History Commons^™

Napalm: More Than A Weapon, Edwin Martini

Edwin A. Martini

This book will explore the military, political, and cultural history of napalm across time and space. Moving beyond the Vietnam War, this book will examine the use of napalm by the United States in World War Two, Korea, and elsewhere, and its proliferation in other countries’ arsenals as well. It will also explore the many cultural representations of napalm in the post-Vietnam war world.

Maria Susanna Cummins' London Letters: April 1860, Heidi Lm Jacobs

Heidi LM Jacobs

Within scholarship on Maria Susanna Cummins (1827-1866), there are two recurrent phrases: "author of the best-selling novel The Lamplighter" and "little is known about her life." Despite the early contextualization of Cummins by various scholars, most of the recent critical work on Cummins has centered on her first and best-known novel, The Lamplighter (1854). Very little critical attention has been paid to Cummins's life, her career as a publishing author, her lesser known novels, her periodical publications, and her archived letters. Written in the weeks preceding the publication in the United States and Britain of her third novel, El …

Bringing Books To A "Book-Hungry Land": Print Culture On The Dakota Prairie, Lisa Lindell

Lisa R. Lindell

The dearth of reading material was a recurring lament in the writings and memoirs of Dakota settlers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. “I was born with a desire to read, . . . and I have never gotten over it,” declared Henry Theodore Washburn, recalling his Minnesota boyhood and homesteading years in Dakota Territory, “but there was no way in those days to gratify that desire to any great extent.”1 This lack was indeed of consequence. In the pre-electronic era, print was a primary means of obtaining information, insight, and pleasure. High rates of literacy, sharp increases …

One Hundred Years: A History Of Roofing In America, Theodore Karamanski, John Vogel, William Irvine, Christine Taylor

Theodore J. Karamanski

No abstract provided.

Fur Trade And Exploration: The Opening Of The Far Northwest, Theodore Karamanski

Theodore J. Karamanski

In nineteenth-century North America the beaver was "brown gold." It and other furbearing animals were the targets of an extractive industry like gold mining. Hoping to make their fortunes with the Hudson’s Bay Company, young Scots and Englishmen left their homes in the British Isles for the Canadian frontier. In the Far Northwest-northern British Columbia, the Yukon, the western Northwest Territories, and eastern Alaska-they collaborated with Indians and French Canadians to send back as many pelts as possible in return for an allotment of trade goods. The extraordinary achievements of the trader-adverturers-such men as Samuel Black, John Bell, and Robert …

Deep Woods Frontier: A History Of Logging In Northern Michigan, Theodore Karamanski

Theodore J. Karamanski

In Deep Woods Frontier, Theodore J. Karamanski examines the interplay between men and technology in the lumbering of Michigan's rugged Upper Peninsula. Three distinct periods emerged as the industry evolved. The pine era was a rough pioneering time when trees were felled by axe and floated to ports where logs were loaded on schooners for shipment to large cities. When the bulk of the pine forests had been cut, other entrepreneurs saw opportunity in the unexploited stands of maple and birch and harnessed the railroad to transport logs. Finally, in the pulpwood era, "weed trees," despised by previous loggers, are …

Citizen Explorer: The Life Of Zebulon Pike, Barton Barbour

Barton H. Barbour

Estatura Y Condiciones De Vida En Tiempos De Morelos, Amilcar Challú

Amilcar Challu

¿Cuánto medía Morelos? ¿Un metro y medio? ¿Era de estatura media? Lo que implica fi nalmente preguntar: ¿cuál era la estatura media en los tiempos de Morelos? Al fi nal de esta pesquisa la respuesta a esas preguntas quedará clara. Morelos medía cerca de 1.60 cm, unos cuatro centímetros más baja que la media de los nacidos en su año (1764). Pero comparado con los nacidos en el año de su muerte (1815), la estatura de Morelos hubiera estado casi en el promedio. El caso de la estatura de Morelos es una anécdota, pero el ejercicio que nos permite estimar …

Mapping The Boston Poor: Inmates Of The Boston Almshouse, 1795–1801, Ruth Wallis Herndon, Amilcar Challú

Amilcar Challu

This article examines postrevolutionary Boston through evidence about its poorest inhabitants, those admitted to the town’s almshouse from 1795 to 1801. Charts and maps constructed from Boston Almshouse records and geographical data about Boston for these years reveal the characteristics of the Almshouse inmates, as well as their residential location before entering the facility and their mobility after entering it a ªrst time. This study is part of a broader project that applies Geographical Information Systems (gis) to analyze and visualize patterns evinced by the inmates of the Boston Almshouse during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Although the …

Mexico’S Real Wages In The Age Of The Great Divergence, 1730-1930, Amilcar Challú

Amilcar Challu

This study builds the first internationally comparable index of real wages for Mexico City bridging the eighteenth and the early twentieth century. Real wages started out in relatively high international levels in the mid eighteenth century, but declined from the late 1770s on, with some partial and temporal rebounds after the 1810s. After the 1860s real wages recovered and eventually reached eighteenth-century levels in the early twentieth century. Real wages of Mexico City’s workers slid behind those of high-wage economies to converge with the lower fringes of middle-wage economies. The age of the global great divergence was Mexico’s own age …

Agricultural Crisis And Biological Well-Being In Mexico, 1730-1835, Amilcar Challú

Amilcar Challu

The article examines how adverse climatic conditions and high food prices influenced the opportunities of peasants in pre-industrial Mexico between 1730 and 1835. Particular attention is paid to data of soldier heights, global climate events, warm-season tree growth, and real food prices to determine how these factors may have affected urban and rural populations. Declines were seen in the general standard of living and average height, while the cost of food increased. It is argued that distribution and acquisition of food has an equal influence on biological well-being as the availability of food at any specific given time.

The Education Of Linnie Haguewood, Lisa Lindell

Lisa R. Lindell

No abstract provided.

Technology, Economic Growth, And The State: American Political Culture And Economy, 1870-2000, Nick Salvatore

Nick Salvatore

In the essay that follows, I will examine three periods in American economic life, with a focus on the interplay of technological innovations, economic transformation, and the responses to them. The first period, focused on the decades between 1870 and1920, experienced the emergence of the corporation as the major form of production and, not surprisingly, the development of oppositional political movements to it. The second period, from 1933 to the 1960s, marked an era of reform efforts to balance the relationship between management and labor, efforts that, ironically, accepted as their premise the structure and rationale of the corporation itself. …

Inviting Us To Come Closer: Philip Levine's Portraits Of Detroit (Forthcoming), Christina Triezenberg

Christina Triezenberg

No abstract provided.

Influenza And Inequality: One Town’S Tragic Response To The Great Epidemic Of 1918, Patricia Fanning

Patricia J. Fanning

The influenza epidemic of 1918 was one of the worst medical disasters in human history, taking close to thirty million lives worldwide in less than a year, including more than 500,000 in the United States. What made this pandemic even more frightening was the fact that it occurred when death rates for most common infectious diseases were diminishing. Still, an epidemic is not merely a medical crisis; it has sociological, psychological, and political dimensions as well. The influenza epidemic of 1918 was one of the worst medical disasters in human history, taking close to thirty million lives worldwide in less …

Advocating For Mother Earth In The Undergraduate Classroom: Uniting Twenty-First Century Technologies, Local Resources, Art, And Activism To Explore Our Place In Nature, Christina Triezenberg, Ilse Schweitzer Vandonkelaar

Christina Triezenberg

Despite the growing evidence of humanity’s impact on the natural world and the urgent need to shape citizens who understand the impact that their choices and actions have on their local and global environments, colleges and universities throughout the United States have been slow to add environmental education as a core component of their undergraduate curricula. Harnessing our shared interest in environment issues and the humanities, we designed and taught an experimental course in environmental literature for the honors program at Western Michigan University that we hope will become a template of what is possible in postsecondary environmental education. Using …

Wheels Of Fortune: The Story Of Rubber In Akron, Steve Love, David Giffels

David Giffels

Wheels of Fortune is a tale of two cities—both of them Akron. One city, built on rubber, turned itself into a model for Middle America industrial success. The other city has had to learn to live on in rubber's wake, to remake itself, to come to terms with its remade self. To tell this tale of two cities is to tell the tale of America's rubber industry. The stories interlock like tire and wheel. From its earliest days, Akron has been a city of multiple incarnations: canal boat stopover, farm machinery manufacturer, cereal maker. But for more than a century …

Governor Winthrop's "Little Speech": Another Hearing, Michael Ditmore

Michael Ditmore

No abstract provided.

Increasing The Value Of Wool In Wyoming And Beyond: The Impact Of Uw's Wool Lab And Library, David Kruger

David Delbert Kruger

At the turn of the twentieth century, little more than a decade after Wyoming attained statehood, a young agricultural student at the University of Wyoming saw a pressing need to improve the quality and reputation of Wyoming wool. When John Arthur Hill became a professor in 1907, the Wool Department he created would go on to not only assist Wyoming sheep ranchers in wool production, but provide the sheep industry with a better understanding of how wool fleeces and fibers could be improved across the nation. Under Hill’s leadership and his later protege Robert Homer Burns, the Wool Department developed …

Jcpenney And His Agrarian Animals: The Award-Winning Livestock Of A Department Store Icon, David Kruger

David Delbert Kruger

Widely known for his department store chain, James Cash Penney (1875-1971) greatly contributed to American agriculture through his horse and cattle breeding enterprises. Beginning in 1917, three years after moving to New York City, Penney began using his personal capital to acquire, breed, and sell outstanding animals for agricultural purposes. By the 1920s, his Guernsey dairy herd had earned a worldwide reputation for quality and production, with herd sire Foremost eventually becoming the namesake for one of the largest dairy cooperatives in the United States. By the 1940s, Penney was personally developing award-winning beef cattle herds on the Missouri farm …

Review: John S. Ahlquist And Margaret Levi, 'In The Interest Of Others: Organizations And Social Activism" (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2013), Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

Review of the comparative study of trade union organizational behaviour by John S. Ahlquist and Margaret Levi, 'In the Interest of Others: Organizations and Social Activism" (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2013), which involves a target group of US and Australian trade unions.

The Civilian Conservation Corps: A Bibliography, Jackie Mcfadden

Jackie McFadden

This book is a list of citations covering the wealth of information written about the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). The CCC was President Franklin D. Roosevelt's favorite and most respected New Deal program. It provided economic assistance and hope for the future to the many enlisted men and their families during the height of the Great Depression. These men developed state parks, built roads and bridges and restored the environment from the devastation caused by droughts and deforestation of the west. Through hard work, they found renewed pride in themselves and their country. Their efforts can be seen in former …

Jcpenney As Cattleman, David Kruger

David Delbert Kruger

Though widely known for his department store chain and its Wyoming origins, James Cash Penney also played a prominent role as a cattleman from the 1920s until his death in 1971. This presentation will explore Penney's personal and professional involvement in the cattle industry, including his significant contributions within the Angus, Hereford, and Guernsey breeds.

Fighting Over The Founders: How We Remember The American Revolution, Andrew Schocket

Andrew M Schocket

The American Revolution is all around us. It is pictured as big as billboards and as small as postage stamps, evoked in political campaigns and car advertising campaigns, relived in museums and revised in computer games. As the nation’s founding moment, the American Revolution serves as a source of powerful founding myths, and remains the most accessible and most contested event in U.S. history: more than any other, it stands as a proxy for how Americans perceive the nation’s aspirations. Americans’ increased fascination with the Revolution over the past two decades represents more than interest in the past. It’s also …

Pulling The Wool Under Your Eyes: Preserving A Century-Old Wool Lab And Library At The University Of Wyoming, David Kruger

David Delbert Kruger

Sheep and wool have long been integral to the agrarian heritage of Western states, and still play a vital role in the region’s agricultural economy. From 1907-2012, Wyoming’s sole university supported wool research around the world through its Wool Department, complete with its own wool laboratory and library. When the Wool Department was permanently dissolved and its building condemned for demolition in 2012, the University of Wyoming (UW) Libraries partnered with UW Extension and the UW College of Agriculture and Natural Resources to preserve the unusual print and physical artifacts of this unique collection, as well as disseminate the spirit …

The Main Street Spirit Of Jcpenney: A Department Store Chain In The Downtowns Of Washington, David Kruger

David Delbert Kruger

For the better part of the 20th Century, the JCPenney chain had a rich history of Main Street locations throughout Washington state. The article traces the origins of James Cash Penney's operations in Washington, including the Golden Rule philosophy of its founder and unique architectural features of Penney's downtown locations, notably the company's first metropolitan store that served downtown Seattle from 1931-1982.

Roosevelt Lodge: Essence Of The Old West, Tamsen Hert, Karl Byrand, William Wyckoff, Lee Whittlesey, Langdon Smith, Diane Papineau, Yolonda Youngs

Tamsen Hert

This collection of essays explores the changing cultural landscapes and built environments of Yellowstone National Park.

Addressing America: George Washington's Farewell And The Making Of National Culture, Politics, And Diplomacy, 1796-1852, Jeffrey Malanson

Jeffrey J. Malanson

No abstract provided.

Table Annexed To Article: The Legislative Rules And Orders Of The Continental Congress In Various Text Formats (July 17, 1776), Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Our Constitutional Logic offers the Rules and Orders for the Continental Congress in four versions. First, OCL supplies Jefferson’s notes made for the committee on which he served; this is followed by Congress’ markup text following its consideration of his notes in RC Text Format. Third, the text adopted on July 17, 1776 appears in RC Text Format, which recreates the text as it appears in the Journals of the Continental Congress. Fourth, the Rules and Orders appear in MR Text Format. This text is used in the various investigations of parliamentary science as practiced from 1776 to 1801. See …

As 24.25.065, A Statute Devolved From Aristotle's Rhetoric, Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter J. Aschenbrenner

The legislative council shall annually examine, AS 24.20.065(a) provides in paraphrase, published opinions of state courts that rely on state statutes if the opinions indicate unclear or ambiguous statutes. Our Constitutional Logic examines the collaboration theory of lawmakers, on the codelaw and caselaw side of the ledger.