History Commons^™

Peculiar And Proper Habits: The Use And Production Of Academic Dress In Colonial, Revolutionary, And Federal Philadelphia, Nicholas Heavens

Transactions of the Burgon Society

This is a study of the adoption and use of academic dress at the University of Pennsylvania and its predecessor institutions, the College of Philadelphia and University of the State of Pennsylvania from approximately 1750–1830. Despite early interest of the College’s founder, Benjamin Franklin, to use academic dress to monitor student activities outside college bounds, there was soon contentious debate between the institution’s founding senior academics about whether academic dress should be used at all. By sheer force of will of its leading proponent, academic dress came into use at public ceremonies. These public ceremonies became a model for public …

Alternative Application Of Oral History In The Secondary Classroom, Alan English

Educational Considerations

While oral history has been demonstrated to hold potential as a more engaging and rigorous alternative to textbook-centered instruction, it has also failed to replace textbooks as the mainstream methodology in high school classrooms. Here, the author presents oral history data from Jim Walch, a WWII, Korean War, and Vietnam War veteran who “retired” as a Red Cross emergency relief worker as well as sample classroom activities derived from that data. The objective is that these sample activities may be received as more approachable than traditional oral history methodology to secondary teachers who are accustomed to textbook-based instruction. It is …

An “Indian” American Congressman: Dalip Singh Saund’S Indian Heritage And His 1956 Journey To Congress, Bhadrajee S. Hewage

Crossing Borders: A Multidisciplinary Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship

Indian Americans have managed to become one of the most successful minority communities in the United States. With the rise of politicians such as Kamala Harris, Nikki Haley, and Bobby Jindal, Indian Americans have also reached the upper echelons of U.S. political life. Yet half a century ago, a very different picture emerges. Coming to the U.S. just three years after the 1917 Immigration Act which effectively barred Asian immigration, Dalip Singh Saund progressed from student to citizen to the U.S.’s first Asian Congressman over a period of thirty-six years. With his meteoric rise coming at a time when attitudes …

“You’Re In Apple Land But You Are A Lemon:” Connection, Collaboration, And Division In Early ‘70s Indian Country, John T. Truden

Online Journal of Rural Research & Policy

In the first years of the 1970s, Indian Country became paradoxically more interwoven and yet also more divided. Three case studies from Oklahoma’s Indigenous communities illustrate this transformation. Beginning in the mid-1960s, a boom in Indigenous media allowed Indigenous people to communicate far more quickly over once prohibitive distances. In western Oklahoma, Southern Cheyenne parents relied upon Navajo ideas to form their own indigenous controlled school in early 1973. As a result of these exchanges between previously removed people, new indigenous communities emerged along ideological lines rather than those of tribal citizenship or ethnic identity. A few months earlier, the …

Feeding Victory: 4-H, Extension, And The World War Ii Food Effort, Katherine Sundgren

Online Journal of Rural Research & Policy

4-H and the Extension Service were instrumental in contributing to the nationwide increase in food production that sustained the United States and its armed forces during World War II. At the onset of the war, the Extension Service distributed essential information at the national, state, and local levels through universities and the 4-H program. 4-H drew upon the intellectual and cultural tradition that they had cultivated to motivate and organize the food effort and help the allies win the war. 4-H’s national influence and resources provided eager allies to war-oriented programs. The war had a lasting impact on 4-H as …

Utilizing Project-Based Learning To Increase Engagement And Performance In The High School Classroom, Alan English

Prairie Journal of Educational Research

Abstract

Project-based learning was incorporated into a high school American History course unit where students were expected to write an original history of the Vietnam War based exclusively on primary sources. Throughout the school year, students working as a collective unit worked to raise funds at school events for the purpose of surprising a class guest speaker, a Vietnam veteran, with a sponsored flight to Washington D.C. through Kansas Honor Flights. In addition to creating an experience of civic participation, student engagement (as measured by rate of completion of the project) and performance (as measured by average grade on the …

The Hidden Cost Of Brown V. Board: African American Educators' Resistance To Desegregating Schools, Mallory Lutz

Online Journal of Rural Research & Policy

This article focuses on the black community in Topeka during the first half of the twentieth century. Using archival sources such as the black press, letters from educators and administrators to state officials and newspapers, and correspondence from black teachers in Topeka, I examine the reasons some African American teachers, administrators, and families were hesitant to desegregate the public school system. Additional sources include the Kansas Historical Society’s archival holdings, including governors’ files and court cases, as well as the papers of Mamie Williams, an African American teacher. Some black Topekans feared desegregation because they believed it would harm students …

The Knights Of The Front: Medieval History’S Influence On Great War Propaganda, Haley E. Claxton

Crossing Borders: A Multidisciplinary Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship

Spanning a number of academic areas, “Knights of the Front: Medieval History’s Influence on Great War Propaganda” focuses on the emergence of medieval imagery in the First World War propaganda. Examining several specific uses of medieval symbolism in propaganda posters from both Central and Allied powers, the article provides insight into the narrative of war, both politically and culturally constructed. The paper begins with an overview of the psychology behind visual persuasion and the history behind Europe’s cultural affinity for “chivalry,” then continues into specific case studies of period propaganda posters that hold not only themes of military glory and …