History Commons^™

Kicking & Streaming! Enhancing Digitally-Born Oral History Collections In Digital Commons, Autumn Johnson

Digital Commons Southeastern User Group 2020

Oral history collections pose unique challenges for archival institutions. Making these important histories available to researchers is often impeded by complex issues of access, privacy rights, and media obsolescence. These challenges are magnified when histories are digitally-born. Not only do they face the same issues as their analog counterparts, but digital materials have their own unique preservation and access issues with which archivists are still struggling to identify best practices. Digital Commons offers archivists a platform for sharing digitally-born oral histories that mitigate many of these complex issues. Not only does the platform allow for the consolidation of files from …

Pig Iron To Wrought Iron: Lake Oswego's Transformation From Iron Smelting To The Privatization Of Oswego Lake, Mathew K. Ragsdale

Young Historians Conference

The paper focuses on the interaction between Oregon's public trust doctrine, city ordinances, and private interests surrounding access to Oswego Lake. Areas of study include the early development of Lake Oswego with its prominence in the Oregon iron industry, and its transition from industrial town to weekend retreat to affluent suburb between the late 1800s and mid 1900s. The Lake Oswego Corporation has claimed power over all aspects of the lake, a notion disputed by Oregon's strong public trust doctrine. The city, whose duty is to all residents, has used the lake as a public asset while restricting access to …

The Use Of The Birth Control Movement As A Eugenics Weapon, 1920'S-1960'S, Peyton P. Holstein

Young Historians Conference

While Margaret Sanger made great strides in the crusade for legalization and open access to birth control for women, groups paired her work with ideologies such as Social Darwinism to arm the eugenics movement throughout the Twentieth-century. The eugenics movement was a culmination of racism and newly found scientific theories which led a crusade to purify the American population through reproductive cherry-picking on the basis of race. One of the primary ways that this group attempted to weed out “undesirable” races within the American population was through birth control as well as sterilization. These two movements - birth control and …

The Power Of A Prince: Machiavelli, Devotion, And The Secularization Of Western Politics, Jason D. Grossmann-Ferris

Young Historians Conference

3rd place winner of the Karen E. Hoppes Young Historians Award for Outstanding Research and Writing.

Although The Prince was clearly not well-recieved in its day by many, its influence is clear in modern realpolitik and the creation of the secular state. This paper examines the role of Machiavelli’s seminal work in Western politics within the timeline of the Catholic Church’s decline. In The Prince, Machiavelli clearly guides the reader towards the pragmatic political use of religion instead of legitimate belief, insinuating that faith is more useful as a tool for social control rather than personal conviction. This paper posits …

The Importance Of Richard Lionheart In The Third Crusade, Stefan Caplazi Mr.

Young Historians Conference

The impact that King Richard III of England had on the third crusade is apparent through his limited strategic victories on the battlefield. Richard III did well with his limited resources, but ultimately failed to retake Jerusalem. Due to unforeseeable events, Richard III lost his military support before embarking on much of the campaign to regain the Holy Land. These events proved detrimental to his task. While he was an excellent strategist and fearsome leader, Richard III simply lacked the resources and troops to succeed. This paper argues that with more military support, Richard “The Lionheart” would have retaken the …

You Don’T Need A Weatherman To Know Which Way The Wind Blows: The Prison Break Of Timothy Leary, Phoebe N. Holman

Young Historians Conference

This paper examines the revolutionary merit of the Weather Underground Organization’s prison break of LSD guru Timothy Leary. Was Leary truly an activist willing to risk everything to introduce the public to the healing powers of psychedelics? Or was he an unprofessional mad scientist using his students to further his own agenda? It also provides an explanation of how the WUO and other anti-war organizations like it brought the United States to the brink of a massive societal shift—and then disappeared.

The Spies That Founded America: How The War For Independence Revolutionized American Espionage, Masaki Lew

Young Historians Conference

Prior to the American Revolutionary War (1775-1883), tensions rose as American colonial smugglers circumvented British taxes. By the onset of the conflict, Continental General George Washington faced a daunting British military invasion. Washington's strategy to outmaneuver and tire enemy forces necessitated a way to anticipate incoming attacks. Thus, he looked to espionage, but found few colonists with professional experience. So who would have the deceptive skills to fulfill the task? An exploration of Washington’s dilemma provides compelling evidence explaining how the colonial smugglers who started the war became the Patriot spies who ended it.

Cairo Under Isma'il Pasha: A Divided City, Chloe N. Moehling

Young Historians Conference

The creation of the Suez Canal, in November of 1869, created an opportunity for Isma’il Pasha, Khedive of Egypt, to reintroduce the world to a new, Europeanized Cairo. His vision required spending millions of British pounds to welcome international travelers who came to celebrate the opening of the canal. Isma’il Pasha’s “Europeanization” of the western side of Cairo from 1866 to 1879 ushered his country into decades of economic and political turmoil. While Isma’il’s extravagant spending created European inspired hotels, parks, cafe’s, and the Khedivial Opera House, these expenditures left Egypt indebted to European countries, particularly Great Britain, and international …

A War Of Implicit Forces: The Algerian Revolution, Grace I. Graham

Young Historians Conference

The Algerian Revolution, Algeria’s fight against the colonial power of France epitomized the perseverance of the people’s voice. However, with few military battles won by the Algerians, against the resource rich France, how did Algeria ultimately become the victor? This paper explores the F.L.N.’s strategies in approaching the war and how France’s response to such tactics contributed to domestic and international sympathy for the Algerians’ cause, leading to the eventual liberation of Algeria.

Social, Scientific, Litigious: The Birth Of A Queer Americanism, Claire M. Fennell

Young Historians Conference

The queer rights movement is often assumed to have advanced because of the collateral benefit of other social rights movements occurring around the same time, in the 1950s and 60s. However, the inception of an organized queer rights movement did not happen in line with any progressive time in United States public thought. In reality, the movement began at a time when America was at its least forward-thinking, during the Cold War. It was not the times becoming more progressive, but rather the shift in the model of oppression the queer community faced which allowed for the advent of an …

280— Exploring The Geographic Distribution Of Childbed Fever Deaths In Mid-19th Century Rochester, Ny, Meaghan Parks

GREAT Day Posters

Childbed fever, formally called puerperal fever or puerperal septicemia, is an infection typically contracted by women after childbirth. Historically, childbed fever was a serious threat to maternal health. Childbed fever is caused by exposure of open wounds or abrasions, which are common after giving birth, to group A and B Streptococcal bacteria. Ignaz Semmelweis discovered that hand washing using a chlorinated solution reduced cases of childbed fever in 1847. This project reviews the instances of death from childbed fever in Rochester, New York from 1837-1860 and later from 1907-1919 and attempts to determine which areas of the city had the …

Whaling In Japan: Conflicts And Controversies, Ashley Harrell

Virginias Collegiate Honors Council Conference

From pre-historic to modern times, whales remain an exploitable resource, though in recent decades the controversy surrounding whaling has yielded economical, political, and social “double-standards” on a domestic and global scale. Through reading anti-whaling and international organization statements, government documents, and statistical data, this paper examines the history of three countries—Japan, Norway, and the U.S.—to compare the “double-standards” presented against Japan. Conflicts arise as a result of Japan’s choice to whale seen through its conflicts with anti-whaling organizations, international organizations, and other countries. Additionally, this paper compares whaling with certain western food practices, including foie gras and veal, to demonstrate …

A Partial Presence Is No Presence: Public History Institutions And The Danger Of Social Media, Alex Warren

Graduate Student Research Symposium

243.6 million people use social media in the United States alone: that is roughly ¾ of the population.[1] This massive audience gives the perception that, especially for smaller public history organizations, it is a simple and effective tool to reach their audiences. But this may not be the case. Although social media provides an opportunity to put forth information to a wide public audience in a way that would otherwise be near impossible for many non-profit organizations, the reality of a successful social media presence provides potentially catastrophic results for an unprepared organization.

Effective social media use requires consideration …

La Princesse Adrosis Fille De L'Empereur Hadrien: Sainte Et Martyre, Laila Fares

Showcase of Faculty Scholarly & Creative Activity

Le présent ouvrage est l’ensemble de leçons hebdomadaires que j’enseignai il y a quatorze ans. Le vif intérêt que témoignèrent mes étudiants à la princesse Adrosis m’avait encouragé à poursuivre l’histoire en prose, au-delà du petit poème que j’avais composé en 2003 au jour de sa fête célébrée au synexaire copte le 18 Hathor. Les questions de compréhension et de réflexion qui suivent chaque leçon peuvent servir dans un but didactique ou ludique. Vous pouvez en faire une activité de loisir ou d’enseignement pour l’édification et le développement spirituel de vos étudiants. L’histoire de la princesse Adrosis relève de l’histoire …

2020 Mlk Keynote Address: Michelle Alexander Presentation, Center For Social Equity & Inclusion, Michelle Alexander, Rosanne Somerson, Matthew Shenoda

Martin Luther King, Jr. Series

2020 MLK Series Keynote Michelle Alexander brings audiences profoundly necessary and meaningful insights on the practice of mass incarceration that plagues the US justice system, as well as eye-opening conversation on how we can end racial caste in America. Lecture Wednesday, January 22, 2020 at 5:30pm, RISD Auditorium, 17 Canal Walk, Providence, RI.

In her acclaimed bestseller The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Alexander peels back the curtain on systemic racism in the US prison system in a work that the New York Review of Books describes as "striking in the intelligence of her …

The Codification Of American Federalism: An Analysis Of Events Preceding The Ratification Of The United States Constitution, Timothy Spangler

Capstone Showcase

The focus of my project is American Federalism, a cornerstone of American political thought for centuries. American Federalism is a political system where power is divided between federated states and a central government, and the federated states retain a large portion of their original independence and police powers. The question this project seeks to answer is: How and why did the idea of a federated system, where the states retain their own sphere of sovereignty, become codified in American political thought? Scholars have attempted to answer this question, but their arguments look at American Federalism in a vacuum and ignore …