History Commons^™

A Historical Comparative Analysis Of Executions In The United States From 1608 To 2009, Emily Jean Abili

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The death penalty has been a contested issue throughout American history. The United States has been executing offenders since Jamestown became a colony in 1608 (Allen & Clubb, 2008). Since that time, many issues have been raised about the death penalty including whether or not it is moral, discriminatory, or a deterrent.

This study examines the history of executions, including lynchings, in the United States from 1608 to 2009 using a variety of sociological theories on law and society. Some of the research questions that guide this project are:

* What is the nature of change in the relative prevalence …

House Broken: The Functions And Contradictions Of "Housing First", Brian Richard Hennigan

Theses - ALL

"Housing first" is the new orthodoxy for homelessness policy in the United States, a program design expected to end homelessness once and for all. Unlike the traditional "treatment first" model, housing first places the most expensively homeless individuals immediately into an apartment (with treatment following). Although certainly different from the treatment first model due to its prioritization of housing, housing first remains a product of neoliberal poverty governance. By examining program operations in greater Phoenix, Arizona, it is clear that housing first proceeds as a stigma-reproducing rehabilitation program of socioeconomic discipline that works in tandem with anti-homeless laws and service …

Women And The Second Estate In 16th Century Zambezia: Gendered Powers, A 'Puppet' African Queen And Succession In Vakaranga Society, 1500–1700, George G. Levin

Master's Theses

Women in vaKaranga society of the 15th to 17th centuries have been portrayed as oppressed by an "extremely patriarchal" system, but the reality, while still fitting the simple classification of a 'patriarchal' monarchy, indicates quite a bit more negotiation of gendered powers than women, as a class, experienced in the Mediterranean or East Asia. The vaKaranga were the architects of Great Zimbabwe, the capital of a growing state, colonizing their cousins of the Zambezi river, which their Kusi-Mashariki Bantu forefathers had traversed southward a millennium before. Civil war had (apparently) split one nation into two states, Mutapa (Monomotapa) and Khami …

Critical Politics In A Neoliberal Institution: Gay And Lesbian Organizing At Swarthmore College, 1988-1993, Ali Roseberry-Polier , '14

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

This paper studies gay and lesbian organizing at Swarthmore as part of national trends of neoliberalism, multiculturalism, and queer politics in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Students in this period achieved numerous concrete gains and institutional resources, particularly the establishment of an annual gay and lesbian studies conference and the Intercultural Center. In the process, they entered into new coalitions with each other, changing the way that students conceptualized identity and engaged with the school. Change was limited due to Swarthmore's corporate priorities and the challenges of achieving cultural transformation, but the process of organizing marked a valuable way …

The Consolidation Of The Consociational Democracy In Lebanon: The Challenges To Democracy In Lebanon, Micheline Germanos Ghattas

Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation looks at democracy in Lebanon, a country that has a pluralistic society with many societal cleavages. The subject of this study is the consolidation of democracy in Lebanon, described by Arend Lijphart as a "consociational democracy". The research question and sub-question posed are:

1- How consolidated is democracy in Lebanon?

2- What are the challenges facing the consolidation of democracy in Lebanon?

The preamble of the 1926 Lebanese Constitution declares the country to be a parliamentary democratic republic. The political regime is a democracy, but one that is not built on the rule of the majority in numbers, …

Battle For The Mountains: Restructuring Extractive Production And The Socio-Ecological Crisis In West Virginia's Coalfields, Ben Marley

Geography and the Environment - Theses

The coalfields of southern West Virginia have faced recurring crises linked to its regional political economy. Today's crisis is constituted by the decimation on the United Mine Workers of America and the greater use of mountaintop removal coal mining in conjunction with policies and market conditions. This thesis argues that crisis in southern West Virginia's coalfields, like previous crises, will mean the reorganization of human and extra-human natures in which social movements along with economic conditions play an integral role in transcending the crisis. Tracing the history of crises in southern West Virginia's coalfields and interviewing retired coal miners, community …

Rural Revolution: Documenting The Lesbian Land Communities Of Southern Oregon, Heather Jo Burmeister

Dissertations and Theses

Out of the politically charged atmosphere of the 1960s and 1970s emerged a migration to "the land" and communes, which popularly became known as the back-to-the-land movement. This migration occurred throughout the United States, as well as many other countries, and included clusters of land based communities in southern Oregon. Within these clusters, lesbian feminist women created lesbian separatist lands and communes. These women were well educated, and politically active in movements such as the New Left, Civil Rights, Women's Liberation, and Gay Liberation. These lands or communes functioned together as a community network that developed and commodified lesbian art, …

"Listen To The Wild Discord": Jazz In The Chicago Defender And The Louisiana Weekly, 1925-1929, Sarah A. Waits

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This essay will use the views of two African American newspaper columnists, E. Belfield Spriggins of the Louisiana Weekly and Dave Peyton of the Chicago Defender, to argue that though New Orleans and Chicago both occupied a primary place in the history of jazz, in many ways jazz was initially met with ambivalence and suspicion. The struggle between the desire to highlight black achievement in music and the effort to adhere to tenets of middle class respectability play out in their columns. Despite historiographical writings to the contrary, these issues of the influence of jazz music on society were …

Contemporary Perceptions Of The Solidarity Movement Held By Polish Nationals, Nathan P. Buhr

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Widespread participation in the 1980s Solidarity movement by Polish nationals of both genders, varying ideologies, and differing political backgrounds has led to diverse views of the history and narrative of the movement that today is interpreted in differing ways by groups and individuals. To gain a better understanding of how Poles view this unique time period of their history a survey featuring 54 questions was dispatched to and completed by over 121 Polish nationals. All questions relate to the Solidarity movement in categories covering: Prominent People, Media, Economics, Religion, and Education and concluding with a free-write section for additional comments …

Anabaptist Masculinity In Reformation Europe, Adam Michael Bonikowske

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis studies the connections between the Anabaptist movement during the Protestant Reformation and the alternative masculinities that developed during sixteenth-century Europe. It argues that Anabaptist men challenged traditional gender norms of European society, and through their unique understanding of the Reformation's message of salvation, these men constructed new ideas about masculinity that were at odds with Protestant and Catholic culture. Anabaptist men placed piety and ethics at the center of reform, and argued for the moral improvement of Christians. In separation from Catholics and mainstream Protestants, Anabaptists created a new culture that exhibited behavior often viewed as dangerous. The …

Feet In The South, Eyes To The West: Fort Smith Enters The Sunbelt, Adam Morrison Carson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines the political realignment of Fort Smith, Arkansas and argues that the standard historiographical argument about the process of realignment does not explain what occurred in this city. Much of the historiography of political realignment currently revolves around the belief in a white backlash against the federal government and the national Democratic Party for their support of African American civil rights. Though historians have moved toward a "suburban synthesis" that downplays the backlash thesis, historians still argues that many white southerners moved to the suburbs to avoid integration.

I argue that this process did not occur in the …

Who We Are: Incarcerated Students And The New Prison Literature, 1995-2010, Reilly Hannah N. Lorastein

Honors Projects

This project focuses on American prison writings from the late 1990s to the 2000s. Much has been written about American prison intellectuals such as Malcolm X, George Jackson, Eldridge Cleaver, and Angela Davis, who wrote as active participants in black and brown freedom movements in the United States. However the new prison literature that has emerged over the past two decades through higher education programs within prisons has received little to no attention. This study provides a more nuanced view of the steadily growing silent population in the United States through close readings of Openline, an inter-disciplinary journal featuring …

Cooking Up A Course: Food Education At Pomona College, Christina A. Cyr

Pomona Senior Theses

Cooking skills are important but declining, with significant health, social, cultural, political, economic, and environmental implications. Food and cooking education can begin to address some of the negative effects of the cooking skills decline. This thesis makes the case for cooking classes in the education system, especially in higher education. The paper begins with a history of cooking education and skills, outlines the implications of the decline in skills, and discusses the potential for cooking education in higher education. The second part consists of a course syllabus, designed for Pomona College. The third section includes a discussion of the implementation …

Claiming Citizenship: Las Vegas' Conventional Women's Organizations Establishing Citizenship Through Civic Engagement, Cynthia Cicero

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Many historians of American women portray women's organized civic engagement and work to attain social, economic, and legal equality as feminism. American feminism has been expanded and applied in scholarship. The American feminists of the 1960s wanted to alter the male power structure and redefine conventional notions of womanhood. However, many middle-class women who participated in community and civic organizations valued their roles as wives, mothers, and homemakers, expressing their citizenship and community work as an extension of these roles. Their motivation in pursuing equality was to gain full citizenship status.

In this thesis, I argue that viewing women's civic …

Desde Una Identidad Transnacional A La Hibridez: La Formación De La Nueva Identidad Nikkei En La Población Japonesa En El Perú, Nina Pincus

Scripps Senior Theses

Over the past century, the Japanese community in Peru has grown to be the second largest in South America. Their arrival and subsequent success in small businesses posed a threat to the Peruvian attempt to “whiten” their population. Because of this, racial conflicts arose between the Japanese and Peruvians, leading to the widespread “Yellow Peril” epidemic. Anti-Japanese sentiments caused immigration reduction laws and in the years leading up to WWII, tensions grew. During this time, the Japanese community remained ethnically close, maintaining transnational ties with Japan. This changed after the war, when their sojourner mentality changed to the permanence of …

Separating The Whites From The Chaff: Whiteness, Blackness, Racial Exclusion In The Midwest Agrarian Mind, Philip Mohr

Masters Theses

This thesis approaches the construction of race through the vantage of one agrarian magazine, the Prairie Farmer. It analyzes the rhetoric of the people who wrote for this magazine to distinguish changing attitudes toward whiteness and blackness in the rural and agricultural Midwest from the end of the Civil War to the Great Migration. While whiteness was equated with what the Prairie Farmer saw as the active, progressive farmer, blackness was associated with stupidity, laziness, and threat to property. From this, the thesis argues we can build a base of knowledge from which to analyze the roots of racism …