History Commons^™

The Ever-Evolving Historiography Of The American Civil War, Brandon M. Eldridge

Graduate Review

No abstract provided.

They Done A Very Bad Act: Rape In The Civil War And Reconstruction, Nora Elizabeth Grace Williams

Student Scholarship

In this project, the interdisciplinary use of sociology, feminist philosophy, and Southern historiography combine to provide a more complete analysis of rape in the Civil War and 3 Reconstruction than previously discussed in other scholarly works. Each discipline provides a valuable piece to the larger picture. This research examines antebellum gender norms, the intersection of race and gender, the impact of slavery on Black women’s sexuality and agency, the weaponization of rape in war, and the impact of Klan violence on Black communities during Reconstruction. Additionally, this research proposes explanations for how the nature of war created an environment in …

The Evolution Of Defining Rape In The United States, Sophia Rhoades

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

“Deserting The Broad And Easy Way”: Southern Methodist Women, The Social Gospel, And The New Deal State, 1909-1939, Chelsea Hodge

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Over the course of three decades, white southern Methodist women took on issues of labor and poverty through their national women’s organization, the Woman’s Missionary Council (WMC). Between 1909 and 1939, the WMC focused their work on five groups of people they viewed as in need of their help: women, children, black southerners, immigrants, and rural people. Motivated by the Social Gospel and an intense belief that their faith led them to effect real change in the American South, the WMC intervened in people’s lives, pursuing reform that could at times be maternalistic and condescending but at other times radical …

The Confederate Triumvirate: Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, And The Making Of The Lost Cause, 1863-1940, Aaron Lewis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

While numerous historians have studied and written about the lives and deeds of Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Jefferson Davis, fewer have conducted analyses of these three individuals’ popular memories. This study considers how the memory of these three Confederate leaders formed the foundation of the Lost Cause. From 1863 through the 1940s, white southerners held each of these three men in high esteem, proclaiming them as heroes to the dead Confederate ideology. Orators and writers who built the Lost Cause in South consistently utilized their memories to argue in favor of the righteousness of the Confederate cause and …

Y'All Like Ike: Tennessee, The Solid South, And The 1952 Presidential Election, Cameron N. Regnery

Honors Theses

This thesis examines the changing nature of politics in the American South, specifically through the 1952 presidential election in the state of Tennessee. For much of the South’s history, the region was dominated by the Democratic party, earning it the nickname the “Solid South”. Following the Civil War and Reconstruction, the South became an aggressively one-party region in which the Republican party found little electoral success and the Democratic party reigned supreme. This partisanship began showing signs of fracturing in 1948 when southern Democrats began to leave the party over racial issues. The presidency of Harry S. Truman (1945-1953) further …

"With Malice Towards None": The Springfield, Illinois Race Riot Of 1908, Andrew Carlson

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

On Saturday, March 4th, 1865, a tall man with dark, tussled hair and a beard, dressed in a large great coat with top hat removed, stood on the portico of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., addressing the large crowd that had gathered to hear him speak. These civilians crowded near to the balcony, not only to hear the speaker but also to fend off the cold, leftover from the rain of the preceding weeks. After briefly discussing the issues of civil war and slavery, he appealed to the Almighty for assistance and closed with these now familiar lines: "With …

The Unspoken Demands Of Slavery: The Exploitation Of Female Slaves In The Memphis Slave Trade, Sarah W. Eiland

The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era

In the antebellum South, exploitation and mistreatment characterized the plight of the female slave. In Memphis, the story remained unchanged. The abusive and exploitative nature of the Memphis slave trade emerges through high prices for particular female slaves, the growth of the mulatto population, and the existence of mulatto children from certain prominent local figures. The survival of slavery depended upon the ability of the domestic slave population to sustain itself through the female slave population. This view of bondswomen as natural breeders and the accessibility of enslaved females in an urban setting, subjected them to sexual violence and exploitation. …

The Southern American Belle: History, Evolution, And Perceptions In Contemporary Culture, Hannah B. Vickery

Senior Theses

This research study seeks to examine the concept of the southern belle and to provide greater insight into how the southern belle is perceived by those today as a means of describing contemporary southern womanhood and culture. Chapter 1 traces the history of the southern belle from its pre-Civil War roots, through the turmoil of the Civil War, and up through post-war Reconstruction and beyond, thereby situating the concept of the southern belle within the context of southern history. Utilizing a socio-linguistic approach, Chapter 2 explains the research methodology of this study where two group interviews were conducted and where …

Breaking And Remaking The Mason-Dixon Line: Loyalty In Civil War America, 1850-1900, Charles R. Welsko

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Between 1850 and 1900, Americans redefined their interpretation of national identity and loyalty. In the Mid-Atlantic borderland of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia this change is most evident. With the presence of a free state and slave states in close proximity, white and black Americans of the region experienced the tumult of the Civil War Era first hand. While the boundary between freedom and slavery served as an antebellum battleground over slavery, during the war, the whole region bore witness to divisions between the Union and Confederacy as well as to define what loyalty and nation meant. By exploring …

[Review Of] From Oligarchy To Republicanism: The Great Task Of Reconstruction. By Forrest A. Nabors (Columbia, University Of Missouri Press, 2017) 358 Pp. $45.00, Mark Wahlgren Summers

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Slavery, Civil War, And Contemporary Public Opinion In The South, Madison R. Swiney

Kentucky Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship

This paper is an empirical extension of Avidit Acharya, Matthew Blackwell, and Maya Sen’s piece (forthcoming), “A Culture of Disenfranchisement: How American Slavery Continues to Affect Voting Behavior.” In their project, Acharya, Blackwell and Sen (forthcoming) show that the counties that had more slaves versus free population in the nineteenth century are more likely to exhibit conservative attitudes in contemporary elections. I am extending this argument by measuring potential influence of Civil War battlegrounds on recent voting patterns and political predispositions. My project finds further support for Acharya, Blackwell and Sen’s study on the predictive power …

Secrets On Morgan Hill: A Story Of An Unlikely Friendship Amid An Apartheid South, Camille Kleidysz-Ferreira

Master of Arts in American Studies Capstones

Introduction

The Burden of History and Fiction

“How much of the burden of history can fiction bear?” – Margaret Walker

Comprehensive historical research can often become the inspiration for art. The greatest pieces of historical fiction, are a result of years of historic scholarship before the creation of a compelling historical narrative or fiction piece. Through my two-year ethnographic study and collection of oral histories of the black community, surrounding the historic Bethel A.M.E. church in Acworth, Georgia, I was told a story about a friendship between two little girls who remained friends until the end of their lives. What …

War, Reformation, And Antebellum Ink: Southern Authorship And Eliza Frances Andrews, Adeline Piotrowski Ms.

Student Research

No abstract provided.

Visual Culture Project: Confederate War Etchings: Searching For Arms By Adalbert Johann Volck, Lynn B. Hatcher

Student Publications

Adalbert Johann Volck’s 1861 sketch of Union soldiers, “Searching for Arms,” represents a substantial contribution to the narrative about gender relations during the American Civil War. This simple, small sketch offers the observer a window into the past. It is a collision of symbols and meaning—from gender to war to the household—all wrapped up in one image. This is a portrait sketch of a woman being invaded in her domestic, private sphere, revealing so much about gender relations during the time. The mistress herself seemed to embody a vast range of sentiments such as anger, fear, frailty, and strength, proving …

Gettysburg College Journal Of The Civil War Era 2017

The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era

No abstract provided.

An Anomalous Case Of Southern Sympathy: New Jersey's Civil War Stance, Emily A. Hawk

The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era

A popular narrative of the Civil War assumes that all Northern states stood united behind President Abraham Lincoln in their loyalty to the Union. However, the case of New Jersey suggests that this narrative of devotion is simply a myth. The agrarian economy of New Jersey kept the state firmly opposed to universal emancipation, and New Jersey behaved more like a border state than its geographic neighbors of Pennsylvania and New York. By examining New Jersey's response to the release of the Emancipation Proclamation and the Election of 1864, the myth of Northern unity is broken by understanding persistent state-level …

Land Owners And Law Givers: Relations Between Yeomen And Planters In The South Carolina Back Country During The Early Republic, 1790-1830, Kevin Caldwell Grubbs

Master's Theses

The society that fought the Civil War in the 1860s was slowly created through years of class conflict and cooperation between planters and yeoman farmers. The South Carolina backcountry developed during the decades of the Early Republic, reacting to the formative events of the nation during that time, such as the Second Great Awakening, the market revolution, and the War of 1812. The difficulties of these events necessitated new approaches to life in South Carolina. Over time, the new society spread from the eastern seaboard states across the South, forming the regional southern society.

Golden Arches & White Spaces: Race In Early Fast Food Places, Angela Jill Cooley

History Department Publications

Much attention is given to the role of the lunch counter in the years leading up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But what about the fast-food chain, which was rising to national prominence at the same time? Angela Jill Cooley addresses this question in an excerpt from her book, To Live and Dine in Dixie: The Evolution of Urban Food Culture in the Jim Crow South, forthcoming from the University of Georgia Press.

The Fall Of The House Of Dixie: The Civil War And The Social Revolution That Transformed The South, Brexton L. O'Donnell

The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era

This article reviews The Fall of the House of Dixie: The Civil War and the Social Revolution that Transformed the South (2013) by Bruce Levine.

Cold Warriors In The Sunbelt: Southern Baptists And The Cold War, 1947-1989, Matthew J. Hall

Theses and Dissertations--History

Cold Warriors in the Sunbelt studies the ways in which the Cold War experience shaped the attitudes, values, and beliefs of white evangelicals in the South. It argues that for Southern Baptists in particular—the region’s most dominant religious majority—the Cold War provided a cohesive and unifying fabric that informed the world views Southern Baptists constructed, shaping how they interpreted everything from global communism, the black freedom movement, the Vietnam War, and controversies regarding the family and gender. This dissertation further contends that the Cold War experience, and the formative influence it had over several decades, laid the groundwork for the …

The Ideological Reconstruction Of Southern Elite White Women Before During And After Reconstruction, Lindsey Halse

Honors Theses

The purpose of my research is to reevaluate and extend the commonly understood time frame of Reconstruction by scholars to include Southern women’s ideological Reconstruction as well as provide a particular perspective on women during this era, which is underdeveloped in literature. Elite, white women during the Civil War began a journey towards independence and involvement in the public sphere. This evolution occurred approximately fifteen years behind similar actions taken by Northern women; this paper attempts to explain this lag. Additionally, my research asserts that Southern women were forced in a sense to become independent during the Civil War while …

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 …

The Truth Shall Set You Free: The Bible, The Revolution, And The Debate Over Slavery In The American South, Kevin Simon

Masters Theses

Before the slavery debate pushed a divided American nation to the brink of civil war, the argument divided the family of God. By the time cannon fire erupted at Fort Sumter, Christians had already staked out positions based on sophisticated lines of argument they used to justify or condemn chattel slavery. The generation coming of age during the Civil War era witnessed a debate more intense and contentious than their ancestors had seen, but in terms of the arguments employed, it broke very little fresh ground. Contrary to the assumption that antebellum apologists in the South invented the defense of …

Renders It Necessary That We Should Be Prepared' A Reexamination Of The Militant South Thesis In Territorial Florida, Franklin Nooe

All Theses

This thesis examines the effect of Native Americans on the martial tradition in the Old South. As proposed by John Hope Franklin, the proximity of Southern settlements to Indian tribes aroused grave apprehension regarding the safety of the settlers from hostile attack. This thesis seeks to illustrate a specific example of his assessment. Therefore, the work is focused on the events of the Seminoles in Florida and to a lesser extent the Creeks in Alabama and Georgia. Chronologically the thesis focuses on approximately 1800-1842. Geographically the text is concerned with Florida and the border areas. This thesis argues that the …

Footprints Across The South: Bartram's Trail Revisited, James Kautz

KSU Press Legacy Project

Over the past three decades, a tireless group of volunteers, funded by donations and small grants, has laid out the “Bartram Trail.” Drawn on maps, marked by metal signs beside highways and city streets and by blazes on trees, the trail follows the overall pathway of the eighteenth-century naturalist. Francis Harper’s edition of Bartram’s Travels led the way, identifying most of Bartram’s sites and species. More recently, Brad Sanders has given detailed directions to Bartram’s locations and present-day sites along the trail. Charles D. Spornick, Alan R. Cattier, and Robert J. Greene have published a guide for outdoor enthusiasts and …

The South, The West, And The Rest, Edward L. Ayers

History Faculty Publications

A response to the essay, Constructed Province: History and the Making of the Last American West by David M. Emmons. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

The Relationship Of The Protestant Episcopal Church In Virginia With The Negro Slaves 1830 To 1860: Success Or Failure?, Elisabeth Evans Wray

Master's Theses

Some conclusions may be drawn as to the success—or failure--of the Church's relationship with the slaves in nineteenth-century Virginia by constructing a narrative of the general attitudes held by the Episcopal Church (the bishops and other clergy and the laity) and the actions resulting from them. The years from 1830 to 1860 are the most fruitful period of the century in revealing through sermons, letters, newspapers, and books the Church's ideas concerning the institution of religious instruction for the slaves and their place in the life of the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Virginia. Because many of the attitudes …