History Commons^™

Visualizing Complexity : A Spatial Analysis Of Decorative Geometric Pattern In The Islamic World, 900-1400 Ad, Tracy Elizabeth Harrison

Dissertations and Theses

This study explores how the use of complex decorative geometric patterns in Islamic architecture spatially relates to advances in the fields of science and philosophy in the Islamic world between the ninth and fourteenth centuries. This project examines hypotheses developed by vario~s scholars on the forces that shaped the use of these patterns (known as the geometric mode) in Islamic architecture. The prevailing assumption that advances in mathematics contributed to the use of the geometric mode is used as a starting point for subsequent analysis.

For this study, two spatial databases were created. One contains over two hundred and twenty …

The Samuel Smith Land Grants: A Historical Study Of Land Ownership And Use In Southern West Virginia, Stephen M. Porter

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This study intends to illustrate the history of several tracts of land granted to General Samuel Smith, of Baltimore, Maryland by the state of Virginia in the years 1796 and 1797 containing, in totality, 300,000 acres (more or less). This research attempts to untangle some of the tangled web of ownership (both surface and mineral) that has affected this tract in particular and reflects the general trend of corporate land ownership in southern West Virginia.

Continuity And Change In A Southern Community: Commercial And Occupational Development In Mid-Nineteenth Century Orange County, North Carolina, Andrew Hunter Heffner

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

King Bacca's Throne: Land, Life, And Labor In The Old Bright Belt Since 1880, Evan Patrick Bennett

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

In the late nineteenth century, bright tobacco came to dominate the agricultural production of the Virginia-North Carolina Piedmont. as the cultivation of bright tobacco spread, it created a new economy and social order centered on small, family-operated farms. For over a century, tobacco remained at the center of the region's economic and social order, even as numerous economic, technological and cultural forces reshaped the realities of tobacco agriculture. This dissertation explores the effects of these forces on the lives of the region's farm families. While many historian's have described tobacco farm life in terms of inexorable decline, this work takes …

The Historical Geography Of Good Thunder, Minnesota, 1870-2005, Robert L. Bothmann

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Good Thunder is a small village in south central Minnesota on the Maple River. Founded in 1870, it is named for two prominent Indian leaders, one a Winnebago chief who lived at the site, and the other a Dakota who was active in the conflict of 1862. It began as an agricultural commerce center when the railroad arrived in Minnesota. The purpose of the study is to consider the transformation of the village, focusing upon the origins and significance of its physical and cultural features in the context of historical geography. The changing historical events and geographical features of the …