Sc 2846), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2846. Letter, 10 December 1996, of Barbara Kingsolver, Tucson, Arizona, to Gil Moody of Moody Books Inc., Johnson City, Tennessee. She expresses her support of independent bookstores and her willingness to sign books and bookplates for readers, but places high priority on reserving time for her writing and family life.

Read, Opie Percival, 1852-1939 (Sc 2844), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2844. Letter, 16 May 1884, of journalist and humorist Opie P. Read, written from Little Rock, Arkansas, to an unnamed addressee. Read accepts an offer to exchange magazines (probably his Arkansas Traveler) for a publication called the Voice, congratulates the addressee on a story published in Chicago’s The Current, and acknowledges knowing his name although they have never met.

Letter To Editor Indiana Magazine Of History, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Letter responding to comparison of Guantanamo bay terrorist detainees with the noted Indiana Civil War case of Lambdin Milligan, ultimately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, who was detained by Union military authorities during the Civil War for his pro-confederate activities and tried by a military court.

Radical Housewife Activism: Subverting The Toxic Public/Private Binary, Emma Foehringer Merchant

Pomona Senior Theses

Since the 1960s, the modern environmental movement, though generally liberal in nature, has historically excluded a variety of serious and influential groups. This thesis concentrates on the movement of working-class housewives who emerged into popular American consciousness in the seventies and eighties with their increasingly radical campaigns against toxic contamination in their respective communities. These women represent a group who exhibited the convergence of cultural influences where domesticity and environmentalism met in the middle of American society, and the increasing focus on public health in the environmental movement framed the fight undertaken by women who identified as “housewives.” These women, …

Don’T Bow Down, Andrew B. Gibbs

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Perpetuating African ancestral customs, Mardi Gras Indians in New Orleans avoid the African American identity crises illuminated by the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance. The poetry of Langston Hughes, Claude McKay and Waring Cuney incorporate W.E.B. DuBois’ double-consciousness theory to reveal the identity issues and ancestral alienation plaguing African Americans at the turn of the twentieth-century. In comparison, unique political and social circumstances in New Orleans allowed enslaved Africans to practice their ancestral customs weekly. The preservation of this heritage fostered a black community in New Orleans rich in traditions, pride and self-conviction. The development of Mardi Gras Indian culture …

Whovians And Directioners: Challenging The Fangirl Identity, Brianna Vancant

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

Using notions from fan blogs and fan theory, this project analyzes the inconsistencies surrounding the phenomenon of so-called fangirls in the Doctor Who and One Direction worlds. The term fangirl is usually defined as an irrational adolescent female who is only a fan of very specific types of entertainment because of factors that are perceived by other fans as superficial and irrelevant. In contemporary music and television fandom, these fangirls are often criticized and policed by other fans, many times disregarded as not ‘true’ fans. The project studies this distorted perception and how it leads to misconceptions about the wider …

A Divine Inequality: Contextualizing Gender And Authority In Contemporary Mormon Feminism, Taylee Robinson Pardi

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

This project traces the decline of authority for Mormon women coupled with the rise of defined gender roles within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in order to contextualize contemporary Mormon feminism. Using a radical feminist analysis, this project will explore how contemporary Mormon women relate to their early Mormon sisters and the ways in which the culture and doctrine of Mormonism often converge, lending itself to a unique feminist perspective. This project argues that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, as currently practiced, is not just inherently patriarchal, but un-egalitarian, and that contemporary …

When Ana Becomes The Protagonist: Eating Disorder Narratives, The Pursuit Of Thinness And Social Resistance On The Internet, Nadezh Mulholland

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

There is media concern that books about eating disorders are harmful to young readers. However, there is little research on how readers interpret the content of novels and memoirs featuring characters with eating disorders. This project considers the thinspiration images used as motivation to lose weight on so-called pro-ana and pro-mia social networks for people with eating disorders, and draws parallels between thinspiration and images used on the covers of eating disorder books. This paper uses a Gramscian lens to dismantle media claims by analyzing the interactions between members of eating disorder social networks, showing that website users tum to …

University Of Southern Maine Commencement Program 2014, University Of Southern Maine

Commencement Programs

University of Southern Maine commencement program, 2014

Saturday, May Tenth, Two Thousand and Fourteen

Address by David Shaw , founder of IDEXX Laboratories

Aa Ms 08 N. T. Swezey's Son & Co. Tin Sign Finding Aid, Christina E. Walker

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Description:

N. T. Swezey (Noah Terry) (1814-1888) was a flour merchant in New York City. He ran a successful business for over forty years at 176 South St., and was one of the founders of the New York Produce Exchange. This collection contains a reproduction of a sign advertising Northwest Consolidated Milling Company flour. The sign depicts the figure of a black child standing behind and slightly below the figure of a white child. The white figure is sitting on a container of the Northwestern Consolidated Milling Company’s flour and is holding a slice of white bread. Both children have …

Communities Of Abundance: Sociality, Sustainability, And The Solidarity Economies Of Local Food-Related Business Networks In Knoxville, Tennessee, Tony Nathan Vanwinkle

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the socio-economic and eco-political dimensions of contemporary localist food movements in Knoxville, Tennessee. More specifically, it explores the implications of the mutualistic and networked socio-economies (solidarity and/or community economies) of such movement expressions as they are experienced, embodied, and understood among the small-scale, independent food-related business owners who often serve as the interpellators of such movements. This study is likewise concerned with ways in which movement actors are actively shaping/creating place (via the processes of emplacement), and relatedly, the way place—as an entity possessive of its own accretions of environmental, historical, cultural, economic, and political identities—shapes actors, …

Lg Ms 022 Larry Bliss Collection Finding Aid, Maeve Wachowicz, Elizabeth Sistare

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Lawrence (Larry) Bliss was born and raised in California, lived in Maine for twenty years, and returned to California in 2011. He holds Bachelor’s Degrees in History and Political Science and a Master's Degree in Urban Public Administration all from the University of California. He has worked as a middle school and high school teacher and coach and as Director of Career Services and Professional Life Development at the University of Southern Maine. He was elected to the Maine Senate in 2008, representing the 7th district, which includes his hometown of South Portland, as well as Cape Elizabeth and …

Testing And Data Recovery Excavations At 11 Native American Archeological Sites Along The U.S. Highway 271 Mount Pleasant Relief Route, Titus County, Texas Volume Ii, Ross C. Fields, Virginia L. Hatfield, Damon Burden, Eloise Frances Gadus, Michael C. Wilder, Karl W. Kibler

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

Register of Historic Places and State Antiquities Landmark testing of 11 prehistoric sites that will be impacted by construction of the proposed U.S. Highway 271 relief route around Mount Pleasant in Titus County, Texas. The work was done in 2005 for the Texas Department of Transportation’s Environmental Affairs Division under Contract No. 575XXSA006, Work Authorization No. 57501SA006. This research design provides support for a scope of work for testing, prepared as a separate document. The primary relevant historic context for future work on this project is The Development of Agriculture in Northeast Texas Before a.d. 1600 (Kenmotsu and Perttula 1993). …

Testing And Data Recovery Excavations At 11 Native American Archeological Sites Along The U.S. Highway 271 Mount Pleasant Relief Route, Titus County, Texas Volume I, Ross C. Fields, Virginia L. Hatfield, Damon Burden, Eloise Frances Gadus, Michael C. Wilder, Karl W. Kibler

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

This report deals with three episodes of archeological work that began in 2005 and concluded in 2010 for the proposed U.S. Highway 271 Mount Pleasant relief route in Titus County, Texas. The early part of the work was done for the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), Environmental Affairs Division. The later part was done for PTP, LP, acting on behalf of Titus County. The work was done to address the requirements of Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act and the Texas Antiquities Code and was governed by the terms of Texas Antiquities Permit Nos. 3786, 4303, and 5495. …

Send In The Mouse, How American Politicians Used Walt Disney Productions To Safeguard The American Home Front In Wwii, Jordan M. Winters

Jordan M Winters

Despite the success of Disney’s first full length featured film Snow White in 1937 , the animator’s strike of the late 1930s and the war in Europe cutting of international profits, by 1941 the Walt Disney Company was near bankruptcy. Walt Disney was faced with the possibility of closing down his studio. However, the entrance of the United States into WWII and the rising threat of the spread of Nazism became the saving grace to the Walt Disney Studio. This essay explores the collaborations between Disney, businessman and politician Nelson Rockefeller, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the 1940s. Through …

Lg Ms 032 Marty Sabol Papers Finding Aid, Christina E. Walker

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Marty Sabol manages the Infectious Disease Program at the Public Health Division of the Portland Department of Health and Human Services. He oversees prevention efforts and healthcare services related to sexually transmitted and vaccine preventable diseases in the Portland area. He has served as vice-president of the Maine Public Health Association, as an advisor to the Equity Fund of the Maine Community Foundation and as a member of the GLBT Caucus of Public Health Workers with the American Public Health Association. In 1984, Sabol co-founded the Maine Lesbian and Gay Political Alliance (MLGPA), now known as EqualityMaine, serving as …

Aa Ms 11 Lee Forest Figurines Finding Aid, Christina E. Walker

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Lee Forest, Director of Environmental Services at the University of Southern Maine, donated the figurines in 2002. In the early years of the twentieth century the commoditization of Aunt Jemima expanded beyond commercial flour mix to include a diverse array of products such as rag dolls, dish towels, cookie jars and salt-and-pepper shakers. Eventually, a husband was added, Uncle Mose, and two children, Diana and Wade. Household notions depicting the family continued to be produced into the 1960s, when the civil rights and black consciousness movements encouraged an examination of the symbolism behind representations of African Americans. The collection …

The Infrastructure Of The Fur Trade In The American Southwest, 1821-1840, Hadyn B. Call

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

Careful study of the published history of the American Southwest reveals that historians have not provided a comprehensive analysis of the infrastructure that enabled the fur trade in the American Southwest to thrive. Analysis of that infrastructure unveils an amalgamation of blended characteristics derived from the French, British, and American systems along with characteristics derived from the Southwest’s own evolutionary development over time and space. This paper will detail and explain the shared characteristics of the Southwestern fur trade’s infrastructure, emphasizing the animals, people, depots, and supplies, during the era of the soft fur trade, which dealt primarily with beaver …

Aa Ms 09 Flynn Seal Presses Finding Aid, Christina E. Walker

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Description:

Stephen Flynn discovered these two seal presses on Higgins Beach in Scarborough, Maine, in 1978. They were found in the remains of the Silver Sands Hotel, which had to be destroyed after damage caused by a storm. Two seal presses were from the Women's Ku Klux Klan organizations of Augusta and Bath, Maine. The one from WKKK chapter of Augusta, Maine reads: “Women of the Ku Klux Klan; Capital City Klan; Klan No 11 Augusta, Maine.” In the center there is a shield with a cross and the letters W, K, K, K, at the top, bottom, and sides …

Aa Ms 10 Ku Klux Klan Photograph Finding Aid, Christina E. Walker

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Description:

The Ku Klux Klan Photograph is a black-and-white image of a KKK march that took place in Lincoln, Maine in 1927. The print measures 8 inches by 9.5 inches.

Date Range:

1927

Size of Collection:

0.10 ft.

Ella Deloria: A Dakota Woman’S Journey Between An Old World And A New, Susana Grajales Geliga

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The subject of this thesis is a Yankton Dakota Sioux woman named Ella Cara Deloria who lived from 1889 to 1972. The intent of this thesis is to use her own construct of an educated Indigenous woman to examine her personal and professional life as a middle figure between a world of Dakota traditionalism and a modern academic arena during an era of intellectual curiosity about Native Americans. She flowed between these worlds to become a distinguished author and accomplished Dakota woman who built bridges of understanding between cultures. Ella initially set out to follow the patriarchs in her family …

The Heartland Of The Democracy: Presidential Politics In Oley Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania, 1860-64, Benjamin Petersheim

Masters Theses

Oley Township, founded in 1740, in Berks County, Pennsylvania holds a special place in the commonwealth's history because of its unique religious, political, and cultural history. With hundreds of historic buildings and its Pennsylvania German heritage, the heart of the Oley Valley continues to attract colonial and Pennsylvania German historians from great distances so that they are able to analyze and research its rich heritage. Indeed, the area was designated as a National Historic District by the National Register of Historic Places in 1983 and much of the farmland has been preserved through land trusts and historical preservation efforts. Many …

Divine Economy: George Rapp, The Harmony Society, And Jacksonian Democracy, James Tomney

Masters Theses

Divine Economy: George Rapp, the Harmony Society, and Jacksonian Democracy is a chronological exploration of the sucesses achieved, conflicts encountered, and eventual demise of George Rapp's Harmony Society. During its one-hundred year existence as it awaited the Second Coming of Christ, three successful agricultural and manufacturing towns were created by the Society out of the wilderness. Also explored is the impact Jacksonian Democracy had on George Rapp's Harmony Society during the 1824 to 1847 period, as is the contribution the Society made to American industrialization after George Rapp's death in 1847.

Behind His Father's Saying: Robert Frost's Wisdom Tradition, James H. Altman

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

It is no coincidence that Robert Frost draws on the European/American aphoristic wisdom tradition. From the fables of Aesop, to the esotericism of pre-Socratic Greek philosophers such as Pythagoras and Empedocles, to the works of moralists like Blaise Pascal and Michel De Montaigne, to Erasmus, Frederick Nietzsche and others, Robert Frost weaves diverse wisdom into his work. He does not, however, as much take verbatim the words or sentiments of those who inspire him. Rather he adapts the spirit of their thoughts for his own purposes. Why and how does he do this? What are those purposes, and their subsequent …

Boxing In The Union Blue: A Social History Of American Boxing In The Union States During The Late Antebellum And Civil War Years, Greggory M. Ross

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study explores the social history of boxing in the Civil War era Union States in both the martial and civilian contexts, focusing on issues of masculinity, ethnicity, race, and class. This dissertation is divided into four sections, each emphasizing a different boxing scene. First, boxing in is explained in the context of the Union Army, drawing upon accounts of military life from diaries, letters, official army correspondence, and newspapers to examine how soldiers used: gloved sparring for physical and mental exercise and camaraderie; bare-knuckle prizefighting for dispute resolution, entertainment, and gambling; and both forms of boxing to exhibit masculine …

Rice, Alice Caldwell (Hegan), 1870-1942 (Sc 2817), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text of letter (Click on "Additional Files") for Manuscripts Small Collection 2817. Letter, 28 October 1905, of author Alice (Hegan) Rice, Louisville, Kentucky, to Helen Keller. She praises Keller’s recent autobiography and reports on its popularity with the girls at a Japanese boarding school Rice visited the past summer. Rice encloses a composition of one of the students (not included in this collection) in which she writes that “the eyes of [Keller’s] heart are open.”

From Pants To Pearls: Rodgers And Hammerstein’S Affect On Post Wwii Women, Alison Dees

Georgia State Undergraduate Research Conference

No abstract provided.