History Commons^™

Facets Of Courage: Colonel Charles Victor Deland And The American Civil War, Anthony P. Glesner

Masters Theses

This work constitutes a case study of a historical paradigm, that during the course of the Civil War civilians came to view the concepts of valor and virtue very much differently than soldiers, and that this caused tension within communities, both during the war, and after, when civilians continued to judge returning soldiers by an outdated sense of values, while the soldiers themselves, disillusioned by war, only wanted to forget. As time dimmed the memories of war, many veterans began to once again see it in terms of valor and virtue, and thus they reshaped their visions of war and …

"Permit Me Then Good Friends To Sing": Reflections, Reactions, And Manipulations In Civil War Songs, Joanne Thomas

Masters Theses

Musicologists, folklorists and historians agree that the music of the Civil War was a significant means of communication for Americans in all regions and classes. The popularity of music soared during the war, with songs about the war holding center stage. This study moves beyond the acknowledgment that these songs were an important means of communication to seeing what messages were being communicated by both professional and amateur songwriters. These lyricists criticized and praised behaviors, often pointing out the social acceptance or exclusion that could result from individual behaviors, made assumptions about and passed moral judgements on female, male, and …

Josiah Gorgas And The Richmond Ordnance Industry: The Arsenal Of The Confederacy, J. Michael Moore

History Theses & Dissertations

This study determines that Richmond, Virginia was the center of the Confederate domestic ordnance industry, and Josiah Gorgas, the Confederate Chief of Ordnance mobilized the city's industrial potential. Richmond's government ordnance facilities and private companies manufactured artillery, shoulder arms, ammunition, tools, and other ordnance materials that prolonged the war. In addition, Richmond became the center for Confederate ordnance research. Despite serious logistical problems, Gorgas supplied the Confederate Army's demand for arms and ammunition until 1865. Finally, Gorgas's mobilization of Confederate industry remains instructive for any nation going to war. These conclusions are based on extensive research of the National Archives …

The United State Government Versus John Harrison Surratt: A Study In Attitudes, Thomas Michael Martin

History Theses & Dissertations

The same day on which accused Abraham Lincoln murder conspirator Mary Eugenia Surratt was arrested at her Washington, D.C. boardinghouse, her son and alleged co-conspirator, John Harrison Surratt, was in a small town in northern New York. The arrest of the widow Surratt, however, marks the first of a series of points of departure between the destinies of the mother and the son. She was destined to follow a path from arrest to trial and execution by means of a military commission created by the War Department. John's circuitous route from trans-Atlantic flight to extradition, trial, and dismissal by a …

Representations Of Gender In Juvenile Literature During The Era Of The American Revolution, Sandra Strohhofer Pryor

History Theses & Dissertations

This study investigates representations of gender in fiction during the era of the American Revolution. Literature has an important role in creating and responding to cultural values, as well as in conveying ideologies. Through analysis of fictional stories for children, the simultaneous presence of themes of gender, religion, liberalism, and republicanism will be documented. Children's stories from England were reprinted in America after the Revolution. The continuity between late nineteenth century American success narratives and their early eighteenth century British precursors, as well as their gendered nature, will be demonstrated.

American fiction of the late eighteenth century foreshadowed both the …

The Role Of Plant Foods Among Native Americans In Seventeenth-Century Virginia An Historical And Botanical Study, Timothy W. Cameron

Institute for the Humanities Theses

Seventeenth-century Powhatan Indians practiced a subsistence economy utilizing plant resources from both the forest and wetland areas of Virginia to maintain adequate nutrition levels throughout the year. They chose not to depend heavily upon maize agriculture, but instead combined marine and animal resources with wild plants according to the seasonal round. Cultigens such as squash, beans, and maize provided dietary sources for only six months of the year; foraged plant foods made up the difference. Primary plant resources included nuts such as acorns, chestnuts, and hickory and the emergent tubers known as tuckahoe. Secondary plant foods, such as starchy seeds, …

The Martinsville Seven: Virginia's Most Controversial Court Case, 1949 - 1951, Michael Dean Plemmons

History Theses & Dissertations

In January, 1949 seven black youths were arrested and charged with brutally beating and raping a white woman in Martinsville, Virginia. The judicial process lasted over two years and gained national and international attention. The defendants were ultimately found guilty and sentenced to death for their ruthless crime. The conviction came as no surprise. The evidence was overwhelming, but the verdict created controversy. Some claimed the youths were victims of Jim Crowism while others believed the punishment was just.

This study explores the events of the case and determines why Martinsville was unique given patterns of racial unrest throughout the …

Lower Chesapeake Maritime Enterprise: 1781-1812, D. Dennis Duff

History Theses & Dissertations

The American Revolutionary War, officially concluded by the Treaty of Paris of 1783, forever changed American maritime enterprise. An examination of the response of Lower Chesapeake merchants to elimination of the British monopoly on American seagoing commerce reveals that Virginia shipping activity recovered quickly after the conflict, then expanded and prospered until the War of 1812. In addition to propelling the Commonwealth's post-war economic resurgence, Virginia's prosperous foreign trading interests influenced political decisions on Constitutional ratification, establishment of Confederation period and early national commercial policies, and diplomatic initiatives to strengthen American overseas exchange.

Principal sources include customs records of the …

Mid-Twentieth Century Pioneering Of The Royal Slope Of Central Washington, Ellis Wayne Allred

Graduate Student Projects

Pioneering of the Royal Slope in central Washington State is explored. Interviews with original settlers, especially those who arrived in 1955 and 1956, the first two years in which water from The Columbia Basin Project was available for farming on the Royal Slope, are the primary sources used. An overview of earlier attempts to settle the area without the benefit of water and power is also included.

Integration And Athletics: Integrating The Marshall University Basketball Program, 1954-1969, George M. Reger

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

In 1954, Marshall College followed the national law that banned segregation in the school systems of the United States. The law included the integration of athletic programs. While only a small part of the process, athletic programs often presented integration on a more visible stage than the integration of classrooms.

Labor At Home: The Domestic World Of Workers At The Du Pont Powder Mills, 1802-1902, Margaret M. Mulrooney

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

While the history of the du Pont family and Du Pont Company have been well-documented, little is known about the everyday lives of the Irish Catholic immigrants who lived and worked at the home plant near Wilmington, Delaware. to correct this oversight, "Labor at Home" explores every aspect of the powder workers' domestic world--from religious beliefs, family structure, gender relations, and ethnic ties, to houses, furnishings, and yards--and uses this data to support new conclusions about cultural identity and class affiliation. as early as the 1820s, for example, powder mill families began to convey their increasing affiliation with bourgeois American …

"As If I Were A Confederate Soldier": Mary Greenhow Lee And The Civil War She Waged In Winchester, Virginia, Sheila R. Phipps

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Trains, Trucks, And Traffic Jams: The Rise Of Automotive Transportation, 1880-1956, Anthony Roland Destefanis

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Economic Interdependence Along A Colonial Frontier: Capitalism And The New River Valley, 1745-1789, B. Scott Crawford

History Theses & Dissertations

Historians have generally placed the beginning of capitalism in the United States in the early- to mid-nineteenth century. This assumes that the industrialization of the New England states fostered in a modern economic environment for the country as a whole. However, evidence of modern economic principles existed on the Virginia frontier as early as the mid-eighteenth century. As frontier settlers aspired to emulate eastern society, they not only sought to recreate a lifestyle similar to the one they left behind, but also set up similar governing practices, which in turn created social stratification similar to that which existed in the …

Social And Economic Opportunity In Seventeenth-Century Charles County, Maryland, Garett William Hughes

History Theses & Dissertations

This study explores social and economic opportunity within Charles County in the context of the seventeenth-century and the founding of the Maryland colony. By illustrating the strong cross-Atlantic ties between England and the Chesapeake region, as well as the impact that a high population turnover rate and unsteady tobacco economy had upon the Maryland colony, this study first establishes the environment that those settlers who chose to immigrate to the Chesapeake inhabited. Further, by utilizing community connections, personal relations, and the legal system, the men and women of Charles County developed new methods in which to access opportunity. The source …

Fin De Siecle Diana: The New Woman Discovers The Maine Woods, Nan Cumming Ma

All Student Scholarship

Women's roles were in flux during the late nineteenth centuury and early twentieth century. Faced with neurasthenia and other health problems, many upper and middle class women accepted the suggestions of doctors and social reformers that they take more exercise, usually in the form of calisthenics and bicycling.The quest for genuine experience in the increasingly artificial and overpopulated cities brought many male sports to Maine's untamed woods and, by 1890, women joined them in increasing numbers.

This study explores the attraction that the Maine wilderness held for upper and middle class Victorian women.

Bridging The Cultural Divide: American Indians At Hampton Institute, 1878-1923., Jon Larsen Brudvig

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Puritan Town And Gown: Harvard College And Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1636--1800., John Daniel Burton

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Marston Parish 1654-1674: A Community Study, Jane Dillon Mckinney

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Lead Poisoning From The Colonial Period To The Present, Elsie Irene Eubanks

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

"I Rode Six Miles To Zion": The Experiences Of A Circuit Rider In Virginia, Joseph Servis

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Invisible Walls: Milliken V. Bradley And America's Urban Apartheid, Sonia E. Ingles

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

In 1954 the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education ruling nullified the Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) doctrine of "separate but equal." At the time, a racially dysfunctional America looked to the South to observe the results of the Court's sweeping statement. Few realized that, carried to its logical conclusion, the decision would necessarily bring into question the racial practices of every part of the nation. To the dismay of Northerners, blacks began to challenge the unofficial system of segregation which existed outside of the South. The most controversial aspect of this challenge centered around school desegregation and busing. When …

"So That I Get Her Again": African American Slave Women Runaways In Selected Richmond, Virginia Newspapers, 1830-1860, And The Richmond, Virginia Police Guard Daybook, 1834-1843, Leni Ashmore Sorensen

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Work And Play: Recreation And Reality In A Southern Female Textile World, Beth Anne English

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Segregation And The Politics Of Race: Mary Mcleod Bethune And The National Youth Administration, 1935-1943, Joel Bennett Hall

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Ship Of Wealth: Massachusetts Merchants, Foreign Goods, And The Transformation Of Anglo-America, 1670-1760, Phyllis Whitman Hunter

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

This study examines capitalism and cultural change in early New England. The research focuses on leading merchants in Boston and Salem, Massachusetts from the last third of the seventeenth century to 1760. During this period, merchants, royal officials, and professionals formed a prominent influential elite that refashioned the town landscape and social structure of colonial ports. Merchants adopted a new Anglo-American worldview that gradually supplanted Puritan spiritual and providential understanding of the world and, instead, emphasized visible, material characteristics as the source of value in science, commerce, and consumption. The resultant "world of goods," created a social marketplace where identity, …

"The Road To Ruins And Restoration": Roland W Robbins And The Professionalization Of Historical Archaeology, Donald Walter Linebaugh

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

Roland W. Robbins helped to pioneer the profession of historical archaeology. as the discipline professionalized, he found himself increasingly excluded. This study analyzes Robbins's career within the context of the disciplines of archaeology and historic preservation and considers the professionalization process, current cultural resource management practice, the value of early data, and the importance of public archaeology.;The study also explores archaeology as Robbins's solution to his long personal crisis of vocation. He reacted to his coming of age during the Depression by searching for personal foundations and also responded to larger cultural needs, including a quest for the roots of …

"Preserving Their Form And Features": The Role Of Coffins In The American Understanding Of Death, 1607-1870, Brent Warren Tharp

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

This dissertation is a study of the American coffin, its origins, forms, and meanings especially with regard to its role in the integration of death in American society before 1870. Coffins have generally been ignored by material culture studies primarily because of our society's cultural uneasiness with the topic of death. Current American funeral and burial practices seem bizarre and ahistorical and have often been characterized as the result of twentieth-century commercial greed. However, coffins have a long history as important artifacts which American society has used to legitimize death in subtly different ways for generations. This study examines the …

Facing Philadelphia: The Social Functions Of Silhouettes, Miniatures, And Daguerreotypes, 1760-1860, Anne Ayer Verplanck

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

In 1807, Charles Fraser lauded fellow miniature artist Edward Greene Malbone's ability to produce "such striking resemblances, that they will never fail to perpetuate the tenderness of friendship, to divert the cares of absence, and to aid affection in dwelling on those features and that image which death has forever wrested from it." The explanations traditionally given for the commissioning of portraits--the perpetuation of family or institutional memory--correspond with Fraser's comments. Yet these explanations rarely incorporate the social context: the communities in which images were produced and the individual, familial, or group meanings of portraits.;"Facing Philadelphia: The Social Functions of …

Annie Wood: A Portrait, Jo Ann Mervis Hofheimer

Institute for the Humanities Theses

In 1871, Anna Cogswell Wood and Irene Kirke Leache founded a school for girls in Norfolk, Virginia which had a profound influence on the community. The Leache-Wood Seminary became Norfolk's center for cultural pursuits. After the death of Irene Leache in 1900, Annie Wood established a memorial to perpetuate her friend's interest in literature, music, art, drama, and spiritual studies. Wood began a number of cultural programs which grew to shape the cultural life of the town in remarkable ways, leading directly to the Virginia Symphony, the Norfolk Little Theater, the Irene Leache Memorial, the Norfolk Society of Arts, and …