History Commons^™

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 …

How The Other Half Lives, Margaret Lowe

Margaret Lowe

No abstract provided.

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 …

The Restoration Of The Port Of Philadelphia, 1783-1789, George Geib

George W. Geib

George W. Geib's contribution to American Neptune, Vol. 32, No. 4.

The Power Of The Purse, George W. Geib

George W. Geib

The Army finance office was born two centuries ago in the midst of the American Revolution. From the golden orle insignia that legend reports was first authorized by George Washington, to the outline of its modern functions and limitations that emerged during the war, the service took form in the critical years of the struggle for independence.

Development And Preservation, George W. Geib

George W. Geib

Details the history of two Marion County Courthouses.

The Land Ordinance Of 1785: A Bicentennial Review, George Geib

George W. Geib

Geroge Geib reviews the historical impact of the Land Ordinance of 1785 200 years after its passage.

The Essex Bridge: Transportation And Politics In The Early Republic, George W. Geib

George W. Geib

THE years that followed the War for Independence are commonly viewed as a period of rapid economic expansion. Deriving from such elements as a growing population, new foreign markets, increased capital resources, and a confident public spirit, this expansion is known to include a variety of new business ventures, notably in manufacturing and in transportation. Such new ventures are normally pictured in their business context, showing few political overtones apart from sporadic opposition by rural legislators.1 This latter emphasis may be mistaken, however, because many of these early innovative business ventures faced challenges in the form of local political controversies …

Liberty's Legacy: A Review Essay, George Geib

George W. Geib

Review essay of Liberty's Legacy, a traveling exhibit chronicling documents pertaining to the Northwest Ordinance and the Constitution.

Federal Justice And Moral Reform In The United States District Court In Indiana, 1816-1869, George W. Geib, Donald B. Kite

George W. Geib

In November 1840, William Martin, an Indiana mail stage driver found himself standing in United States District Court, convicted of stealing a letter containing bank notes from the mail.^1 District Judge Jesse Lynch Holman reviewed the evidence that convinced the jury, and then lectured the defendant upon his future prospects: The prospect before you is truly dark and dreary; yet there is a distant ray of hope that may enlighten your path You may do much by a patient submission to the law—by a reformation of life and an upright line of conduct ... to some extent, to regain a …

The Diary Of Calvin Fletcher And The Historians, George W. Geib

George W. Geib

While we all make New Year's resolutions, few of us ever keep them with the tenacity that Calvin Fletcher kept the one he apparently made on this day. The diary that he had begun in fragmentary fashion in 1817 and continued intermittently to 1829, he maintained religiously thereafter. In so doing, he provided us with an extraordinary record of his life and times. Published in nine volumes by the Indiana Historical Society from 1972 to 1983, The Diary of Calvin Fletcher represents perhaps the single most important printed source for understanding Indiana's history. In commemoration of Fletcher's two-hundredth birthday on …

Benjamin Harrison, George W. Geib

George W. Geib

An account of Benjamin Harrison's rise to the presidency beginning with his successful career during the Civil War.

Climb To The Ice, Richard Vaughan

Richard Vaughan

The article, originally presented as a lecture, discusses George Bird Grinnell's 1887 climb of the Montana glacier that eventually become known as Grinnell Glacier. Grinnell’s efforts to establish Glacier National Park are detailed. Grinnell's previously unpublished descriptions of the glacier and its surrounding area are analyzed by the author. Originally delivered as a lecture at the Montana History Conference, October 2, 2010. Full issue available at: http://issuu.com/um_crown_gye/docs/crownofthecontinent-autumn2012

To The Ice: George Bird Grinnell's 1887 Ascent Of Grinnell Glacier, Richard Vaughan

Richard Vaughan

This article discusses a climbing expedition undertaken by U.S. conservationist George Bird Grinnell to ascend what would come to be known as Grinnell Glacier in Montana. Grinnell’s efforts to establish Glacier National Park are detailed. Grinnell’s previously unpublished descriptions of the glacier and its surrounding area are analyzed by the author.

Broad Are Nebraska's Rolling Plains: The Early Writings Of George Bird Grinnell, Richard Vaughan

Richard Vaughan

Profiles the life of writer George Bird Grinnell (1849-1938) and the influence his first trip to Nebraska had in shaping his early writings about the American West. Among the works he published were several groundbreaking books about the Plains Indians of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Not only did this 1870 trip to Nebraska, as a member of O. C. Marsh’s first Yale Paleontological Expedition, influence Grinnell's scholarly endeavors, but his deep interest in the state also influenced his lifelong devotion to environmental preservation and established him as an important advocate for the protection and welfare of Native …

Review: 'Harold Frederic’S Social Drama And The Crisis Of 1890s Evangelical Protestant Culture', William Vance Trollinger

William Vance Trollinger Jr.

Harold Frederic’s The Damnation of Theron Ware (1896) is a terrific novel. The title character is a young, naïve, poorly educated Methodist minister who — when the narrative begins — has been appointed to take the pastorate of a small-town church in upstate New York. It is within only a matter of weeks after moving to Octavius with his wife, Alice, that Theron makes the acquaintance of exotic and compelling individuals who challenge his heretofore unexamined evangelical faith. Abandoning his Methodism with impunity, Ware is soon hurtling toward his “damnation.”

Damned but not dead: At the end of the novel, …

Balm Of Hope—Charity Afire Impels Daughters Of Charity To Civil War Nursing. A Compendium. The Civil War Records Of The Daughters Of Charity Of St. Vincent De Paul, Province Of The United States, Betty Ann Mcneil

Betty Ann McNeil, D.C.

James Cash Penney And His North Dakota Stores, David Kruger

David Delbert Kruger

Although James Cash Penney opened his first store in 1902, at the age of twenty-six, he kept his business entirely in the western United States for the first twelve years of its existence. By 1914 he was operating about forty stores out of his Utah headquarters, but had no locations east of Montana, Wyoming, or Colorado. Not a single J. C. Penney store existed in the Midwest, and, unlike Montgomery Ward and Sears Roebuck, his chain had no catalog business to cover the agrarian region by mail order.1 However, Penney was well aware of North Dakota’s booming rural population, and …

James Cash Penney: The Impact Of A Main Street Merchant On Oklahoma, David Kruger

David Delbert Kruger

Although not from the Sooner State, J. C. Penney made his mark on Oklahoma and its people through his retail empire based on his golden rule principles. By visiting his store locations in the state, Penney influenced a new generation of company leadership to grow from the small towns in Oklahoma. David D. Kruger explains the impact of Penney the man and J.C. Penney the company on the culture of retail shopping in Oklahoma.

Changing Times, Changing Spaces: The South Dakota Stores Of J.C. Penney, David Delbert Kruger

David Delbert Kruger

When the first J. C. Penney store in South Dakota held its grand opening on 1 April 1916, the celebration took place not in the bustling business district of one of the state's larger cities like Sioux Falls or Aberdeen, but on Main Street in the tiny farming community of Redfield. At the time of the grand opening, Redfield was a fraction of the size of Sioux Falls, with a population of just under three thousand. The small, personable size and agrarian environment of the Spink County seat were, however, consistent with the rural locations the company founder, James Cash …

This Was J.C. Penney: A Century Of James Penney’S Main Street Department Stores In The Rocky Mountain West, David Delbert Kruger

David Delbert Kruger

The article discusses the history of the department store chain J.C. Penney in the Rocky Mountain region of the U.S. West, particularly focusing on Montana. It comments on founder James Cash Penney's early retailing efforts and his time working for the Golden Rule chain of stores. The author examines the configuration, size, and logos of J.C. Penney stores, and describes the shift in the location of stores from main streets to shopping malls. The impact of the Great Depression in the 1930s is also addressed.

Automobile Workers Strikes, Ian Greer

Ian Greer

Automobile workers' strikes occurred in essentially four eras: the lost strikes by the industry's craft unions in the early twentieth century, the dramatic sit-down victories of the 1930s, the mixture of wildcat and authorized strikes during the postwar economic boom from the 1940s through the 1970s, and the decline of strikes that accompanied the policy of "jointness' between company and union after J9S0. Autoworkers' strike strategies reflected, in part, the particular structure of the industry, which took shape in the 1920s. Auto production is a complex process of interdependent operations to produce parts and assemble vehicles, each containing tens of …

Searching For Their Real Home: Dependent Black Children In Indianapolis, 1910-1940, John D. Ramsbottom

John D. Ramsbottom

Concerns about the future for young people, reflected in contemporary headlines, were equally prominent in Indianapolis a hundred years ago. Then, as now, children whose parents neglected or abandoned them posed a special problem. In the midst of rapid social change that seemed to threaten traditional family stability, a small corps of professionals and volunteers worked to provide a nurturing environment.

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 …

The Akron Offering: A Ladies' Literary Magazine, 1849-1850, Jon Miller

Jon Miller

FREE FULL-TEXT PDF DOWNLOAD From 1849 to 1850, Calista Cummings edited and published Akron's first literary magazine, The Akron Offering. At the time, Akron was a booming canal town on the verge of even greater prosperity. By turns religious, comic, romantic, and political, this extraordinary collection of early midwestern creative literature expresses a wide range of sometimes contradictory opinions on both the important questions of its day and the important questions of today: historical events such as the California Gold Rush of 1849 and the 1848 revolutions in Europe are considered alongside more timeless contemplations on truth, justice, and beauty. …

Riley’S Empire: Northwestern Bible School And Fundamentalism In The Upper Midwest, William Vance Trollinger

William Vance Trollinger Jr.

In the 1920s a loosely-united band of militant conservatives launched a crusade to capture control of the major Protestant denominations. These fundamentalists staunchly affirmed the supernaturalness and literal accuracy of the Bible, the supernatural character of Christ, and the necessity of Christians to separate themselves from the world.

Most often Baptists and Presbyterians, they struggled to re-establish their denominations as true and pure churches: true to the historic doctrines of the faith as they perceived them, and pure from what they saw as the polluting influences of an increasingly corrupt modern culture. But by the late 1920s the fundamentalists had …

Hero Of The Heartland: Billy Sunday And The Transformation Of American Society, 1862-1935, William Vance Trollinger

William Vance Trollinger Jr.

Review of: Hero of the Heartland: Billy Sunday and the Transformation of American Society, 1862-1935. Martin, Robert F.

Table Annexed To Article: Basic Texts In The Founding Of Parliamentary Science Originating From The United States (In Mr Text Format), Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Our Constitutional Logic presents basic texts in parliamentary practice searchable in MR Text Format; these texts cover all of the procedural rules and standing orders from September 6, 1774 (the First Continental Congress) through the rules governing the United States Senate as of the publication of Thomas Jefferson’s Manual of Parliamentary Practice (1801).

The Text Of The Standing Orders Of The Federal Convention: Jackson’S And Madison’S Texts Surveyed, Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Drawing on Farrand’s Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, Vol. 1, Our Constitutional Logic has reconciled the differences between the text of the standing Orders as presented in the text of William Jackson, the convention’s secretary, and James Madison, the convention’s semi-official reporter, both as edited by Max Farrand. This text will appear in Basic Texts in the Founding of Parliamentary Science Originating from the United Kingdom and United States (in MR Text Format), 2 OCL 136_5; in turn, OCL is producing the first concordance of these texts in Founding the Science of Parliamentary Procedure, 1785-1789: Basic Texts in …

Table Annexed To Article: Delegate Credentialing At The Continental Congress Sampled At The Opening Of Congress On November 3, 1783, Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter J. Aschenbrenner

The Continental Congress opened its sessions in November; Our Constitutional Logic has selected the first opening after the Treaty of Paris (September 3, 1783) which is detailed at 25 Journals of the Continental Congress 795-799 on November 3 1783. Credentials were required to be no less than a year old or if of older vintage, the delegate must have presented them to the convention less than a year earlier. OCL supplies notes and comments to the passages keyed in at the table annexed hereto.