History Commons^™

Rethinking Resistance: The Gaspee Incident In The Context Of Rhode Island’S Slave Economy, Hayley Lonergan

History & Classics Student Scholarship

Major: History

Makeup During World War Ii: How Consumer Cosmetics Became An Essential Product, Georgina Lau

History & Classics Student Scholarship

Major: History
Minors: Marketing and Dance

Feigned Compliance: The Japanese American Response To Incarceration During Wwii In Light Of Issei And Nisei Conflict, Mary Rose Comerford

History & Classics Student Scholarship

Major: History

The formation of exclusively Nisei organizations in the 1930s contributed to their rise in community leadership. When WWII began, these Nisei-led groups collaborated with the War Relocation Authority (WRA), which created a narrative of Japanese American compliance. This is evidenced in internment camp newspapers.

Rebranding The Native: Selling The ‘Ideal’ Indigenous Worker At The Carlisle Indian Industrial School, 1879-1918, Luke Prior

History & Classics Student Scholarship

Luke Prior ’22
Major: History/Secondary Education
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Alexander Orquiza, History and Classics

The Carlisle Indian Industrial School sought to recreate the image of the Native American from the savage brute of the past and the lazy free-loader who lived off the government ration to an ‘ideal’ worker who was a productive member of the American economy. In doing so, the school stripped students of their cultures and replaced them with American ideals. A very small minority of those at Carlisle used what they learned to fight against the assimilationist mission of the school.

An Unread Colonial Diary, Brigid Mcevoy

History & Classics Student Scholarship

Brigid McEvoy ’23
Majors: History and Spanish
Minors: Business and Innovation and Latin American Studies
Mentor: Dr. Adrian Weimer, History and Classics

Through funding from a Veritas Research Grant, I deciphered the Shelton shorthand writing of the second volume of Michael Wigglesworth's diary, digitized through the New England Hidden Histories project. Wigglesworth was a famous poet and preacher in early New England. One of the chief purposes of deciphering this second volume was to create a more nuanced perspective on Wigglesworth's life and artistic career.

This diary, written from March 1658 through November 1687, includes both longhand and shorthand writing. …

Race Films & American Society, Angie Pierre

History & Classics Student Scholarship

Angie Pierre ’25
Major: Global Studies
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Alyssa Lopez, History and Classics

This project will explore Black cinema, specifically the race film industry and its relationship to Black identity and American society. Through an analysis of a number of early race films and archival documents from the 1920s, the project seeks to reveal how these films contributed to positive political, social and economic changes in Jim Crow America. Ultimately, the successes of race film pioneers are reflected throughout Black film history and the Black films we still watch today.

Terrible Terrell: The Forgotten Story Of Carolyn Daniels, Olivia Moll

History & Classics Student Scholarship

Olivia Moll ’22
Major: History
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Alyssa Lopez, History and Classics

My thesis explores the participation of black women in the Civil Rights Movement, more specifically the contribution from Carolyn Daniels. Daniels is a mother and SNCC activist from Terrell County, and her story has yet to be told. I am here to tell Daniels’s story; her success towards the SNCC voting registration project that took place in the summer of 1962. The beauty of the Civil Rights Movement is that everyone’s story and activism matters, especially the story of women.

Immigration In The 1990s And The Imagery Of Bruce Springsteen’S The Ghost Of Tom Joad, Sarah Heavren

History & Classics Student Scholarship

Immigration is a heavily discussed political issue today, but it has roots in preceding decades as well as in American migration patterns. In the 1990s, Bruce Springsteen released his album The Ghost of Tom Joad to comment on the contemporary immigration issues by connecting the plight of the modern immigrants to the struggles of the Depression-era migrants. The album balances direct references to Mexican immigrants and U.S. Border Patrol officers with the ghosts of the past, particularly John Steinbeck’s character Tom Joad. To provide context to support the connection that Springsteen drew between current immigration issues and the westward migration …

Abraham Lincoln And Unionism In East Tennessee, Cameron Smith

History & Classics Student Scholarship

Often, the American Civil War finds itself painted in classrooms across the country as a conflict of clear-cut ideologies in the North and South. The citizens of the northern states wished to preserve the sacred Union, and northern forces fought valiantly while invading a rebellious South. The Unionists of eastern Tennessee put to rest the false generalization that all southerners were loyal to the Confederate States of America, as their struggle throughout the war on the behalf of the Union was a long and bloody event. On June 8, 1861, Tennessee voted to secede from the United States. The vote …

The Trent Affair: Avoiding A Possible Crisis During The Civil War, Alison Patterson

History & Classics Student Scholarship

In November 1861, Union Naval Captain Charles Wilkes seized the Trent, a British mailing ship, because it was transporting two Confederate diplomats, John Slidell and James Mason. Wilkes captured the two Confederate representatives due to what he considered were treasonous actions against the Union, but he did so without any orders from the Union government. Under a proclamation issued by the Queen of Britain at the start of the Civil War, Britain recognized the Confederacy as a belligerent and was not supposed to transport the dispatches of Slidell and Mason because international law considered them contraband. Yet, by acknowledging the …

The Accidental Martyr, Shannon Moore

History & Classics Student Scholarship

Hayward Shepherd, a black railroad porter in Harper’s Ferry, was the first man killed in John Brown’s raid, an insurrection intended to free Shepherd’s own race from the grips of slavery. Many Democratic newspapers in both the North and South initially reported that Brown’s men shot Shepherd specifically because he refused to take up arms on the side of the abolitionists. Republican presses instead tended to use passive phrases when describing Shepherd’s death, suggesting that they did not want to report the fact that an anti-slavery group had killed a free black man. These moderate presses remained far less opinionated …

The American Nightmare: The Ford Edsel Flop And Sputnik Terror, Nicholas Moran

History & Classics Student Scholarship

During the late 1950s, it seemed everyone was pelting Ford Motor Company’s ill-fated Edsel. What was supposed to be the car of the future and an emblem of American prestige had turned into a symbol of America’s sharp decline. Two years earlier, Ford promised consumers riding on the waves of economic good times that they would no longer have to settle for their old entry-level Ford’s. Instead of allowing middle-class Ford customers to defect to General Motor’s flashy medium-price brands that showed personality and prestige, in 1957 Ford launched the Edsel as the perfect car for these “professional...famil[ies].” Yet soon …

A Dream Deferred: The United States' Role In The Development Of The Kurdistan Regional Government (Krg) From 1991 – 2011, John Bugnacki

History & Classics Student Scholarship

Throughout the history of the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), the United States has both supported and undermined Kurdish nationalism depending upon changing geopolitical realities. In particular, the U.S. has sought to mollify important regional partners such as Turkey that possess large Kurdish populations who would presumably secede if the KRG were able to demonstrate the viability of an independent, Kurdish state. Despite its general policy of realpolitick, during the Iraq War, the U.S. embarked upon a period of nearly unprecedented positive support to the KRG, which allowed it to emerge as a major force in post-Saddam Iraq. However, the …

Socialist Utopian Communities In The U.S. And Reasons For Their Failures, Elizabeth Nako

History & Classics Student Scholarship

Near mid-nineteenth century, dozens of groups of men and women in both North America and Europe at this time saw “forming communities as the best opportunity for social progress.” While a small number of men enjoyed the luxuries and riches with the benefits of the Industrial Revolution, the majority of people comprised of the working class found themselves in suffering and misery from this new system. The unhappiness amongst civilization at this time period led to social philosophers and reformers to find new systems to cope with these social problems of the working class. One of these reform ideas and …