History Commons^™

The Embroidered Tablecloth: How Locale Influences Eastern European Jewish Textile Production, Elena Solomon

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Recent scholarship frames craft as distinct from art and as an encapsulation of cultural expression at a given moment. Building on that framework, this thesis analyzes the shifting attitudes towards the production of handmade textiles among Eastern European Jews in the US in the twentieth century, as influenced by their migration. To demonstrate the textile environment at that time, this thesis examines pre- and post-migration primary sources and autobiographical writing, including Mary Antin’s The Promised Land, supplemented with interviews of first- and second-generation immigrants to Chicago. In contrast with stereotypes about craft as historically stable, defining craft as regional …

Telling Her People's Story: Mae Timbimboo Parry, Matriarch Of The Northwestern Band Of The Shoshone Nation, 1919-2007, Dean Mcguire

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Mae Timbimboo Parry played a significant role in changing the public’s narrative about the Bear River Massacre and shaping the current knowledge about Northwestern Shoshone history. According to Mae Parry, Northwestern Shoshones were not desperate victims of violence but rather Native Americans who adapted from a great tragedy and survived on their own terms. This thesis explores the meaning of her work for Northwestern Shoshones today.

Beirut/The Other Side Of The City: The Impact Of Visual Texture Production Of The Lebanese Postmemory Generation, 1989 - Present, Mohamed Moustafa Gameel Ebada

Theses and Dissertations

In 1989, after the Ta'if agreement, the war in Lebanon started to fade, which ended years of one of the most destructive civil conflicts in the region with no decisive winner or loser. The year also marked the birth of a new Lebanese generation who did not experience the war in person. It is a generation of postmemory, a term Maria Hirsch coined to describe the reminisces of those who did not have a personal encounter with past traumatic events. However, it was not before February 2005, when Rafic Al-Hariri's violent assassination occurred, when the postmemory generation started to question …

Between Myth And Memory: The Case Of Italian Fascist World War I Monuments, Grant Gregory Topjon

Theses - ALL

"Between Myth and Memory: The Case of Italian Fascist World War I Monuments" examines the relationship between Italian soldiers' testimonies from the First World War and later Italian Fascist monuments that commemorated their sacrifices. During the First World War, soldiers' diaries and letters home expressed feelings of abandonment, dehumanization, and a lack of patriotic enthusiasm for the war effort. Combined with the Supreme Command's widespread use of summary executions, the mass desertion at the Battle of Caporetto, and the Italian government's complete abandonment of its prisoners of war, the First World War was a tragic experience for many. By contrast, …

Between Myth And Memory: The Case Of Italian Fascist World War I Monuments, Grant Gregory Topjon

Theses - ALL

“Between Myth and Memory: The Case of Italian Fascist World War I Monuments” examines the relationship between Italian soldiers’ testimonies from the First World War and later Italian Fascist monuments that commemorated their sacrifices. During the First World War, soldiers’ diaries and letters home expressed feelings of abandonment, dehumanization, and a lack of patriotic enthusiasm for the war effort. Combined with the Supreme Command’s widespread use of summary executions, the mass desertion at the Battle of Caporetto, and the Italian government’s complete abandonment of its prisoners of war, the First World War was a tragic experience for many. By contrast, …

“Without Obscuring Deeper Truths:” Interpreting Slavery And Jefferson At Monticello, Andrew Miles

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This thesis examines the paradigmatic shift in interpretation that occurred at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello during the 1980s and 1990s. For decades, the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation presented the site as a marvel of architecture, décor, as well as exemplifying Jefferson’s tranquil domestic life and intellectual talents. Beginning in the 1980s, the Foundation began to address slavery at the site. Chapter one introduction of slavery interpretation during this period. Early attempts to interpret slavery became intertwined with the Foundation’s positive portrayal of Jefferson before becoming more varied and provocative in the 1990s. Chapter two examines the parallel evolution in Jefferson scholarship, …

Anti-Fascism, Anti-Communism, And Memorial Cultures: A Global Study Of International Brigade Veterans, Jacob Todd Bernhardt

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The International Brigades were volunteer military units that fought for the Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1938. Some 40,000-45,000 men fought in the International Brigades as an act of anti-Fascism, international solidarity, and national preservation. Although many historians have examined the volunteer soldiers’ motivations, wartime experiences, and reintegration into their home societies on a national basis, there has not yet been a global study of veteran reintegration and memorial culture. This global comparative study demonstrates that a state’s acceptance or rejection of their Brigade veterans was dictated by a global anti-Fascist and anti-Communist divide. In …

Remembering Jacob: The Literary Representation Of Memory In The Jacob Narrative, Isaac Borbon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis seeks to describe the Jacob narrative through the lens of memory. Taking Gen 28:10-22 as a case study, the objective is to place Jacob’s visit to Bethel alongside other ancient referential claims, analyzing it for authentic memories. However, the complex nature of memory is susceptible to preservation and revision. That is to say, having no desire to comport to modern historical-critical sensibilities, memory’s epistemological underpinnings are concerned primarily with reconstructing a remembered past for subsequent generations of Israelite tradents. In order to understand the historical background to the Jacob narrative in its entirety, a formal analysis of Iron …

Those Thrice Marked By Time: The Significance Of The Last Known Survivor, Their Death, And Our Remembrance, Michael Tofte

Theses

Following Adam Zarakov, the last known survivor is a significant figure and a representative of a larger type that is under-considered. Last known survivors are ubiquitous in fictional media and how history is told. Some survivors like Frank Buckles are given lavish state funerals with participation of strangers. Yet, this under-analysis is concerning as the 21^st century will likely feature the recognition of last known survivors of many significant 20^th century events. I offer one attempt of addressing this lacuna.

The first aim is to motivate philosophical interest in the phenomenon of the last known survivor. I present …

“A Constant Reminder To All”: Remembering Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson In West Virginia, Steven Cody Straley

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This thesis argues that Confederate heritage groups leading the Lost Cause Movement in West Virginia promoted Stonewall Jackson, through tactics such as ceremonies, publications, and monuments, to the point where his appeal expanded beyond that of former Confederates and their descendants. During the late 1800s, Confederate supporters in the state formed branches of Confederate heritage organizations and espoused a Lost Cause narrative with Stonewall Jackson as its figurehead. In doing so, they accomplished two things: to integrate the seemingly proUnion West Virginia into Confederate memory, and to gain acceptance of Confederates as full members of West Virginia society. Jackson’s advocates …

The New Monumental Era: Daniel Webster And The Commemoration Of Compromise In The Age Of Disunion, 1853-1865, Michael James Larmann

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Professional Paper 1:

This professional paper is an in-depth analysis of a statue of Daniel Webster erected in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1859. Daniel Webster was a congressman for Massachusetts who became a controversial figure after he spoke in support of the Fugitive Slave Law as part of the Compromise of 1850. This paper analyzes the Daniel Webster statue and argues that the fractured politics of Union politicized public commemoration in the late antebellum period after the Compromise of 1850. This paper furthermore analyzes one of the first debates surrounding the public commemoration of a controversial historical actor with close ties …

Monumental Change: Recontextualization And Inclusion Through The Lens Of Denver’S Civil War Monument And The Sand Creek Massacre, Sarah Davidson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, countries in the Global North have begun to grapple with the origins of long-standing monuments and their implication about society’s present values. This project is a case study of the Denver Civil War Monument, a monument erected in 1909 to honor soldiers from Colorado who fought during the years spanning the American Civil War. A plaque on the monument which lists the Battles and Engagements includes Sand Creek. The Sand Creek Massacre was an attack on a peaceful village of Cheyenne and Arapaho by Colorado’s 3rd Regiment that resulted in the murder and mutilation of hundreds of …

What Pandemic?: Physical Memorilization Of The 1918 Pandemic, Carly M. Kauffman

Master's Theses

Throughout history there have been many significant events the people find worth remembering. Some of these events are significant enough that people build structures to honor, commemorate, or memorialize them. However, there are some events that are also significant, yet they seem to warrant little or no memorialization. In the United States' historical narrative, it seems that the Influenza Pandemic of 1918 is forgotten among the chaotic period of World War I and the interwar years. The lack of traditional memorials dedicated to the 1918 Pandemic can be attributed to the lack of acknowledgement of the pandemic in terms of …

"Savage And Bloody Footsteps Through The Valley" : The Wyoming Massacre In The American Imagination, William R. Tharp

Theses and Dissertations

Along the banks of the Susquehanna River in early July 1778, a force of about 600 Loyalist and Native American raiders won a lopsided victory against 400 overwhelmed Patriot militiamen and regulars in the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania. While not well-known today, this battle—the Battle of Wyoming—had profound effects on the Revolutionary War and American culture and politics. Quite familiar to early Americans, this battle’s remembrance influenced the formation of national identity and informed Americans’ perceptions of their past and present over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

From the beginning, however, Americans’ understanding of what occurred in …