History Commons^™

The Space Between “Seen” And “Unseen:” Queer People And The 1915-1945 New Negro Renaissance, Claudia R. Campanella

Dissertations and Theses

In November 1926, a group of Black artists, writers, and activists created the first and only edition of Fire!!, edited by novelist Wallace Thurman. Fire!! was created by a younger generation of New Negroes and “devoted to the younger Negro artists” who dissented from the mainstream ideas of the New Negro Movement and used the magazine to spread their own views on the 1915-1945 New Negro Renaissance. Fire!! and other texts speaking to this dissent against a Black intellectual middle class image of the movement will be studied in reference to showcasing the multi-faceted elements of the movement touching …

The Modern Formulation Of Chinese Art History And The Building Of A Nation In Early Twentieth-Century China, Chennie Huang

Dissertations and Theses

At the dawn of the twentieth century, the Chinese formulation of art history underwent dramatic changes. It moved away from the traditional narratives that did not follow a strict chronology to adopt the Western linear model which emphasizes progress and national identity. Based on the premodern tradition, the modern formulations of Chinese art history began as a political strategy for nation building amid the political upheavals, including military attacks on China that led to the end of Qing imperial rule and the beginning of the Republican era (1912-1949).

In the early 1900s, while exiled in Japan, Liang Qichao 梁啟超 (1873-1929), …

Questions Of Citizenship: Oregonian Reactions To Japanese Immigrants' Quest For Naturalization Rights In The United States, 1894-1952, Alison Leigh Jessie

Dissertations and Theses

This study examines the discrimination against Japanese immigrants in U.S. naturalization law up to 1952 and how it was covered in the Oregonian newspaper, one of the oldest and most widely read newspapers on the West Coast. The anti-Japanese movement was much larger in California, but this paper focuses on the attitudes in Oregon, which at times echoed sentiments in California but at other times conveyed support for Japanese naturalization. Naturalization laws at the turn of the century were vague, leaving the task of defining who was white, and thus eligible for naturalization, to the courts. Japanese applicants were often …

The Floating Men: Portland And The Hobo Menace, 1890-1915, Marin Elizabeth Aurand

Dissertations and Theses

At the beginning of the twentieth century, transient laborers in Portland, Oregon faced marginalization and exploitation at the hands of the classes that relied on them for their own prosperity. Portland at this time was poised to flourish as a major population and industrial center of the American West. The industries that fueled the city's growth were dependent on cheap and mobile manual labor made available by the expansion of the nation's railroads. As the city prospered and grew, the elite of the city created and promoted an image of Portland as an Eden of material abundance where industriousness and …

"Children Need Protection Not Perversion": The Rise Of The New Right And The Politicization Of Morality In Sex Education In Great Britain, 1968-1989, Miriam Corinne Morehart

Dissertations and Theses

Two competing forms of sex education and the groups supporting them came to head in the 1970s and 1980s. Traditional sex education retained an emphasis on maintaining Christian-based morality through marriage and parenthood preparation that sex education originally held since the beginning of the twentieth century. Liberal sex education developed to openly discuss issues that reflected recent legal and social changes. This form reviewed controversial subjects including abortion, contraception and homosexuality. Though liberal sex education found support from national family planning organizations and Labour politicians, traditional sex education found a more vocal and powerful ally in the New Right.

This …

Portland, Oregon's Long Hot Summers: Racial Unrest And Public Response, 1967-1969, Joshua Joe Bryan

Dissertations and Theses

The struggles for racial equality throughout northern cities during the late-1960s, while not nearly as prevalent within historical scholarship as those pertaining to the Deep South, have left an indelible mark on both the individuals and communities involved. Historians have until recently thought of the civil rights movement in the north as a violent betrayal of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s vision of an inclusive and integrated society, as well as coinciding with the rise, and subsequent decline, of Black Power. But despite such suppositions, the experiences of northern cities immersed in the civil rights struggle were far more varied …

"Heaven's Last, Worst Gift To White Men": The Quadroons Of Antebellum New Orleans, Erin Elizabeth Mccullugh

Dissertations and Theses

Visitors to Antebellum New Orleans rarely failed to comment on the highly visible population of free persons of color, particularly the women. Light, but not white, the women who collectively became known as Quadroons enjoyed a degree of affluence and liberty largely unknown outside of Southeastern Louisiana. The Quadroons of New Orleans, however, suffered from neglect and misrepresentation in nineteenth and twentieth-century accounts.

Historians of slavery and southern black women, for example, have written at length on the sexual experiences of black women and white men. Most of the research, however, centers on the institutionalized rape, victimization, and exploitation of …

Striking A Balance: The Unionization Of Portland State University’S Faculty, Amanda Taylor Ellertson

Dissertations and Theses

American college and university professors joined labor unions as early as 1916. But it was during the 1970s that higher education turned to collective bargaining as a way to raise the voice of the faculty and negotiate a fair and just work environment. Portland State University voted to have the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) represent them in collective bargaining in 1978. The thesis examines the history of PSU’s AAUP chapter and how unionization impacted the college campus and faculty life.

Collective bargaining in higher education encompasses more than negotiating salary and benefit packages. Since their inception, higher education …

The Courts And The Making Of A Chinese Immigrant Community In Portland, Oregon, 1850-1910, Sarah Marie Griffith

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis studies the development of the Portland, Oregon Chinese immigrant community between 1850 and 1910. Chinese immigrants first arrived in Portland in the mid-1850s and quickly created businesses as well as social institutions they transplanted from China to the U.S. West. They also established intricate relationships among themselves and with members of the surrounding white community. County and state court records held at the Multnomah County Courthouse and National Archives in Seattle, Washington, reveal much about the Chinese immigrant community in Portland and provide a window into a society that left few written records. Through the analysis of hundreds …

Gay Bars, Vice, And Reform In Portland, 1948-1965, Beka Smith

Dissertations and Theses

The city of Portland adopted different policies toward gay bars between 1948 and 1965. Portland's conservative mayors, generally uninterested in changing the city or promoting growth, ignored gay bars. Reform mayors instigated campaigns against gay bars to gain public, political, and business support for their broader economic and social goals. They were able to use crackdowns on gay bars as popular components of their reform initiatives because Portland, in comparison to other cities, professed conservatism and morality and had little economic or cultural incentive to tolerate gay bars. Blaming Portland's vice on outsiders, reform mayors argued that their actions protected …

Vormärz Of Germany And The Critique Of Heinrich Heine, Andrew Dean Henley

Dissertations and Theses

The conclusion of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars marked the beginning of the modem world. In western Europe new ideals about the position of the individual and the future of society flourished in the early nineteenth century--prior to the revolutions of 1848. However, the forward move into the modem world was stymied in the multitude of states which composed Germany after 1815. Due to a combination of factors- political repression, conservative/romantic trends, social lethargy, and liberal immaturity--German society in the period 1815-1848--the Vormärz (pre-March 1848) clung to traditional ways. The most famous German writer of this period, Heinrich …

The Emergence Of An Icon: The Frida Kahlo Cult, Teresa Neva Tate

Dissertations and Theses

At her death in 1954, Frida Kahlo was known as little more than the wife of muralist Diego Rivera. Since then her art and personae have taken on a cult-like following and she has become an icon of popular culture. Thus far Frida's repute has stretched across three decades, from the 1970s, 1980s, and into the 1990s. Frida's popularity is viewed as primarily emerging from the Women's Movement of the 1970s. However, interest from many other groups have carried her image into the 1980s and 1990s. Aside from the Women’s Movement, Frida's popularity reflects a growing interest in Mexico, specifically …

Chinese Women As Cultural Participants And Symbols In Nineteenth Century America, Tina Michele Landroche

Dissertations and Theses

Chinese female immigrants were active cultural contributors and participants in nineteenth century America, yet Americans often simplified their roles into crude stereotypes and media symbols. The early western accounts concerning females in China created the fundamental images that were the basis of the later stereotypes of women immigrants. The fact that a majority of the period's Chinese female immigrants became prostitutes fueled anti-Chinese feelings.

This thesis investigates the general existence of Chinese prostitutes in nineteenth century America and how they were portrayed in the media. American attitudes toward white women and their images of Chinese women created the stereotype of …

Oregon's Cuban-American Community : From Revolution To Assimilation, Richard Dellenback

Dissertations and Theses

The adjustment and assimilation achieved by Cuban-Americans who arrived in Oregon during the 1960s was notable for its rapidity. Little contact existed between the state and the island prior to the resettlement efforts begun by the Charities Division of the Portland Catholic Archdiocese, where a group of concerned administrators meshed their activities with a nation-wide program created and encouraged by the united States government and private agencies.

John Humphrey Noyes, 1811-1840 : A Social Biography, Susan Adams Dubay

Dissertations and Theses

John Humphrey Noyes was the founder of the Oneida Community, one of the most successful utopian ventures in nineteenth-century America. Early in his life, Noyes was a deep religious thinker, but he founded Oneida as an ideal society based on extending the family unit, and not as a church. Noyes's social theories eventually overwhelmed his former religious concentration.

The purpose of this thesis is to locate in Noyes's religiously-oriented youth the sources of his social interests. Few scholars have studied in depth the childhood and young manhood of John Humphrey Noyes, but that is where the roots of his social …

El Sindicato De Las Costureras 19 De Septiembre: The Impact Of The 1985 Mexico City Earthquake On Social Process, Margaret Mccrea

Dissertations and Theses

The paper traces out the relationships between three sets of actors--workers, factory owners, and government--before, during and after the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, and places those relationships in the broader context of Mexico's political and economic development, as well as the spatial structure of Mexico City and the garment district. The paper concludes that although victims respond to the crisis by attempting to restore and repair previous social and physical conditions, as social theory predicts, disasters have different effects on different classes of people, who respond according to their needs, vulnerabilities, perceptions, values, and their socially prescribed powers. Where there …

German-Czech Conflict In Cisleithania : The Question Of The Ethnographic Partition Of Bohemia, 1848-1919, Nicholas Aldorde

Dissertations and Theses

Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia, the former Crownlands of Austria-Hungary which now make up the western half of Czechoslovakia, had for centuries a population mixture of 40% German, 60% Czech. The national reawakening of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries pitted the majority Czechs against their German minority master. This, coupled with the social upheavals caused by the industrial revolution, brought Czechs and Germans in Bohemia to center stage in the nationality conflict in the multinational Empire.

Following The Drum : British Women In The Peninsular War, Sheila Simonson

Dissertations and Theses

Following the Drum: British Women in the Peninsular War examines the lives of British women, soldiers' and officers' wives, for the most part, who followed the British army on campaign in Portugal, Spain, and southern France during the Peninsular War (1808-1814). Because most of the women were of the working class, their major roles, as wives, mothers, widows, workers, and criminals, have been contrasted with those roles as defined in British working-class culture.

The Union Bimetallic Party Of Oregon, 1896-1898, Ludger Mogge

Dissertations and Theses

On March 23 - 26, 1898, Populists, Democrats, and Silver Republicans of Oregon held their state conventions in Portland and agreed upon a common platform and a common state ticket for the elections of June 6, 1898. None of the available works on Oregon history explains that this fusion was the culmination of a two-year effort to unite the reform forces the state. This thesis tries to fill the gap. Because of the lack of secondary works on the subject, the thesis is based mainly on two sources: newspapers on microfilm, especially The Oregonian; and the unpublished correspondence of party …

Revolutions: A Comparative Study, Thomas E. Gill

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to describe and then to compare common descriptive characteristics (uniformities) evident within three historical events: the Paris Commune of 1871, the Zapatista Movement of the Mexican Revolution between 1910 and 1919, and the Spartacist Rebellion of 1919. One such uniformity is the fact that all three are abortive social revolutions.

New Odessa, 1882-1887: United We Stand, Divided We Fall, Helen E. Blumenthal

Dissertations and Theses

The Oregon Territory and later the State of Oregon have had a well-deserved reputation for encouraging free thought and liberal ideas. By tradition, Oregon has been the scene of rugged individualism, a proving ground for ideas and movements. The commune of New Odessa was one of the lesser known attempts of a group of immigrants coming from persecution in Russian to a new way of life in America.

This thesis is a study starting with the background of Russian Jewry, the social climate in the United States and particularly Oregon which allowed for the development of communes, the story of …

Martin Luther King, Jr. And His Times: A Multi-Media Script, Robert D. Rosenkranz

Dissertations and Theses

The objective of this thesis is to create a broad perspective of Martin Luther King, Jr. and his times by placing him and his goal of creating the "beloved community" to the test of his environment: the feeling and behavior of those people whose hearts and habits he struggled to change or direct.

In order to achieve this, this multi-media script, based in history, places King in contrasting settings. Act I finds King in Montgomery where with a great deal of support he wins over vocal southern segregationists in court. In contrast, Act II takes place in the Lawndale slums …

National Efficiency And Social Planning In Britain, 1914-1921, Norman Richard Eder

Dissertations and Theses

Traditionally, improvements in the quality of life in Britain resulted from the temporary fusion of sometimes opposite interests which spurred Parliamentary action. Therefore, reform was rarely a party issue. Each reform question was treated separately and never as a part of a body of similar measures. Individuals were free to support or oppose particular reforms according to their own interests and motivations. The result of this lack of strong consistent reformist sentiment was a pattern of piece-meal legislative action with a notable absence of comprehensive social planning. The First World War, however, brought new challenges to British society. As the …

Irish Families In Portland, Oregon, 1850-1880 : An Immigrant Culture In The Far West, Michael Kazin

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis is an attempt to begin an examination of the social history of immigrant families in the cities of the West Coast. I chose to study Irish families in particular because they were the first group of migrants to come in large numbers to the United States from a primarily peasant culture, and because studies of Irish in the cities of the East have emphasized their resistance to assimilation into the dominant Anglicized Protestant society.

A Historiography Of The Elizabethan Poor Laws: Late Xixth And Xxth Century Historians, Susan C. Mcnaught

Dissertations and Theses

The Elizabethan poor laws stand as a great work from a dynamic period. How and why they were formulated have been questions which historians have asked for centuries. The discussions of these questions have varied, depending on the personal values and biases which each historian brought to this study. It is generally agreed that a very important function of the historian is interpretation. The study of history is not only a study of the events, but a study of the historians and their differing interpretations of those events.

In the past one hundred years, numerous historians have devoted themselves to …

State Response To The Civil Right Issue, 1883-1885, Robert Lionel Rowe

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study is to reexamine the assumption in American historiography that the United States Supreme Court's monumental decision in the Civil Rights Cases striking down the 1875 Civil Rights Act represented the end of the Nineteenth Century commitment to "equality under the law" and the civil rights issue. The evidence shows that while the decision had overwhelming support, much of this was support for the Court’s view that such legislation was not within the scope of Federal power.

Eleven states responded to the Supreme Court’s decision by rapidly enacting civil rights legislation. The research centered on gathering …