History Commons^™

Georgic Rhetoric, Virtue And The Commercialization Of Agriculture In Pennsylvania From 1785 To 1870, Naomi Ulmer

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

This research examines how farmers in Pennsylvania between 1785 and 1870 were persuaded by georgic agrarianism to take social, economic and even moral risks to abandon a semi-subsistence mode of production in favor of commercial production. The georgic rhetoric is derived from Virgil’s poem “The Georgics.” It discusses agriculture and man’s labor in nature. Virgil discusses the relationship between man, nature and his ability, or inability, to control nature to ensure his own survival. Beginning in the late 18^th century, supporters of improved agriculture, mostly wealthy and upper-class gentlemen, tried to persuade common yeomen farmers to produce for the …

Curing Consumption: Blood Drinkers Of The Nineteenth Century, Rachel Erin Catlett Widmer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

During the nineteenth century burgeoning cities in the United States saw the spread of disease. Most common among all parts of society was tuberculosis or as it was commonly known at the time, consumption. The most terrifying aspect of consumption was that it could attack anyone at any time and no cure existed. The poetic image of a red stained handkerchief was a death sentence. The common cure was to seek fresh air in a warmer climate. However, for some Americans an experimental cure seemed hopeful and easily accessible, drinking blood. According to many newspaper accounts consumptive victims were not …

The River Gave And The River Hath Taken Away: How The Arkansas River Shaped The Course Of Arkansas History, Edward N. Andrus

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Arkansas River molded the history of Arkansas. It also shaped human to human interactions and human relationships with the physical environment. Since humans first encountered the river their lives have been influenced by it. The river played a significant role in creating the environmental conditions that contributed to a specific existence within the river valley. It affected what types of flora and fauna existed, the quality of the soil, and the climate. The river was a vital component in the evolution of the cultures and societies that developed in the river valley. Conversely, humans affected the river. The ways …

Losing Our Minds To Madness: Paradigm Changes In Western European Perceptions Of Mental Illness, James Michael Cecil

History

Academia and scholarship of the 20th-century bred a renewed interest in mental illness throughout history. Despite an increase in the literature within the discourse surrounding "madness," scholars have generally failed to understand how and why Western European societies have viewed mental illness in various ways throughout recorded history. This paper argues that there remains an inherent, human desire to reject anything different from humanity, particularly mental illness, which is nearly impossible to fully comprehend. This is especially true in the case of how societies have institutionalized, punished, and subjugated the "mad" individual.

Signals In The Black Stack / Geometyr Design Manual, Jason T. Scaglione

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The following white paper provides a critical accompaniment to my capstone project: the GEOMEtyr Design Manual. GEOMEtyr is a virtual reality to be made accessible as a mobile and web platform for the visualization of certain systemic elements of a utopic world that parallels our own planet’s geographies, polities, and climates. As such, the GEOMEtyr virtualization is designed to derive utopian space from the informational structures of our own world. The operations by which this may be accomplished are broadly described within the accompanying GEOMEtyr manual. The white paper, Signals in the Black Stack, elaborates vital world-building characteristics of informational …

In Her Own Hands: How Girls And Women Used The Piano To Chart Their Futures, Expand Women's Roles, And Shape Music In America, 1880–1920, Sarah F. Litvin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

American girls and women used the parlor piano to reshape their lives between 1880 and 1920, the years when the instrument reached the height of its commercial and cultural popularity. Newspapers, memoirs, biographies, women’s magazines, personal papers, and trade publications show that female pianists engaged in public-facing piano play and work in pursuit of artistic expression, economic gain, self-actualization, social mobility, and social change. These motivations drove many to use their piano skills to play beyond the parlor, by studying in conservatory, working as classical and popular music performers and composers, founding and teaching at schools, working as department store …

Missed Moments: Kodak’S Failure To Define The Consumer Market For Digital Photography, Paul T. Moon Jr

History Theses

The focus of this thesis is to provide an expanded interpretation of the decline of the Eastman Kodak Company. Kodak is a company synonymous with cameras, pictures, and photography. The American photographic giant created a vast empire that was able to dominate the industry for the better part of the Twentieth Century. Yet, it missed the opportunity to develop its digital camera technology. This makes Kodak an interesting study in business decision making in the face of advancing disruptive technology.

In a historical context, there is a lack of work that deeply inspects the fall of the Kodak company in …

A Historical Analysis Of Non-Normative Embodiment Through The Lens Of Frankenstein’S Creature, Ashley H. Hobson

Honors Theses

A trend to historicize the field of Disability Studies has emerged in recent years. However, little research has been done to place different societies and generations in conversation with one another. This thesis will utilize various adaptations of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in order to explore shifting anxieties concerning non-normative embodiment through the vessel of the Creature. I examine the Creature’s changing physical form next to scientific and medical literature of the period to explore connotations of disability and otherness within that society. I consider the manifestation of anxieties towards non-normative embodiment through Mary Shelley’s 1831 Frankenstein, James Whale’s 1931 …

Home Sweet Home: Domesticity In English And Scottish Insane Asylums, 1890-1914, Vesna Curlic

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis considers the implementation of domestic aesthetics and activities in the insane asylum at the end of the nineteenth century. Doctors sought to bring elements of the Victorian home into the asylum as part of a modern, humane regime of mental healthcare, which I call “institutional domesticity.” I argue that this process was fraught with challenges. While implementation of domesticity was relatively successful in regard to asylum activities, like labour and employment, domesticity reached its limitations in the physical asylum space. Ultimately, this thesis demonstrates the ways in which all asylum actors, including patients, staff, community members, and the …

“I Almost Hope I Get Hit Again Soon”: The Wartime Service And Medical History Of Leon C. Standifer, Wwii American Infantryman, Alexis M. Laguna

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The American GI’s experience in hospital during World War II is absent from official military histories, most scholarly works, and even many oral history collections. Utilizing the papers of WWII infantryman, Leon Standifer, this thesis offers the reader a rare glimpse of WWII military hospital life and chronicles one soldier’s journey from willing obedience to subversive action.

This thesis compares the stated goals and procedures of the US Army medical department to the experience of Leon Standifer, an infantryman who served in northern France during the last year of the war and the American occupation of Bavaria, whose service was …

Vile Blood: Hereditary Degeneracy In Victorian England, Dalton Lee Brock

Theses and Dissertations from 2019

During the late 1800s, the people of England grew anxious about hereditary degeneracy. That anxiety was rooted in the medical literature of the Victorian period. Nature predetermined individuals to be either healthy or unhealthy. Unhealthy individuals were marked by degenerative mental or physical characteristics such as epilepsy. Medical professionals, including Henry Maudsley, emphasized reversion and its hereditary nature as a threat to individuals and society. All based their works and arguments on Charles Darwin’s idea of inheritance. Darwin, in turn, had adopted and modified Lamarckian inheritance to make up for the absence of an inheritance principle in his theory of …

Selling Childhood: How The Middle Class Used Children In The Anti-Tuberculosis Movement (1930s-1940s), Hannah Fisher

Senior Theses

During the anti-tuberculosis movement of the 1930s and 1940s, children were chosen as focal points, with their roles shaped by society’s changing view of childhood, the emergence of the middle class, and the socioeconomic and political climate. Children were used by middle-class reformers as conduits through which to disseminate information and enact controls on the working class. Health education in schools had two main goals: (1) for educated children to become educated adults, and (2) for educated children to transform the behaviors of adults around them. Although researchers have studied middle-class interventions into children’s health, few have analyzed the role …

From Spacewar! To Twitch.Tv: The Influence Of Competition In Video Games And The Rise Of Esports, Robert Boyle

Senior Theses

Since their inception in the 1950s, video games have come a long way; with that advancement came more popularity, a growing demand, and an evolving culture. The first person shooter (FPS) video game genre and the competitive scene that was born out of it is an ideal case study to analyze this change over time. To understand how video games became so popular, one must examine their history: specifically, their development, impacts the games have had on society, and economic trajectories. Similar to traditional professional sports, video games experienced a cultural shift around their lucrative profit margins and unfolding professionalization …

Children Of A One-Eyed God: Impairment In The Myth And Memory Of Medieval Scandinavia, Michael David Lawson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Using the lives of impaired individuals catalogued in the Íslendingasögur as a narrative framework, this study examines medieval Scandinavian social views regarding impairment from the ninth to the thirteenth century. Beginning with the myths and legends of the eddic poetry and prose of Iceland, it investigates impairment in Norse pre-Christian belief; demonstrating how myth and memory informed medieval conceptualizations of the body. This thesis counters scholarly assumptions that the impaired were universally marginalized across medieval Europe. It argues that bodily difference, in the Norse world, was only viewed as a limitation when it prevented an individual from fulfilling roles that …

Fast Glass: Modernity, Technology, And The Cinematic Lens, Allain Daigle

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation tells a cultural history of how lenses became cinema lenses. While lenses are essential for film production, we know very little about the early history of cinema lenses. Rather than just focusing on which lenses were used on certain movies, I historicize how lens production became an industry. Between the 1880s and the 1920s, lens production shifted from an artisanal craft to a commercial industry. By looking at how companies created lenses for film production and projection, I expand early film history to account for the creative work of opticians, engineers, advertisers, and distributors. In more specifically focusing …

Culture And Code: The Evolution Of Digital Architecture And The Formation Of Networked Publics, Geoffrey Gimse

Theses and Dissertations

Culture and Code traces the construction of the modern idea of the Internet and offers a potential glimpse of how that idea may change in the near future. Developed through a theoretical framework that links Sheila Jasanoff and Sang-Hyun Kim’s theory of the sociotechnical imaginary to broader theories on publics and counterpublics, Culture and Code offers a way to reframe the evolution of Internet technology and its culture as an enmeshed part of larger socio-political shifts within society. In traveling the history of the modern Internet as detailed in its technical documentation, legal documents, user created content, and popular media …

The Crusader And The Dictator: An Exploration Of Ideology And Neurodivergence In Contemporary Technology Practice, David J. Williams

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A common theme in public discourse is the recognition that technology in general, and digital technology specifically, has an enormous impact on the everyday lives of people from all walks of modern life, in almost every corner of the globe. This thesis interrogates the connection between neurodivergence—the presence of neurological variations considered outside the cognitive norm— and individualistic ideology within the information technology industries. Through the biographies, substantial record of activities, public statements, and writings surrounding two influential figures in the contemporary practice of computer science, Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds, it conducts an investigation into this convergence and its …

A Look Into The Tuskegee Study Of Untreated Syphilis In The Negro Male In Macon County, Alabama, Austin Valentine

Student Scholarship & Creative Works

In the 1930’s there was growing concerns over a disease known as syphilis. With 300,000 new cases each year, coupled with the disease’s ability to create blindness, arthritis, heart disease and instances of premature death, the search for a way to stop the epidemic quickly was expanding. With such numbers the United States Department of Health needed answers fast (DiIanni 1993).

At this time, the United States was in an economic crisis left by the Great Depression. As a result, the U.S. Department of Health needed to find cheap test subjects in an effort to combat syphilis and prevent its …

Thucydides' Account Of The Plague As Trauma Narrative, Jenna M. Colclough

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Thucydides’ detailed description of the Athenian plague, which is estimated to have killed from a quarter to a third of Athens’ population[1]and led to the breakdown of several social norms, has been approached from a variety of scholarly perspectives, yet its potential as a trauma narrative is still underexplored.

Drawing on comparative evidence from the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, such as Katherine Anne Porter’s fictionalized account Pale Horse, Pale Rider, this thesis examines the emotive and commemorative functions of Thucydides’ plague episode through the lens of trauma theory. By combining elements of personal narrative, literature, and …

Aphasia & Stutter Therapy: An Ailment Not To Be Treated, Janae Nieto

Honors Theses

This work demonstrates the history of two common speech and communication disorders: aphasia and stuttering. Once considered incurable diseases, these conditions have since generated rich rehabilitation practices and accompanying schools of thought. The first part of the thesis takes up adult aphasia, excluding cases involving speech and communication disorders due to other mental illnesses. The second half of this project conveys the history of stuttering. The majority of the modern cases analyzed in this thesis focus on developmental stuttering in children; although, different forms of stuttering are embedded in the progression of the therapy history. Each chapter includes a section …

"For Weariness Cannot But Fill Our Men After So Long A Period Of Hardship And Endurance:" War Weariness In The Canadian Corps In The First World War, Jordan Chase

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

My project explores war weariness in the First World War, especially regarding the Canadian Corps. The first section (legal, disciplinary, and medical systems) looks at the army policies, structures, and personnel in place to deal with morale, discipline, endurance, motivation, and medical problems. These structures served to 'measure' the problems facing individual soldiers and units, and attempted to address these issues before they became more widespread and intractable. Policies were also designed to mitigate emerging problems and to ensure that sufficient troops were in the line and able to perform their duties adequately. Unfortunately, these systems were often insufficient to …

Algorithmic Surveillance: A Hidden Danger In Recognizing Faces, Lydia F. Venditti, Jim Fleming, Kara Kugelmeyer

Honors Theses

The goal of this thesis is to present the current status and awareness of facial recognition technology and their use as part of video surveillance systems. Specifically, I intend to help readers develop a greater understanding of how facial recognition systems contain algorithms that perpetuate bias in their matching and recognition of faces. Current research demonstrates that algorithms differentially recognize faces from different races and genders. As a technology with substantive impacts for use and abuse, more scrutiny of facial recognition technology is necessary. This paper will also help readers understand the dangers of facial recognition as a biometric technology …

Fortune And Failure - Gold And Silver Smelting In The Colorado Rockies 1861 To 1900, Andrew Mueller

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This dissertation is a study of small-scale smelting in Colorado during the nineteenth century. Many small smelting enterprises were established throughout the mountains of the state from the mid-1860s to the mid-1880s. The smelters helped to revitalize a flagging mining industry by fostering its growth and, consequently, the development of the state before being outcompeted by larger smelting establishments developing in the growing cities on the Front Range. However, the life of these smelters was brief, and the majority failed within a few years. The role of these smelters in Colorado’s history has been largely overlooked but provide a rich …

Towards A Critical Understanding Of Deepfakes: Developing A Teaching Module And More, Wentao Guo

Pomona Senior Theses

Recently, computer-generated and computer-altered videos known as deepfakes have raised widespread concerns about the harms they may cause to democratic elections, national security, people’s reputation, and people’s autonomy over their words and actions as represented in videos and other media. How can we build towards a critical understanding of not only deepfakes, but also photos, videos, and the role of many other media objects surrounding us that inform us about the world? In this thesis, wanting to take a historical approach and noting the newness of deepfakes, I first investigate a historical case study regarding a manipulated photo from a …

Constructing The Transsexual: Medicalization, Gatekeeping, And The Privatization Of Trans Healthcare In The U.S., 1950-2019, Erin Gifford

Senior Projects Spring 2019

This project details the medicalization of gender variance in the United States that began in 1950, both in medical discourse and popular culture, and analyzes how this phenomenon has impacted the contemporary landscape of trans healthcare, paying particular attention to issues of access and autonomy.

From Witch Hunts To Autoantibodies: Overcoming Psychogenic Stigma To Uncover The Molecular Cause Of Autoimmunity, Emma Hainstock

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

Due to the frequency of misdiagnosis of autoimmune diseases and their disproportionate incidence in women, my thesis explores historical misconceptions about autoimmune conditions which could have lingered in society to impede their diagnoses today. Antiphospholipid Antibody Syndrome (APS) and Anti-NMDA Receptor Encephalitis (ANRE) are the conditions I focused on, as both diseases can cause complex neurologic symptoms such as hallucinations and memory loss, which in combination with the fact that they are disproportionately suffered by women, have caused physicians in the past to misdiagnose patients as either hysteric or demonically possessed. I explore antiphospholipid antibody syndrome and anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis’s …

George Eliot’S Middlemarch And Florence Nightingale: Friendship And Respect Influences Reform In Sanitation, Hospitals, And The Training Of Nurses, Kerrie A. Patterson

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

George Eliot and Florence Nightingale were certainly two of the most influential women of their Era. George Eliot was known for her genius at writing intelligent novels that address societal and historical issues, and Florence Nightingale was known for her work in sanitation reform, hospital design, and as the founder of nursing as a profession. These two women met when they were thirty two years old, and from that meeting onwards, they shared a friendship and a high regard for each other’s work. This paper explores the influence that Nightingale had on George Eliot’s novel, Middlemarch, and it explores the …

Blood, Water And Mars: Soviet Science And The Alchemy For A New Man, Sophie Y. Andarovna

All Master's Theses

The themes of blood, water and Mars in Soviet science and technology show the strong utopian and even religious foundations of Soviet society, which invariably centered around forging a new environment and, in so doing, a new variety of human to inhabit it. In the minds and experiments of some of the radical men behind Russia’s Revolution, blood was to create a more advanced, biologically “equal” humanity capable of potential immortality, while water was harnessed with the millenarian aim of transforming the Soviet Union’s vast landscape into fields of bountiful fertility, as well as cities of efficient industry. Mars represents …

Blasting The Farm: Chemical High Explosives And The Rise Of Industrial Agriculture, 1867-1930, Patrick Benjamin Swart

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

A Reciprocal Reaction: The Ussr Chemical Weapons Program And Its Influence On Soviet Society Through Three Civilian Groups, Yun Zhang

Honors Theses

Since its first mass application in 1915, chemical weapons (CW) have tolled thousands of lives both on and off the battle field. The USSR, despite its weak industrial basis and a late-starter in the field of chemical weaponry, held the largest stockpile of CW by the conclusion of the twentieth century. While the military and political implications of the USSR CW stockpiles have been relatively well-studied, its domestic and internal effect also deserve thorough investigations. Through diaries, letters, and memoirs of the USSR civilians who had suffered from, worked for, and/or supported the CW program, this research looked into the …