History Commons^™

The Four Seasons: Integrating The Big Four Sports, Joseph S. Brody

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

After World War II, even though many African Americans served their country, policies of segregation were rampant throughout the United States of America. The aim of this Capstone is two-fold. First, to shed light on the men who followed the path of Jackie Robinson and give them their due. The most appropriate way to convey my research of these four athletes was by putting them all in the same fictional setting and discussing their trials and tribulations that made them the men they were in their day. Second, I want to highlight the many things I found in my research …

The Creation Of An African American Jewish Culinary Tradition: Michael Twitty And The Passover Seder As A Vehicle For Remembering Trauma And Celebrating Survival, Samira Mehta

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

The Exodus of the Israelites has long held meaning for African American Christians, as noted by scholars of African American religious history. Jewish studies scholars, meanwhile, have written about both Passover and Jewish relationships to the Exodus. Michael Twitty, public historian, James Beard award-winning author, and memoirist, has fused an identity for himself by drawing on the foodways of both traditions to remember and memorialize the trauma of both traditions While Twitty uses food to create meaning in the context of holidays, his memoirs, Kosher Soul and The Cooking Gene, explore how the food of trauma, poverty, and resilience provide …

Book Review: Organizing Women: Home, Work, And The Institutional Infrastructure Of Print In Twentieth-Century America, Christine Pawley, Madelaine Russell

School of Information Student Research Journal

In carefully selected case studies of white and Black middle-class American women, Pawley, a professor emerita at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Information School, provides a detailed exploration of the “largely untold history” of women who used their involvement in print-centered organizations to reshape their lives beyond the unpaid domestic sphere (1). The first three chapters of the book trace the histories of primarily domestic women who held active roles in institutions of print culture such as journalism and radio broadcasting while the last three focus on the lives of women whose full-time employment helped to shape the developing public library …

Generational Awareness Of Folk Figures In The American Midwest, Addison L. Jensen

Honors Thesis

The popular folklore of a region can clearly reflect how its citizens understand themselves and their nation. The goal of this study was to determine the number of individuals who can be considered “well-versed” in traditional folklore and to speculate on the possible reasons for the differences in recognition that arise. Five figures (Johnny Appleseed, John Henry, Paul Bunyan, Annie Oakley, and Rip Van Winkle) were selected to serve as a representative sample of folk characters that have been historically significant to the country. An online survey of 279 Midwesterners and interviews with various age groups in South Dakota, found …

Mixed Feelings: The Emotional Appeals Of Zitkala-Ša’S American Indian Stories, Kayla Joan Baur

Publications and Research

Zitkala-Ša (Lakota: Zitkála-Šá, meaning Red Bird) was among the first to write about the experiences of Native American children in the U.S. Indian boarding school program to an English-speaking audience. As a writer and political activist, Zitkala-Ša uses emotional appeals and cultural ideas she learned through her white education to expose the very boarding school institutions that taught her. In American Indian Studies (1921), Zitkala-Ša critiques the violence that the Indian boarding school system inflicts on young Native Americans. She presents these critiques through emotional appeals that take two forms: one, a more traditional sentimental appeal associated with middle-class white …

The Black Press And Late Imperial Russia, Benjamin Pierce

History Undergraduate Honors Theses

For centuries, western observers had looked to Russia and seen a place fundamentally different from their home countries. In their accounts, Russia was distinctly oppressive, a state characterized by tyranny, barbarism, and Mongolian influence. But these accounts were faulty. They were written by merchants, diplomats, and explorers, wealthy white men who had never experienced the kind of repression they witnessed in Russia. When Black Americans looked to Russia, however, they saw a place fundamentally similar to the United States. Both countries were large, multiethnic empires driven by territorial acquisition and fueled by forced labor. By tracing the coverage of Russia …

Little Cricket On The Hearth: The Quiet Feminism Of _Little Women_, Caroline Anderson Klein

Honors Theses

Since the advent of the cult of domesticity, the stakes for female characters in domestic literature have been notoriously high. There was no room for flaws, rebellious decisions, and certainly no room for mistakes—whether of the woman’s own accord, or simply as collateral damage of a male character’s immorality. In this shallowly Calvinist domain, women were never more than one broken guardrail away from social ruin or death. In writing Little Women, Louisa May Alcott breaks these molds through unflinching kindness to her female characters from childhood to adulthood, even unto death. Alcott achieves this quietly feminist feat by …

Book Review: Something In The Water: A History Of Music In Macon, Georgia, 1823-1980, Timothy Cole Hale

Georgia Library Quarterly

No abstract provided.

The Controlled Narrative Of “Jane Roe:” Norma Mccorvey’S Life Beyond The 1973 Trial, Eleanor G. Strickland

Honors College Theses

Norma McCorvey, Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade, 1973, wrote two memoirs twenty years after the Supreme Court trial that surrounded her third pregnancy. These memoirs (I Am Roe, 1994, and Won by Love, 1997), along with the recent documentary AKA Jane Roe (2020), provide an insight into McCorvey’s life and how she was used by politicians and civilians during and after the influential trial. McCorvey lived a complicated life and was constantly being pulled in different directions spiritually, politically, and personally. This thesis shows how McCorvey attempted to re-write the narrative of her life using …

Georgia Ghosts: History, Folklore, And The Roots Of The Southern Gothic, Katherine M. Mcdowell

Master's Projects

There is something quintessentially human about ghost stories, yet particular regions tend to be more powerfully associated with haunted folktales than others. One of the regions is the southeastern United States. In fact, these oral traditions appear to have influenced the area's best-known literary subgenre: the Southern Gothic.

Why is the South considered haunted? Are there particular qualities in historical events that make them more likely to engender ghost stories? What makes the South's folkloric spirits so powerful that they appear even in modern literature? Most of all, what connects the region's history and folklore with the Southern Gothic? By …

Charge The Cockpit Or Die: An Anatomy Of Fear-Driven Political Rhetoric In American Conservatism, Daniel Hostetter

Senior Honors Theses

Subthreshold negative emotions have superseded conscious reason as the initial and strongest motivators of political behavior. Political neuroscience uses the concepts of negativity bias and terror management theory to explore why fear-driven rhetoric plays such an outsized role in determining human political actions. These mechanisms of human anthropology are explored by competing explanations from biblical and evolutionary scholars who attempt to understand their contribution to human vulnerabilities to fear. When these mechanisms are observed in fear-driven political rhetoric, three common characteristics emerge: exaggerated threat, tribal combat, and religious apocalypse, which provide a new framework for explaining how modern populist leaders …

Writing, Performance, Resistance: Examining Feminist Ideology And Theory In Theatre Since The Second Wave, Olivia Cross

Theater Honors Papers

This project seeks to identify and analyze how feminist theatre is informed by theory and activism in its resistance against white, heteronormative, and patriarchal hegemony offstage through onstage representation. By identifying three consistent themes of gender & sexuality, race, and trauma and the methods used to effectively convey them to an audience, feminist theatre displays how advocacy takes unique forms to uproot the status quo. Furthermore, this research highlights how theatre is a viable and rich outlet for feminist intellectual history, displaying its versatility as a frame of analysis.

Two Worlds And In Between: Becoming Goth In The Virtual Spaces Of Tiktok, Marlie Unger

Honors Projects

This research explores how the initiation processes of goth subculture have changed with the introduction and implementation of social media. Using a textual analysis of social media content from TikTok, this research identifies themes present in the virtual community that provide greater insight about how someone becomes goth and the factors which influence the transformation. I highlight the importance of subcultural capital in its creation of a social hierarchy and the goth status of members which fall under the categories of "elder goth," "seasoned goth," and "baby bat." Furthermore, this research examines how commodification, education, and gatekeeping influence the lines …

Lessons On Racism: The Senior Prom At The Elks Club, Donna M. Hughes

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Pirates And An Acadian Huguenot, Elizabeth Starkey

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

A discussion of a piracy trial in 1726 Boston and an Acadian merchant.

Florida History In Publications, 2020, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Cumulative Index, Volume 99, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

No abstract provided.

End Notes, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

The Florida Historical Society Archaeological Institutes (FHSAI); Florida Frontiers: The Weekly Radio Magazine of the Florida Historical Society; Florida Frontiers Television; Florida Historical Society Awards, 2021; Florida Historical Quarterly News; Florida Historical Quarterly Podcasts; Florida Historical Quarterly Available on JSTOR; Guidelines for Sumissions to the Florida Historical Quarterly

Pathfinders, Progressives, And Boosters: The 1911 "Gulf-To-Great-Lakes-As-The-Crow-Flies" Automobile Adventure, Martin T. Olliff

Florida Historical Quarterly

At 10 a.m. on September 3, 1911, Dr. S. R. M. Kennedy, Frank L. Mayes, A. M. Avery, Jr., and F. C. Brent, Jr., left Pensacola for Chicago in Kennedy's Speedwell 50 touring car. Calling themselves the "Gulf-to-Great-Lakes-As-The-Crow-Flies" pathfinders, their ostensible mission was to represent Florida at the Fourth International Good Roads Congress. But their real goals were to add a Pensacola-to-Birmingham route description to the American Automobile Association's Blue Book (to complete the trail between the Great Lakes and the Gulf) and to promote Pensacola as a destination for midwestern tourists. At a time when road conditions rattled bones …

Captain Charles E. Hawkins, "The Key West Tragedy," And The "Unwritten Law," 1827-1830, James M. Denham

Florida Historical Quarterly

Once Spain transferred Florida to the United States in 1821, Americans moved to secure the sparsely settled island at the end of the Florida Keys. Key West's exposed position atop the Caribbean required enforcement of United States authority. Establishing a federal presence was essential to protecting its commercial interests in the Caribbean. In 1822 the island became home to the U. S. West India Squadron's four-year campaign against piracy. The scourge was all but wiped out but there were still challenges. Key West attracted mariners and interlopers from the West Indies. Florida's close proximity to Spain's Latin American colonies encouraged …

Amateur Minstrel Shows And Blackface Amusements At The University Of Florida In The Jim Crow Era, Myles Sullivan

Florida Historical Quarterly

In the spring of 1914, the University of Florida's (UF) studentrun newspaper, The Florida Alligator, heralded "one of the biggest attractions of the spring season" with the front page headline "Heah Dey Kum! Dat Minstrel Show." As a theatrical performance style that had gained widespread popularity in the United States in the early 1800s, minstrel shows were often delivered with this imagined faux speech of rural African Americans. Its defining feature was culturally deemed white individuals "blacking up" their faces with burnt cork in visually cued racial caricatures acted out in music, song, and dance. Indeed, when subsequently reviewing the …

A New Territory: "By Attention And Kindness, All Repugnance May Be Overcome", Philip M. Smith

Florida Historical Quarterly

On July 10, 1821, Private Nathaniel Sherburne stood in formation for the change of flags ceremony in St. Augustine as Spanish la Florida officially became a United States territory. The sights of that day must have been exotic for the New Hampshire farm boy who ran away from home and joined the army. Private Sherburne was part of the 4th Regiment of Light Artillery of the United States Army, which had been under the command of recently retired Major General Andrew Jackson. Jackson himself was in Pensacola for a similar ceremony the following week. During the past decade, the United …

Editor's Note: The Pandemic Year, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

In its 99 published volumes the Fl01ida Historical Quarterly has encountered numerous challenges...inadequate funding in the early years, the Great Depression, World War II, scholarly transformations in historiographic interpretations, and innovations in publication formats. Nothing quite prepared the FHQ for the challenge of a global pandemic.

Diplomats, Spies, & Their Common Cause: American Initiative, Spanish Support, & The Revolutional War Along The Mississippi & Gulf Coast, Henry B. Motty

Florida Historical Quarterly

Within weeks of the Americans declaring independence in July of 1776, diplomatic exchanges between Philadelphia and Madrid yielded essential cooperation as Spain secretly rendered supplies to the revolutionaries via New Orleans. By 1778, France and the United States became allies with hopes of luring Spain to officially join the conflict. That same year, Spanish emissary Juan de Miralles arrived in Philadelphia where many Americans welcomed him, noting his "pleasant disposition, social grace, and ability to make friends." In a letter to George Washington, Miralles assured the general that Spanish officials in Havana received orders to "communicate them to the Honourable …

Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol 99, No. 3/4, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Title Pages, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

Editor's Note: The Pandemic Year
Diplomats, Spies, & Their Common Cause: American Initiative, Spanish Support, & The Revolutionary War Along the Mississippi & Gulf Coast by Henry B. Motty
A New Territory: "By Attention and Kindness, All Repugnance May be Overcome" by Philip M. Smith
Captain Charles E. Hawkins, "The Key West Tragedy," and the "Unwritten Law," 1827-1830 by James M. Denham
Amateur Minstrel Shows and Blackface Amusements at the University of Florida in the Jim Crow Era by Myles Sullivan
Pathfinders, Progressives, and Boosters: The 1911 "Gulf-to-Great-Lakes-As-The-Crow-Flies" Automobile Adventure by Martin T. Olliff
End Notes
Florida History in Publications, …

End Notes, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

The Florida Historical Society Archaeological Institutes (FHSAI); Florida Frontiers: The Weekly Radio Magazine of the Florida Historical Society; Florida Frontiers Television; Florida Historical Quarterly News; Florida Historical Quarterly Podcasts; Florida Historical Quarterly Available on JSTOR; Guidelines for Sumissions to the Florida Historical Quarterly

The History Of The Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge (Minwr): A Partnership Of Rockets And Wildlife, Charles Venuto

Florida Historical Quarterly

The Christmas season is associated with the creation of many lists such as gifts, groceries and holiday cards. But there is another list citizen scientists assemble this time of year as well. The National Audubon Society (NAS) Christmas Bird Count (CBC), originally established to counter what had turned into an annual Christmas day bird slaughter, began in 1900 and look place at 25 different sites, primarily in the northeast United States although California and the Midwest were also represented.

Invading Eden: Exotic Pets And Invasive Species In South Florida, Andrew Pemberton

Florida Historical Quarterly

On July 8, 2019, South Floridians woke up to a headline describing the removal of a sixteen-foot-long Burmese python and fifty of its eggs from beneath a suburban home near the Everglades. This is a common spectacle in South Florida. Floridians, long accustomed to their scaly, cold-blooded co-habitants, have seen these types of headlines since the 1980s. With increasing frequency, non-indigenous species are entering the state's public eye. Perhaps more remarkable than these snakes' presence beneath Floridia homes is their welcomed presence in households across the country. However, this trend in pet-keeping poses the most risk to ecosystems in Florida, …

Seagrass-Roots Environmentalism: The Lee County Conservation Association, Chris Wilhelm

Florida Historical Quarterly

After World War II, Florida crafted a new identity: the Sunshine State. This concept was not solely based on Florida's hot weather and sunny skies although the relationship between sun and water was implicit in the new identity. Tourists enjoyed the sun on boats and beaches, retirees and snowbirds fled northern winters for new sunny coastal cities. The heat of Florida's sunshine was thus balanced by the state's coastal waters. The Sunshine State is a convenient slogan, but Florida is actually defined by its coast. Other states have more sunshine, but none in the continental U.S. have more coastline or …