History Commons^™

Underneath The Rainbow: Queer Identity And Community Building In Panama City And The Florida Panhandle 1950 - 1990, Jerry T. Watkins Iii

History Theses

The decades after World War II were a time of growth and change for queer people across the country. Many chose to move to major metropolitan centers in order to pursue a life of openness and be part of queer communities. However, those people only account for part of the story of queer history. Other queer people chose to stay in small towns and create their own queer spaces for socializing and community building. The Gulf Coast of Florida is a place where queer people chose to create queer community where they lived through such actions as private house parties …

Crystal, Minnesota And The American Suburb, Matthew Ottinger

Culminating Projects in History

This thesis covers the development of the American suburb with special attention paid to Crystal, Minnesota as a case study. With sporadic primary sources, a simple chronological telling of Crystal's history was a difficult task to undertake. That being the case, a study of how the average American suburb changed from a community on the fringe of a metropolitan area to a city of its own are discussed within this thesis.

The topics that continually presented themselves during research ranged from how people have changed the land to how one defines community. Suburban growth in the form of sprawl, development, …

Je Suis Huger: Shaping Identity In South Carolina, 1685-1885, Jason Hollis

All Theses

In 1685, a large group of Huguenots, or French Calvinist Protestants, migrated to South Carolina seeking economic opportunity and religious toleration. By the outbreak of the Civil War, the descendants of these French immigrants had transformed into bastions of Southern identity and society. But how had this transformation taken place?

This study attempts to answer that question. It aims to trace the journey of Huguenot assimilation from French Protestant refugees to British Colonists, from Colonists into Americans, and finally from Americans into Southerners. Focusing on the experiences of a single lineage, the Huger family, it hopes to add to existing …

Men Of War: The Seamen Of Hms Mars And The Revolutionary Era, Harold Hansen

History Theses

The late eighteenth century witnessed dramatic changes in the social, economic, and political fabric of the Atlantic World. The Sailors of the HMS Mars fully participated in this transition to modernity. Over the course of their naval careers, the men laboring on the Mars felt the pull of four distinct, but interlocking cultures. Working class, maritime, naval, and British culture all played a part in the sailors’ identity construction. As a result of these myriad influences the sailors could have chosen to join the emerging trans-national maritime working class, but instead the Mars’ seamen fought to gain full British citizenship …