History Commons^™

Growing Wild: Crested Wheatgrass And The Landscape Of Belonging, Lafe Gerald Conner

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Crested wheatgrass arrived in North America at the turn of the twentieth century through the foreign plant exploration missions sponsored by the United States Department of Agriculture. During the first two decades of the new century, scientists tested the grass at agricultural experiment stations. They determined it was useful for grazing and particularly valuable because it could grow in drought conditions with little or no care and would continue to produce high quality feed even after several years of heavy use. Beginning in the 1930s federally sponsored land utilization and agricultural adjustment programs sponsored the use of crested wheatgrass for …

Combining Environmental History And Soil Phytolith Analysis At The City Of Rocks National Reserve: Developing New Methods In Historical Ecology, Lesley Morris

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Historical ecology is an emerging and interdisciplinary field that seeks to explain the changes in ecosystems over time through a synthesis of information derived from human records and biological data. The methods in historical ecology cover a wide range of temporal and spatial scales. However, methods for the more recent past (about 200 years) are largely limited to the human archive and dendrochronological evidence which can be subject to human bias, limited in spatial extent or not appropriate for non-forested systems. There is a need to explore new methods by which biological data can be used to understand historic vegetation …

The Improved Acre: The Besse Farm As A Case Study In Landclearing, Abandonment, And Reforestation, Theresa Kerchner

Maine History

From the vantage of the twenty-first century, it seems remarkable that farmers, working with only hand tools and farm animals, converted over half of New England’s “primeval” forests to tillage and pasture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This period was marked by transitions as farmers responded to new markets, changing family values, and declining natural resources. These forces brought an end to agrarian expansion and caused New England’s iconic pastoral landscape to begin to revert to forestland. A case study based on the former Jabez Besse, Jr. farm in central upland Maine provides a link to New England’s agricultural …

Burnt Harvest: Penobscot People And Fire, James Eric Francis Sr.

Maine History

The scientific and ethnographic record confirms the fact that in southern New England, Indians used fire as a forest management tool, to facilitate travel and hunting, encourage useful grasses and berries, and to clear land for agriculture. Scholars have long suggested that agricultural practices, and hence these uses of fire, ended at the Saco or Kennebec, with Native people east of this divide less likely to systematically burn their forests. This article argues that Native people on the Penobscot River used fire, albeit in more limited ways, to transform the forest and create a natural environment more conducive to their …

Alfred Russel Wallace, Journalist, Charles H. Smith

DLPS Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Alfred Russel Wallace, Journalist, Charles H. Smith

Charles H. Smith

No abstract provided.

From Agriculture To Industry: Silk Production And Manufacture In Maine 1800-1930, Jacqueline Field

Maine History

Sericulture or silk production is an agricultural activity that involves mulberry cultivation, raising silkworms, and reeling (unwinding) filament (raw silk) from cocoons. Silk manufacture involves a mechanical means of throwing (spinning) raw silk into usable threads and making textiles. This article examines Maine’s role in the American silk industry from early sericulture, mulberry growing, and small-scale hand production to twentieth-century industrialized manufacturing and the production of hitherto unimaginable quantities of silk fabrics. Most specifically, the objective is to show that although Maine’s participation in this effort may not have been as dominant or as well-documented as that of other New …

Farms To Forests In Blue Hill Bay: Long Island, Maine, Kristen Hoffman

Maine History

Disturbance histories are important factors in determining the composition and structure of today’s forests, and not least among these disturbances is the human use of the land. Land clearing in Maine peaked in 1880 at six and a half million acres, beginning on the coast and lower river valleys and spreading northward and eastward. The forests of Maine’s coastal islands have endured a longer period of clearing than any other in the state. Long Island, located in Blue Hill Bay, was first settled in 1779, primarily by farmers. Sheep-herding, lumbering, fishing, and granite quarrying provided supplemental livelihoods. By 1920 all …

Alfred Russel Wallace, Journalist, Charles H. Smith

Charles Kay Smith

No abstract provided.

Manning, Allen, 1864-1950 (Sc 1762), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 1762. Journal of farm work done by Allen Manning and his co-workers for Mrs. Underwood of Warren County, Kentucky. He makes note of the weather and its effect on the crops.

Ford, Marion Conner, 1888-1940 (Sc 1720), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 1720. Correspondence related to Marion Conner Ford's position as director of the Ogden Department of Science at Western Kenktucky State Teachers College and his involvement with the College's farms.

Warren County, Kentucky Garden Club - Scrapbook, 1933-1956 (Sc 1740), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 1740. Scrapbook compiled by Ethel Alma Folllin containing minutes, news clippings, programs, etc. related to the activities of the Warren County Garden Club and its members.

Winstead, Joe Everett, 1938-2019 - Collector (Sc 1690), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 1690. Correspondence between Western Kentucky University students and members of Kentucky's congressional delegation related to air pollution and its potential effects on the state's agricultural economy.

Stamps, Rosalyn Marie (Gourley), 1919-2008 - Collector (Mss 223), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 223. Three recipe books collected by Rosalyn Marie (Gourley) Stamps; eight yearbooks, correspondence, and miscellaneous items from the Mabel Thomas Garden Club, Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Price, Sarah Frances "Sadie," 1849-1903 (Mss 212), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 212. Journal articles, scrapbook and botanical illustrations of Sarah Frances "Sadie" Price, a Bowling Green, Kentucky naturalist and artist. Also includes a copy of her book "Flora of Warren County, Kentucky" and a botanical card game, "Phaenogamia," that she developed.

Big Bobby Bonaduce: Still Searching For The Rink Of Dreams, Don Morrow

Donald Morrow

No abstract provided.

Independent Strawberry Growers' Association - Bowling Green, Kentucky (Sc 1640), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 1640. Minutes, membership lists, financial reports and sundry forms from the Independent Strawberry Growers Association, Bowling Green, Kentucky. Includes picking card with agreement to pick for season on back. Two related photographs from the Kentucky Library & Museum Collection are included as additional files.

Drake, James F. (Sc 1644), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 1644. Letter from James F. Drake, Lexington, Kentucky to John Allen Gano, Centerville, Bourbon County, Kentucky, inquiring about a milk cow he has advertised for sale.

Landscape Of The Past: The 1815 Log House At Western Kentucky University, Elizabeth Alewine

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The 1815 Log House is located on the campus of Western Kentucky University. Built in the early 1800's by Archibald Felts, the house was occupied by his descendants until 1968. The dogtrot floor plan, V-notched logs, and stone chimneys are some of the historical architectural features that can be viewed. It was donated to the Kentucky Library & Museum at WKU in 1980, and now serves as an on-site exhibit of early frontier life in Kentucky. The new landscape design for the log house includes a kitchen garden with period-appropriate plants and outdoor demonstration areas. The inventories and journals of …

Stomping The Shadow: The Elevation Of Snowboarding To The Olympic Pedestal From A Jungian Perspective, M. Popovic, Don Morrow

Donald Morrow

No abstract provided.

South Central Kentucky Audubon Society (Mss 205), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Papers, newsletters, minutes and yearbooks of the South Central Kentucky Audubon Society. Also includes correspondence related to the establishment of the Society in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

'Hussel,' 'Bussel' And 'Kussel,' Or, Using Google Books To Stalk The Elusive Alfred Russel Wallace, Charles H. Smith

DLPS Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Volume 01, Jessica Fields, Stephanie Neeley, Derek W. Hambright, Mary E. Lehman, Andrew R. Grzankowski, Zachary Johnson, Boone M. Prentice, Ashley M. Swandby, Victoria Morgan, Katie Williamson, Kristine G. Bender, Katelyn N. Romaine, D. Nicole Swann, Jessica Fox, Mike Mcateer, Alex Grabiec, Laura Nodtvedt, Nick Costa, Rachel Wolfe, Zack Dalton

Incite: The Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship

Introduction from Dean Dr. Charles Ross

Three Decades of Digging: Undergraduate Archeology at Longwood by Jessica Fields and Stephanie Neeley

Interactions of Allelopathy and Heat Stress in Plants by Derek W. Hambright and Mary E. Lehman

Inertial Electrostatic Confinement D-D Fusion Device: Construction and Simulation by Andrew R. Grzankowski

Shackled Nim by Zachary Johnson

Development of GC-MS and Chemometric Methods for the Analysis of Accelerants in Arson Cases by Boone M. Prentice

A Comparison of Image Analysis Methods in cDNA Microarrays by Ashley M. Swandby

Perceived Sexual Activity of Short and Long-Term Relationships by Victoria Morgan and Katie Williamson

Elderly …

The Dandy Scroll, Spring 2008, University Of Maine Pulp And Paper Foundation

General University of Maine Publications

The Spring 2008 issue of The Dandy Scroll newsletter produced by the University of Maine Pulp and Paper Foundation.

Recommended By Duncan Hines, Donna C. Parker, Jonathan J. Jeffrey

SCL Faculty and Staff Publications

Businessman, salesman, kitchen inspector, lover of comfortable lodgings, and connoisseur of good food - - this was the man Duncan Hines. This presentation explores the life and work of Duncan Hines from his days growing up in Warren County, Kentucky, through his career as a travel writer, and finally to his rise as a brand name in the world of packaged goods. The presentation highlights scenes from The Kentucky Library and Museum exhibit “Recommended by Duncan Hines.”

Trapped In The Creation Museum, Stephen Asma

Stephen T Asma

Into the swampy debate over evolution has waded the new Creation Museum, in Petersburg, Ky. In an America divided between those who accept Darwin's theories and those who believe God created the world in six days, it seeks to win moderates and compromisers over to its side. Shortly after the museum opened last spring, I made a pilgrimage to witness this quirky new spectacle of Americana...

History: The Birth Of "America" In 1882, Robert H.I. Dale

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

This article concerns a New York Times story about the birth of the female Asian elephant calf, named America, at the winter headquarters of the "Greatest Show on Earth" in Bridgeport, Connecticut on February 2, 1882. Phineas T. Barnum, one of the owners of the show, and one prone to self-aggrandizing bluster, claimed that America was the second elephant ever born in captivity. America was born only to months before the arrival in New York of the most famous circus elephant of all time, Jumbo, on Easter Sunday, 1882, and only two years before the origin of a small wagon …

Wallace, Spiritualism, And Beyond: "Change," Or "No Change"?, Charles H. Smith

DLPS Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

'Hussel,' 'Bussel' And 'Kussel,' Or, Using Google Books To Stalk The Elusive Alfred Russel Wallace, Charles H. Smith

Charles H. Smith

No abstract provided.

Sugar Industry In The South, John Alfred Heitmann

History Faculty Publications

Cane sugar is a key commodity in international trade and an important component of the modern diet. At one time or another, sugar cane was grown commercially in Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Texas, Louisiana, and Florida. During the 19th century, south Louisiana was the focal point of this dynamic industry; beginning in the mid-20th century, however, the center of innovative activities shifted to Florida.