History Commons^™

Household Activities And Areas: A Reanalysis Of The John And Priscilla Alden First Home Site, Caroline Gardiner

Graduate Masters Theses

This thesis seeks to further understanding of early colonial life within New England through an examination of the John and Priscilla Alden First Home site in Duxbury, MA, excavated in 1960 by Roland Robbins. It specifically focuses on the composition and spatial distribution of the ceramic assemblage to discuss household activities and the spaces in which they were performed. The findings of the ceramic analysis detail a collection composed primarily of utilitarian vessels that indicate multiple subsistence farming activities including dairying. The spatial study reveals the significant patterning of these artifacts. It is proposed that these denote specific activity areas …

Stasi Brainwashing In The Gdr 1957 - 1990, Jacob H. Solbrig, Jacob Hagen Solbrig

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the methods used by the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), more commonly known as the Stasi, or East German secret police, for extraction of information from citizens of the German Democratic Republic for the purpose of espionage and covert operations inside East Germany, as it pertains to the deliberate brainwashing of East German citizens. As one of the most efficient intelligence agencies to ever exist, the Stasi’s main purpose was to monitor the population, gather intelligence, and collect or turn informants. They used brainwashing techniques to control the people of the GDR, keeping the populace paralyzed with fear …

Southern Veils : The Sisters Of Loretto In Early National Kentucky., Hannah O'Daniel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the experiences of Roman Catholic women who joined the Sisters of Loretto, a community of women religious in rural Washington and Nelson Counties, Kentucky, between the 1790s and 1826. It argues that the Sisters of Loretto used faith to interpret and respond to unfolding events in the early nation. The women sought to combat moral slippage and restore providential favor in the face of local Catholic institutional instability, global Protestant evangelical movements, war and economic crisis, and a tuberculosis outbreak. The Lorettines faced financial, social, and cultural pressures—including an economic depression, a culture that celebrated family formation …

Leftist Militant Songs And War Of Position In Lebanon (1975-1977), Mohamad J. Hodeib

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This essay looks at the emergence of a generation of leftist militant songwriters against the backdrop of a revolutionary moment that influenced political and cultural landscapes in Beirut during the 1970s. After the Arab military defeat against Israel in 1967, the conjuncture of the Lebanese and Palestinian revolutionary movements in Lebanon fostered a revolutionary moment that manifested itself on different levels, including art and cultural expression. I look at the development of leftist militant songs, a genre, attitude, and approach to song production and performance that came to be at the intersection of radical theatre, poetry, and music. Productions by …

Liberal Translations: Secular Concepts, Law, And Religion In Colonial Egypt, Jeffrey Culang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a conceptual history of Egypt’s national formation between the 1880s and the 1930s. This period involved the convergence of nationalism, colonial rule, missionary activity, and new modes of governance at the national and international levels. Drawing on state and missionary archival material, periodicals, legal compendia, laws, and parliamentary transcripts, and adapting methods developed by Reinhart Koselleck, I trace shifts within Egypt’s socio-political lexicon through processes of translation and demonstrate their effects upon social experience and political aspiration. I focus on a set of liberal-secular concepts critical to national politics—religious freedom, public interest, nationality, and the minority—as they …

Identity Behind Glass: The Second Gore Place Greenhouse, Sean P. Romo

Graduate Masters Theses

This thesis examines the second greenhouse at Gore Place, a historic country estate in Waltham, Massachusetts. Gore Place was owned by and named for Christopher and Rebecca Gore, members of the 18th- and 19th-century political and economic elite in New England. The greenhouse was constructed in 1806, and excavation at the site took place in 2004, 2008, and 2012. The latter two projects were data recovery excavations, which exposed portions of the greenhouse’s foundations and interior, as well as several features in the yard surrounding the building. Historic greenhouses were prestigious structures, financially accessible only to institutions, governments, and the …

Nobi Ni-Tse’Tse’Ede (House On The Cold One): Northern Great Basin Archaic Hunter-Gatherer Household Archaeology, Harney County, Oregon, Emily Jane Epstein

Theses and Dissertations

Excavation results from four sites on Tse’tse’ede (The Cold One), which is also commonly known as Steens Mountain, produced archaeological evidence for a prehistoric subsistence and settlement system on the western flank of Tse’tse’ede. Material culture recovered in association with one house, domestic surfaces, and from a high elevation hunting locale provides evidence for human use of the mountain spanning the Archaic. Analysis suggests human occupation of the range intensified post Cal 3000 BP.

The archaeological results were compared against an ethnographically derived model for household and community food security, the basis of settlement and subsistence systems. The model failed …

A Coffee-Scented Space: Historical, Cultural, And Social Impacts Of The Japanese Kissaten, Claire A. Williamson

Student Work

A 2016-2017 William Prize for best essay in East Asian Studies was awarded to Claire Williamson (Jonathan Edwards College '17) for her essay submitted to the East Asian Studies Program, “A Coffee-Scented Space: Historical, Cultural, and Social Impacts of the Japanese Kissaten.” (William Kelly, Professor of Anthropology and Sumitomo Professor of Japanese Studies, advisor.)

Japan has a long and well-documented history as a tea culture, from everyday practices to the refined aesthetics of the tea ceremony and its associated arts. Yet modern Japan is also a highly developed culture of coffee, and this is the topic that Claire Williamson …

Cat Metamorfosis: Becoming Animal And The Freedom Of Non-Identity, Hannah Becker

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

A large number of modern and contemporary female artists have employed the state of becoming to either free themselves of or challenge the social norms that come with being a woman. Kara Walker frees the Mammy of her expectation by combining her with a sphinx in her monumental sugar sculpture, A Subtlety. The Guerilla Girls have an impenetrable and unidentifiable voice when they speak from behind gorilla masks. Lucy Gunning’s The Horse Impressionists depicts women mimicking the behavior of horses to lose their human consciousness, and more specifically, female identity. Looking beyond the art world and into recent consumerist …

The Spatial Ordering Of Nabataea: An Integrated Analysis Of The Geography, Architecture, And Morphology Of Nabataean Petra, Christopher Clifton Angel

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Nabataean city of Petra is well known for its sandstone architecture and rock-hewn funerary landscape. Over the last few decades, numerous studies examined their history, culture, art, and architecture. The few studies that assessed the urban space of Petra focused on the functional properties of individual architectural forms and their nominal placement within the overall landscape. This study focused on the spatial configurations of architecture as relational to the dynamics of Nabataean politics and ritual where shifts in social order manifested similar shifts in spatial order which in turn produced and reproduced forms of social order. The production of …

The Old Deery Inn & Museum: An Ethnographic Case Study, Rebecca J. Proffitt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis uses qualitative ethnographic research methods to present a case study that explores the multiplicity of meanings and representations that are attached to the Old Deery Inn & Museum in Blountville, Tennessee. Within the community, the Inn functions as a center for cultural memory, with the physical structure itself acting as an artifact that holds community identity. This community narrative contrasts with the official narrative used by tourism entities that markets the Inn as a part of the Appalachian region, situating the Inn within a complex and intricately constructed identity of place that is shaped by lived experiences as …

Progressive Education In Appalachia: East Tennessee State Normal School And Appalachian State Normal School, Holly Heacock

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In this thesis, I am examining how East Tennessee State Normal School in East Tennessee and Appalachian State Normal School in Western North Carolina interpreted progressive education differently in their states. This difference is that East Tennessee State began as a state funded school to educate future teachers therefore their school and their curriculum was more rounded and set to a structured schedule. Appalachian State Normal School was initially founded to educate the uneducated in the “lost provinces” therefore, curriculum was even more progressive than East Tennessee State’s – based strongly on the practices of farming, woodworking, and other practical …

Immersion Schools And Language Learning: A Review Of Cherokee Lanugage Revitalization Efforts Among The Eastern Band Of Cherokee Indians, Elizabeth Albee

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

The Diet And Subsistence Methods Of The Maya: Their Health And Cultural Consequences From The Pre-Classic Era To Today, Rachel E. Watson

Honors Undergraduate

The Maya, a once great civilization, seemingly vanished without an obvious reason, before the Spanish landed in the region. Some say that their downfall was a result of famine and inadequate nutrition. Surprisingly, most of the archaeological evidence surrounding the Classic Maya diet and subsistence methods indicates that they both adequately sustained the population to the point where there has been practically no change over hundreds of years. Change did not occur to the Maya diet or the classic subsistence methods until the late twentieth century when the tourism industry exploded in the area of the former Maya empire. The …

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 …

From Rochel To Rose And Mendel To Max: First Name Americanization Patterns Among Twentieth-Century Jewish Immigrants To The United States, Jason H. Greenberg

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There has been a dearth of investigation into the distribution of and the alterations among Jewish given names. Whereas Jewish surnames are a popular topic of study, first names receive far less analysis. Because Jewish immigrants to the United States frequently changed their names, this thesis can serve as a guide to genealogists and other scholars seeking to trace the paths of Jewish immigrants from Europe. Data was drawn from about 1500 naturalization records from Brooklyn in order to determine the correspondences between the given names featured on passenger lists and their Americanized counterparts. More than three-quarters of surveyed immigrants …

The Fantastic Manifesto: Monstrosity Of Memory And Epiphany Of Selfhood In The Spirit Of The Beehive (1973), Layla Blodgett Carrillo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Spanish culture of storytelling suffered under the nearly forty-year dictatorship of Francisco Franco. The government-regulated cinema welcomed propaganda and melodrama, and denied the fantastic, the legendary, and the magical. These carefully manipulated histories, which served to romanticize the ideologies of the regime, also served to eulogize the delinquent and the depraved. In the early 1970s, at the heels of the collapse of Franco’s reign, the people of Spain bore witness to a new national cinema. The Spirit of the Beehive (1973), the feature debut from Victor Erice, exists at the threshold between a storied history of Spanish dictatorship and …

Walking In The City: Koji Nakano’S Reimagining And Re-Sounding Of The Tale Of Genji, Isabella Ramos

Scripps Senior Theses

Imagined Sceneries is a work written by composer Dr. Koji Nakano of Burapha University, Thailand for two sopranos, koto, light percussion, narrations, soundscapes recorded in Kyoto, Japan in December 2015, and digital projections of Ebina Masao’s 1953 print series Tale of Genji. Imagined Sceneries’ reimagining and “re-sounding” of Heian Kyoto relies on a balance between what is imagined and what is experienced in performance. Its many elements collectively explore multiple layers of Japanese histories, soundscapes, environments, and sensibilities. Using Michel de Certeau’s concepts of the city, this thesis journeys through Nakano’s imagined spaces.

The Typology Of Community: A Case Study Analysis Of Three Intentional Communities, Caleb Kalinowski

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Typological schemes like those produced by Emile Durkheim and Ferdinand Tönnies have been used to classify human groups in an evolutionary spectrum ranging from the simple to the complex. Though the typological approach was foundational to further development of the western social sciences it is seldom used to examine what might be termed "simple" societies in the modern day. This study aims to apply the contributions of the two theorists listed above to the concept of the modern intentional community. Although these communities comprise an eclectic and diverse social phenomenon, their characteristic small populations and other features make them intriguing …

Panorama Of Popular Haitian Music And Folklore, Jean Wilner S. St Jean

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Haitian music has been influenced by the people who lived on the island from the native before the Columbus discovered Haiti to the United States occupation. This country is rich in culture which has impacted by the Creole identity. The overview of the different kind of Haitian music by categories and subcategories from the beginning to now. The government, the religion, the social class, and population play an important role in the popularity and acceptance of certain music.

A Landscape Of Water And Waste: Heritage Legacies And Environmental Change In The Mesabi Iron Range, John Baeten

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This dissertation explores the intersection between mining technology, industrial heritage, and environmental history, using iron mining in the Mesabi Range of the Lake Superior Iron District as its core case study. What impact did technological shifts in iron mining and ore processing have on the environment of the Lake Superior basin? How did the environmental changes wrought from low-grade iron ore mining and processing, such as the expansion of open-pits and the production of tailings, affect different communities in Minnesota’s Mesabi Range? And finally, how have the environmental legacies of iron mining been remembered and memorialized, or ignored and forgotten?

Black-Americans In Michigan’S Copper Mining Narrative, Brendan Pelto

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This thesis details the Phase 1 archaeological investigation into Black-Americans who were active on the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan during the mining boom of the 1850s-1880s. Using archaeological and archival methods, this thesis is a proof-of-concept for future work to be done that investigates the cultural heritage of Black Americans in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Drowning In Rising Seas: Navigating Multiple Knowledge Systems And Responding To Climate Change In The Maldives, Rachel Hannah Spiegel

Pitzer Senior Theses

The threat of global climate change increasingly influences the actions of human society. As world leaders have negotiated adaptation strategies over the past couple of decades, a certain discourse has emerged that privileges Western conceptions of environmental degradation. I argue that this framing of climate change inhibits the successful implementation of adaptation strategies. This thesis focuses on a case study of the Maldives, an island nation deemed one of the most vulnerable locations to the impacts of rising sea levels. I apply a postcolonial theoretical framework to examine how differing knowledge systems can both complement and contradict one another. By …

The Hidden History Of Western Washington Logging Camps: St. Paul And Tacoma Lumber Company’S Camp #5 Ca. 1934-1947, Kayley Bass

All Master's Theses

Despite the importance of logging to Washington State’s heritage, there is little information on the life in the logging industry and the lumbermen who helped shape western Washington. The St. Paul and Tacoma Lumber Company (SPTLC) harvested the Kapowsin Timberlands from the early 1900s to the late 1950s. The logging camps located within these timberlands can provide information on the organization of these industry camps as well as on the daily lives of the men that would help build one of the most important industries in Washington. This thesis employed archaeological and historical approaches to understand this period of history. …