History Commons^™

A Legion Of Legacy: Tyrolean Militarism, Catholicism, And The Heimwehr Movement, Jason Engle

Dissertations

This study of the origins of the Heimwehr (Home Guard) movement offers insight into the conditions under which such groups gained their following. As such, its story is a valuable one that shows a society groping with the problem of a complex, multi-faceted identity that was, at the same time, wracked with substantial economic privation and politically polarized. The paramilitary Heimwehr movement that began in 1920 was the creation of Austria’s conservative provincial governments. It was intended to preserve the existing social and political order—that of the hegemonic social groups of the Habsburg Monarchy—against the growing threat of Marxist revolution, …

The Evolution Of College Algebra: Competencies And Themes Of A Quantitative Reasoning Course At The University Of Kentucky, Scott Taylor

Dissertations

For many institutions, especially community colleges, college algebra has been the default mathematics or quantitative reasoning requirement. However, the topics that have been taught in college algebra, teaching methods, and the goals of a quantitative reasoning requirement have changed and vary over time and among different institutions. Because of history, policy, and political influences, this study sought to explore commonalities and disparities of college algebra as it has evolved through the University of Kentucky. The three central research questions were What have been the common topics or themes of the competencies and topics covered in CA over the years at …

“Gosh I Miss The Cold War”: Post-Cold War Foreign Policy Making In The United States, 1989-1995, Samantha A. Taylor

Dissertations

The end of the Cold War created a dilemma for American foreign policymakers as the strategy to contain the spread of communism became obsolete. The presidencies of George H. W. Bush and William “Bill” Jefferson Clinton were forced to create grand strategies for American national security and foreign policy to replace the forty-plus year strategy of containment that continued to rely on traditional themes and principles of US foreign policy. Both men had to overcome lingering Cold War attitudes about the United States role in the world and its national security interests. As they struggled to do this, they faced …

Deadly Hostility: Feud, Violence, And Power In Early Anglo-Saxon England, David Ditucci

Dissertations

This dissertation examines the existence and political relevance of feud in Anglo-Saxon England from the fifth century migration to the opening of the Viking Age in 793. The central argument is that feud was a method that Anglo-Saxons used to understand and settle conflict, and that it was a tool kings used to enhance their power. The first part of this study examines the use of fæhð in Old English documents, including laws and Beowulf, to demonstrate that fæhð referred to feuds between parties marked by reciprocal acts of retaliation. This assertion is in opposition to Guy Halsall’s argument that …

"An Alphabet Of Soldiers”: Jake Heggie’S Farewell, Auschwitz, Lori Jo Guy

Dissertations

For the past 18 years, the non-profit organization Music Of Remembrance has worked to remember the Holocaust through concerts, education events, and by recording and commissioning new works. One such work, entitled Farewell, Auschwitz, premiered in May of 2013.

Farewell, Auschwitz is a unique composition for several reasons. One reason is that the poetry for the songs was adapted from lyrics written by Krystyna Żywulska, a Polish Jew, imprisoned at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. In the camp, she began creating poetry and songs in reaction to the horror that surrounded her. Her poetry is a commentary on the daily …

William Walker And The Seeds Of Progressive Imperialism: The War In Nicaragua And The Message Of Regeneration, 1855-1860, John J. Mangipano

Dissertations

For a brief period of time, between 1855 and 1857, William Walker successfully portrayed himself to American audiences as the regenerator of Nicaragua. Though he arrived in Nicaragua in June 1855, with only fifty-eight men, his image as a regenerator attracted several-thousand men and women to join him in his mission to stabilize the region. Walker relied on both his medical studies as well as his experience in journalism to craft a message of regeneration that placated the anxieties that many Americans felt about the instability of the Caribbean. People supported Walker because he provided a strategy of regeneration that …

Forward Myth: Military Public Relations And The Domestic Base Newspaper 1941-1981, Willie R. Tubbs

Dissertations

This dissertation explores the evolution of domestic military base newspapers from 1941-1981, a timeframe that encapsulates the Second World War, Korean War, and Vietnam War, as well as interwar and postwar years. While called “newspapers,” the United States military designed these publications to be a hybrid of traditional news and public relations. This dissertation focuses on three primary aspects of these newspapers: the evolution of the format, style, and function of these papers; the messages editors and writers crafted for and about the “common” soldier and American; and the messages for and about members of the non-majority group.

Sometimes printed …

Love And Loyal Actions': Ritual Affect And Royal Authority, 1688-1760, Amy Oberlin

Dissertations

This project examines the changing emotional relationship between the English royal court and the public during the reigns of the last Stuarts (1688 - 1714) and the early Hanoverians (1714-1760), when the court was forced to abandon traditional representations of divine right. During this period, the rise of print, the growth of representative institutions and changing cultural attitudes to emotion created a new style of monarchy, one more emotionally accessible to its subjects. These changes signaled the death of rule by divine right and the birth of a modern monarchy. In essence, the monarch moved from heaven to earth, becoming …

Survival Under Oppression: The Puerto Rican And Allied Struggle For Representation In Chicago, 1950-1983, Marisol Violanda Rivera

Dissertations

This dissertation explores the how various Latino organizations spanning from 1950 to 1983, helped Latinos gain representation within Chicago. Social clubs, which brought opportunity to European ethnics, no longer functioned as a conduit to direct power as white ethnics solidified their positions in the city. Progressive Latino organizations under government oppression suffered destruction or evolved in effort to obtain better opportunities for Latinos. Oral histories show how members of the organizations develop their own narratives and reveal the creation of discourses regarding events that occurred as well as the impact they had within their lives and on the community.

Transport For Early Modern London: London's Transportation Environment And The Experience Of Movement, 1500-1800, Noah Paul Phelps

Dissertations

This dissertation investigates two closely related topics regarding London's transportation environment. The first was to determine the shape of early modern London's transportation infrastructure and determine who was responsible for its design, construction and maintenance. The second goal was to investigate the experiences of those moving about the city. In some cases, it was possible to find substantive information on London's transport milieu; for example, the number of gates and the size of the wall surrounding the city from Stow's 1598 Survey of London or the rules regarding street cleaning in London's Letter Books. In most cases, however, it was …

Forgetting How To Hate: The Evolution Of White Responses To Integration In Chicago, 1946-1987, Chris Ramsey

Dissertations

After the Supreme Court made restrictive covenants illegal in 1948, violence became the default response for numerous white communities across the South Side of Chicago when African Americans moved into €“ or just passed through €“ their neighborhoods. The civil rights movement's high-profile successes in the first half of the 1960s and the media attention Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s open housing marches on the Southwest Side of Chicago brought to segregation in the urban North made brute force unacceptable to the public at-large. White ethnic residents on Chicago's Southwest Side realized they could no longer resort to violent means …

"Let's Get Together And Chew The Fat": Women, Size And Community In Modern America, Amelia Earhart Serafine

Dissertations

"Let's Get Together and Chew the FAT: Women, Size, and Community in Modern America" argues that between 1948 and the 1980s, women in America formed communities around issues of size in order to claim agency over their bodies. Primarily concerned with losing weight, many women in these groups nonetheless created new tools and abilities with which to resist oppression based on body size. Some women went as far as to form explicitly positive fat identities and reject compulsory slenderness. This dissertation investigates four cases studies: TOPS (Take off Pounds Sensibly), Overeaters Anonymous, Weight Watchers, and the Fat Liberation movement of …

Seekers And Observers: Life Histories Of Three Female Antebellum Historians, Annmarie Valdes

Dissertations

This dissertation provides a history and analysis of the educational experiences and scholarly texts of three female historians. The study employs the combined frameworks of Haraway's €˜situated knowledges' and Life History for examining three female historians who were involved in three integrated aspects of knowledge production: scholar, educator and author. The three case studies examine the lives of Elizabeth Peabody (1804-1894), Caroline Dall (1822-1912), and Mary L. Booth (1831-1889), with an analytical focus on their Antebellum Era, mid-nineteenth-century historical publications. A core contention is that knowledge production by women and, in particular, historical texts produced for schools and public consumption …

She Shot Him Dead: The Criminalization Of Women And The Struggle Over Social Order In Chicago, 1871-1919, Rachel A. Boyle

Dissertations

From 1871 to 1919, Chicago emerged as an epicenter of a struggle over social order as municipal officials and self-proclaimed reformers fought for the power to decide which people and what behavior should be designated as criminal. Studying the criminalization of women in Chicago reveals how contested categories of crime and gender changed over time and provides insight into broader battles over moral, political, and economic power in the United States. In the late nineteenth century, an intimate economy of public women fighting, drinking, and having sex for money profoundly shaped daily life in the streets, saloons, and brothels of …