History Commons^™

"A Nice, Beautiful, Active, & Faithful Friend": Horses & Emotion In The Civil War Letters Of Two Union Officers, Allen F. Horn Iv

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Horses are the unsung heroes of the American Civil War. Both armies relied heavily on equines for a variety of tasks. They carried cavalry soldiers on the battlefield and pulled wagons for artillery and military supply chains. Horses could also serve as companion animals. Soldiers formed friendships with their horses as a way to heal from the trauma of combat and stave off the monotony of camp life. Writing about animals in letters to their families enabled soldiers to explain their experiences in more palatable terms to their families. As over 1.2 million horses and mules died in the conflict, …

"A Stranger In America": Queer Diasporic Writers And The American Politics Of Exclusion, Caitlin Stanfield

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While the academic concept of queer diasporic studies is relatively new, the epistemic future of this interdisciplinary, intersectional, and inclusive field is already imperiled. Throughout recent years, bills seeking to expunge critical race and queer theory from not only the public education sector, but from the legally-defined “general public” as well, have been proposed by legislators throughout the United States. To combat this assault upon marginalized educators, scholars, and authors, one must first understand what is at stake; the rich site of contemporary, queer diasporic poetry provides one such example. By situating these poems within their complex cultural, political, and …

Reconciliationism And The Professionalization Of History: A Case Study In The Legacy Of White Supremacy And Abuse Of History In Early Twentieth Century History Textbooks, Carol Patterson-Martineau

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the 19th century legacy of white supremacy in United States History high school textbooks authored by six early 20th century white academics subject to the societal and professional influences of Civil War reconciliationism and the constraints and opportunities of their newly professionalized field. Employing a case study approach, it focuses on textbook content in four areas: slavery, abolitionism, Civil War causation, and Reconstruction within the context of five parameters: contemporaneous historiography, accepted professional practices for researching and writing history, continuity – or lack thereof – across multiple revisions, and between textbook content and the individual academic scholarship …

The City With A Bathtub Ring: A Century Of Shared Industrial Identity In Belfast, Maine, Michael Munson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Belfast, Maine, is a small, visitor-friendly city of approximately 6,700 residents located on that state’s picturesque mid-coast. Founded by Ulster Scots descendants in 1770, Belfast’s rich history has allowed its sense of place to evolve as the community’s identity changed from a frontier settlement to a commercial seaport, then an industrial city, and currently a host city for several prominent customer call centers. While now charming, increasingly gentrified and popular with tourists, the city earlier prospered for more than a century as a blue-collar industrial community, which eschewed tourism well into the 1980s. This paper addresses Belfast’s sense of place …

Prophets Of Pong: How Newspapers Covered Video Games Between 1972 To 1976, Joseph Collard

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

After Magnavox released its Odyssey video game console in 1972, video games quickly became popular. By 1976, video games looked poised to be a mainstay of Americans’ media environment. Newspaper articles played a role in this process, but that role has not been specifically examined. This thesis examines how newspaper articles covered video games during their commercialization in the United States from 1972 to 1976. It utilizes twelve newspapers over a five-year period to identify video game article frequency, geographical distribution, language use, value judgements, topic coverage, and frame use. The goal is to identify patterns and situate them within …

Reinsmen, Roadways And The Emerging Northern Maine Frontier, 1810-1860, Loretta M. Risner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Nineteenth century reinsmen transported needed and scarce supplies, logs, people and mail in Northern Maine, on the few cut roads and rough trails before railroads arrived. Their work was the only land transportation method available to Northern Maine’s lumber camps and settlements between 1810-1860, making their labors critical to Aroostook County’s social, cultural and economic growth. Reinsmen drove teams of horses or oxen attached to a cart, wagon, dray, sleigh, sled or specialized log jumper into Maine’s forests or from Woodstock, New Brunswick and Bangor, Maine to Aroostook County. Reinsmen were once known and respected in Aroostook County for their …

Fighting For Home: Northern New England Women And The Civil War, Savannah A. Clark

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the experiences of Northern New England women during the Civil War. Though these women were physically distant from the frontlines, the war came to their doorsteps. The war challenged and changed the physical and idealized space of the household and women’s role within it. This thesis examines how women experienced, resisted, or enacted wartime changes to household space. Through an examination of letters written by women, this study argues that, despite the disruptions of the war and the absence of male family members, Northern New England women fought to protect their homes from change.

Women used a …

Bound By Print: The Baptist Borderlands Of Maine And The Canadian Maritimes, 1770-1840, Brittany P. Goetting

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Asynchronous communication was essential for the development of the cross-border and global identities of Baptists in Maine and the Canadian Maritimes between 1770 and 1840. Religious print, especially published association meeting notes and periodicals, extended the reach of itinerant preaching and molded a cross-border community in the Northeast Borderlands between 1790 and 1810. It allowed Baptists to discuss theology, share news about local churches, and expand their community. American Baptists formed international institutions focused on the spread of Protestantism after the War of 1812, and Maine Baptists actively engaged this more global community through financial donations to the new institutions …

The Siege Of Calais During The Hundred Years War: An English Perspective, 1344-1347, Jordan J. Bruso

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the siege and capture of the port city of Calais in 1347 by King Edward III of England (1312-1377) during the Hundred Years War (1337-1453). The capture of Calais was the culminating event of King Edward III’s 1346-7 military campaign in Normandy and France. This victory provided the English military with a strategically strong foothold on the European continent to conduct future military and economic operations. This thesis blends the methodological approach of “old military history” from the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries with “new military history” beginning in the latter half of the twentieth century in an …

The Effects Of Regional Separatism On Late Roman Identity In Fourteenth-Century Byzantium, Evangelos Zarkadas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores how tendencies of regional separatism affected the political and ethnic contexts of late Roman identity during the course of the fourteenth century in the Byzantine Roman Empire. Fourteenth-century Byzantium was characterized by political fragmentation, significant sociopolitical changes and alterations, and subsequently a crisis of the Roman identity. The major question that the research will answer is: who was considered to be a Roman during the fourteenth century, and what did it mean for someone to hold that identity? The thesis will focus on two major and important geographical areas in the fourteenth century: the Principality of Achaia …

Where Do I Belong In The United States Public School System?, Christiana R. Becker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

I seek to inquire about the world as it relates to my identity as a first generation descent of the Penobscot tribe living in the United States by utilizing four methodologies in my research: life histories/autobiographies, narrative inquiry, a/r/tography and practice-based and practice-led. Through coupling my artistic practice with those four methodologies I am able to creatively show the information I have unearthed in hopes that others will benefit from a fresh and augmented understanding of what it historically and culturally means to be a part of a community that makes up a very small percentage of the United States …

To Know The Land With Hands And Minds: Negotiating Agricultural Knowledge In Late-Nineteenth-Century New England And Westphalia, Justus Hillebrand

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ever since the eighteenth century, experts have tried to tell farmers how to farm. The agricultural enlightenment in Europe marked the beginning of a long arc of new experts aiming to change agricultural knowledge and practice. This dissertation analyzes the pivotal period in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in Germany and the United States when scientists, improvers, and market agents began to develop comprehensive ways to communicate agricultural innovation to farmers. In a functional approach to analyzing the negotiation of agricultural knowledge through its communication in things, words, and practices, this dissertation argues that the process of change …

A Concealment Shoe As Ritualistic Grieving Gesture: A Case Study In An Early 20th Century Maine Finnish Immigrant Community, Anne Bardaglio

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The widespread practice of ritually concealing shoes as apotropaic devices to protect liminal spaces such as walls, thresholds, windows, and chimneys, most often in private homes, dates to the 14th century. The practice also has roots in pre-Christian, pan-European traditions of domestic spirits and can sometimes function as a commemorative gesture to memorialize deceased loved ones. This study analyzes an early 20th-century concealed shoe deposit discovered in Long Cove, Maine and locating it within the cultural context of Long Cove’s history as a Finnish immigrant community within an approximately twenty-year period (c. 1890-1910). The study explores ways in which the …

The Holocaust In Białystok: Urban, Rural, And Forest Environments As Spaces Of Resistance, Survival, And Persecution, Dakota Gramour

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

During the German occupation of Poland in World War II, thousands of Jews escaped city or ghetto life by seeking refuge within rural villages or fleeing to the forests. Numerous factors shaped individual survivor experiences within these spaces. In particular, gender, age or familial status, environmental factors like weather conditions or terrain, as well as personal politics and language or technical skills, all molded how one could act or was forced to react in these spaces. This study emphasizes the unique two-way relationships between experience and three kinds of environments found in the Białystok District: the city of Białystok, small …

Making Earth, Making Home: Technoscientific Citizenship And Ecological Domesticity In An Age Of Limits, Emma Schroeder

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the post-WWII era, concerns over Earth’s finite resources and technology’s destructive capacity shaped ideas of a global environment. This dissertation focuses on transnational grassroots social movements that attempted to find solutions to earthly vulnerability. It looks at women’s nuclear disarmament campaigns in the early 1960s, the Appropriate Technology movement of the 1970s, Canada’s conserver society program, and the emergence of feminist technoscientific critique and ecological activism in the early 1980s. In each case study, it shows how the ability to critique and produce technoscientific knowledge expanded women’s political identities, what I call technoscientific citizenship. Simultaneously, these groups promoted ecological …

Language, Identity, And Citizenship: Politics Of Education In Madawaska, 1842-1920, Elisa E A Sance

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The establishment of the international border between Maine and New Brunswick in 1842 through the signature of the Webster-Ashburton treaty divided the Francophone population of the Madawaska region along the Saint John River. As a result, each half became administered by an Anglophone government. The linguistic and cultural differences between the Madawaska French and the Anglo-Saxon Protestant ruling majority in both the state and the province complicated the establishment of new public institutions. The language of both administrations as well as the language of public education was English; a language that very few people among the Madawaska French spoke or …

Orange Riots, Party Processions Acts, And The Control Of Public Space In Ireland And British North America, 1796-1851, Annie E. Tock

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the state’s effort to control public space by passing legislation to suppress Orange Order processions in Ireland and British North America between 1814 and 1851. By the early nineteenth century, annual July Twelfth parades commemorating William III’s victory at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 became occasions for violent sectarian clashes in the streets of Ireland, New Brunswick, and Canada as celebratory Protestant Orangemen clashed with resentful Catholic opponents. In 1832 the British Parliament sought to put an end to these riots by passing the Party Processions Act, which prohibited Orange processions in Ireland. The Legislative …

Making Vacationland: The Modern Automobility And Tourism Borderlands Of Maine And New Brunswick, 1875-1939, Sean C. Cox

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Modernizing nineteenth and twentieth century mobility reshaped and re- commodified the predominantly rural environments of Maine and New Brunswick. Landscapes like these can be better understood through the tripartite intersection of environmental commodification as “picturesque,” a democratizing tourism culture, and the development of modern individual mobility. The intersection of these forces produced a unique tourism borderland comprised of primarily second nature landscapes, which rapidly adapted to motor-tourism. All three themes are products of modernity, and their combination in Maine and New Brunswick produced a “tourism borderland” and “mobility borderland” between automotive spaces and the unprepared environments of pre-auto “Vacationland.” Before …

Separating God's Two Kingdoms: Regular Baptists In Maine, Nova Scotia, And New Brunswick, 1780 To 1815, Ronald S. Baines

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The trans-national Regular Baptist tradition in the northeastern borderlands of Maine, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick grew rapidly from 1780 to 1815. The spiritual imperatives of this Calvinistic group with its commitment to believer’s baptism of adults and closed communion churches made them distinctive, and a central argument here is that the worldly implications of “Two Kingdom” theology, founded on the strict separation of religious and civil realms, was central to Regular Baptists’ success in the region in this period. Three leading ministers whose actions as authors, itinerants, and as organizational leaders receive especially close attention: Maine-based ministers Daniel Merrill …

"The Men Were Sick Of The Place" : Soldier Illness And Environment In The War Of 1812, Joseph R. Miller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

War of 1812 scholarship has focused primarily on classic military studies of decisive battles. Likewise, scholarship on the experience of war essentially concentrates on how killing and combat effected the human psyche. This dissertation pursues a broader perspective. It examines the impact of the environment on the health of soldiers and emphasizes everyday conditions and environmental suffering. Veterans’ accounts typically elevate suffering in camp over combat. A substantive study of soldiers’ responses to daily environmental conditions demonstrates the importance of health management to the outcome of the War of 1812. Through case studies of health measures related to frontier conditions, …

The Rise And Decline Of The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation In Ontario And Quebec During World War Ii, 1939 - 1945, Charles A. Deshaies

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) was one of the most influential political parties in Canadian History. Without doubt, from a social welfare perspective, the CCF helped Canada build and develop an extensive social welfare system across Canada. The CCF’s major contributions to Canadian social welfare policy during the critical years following the Great Depression has been justly credited to the party. This was especially true during the Second World War when the federal Liberal government of Mackenzie King adroitly borrowed CCF policy planks to remove the harsh edges of capitalism and put Canada on the path to a modern welfare …

Land Tenure In Acadian Agricultural Settlements, 1604-1755: Cultural Retention And The Emergence Of Custom, Carol A. Blasi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Starting in 1755, the British began the process of not only expelling some eleven thousand Acadians from their homes and farms, but also of uprooting a culture that had survived for over one hundred and twenty years. This dissertation applies a legal historical approach to elucidate a crucial feature of that culture, namely Acadian land tenure. In particular, it traces the way in which seigneurialism, and the French law supporting it, were central to property formation in Acadian agricultural settlements from their inception to their destruction in 1755.

Scholars have been at best ambivalent, and at worst hostile to the …

Navigating Wilderness And Borderland: Environment And Culture In The Northeastern Americas During The American Revolution, Daniel S. Soucier

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the evolving interactions of nature and humans during the major military campaigns in the northern theatre of the American War for Independence (1775 – 1783) as local people, local environments, and military personnel from outside the region interacted with one another in complex ways. Examining the American Revolution at the convergence of environmental, military, and borderlands history, it elucidates the agency of nature and culture in shaping how three military campaigns in the “wilderness” unfolded. The invasion of Canada in 1775, the expedition from Quebec to Albany in 1777, and the invasion of Iroquoia in 1779 are …

Black Robes At The Edge Of Empire: Jesuits, Natives, And Colonial Crisis In Early Detroit, 1728-1781, Eric J. Toups

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the Jesuit missionaries active in the region of Detroit and how their role in that region changed over the course of the eighteenth century and under different colonial regimes. Jesuits Armand de la Richardie, Pierre Potier, and Pierre du Jaunay influenced imperial decision-making and policy in the eighteenth-century pays d’en haut through their notable influence within certain indigenous communities. The priests were deeply influential during the French regime as demonstrated by their impact on several colonial crises discussed in the text. The Seven Years War and the conquest of New France by Great Britain gradually eroded Jesuit …

Liberty To Slaves: The Black Loyalist Controversy, Michael Anthony White

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Individuals of African descent who arrived in Nova Scotia during and after the War for American Independence have been the subject of extensive commentary by historians. Spurred by the rise of Social History in the 1970s, these individuals have increasingly been identified as a coherent group – particularly by the historian James W. St. G. Walker, whose pioneering 1976 monograph did a great deal to create the term “black Loyalist” as a category of analysis. In Walker’s wake many other researchers have expanded the concept, which now has a prominent place in the public historical memory of Nova Scotia. However, …

A "Real Social & Political Revolution": Nativism, Class Conflict, And Urban Reform In Portland, Maine (1840-1923), Thomas R. Macmillan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 1923, Portland, Maine voters approved passed a ballot measure that jettisoned the nearly century-old Council-Mayor plan in favor of a Council-City Manager form of governance. This dramatic alteration was supported by the Portland Chamber of Commerce and the Ku Klux Klan; it allowed the centralization of political power in the hands of an appointed City Manager and a City Council dominated by business interests. Taking this campaign as its focus, the following study incorporates nativism, class conflict, and urban reform in Portland, Maine with a focus on the period of 1840-1923. It blends ethnic, political, and urban history to …

Counter Currents: Arthur Lower, Lincoln Colcord, And Ideological Isolationism In Interwar Canada And The United States, James Spruce

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a comparative study of the ideology of isolationism in interwar Canada and the United States. It proceeds with that comparison using an individual subject from each country as a case study. For Canada, the subject is the historian and social scientist Arthur R.M. Lower; for the United States, it is the journalist and fiction author Lincoln Ross Colcord. Both men are worthy of study as individual isolationists of note, but they are also appropriate for the comparison because of the similarity of their isolationist positions and due to their personal backgrounds. Through the 1930s, Colcord and Lower …

Dr. Khalil Totah: Arab-American Quaker Educator And Palestinian Nationalist Crusader, 1914-1948, Amy Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Born in Ramallah, Palestine, in 1886 Dr. Khalil Totah belonged to a generation of Syrians who grew up with an appreciation for the “modern” spirit that was sweeping the world.They looked forward to a social order that fostered Arab independence, but were also concerned with universal human problems. Totah’s life coincided with a period of tremendous transformation and change in the Middle East. Some historians, most recently Erez Manela, have argued that U.S. President Woodrow Wilson inspired a rising global consciousness and that his rhetoric fostered the spread of anti-colonial movements across the Middle East. Totah and his fellow intellectuals …

Maine Literature 101: A Course For High School Seniors, Courtney Hawkes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In various schools across the state of Maine are teachers devoting their classroom time to exploring the rich history of Maine. At the high school level, many schools now offer at least an elective course in “Maine Studies” and Maine state standards require that local history is covered to a certain extent in high school history. Missing from these courses, however, is a study of Maine’s literature. Literature puts a realistic face to the events of history in a way that helps students see through the eyes of the people from that time period. Literature reveals internal emotions and conflicts …

Party Development And Political Conflict In Maine 1820-1860 From Statehood To The Civil War, Lee D. Webb

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a history of politics in Maine during the state’s formative period, the years from statehood until 1860. The history focuses on party conflict and on the development of organized political parties, particularly the Democratic and Republican parties. It concentrates on the structures and processes that politicians built, including party newspapers, county conventions, state conventions, legislative caucuses, and ultimately state committees and the office of state committee chair – all to compete effectively for power. During this 40-year period, parties also develop powerful new messages, campaign strategies, and developed leaders with the skills to accomplish these tasks.

I …