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Full-Text Articles in History

The Economics Of Neutrality: Switzerland And The United States In World War Ii, Matthew Schandler Jan 2005

The Economics Of Neutrality: Switzerland And The United States In World War Ii, Matthew Schandler

LSU Master's Theses

The following study addresses the contentious issue of Swiss economic policy during the Second World War. In particular, it concentrates on the deterioration of Swiss-American relations that resulted from Switzerland’s economic ties to Nazi Germany. It is argued that Switzerland’s survival as a neutral and democratic country depended less on the defense preparations of the Swiss Army and more on the difficult trade negotiations with both the Axis and Allies. Varied sources that include American and Swiss governmental reports, diplomatic documents, and contemporary accounts of the war, support the argument that although moral considerations played a secondary role to economic …


Sufficient To Make Heaven Weep: The American Army In The Mexican War, Brian M. Mcgowan Jan 2005

Sufficient To Make Heaven Weep: The American Army In The Mexican War, Brian M. Mcgowan

LSU Master's Theses

The Mexican War, 1846-1848, has often been overlooked in American history. Scholars have been more interested in assigning blame for the conflict, or assessing the role played by the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in the coming of the Civil War. Only recently have scholars made any attempt to understand the motivations and attitudes brought to Mexico by American soldiers. This thesis focuses on how the racial and religious attitudes of American soldiers during the war were an implementation of the nationalism inherent in Manifest Destiny. Americans used their perceived racial and religious superiority to further the goals of Manifest Destiny. Mexico …


Une Société Nouvelle: The Decline Of The Gaullist Party And France's Move To The Left, Neal A. Novak Jan 2005

Une Société Nouvelle: The Decline Of The Gaullist Party And France's Move To The Left, Neal A. Novak

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis is concerned with French politics in the thirteen years after 1968. After the wave of street demonstrations, seizure of schools, and worker sit-ins that beset the country in May of that year, many people in France became convinced of the need to alter the political status quo. In the years that followed, the country’s largest and most dominant political grouping, the Gaullist party, experienced a dramatic loss of electoral support. Between 1968 and 1981, the Gaullists lost control of the National Assembly, the premiership, and the presidency. By May 1981, France’s Fifth Republic was governed by a leftist …


Defining Modernity: Mentality And Ideology Under The French Second Empire, Gavin Murray-Miller Jan 2005

Defining Modernity: Mentality And Ideology Under The French Second Empire, Gavin Murray-Miller

LSU Master's Theses

This study intends to examine the relationship between popular conceptions of modernity and Republican ideology during the Second Empire, 1852-1870. With the advent of the industrial revolution in France, scientific knowledge came to be equated with notions of progress and innovation, leading intellectual elites to design philosophical and social systems predicated upon the authority of scientific analysis and objectivity. Influenced by the intellectual currents under the Second Empire, a new generation of Republican political theorists incorporated notions of science into their ideological outlook, ultimately engendering a moderate brand of Republicanism which played a significant role in the founding of the …


Restoration, Religion, And Revenge, Heather Thornton Jan 2005

Restoration, Religion, And Revenge, Heather Thornton

LSU Master's Theses

The subject of this thesis is religious dissent in Restoration England. The government of Charles II and the reinstated Church of England both had programs on how to deal with the problem of religious nonconformity. This project presents the punitive legislation supported by king, parliament, and church to stamp out dissent. These programs were unable to sway the beliefs of committed nonconformists who gave testimony to the strength of their beliefs by facing persecution and imprisonment.


La Madame Et La Mademoiselle: Creole Women In Louisiana, 1718-1865, Katy Frances Morlas Jan 2005

La Madame Et La Mademoiselle: Creole Women In Louisiana, 1718-1865, Katy Frances Morlas

LSU Master's Theses

In Louisiana during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a unique group of people known as Creole created a culture that differed from the rest of the United States. Descendants of the first French and Spanish settlers, Creoles both black and white struggled to maintain their heritage despite an influx of Anglo-American Protestants into Louisiana; women in particular sought to preserve their culture. Although black Creole women have received significant attention, their white counterparts remain virtually absent in scholarship. This thesis focuses on the lives of white Creole women in the River Parishes and New Orleans and seeks to recreate the …


The Persian Policies Of Alexander The Great: From 330-323 Bc, Nicholas Ed Foster Jan 2005

The Persian Policies Of Alexander The Great: From 330-323 Bc, Nicholas Ed Foster

LSU Master's Theses

Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire and sought to create a unique realm, where all people Greek and non-Greek would be able to live in relative autonomy under the monarch. Scholars have debated Alexander's intent for the last century and still cannot find consensus. This thesis will approach the intent by focusing on the question of how Alexander governed the empire he conquered. Specifically, did he intend for the people of the conquered landmass to become a new type of integrated culture led by him and his progeny? If it is possible to answer this question, it may give …


American Disillusionment And The Search For Self-Fulfillment In The 1970'S: A Cultural History Of Taxi Driver, Annie Hall, And Saturday Night Fever, Joshua Elliot Lubin Jan 2005

American Disillusionment And The Search For Self-Fulfillment In The 1970'S: A Cultural History Of Taxi Driver, Annie Hall, And Saturday Night Fever, Joshua Elliot Lubin

LSU Master's Theses

Three popular and critically acclaimed films of the post-Watergate era illustrated and criticized the period’s disillusionment. Likewise, a series of political and economic crises spawned a shift in American culture. The Sixties’ mass social movements dissolved into the Seventies and launched a trend in which Americans became preoccupied with themselves more than the state of the nation. Controlling one’s own destiny became a collective obsession when confronted with the period’s various political and economic ailments. The “Me” decade turned inward rather than concern itself with public issues. Therefore, American culture earned dubious labels such as narcissistic and decadent from critics …


Black Catholicism: Religion And Slavery In Antebellum Louisiana, Lori Renee Pastor Jan 2005

Black Catholicism: Religion And Slavery In Antebellum Louisiana, Lori Renee Pastor

LSU Master's Theses

The practice of Catholicism extended across racial boundaries in colonial Louisiana, and interracial worship continued to characterize the religious experience of Catholics throughout the antebellum period. French and Spanish missionaries baptized natives, settlers, and slaves, and the Catholic Church required Catholic planters to baptize and catechize their slaves. Most slaveholders outside New Orleans, however, were lax in the religious education of slaves. Work holidays did not always correspond to religious holy days, and the number of slave baptisms and confirmations on Catholic plantations often depended on the willingness of the local priest, or the slaves themselves, to attend the parish …


Failing The Race: A Historical Assessment Of New Orleans Mayor Sidney Barthelemy, 1986-1994, Lyle Kenneth Perkins Jan 2005

Failing The Race: A Historical Assessment Of New Orleans Mayor Sidney Barthelemy, 1986-1994, Lyle Kenneth Perkins

LSU Master's Theses

New Orleans’ voters elected Sidney Barthelemy as the city’s second African American mayor in 1986. Historical treatments of Barthelemy’s tenure generally do not hold him in the same high regard as New Orleans’ first African American mayor, Ernest Morial. Yet, unfavorable evaluations of Barthelemy reflect the maturation of African American politics in the Crescent City. Symbolic victories no longer resonate with an African American populous in need of substantive gains to redress longstanding social and economic inequities. With the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the struggle for African American equality entered its next phase, the transition from …


Monasticism In Anglo-Saxon England: An Analysis Of Selected Hagiography From Northumbria Written In The Years After The Council Of Whitby, Carrie Couvillon Jan 2005

Monasticism In Anglo-Saxon England: An Analysis Of Selected Hagiography From Northumbria Written In The Years After The Council Of Whitby, Carrie Couvillon

LSU Master's Theses

Hagiography, writings about saints, was generally a means of venerating a saint's life. An author of hagiography wrote to advance his own salvation as well as to educate his audience on the proper practice of Christianity. Anglo-Saxon hagiography written in the years after the Council of Whitby in 664, however, also showed more support for the Roman tradition as opposed to Celtic Christianity. In an era when Christians in England were divided both culturally and religiously, unification under a single tradition as the one true representative of the faith was essential. This paper is an analysis of four important hagiographical …


A Crisis Of Opportunity: The Example Of New Orleans And Public Education In Antebellum Louisiana, Sarah Elisabeth Lipscomb Jan 2005

A Crisis Of Opportunity: The Example Of New Orleans And Public Education In Antebellum Louisiana, Sarah Elisabeth Lipscomb

LSU Master's Theses

The purpose of this study is to explore the development of public education in antebellum Louisiana. Using primarily public records, I found that despite the successful system instituted in New Orleans in the early 1840s, the rest of Louisiana faltered in its attempts to establish free public schools. Notwithstanding the requirement contained in the 1845 Constitution that each parish must organize public schools, the lack of guidance, supervision, and funding from the state legislature all coalesced to condemn public education in most of the rest of the state. As public schools in New Orleans thrived throughout the decades leading up …