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Articles 1 - 9 of 9

Full-Text Articles in American Studies

Riots And Rebellions: Memory Of Newark's Long Hot Summer Of 1967, William Tjeltveit Apr 2020

Riots And Rebellions: Memory Of Newark's Long Hot Summer Of 1967, William Tjeltveit

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.


Fomo, Liquid Courage, And The Intoxicated Self, Lindsay Pressman Apr 2020

Fomo, Liquid Courage, And The Intoxicated Self, Lindsay Pressman

Senior Theses and Projects

“Binge-drinking” cannot simply be recognized as a feature of campus culture, but as the product of a profoundly alienating one, made strikingly evident by our creation of a separate world (“drunk world”). We have created a small world of impossible possibles that exists in the corners of the actual; a separate world, in which the imagining of the self, other, and the world, is not only permissible but promoted. At the heart of college students’ “partying hard” is a longing, hope, and dogged determination that the liberating and unifying aspects of this world can overwhelm the actual...and in the meantime …


They Were Never Silent, You Just Weren't Listening: Buffalo's Black Activists In The Age Of Urban Renewal, Domonique Griffin Apr 2017

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 …


Purchasing The Past: Going, Going, Gone! New England Auctions: Palaces Of Intrigue And Theaters Of Commerce, Martha Kelly Apr 2017

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 …


America Through Rose-Colored Glasses: How American Girl Dolls Shape American Girlhood And Identity, Kelly M. Vaughan Apr 2017

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 …


"I Began To Realize That I Had Some Friends:" Hardship, Resistance, Cooperation, And Unity In Hartford's African American Community, 1833-1841, Evan Turiano Apr 2016

"I Began To Realize That I Had Some Friends:" Hardship, Resistance, Cooperation, And Unity In Hartford's African American Community, 1833-1841, Evan Turiano

Senior Theses and Projects

This thesis explores Hartford's black community between 1833 and 1841, looking at the exclusion they faced and the ways in which they resisted against it, focusing on four key moments to tell this story. It seeks to use this setting as a platform to make a case for the importance, and uniqueness, of the contributions of antebellum Northern black communities to the rise of antislavery.


The Orphan Train Movement: Examining 19th Century Childhood Experiences, Sophie Goldsmith Apr 2013

The Orphan Train Movement: Examining 19th Century Childhood Experiences, Sophie Goldsmith

Senior Theses and Projects

This project examines orphan trains and the movement's reverberating effects on the United States more closely. Founded by Reverend Charles Loring Brace, the orphan train program aimed to challenge the “greatest evil[s] of our city life” – migration, overpopulation, and poverty - through removing at risk youth from their urban residences.[1] Focused solely on impoverished and orphaned youths, the orphan train progam assisted in approximately 200,000 placements between 1853 and 1929, making it the largest child resettlement initiative in American history.[2]

[1] Thomas Bender. Towards an Urban Vision.(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), 151.

[2] Stephen O'Connor, …


“Like A Mad Geyser In The Moonlight”: The Harlem Riots Of 1935 And 1943 And The Use Of Surrealism In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, Diana Lestz Apr 2013

“Like A Mad Geyser In The Moonlight”: The Harlem Riots Of 1935 And 1943 And The Use Of Surrealism In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, Diana Lestz

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.


“A General State Of Terror”: The Enforcement Acts, The Ku Klux Klan, And The Struggle Over Education In The Post-Bellum South, Kathryn E. Murdock May 2011

“A General State Of Terror”: The Enforcement Acts, The Ku Klux Klan, And The Struggle Over Education In The Post-Bellum South, Kathryn E. Murdock

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.