American Studies Commons^™

They Were Never Silent, You Just Weren't Listening: Buffalo's Black Activists In The Age Of Urban Renewal, Domonique Griffin

Senior Theses and Projects

“They Were Never Silent” will explore the inner workings and impact of both top-down and bottom-up approaches to Urban Renewal for African Americans in the city of Buffalo. For decades, government funded projects that arose in the name of “saving” inner-cities have been guilty of concentrating poverty into centralized areas, directing monies toward downtown development that dislocated families, excessive housing clearance, and modernizing segregation in the form of public housing projects. However, we have yet to fully explore how black community members crafted their own visions of a revitalized city. Many of the most significant bottom-up Urban Renewal developments have …

America Through Rose-Colored Glasses: How American Girl Dolls Shape American Girlhood And Identity, Kelly M. Vaughan

Senior Theses and Projects

This thesis examines the contributions that American Girl dolls make to the development of girlhood, as well as doll and toy culture. I argue that the BeForever collection of historically centered dolls both informs consumers of United States history while instructing them of what it means to be a wholesome, virtuous girl. American Girl provides timeless stories about overcoming hardship in various periods of U.S. history while utilizing common themes in children’s literature to construct an attractive narrative. These dolls and their stories contribute to consumers’ understanding of girlhood, their sense of self, and broad comprehension of history. Recent developments …

Purchasing The Past: Going, Going, Gone! New England Auctions: Palaces Of Intrigue And Theaters Of Commerce, Martha Kelly

Senior Theses and Projects

Abstract

My thesis presents evidence that auctions are innately socially- constructed places where diverse actors and unique objects are brought together in a transformative theatre of commerce. Commodities offered can carry with them elements of social turmoil and expose intimacies when exchanged. In this culturally-constructed, social-economic landscape, animate participants in the social arena of an auction parallel the inanimate commodities to be exchanged, as commodities are also “thoroughly socialized thing[s]” with biographies and social implications of their own (Appadurai 1986, 6). Patterns of on-again, off-again commoditization of certain goods are part and parcel of the social construction of their complex …