History Commons^™

Divided Agencies: Internal Strife In The Fight Against Castro, Stephanie R. Schmidt

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. State Department differed in their approaches to dealing with the Castro regime from 1959 through the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Using declassified documents from the CIA and State Department, I argue that the approaches of the CIA in dealing with the Castro regime were more aggressive than the approaches of the U.S. State Department. Many of the primary sources used in this work were accessed in the CIA electronic reading room and on the office of the historian website. The office of the historian is an …

A New Brand Of Men: Masculinity In French Republican Socialist Rhetoric, Randolph A. Miller

Theses and Dissertations

Social theorist and activist, August Blanqui, used his appearance before court in 1832 to lay out an argument that condemned the present political and economic system and demanded emancipation of the male worker. During his monologue, along with his devastating portrayal of worker misery and systemic corruption, Blanqui made comparisons between the male bourgeoisie and the male proletariat. Recounting the recent overthrow of Charles X for his audience, Blanqui described the “glorious workers” as six feet tall, towering over a groveling bourgeoisie who praised them for their “selflessness and courage.” According to Blanqui, the workers, unlike the aristocracy of wealth …

Humor And Quiet Resistance: The Graphic Work Of Wilhelm Höpfner, Kelsey Jean Mccarey Soya

Theses and Dissertations

Humor and Quiet Resistance: The Graphic Work of Wilhelm Höpfner is an exhibition that was on display at the Emile Mathis II Art Gallery at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee November 15–December 20, 2018. The works consist of fine art prints produced Wilhelm Höpfner between 1921 and 1939 in Berlin and the smaller city of Magdeburg. The exhibition and this accompanying catalogue seek to introduce the reader to his work and to provide the cultural context for its interpretation. When discussing the artistic movements of Europe in the early twentieth century, there is a tendency to discuss them as discrete, contained …

Responding To Change: Girl Scouts, Race, And The Feminist Movement, Phyllis E. Reske

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the Girl Scouts of the United States of America (GSUSA) is to teach girls to be giving, self-sufficient, and independent in their homes and communities through volunteer work and earning merit badges. Open to all girls since its inception, the GSUSA offers Girl Scouts training in both gender-conforming and nontraditional vocations. However, during the first half of the twentieth century, segregation and domesticity was emphasized in American society. The organization began to focus less on careers, independence, and racial inclusion to preparing predominately white girls to be good wives and mothers. As Black Power and women’s liberation …

Addie Graves (1922-2007) And The Creation Of Bethlehem Lutheran Church In Columbus, Georgia, Jesse David Chariton

Theses and Dissertations

Addie Graves (1922-2007) grew up in Wilcox County, Alabama, which at the time was a center of Lutheran African-American missions. After moving to Columbus, Georgia, in the early 1950s, she became the first black member of a Lutheran church in the city (Lutheran Church of the Redeemer). This is significant because most other churches in Columbus did not desegregate until decades later. It was also prior to any official desegregation action by the Lutheran Church -Missouri Synod. She could have joined a different church, but she evidently felt strongly about her Lutheran faith and identity. In 1963, she helped establish …

After Faith, Hope, And Love: The Unique Divergence Of Asceticism By Gregory The Great And Maximus The Confessor, Caleb N. Zuiderveen

Theses and Dissertations

In the late sixth and early seventh centuries, asceticism continued as a frequent expression of Christian devotion. Despite communications between the Eastern and Western Churches and a common patristic foundation, theology in the East and West during this time diverged on the results of asceticism. This paper explores this divergence by examining two theologians, Gregory the Great and Maximus the Confessor. Current scholarship has examined Gregory the Great and Maximus the Confessor on their own, yet the dialogue between each tradition and its implications remains understudied. Thus, this study contextualizes Gregory the Great’s On the Song of Songs and Maximus …

The Plight Of Wage-Earning Women In Peoria, 1905-1915, Cheryl Kay Fogler

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the conditions of wage-earning women in Peoria, Illinois, during the first two decades of the twentieth century. I present the plight of wage-earning women as well as the well-intended efforts of both local and national crusaders who helped the working women of Peoria survive and in some cases overcome hardships.

Politics And The Built Environment: Civic Structures Of Eighteenth Century Williamsburg, Virginia And Charles Town, South Carolina, Paul Bartow

Theses and Dissertations

This study compares Williamsburg and Charles Town as colonial capital cities with attention to how their political culture was reflected through public buildings and the built environment. Drawing on traveler accounts, contemporary descriptions, government records, and maps, this thesis analyzes the character-defining features of public architecture in each city. I examine the capitol buildings, governor’s residences, churches, and town plans to see how the colonists in these respective cities viewed their society, their political order, and their place within the British Empire.

I argue that due to its development in the late seventeenth century and its reliance on the architectural …

Anti-Sabbatarianism In Antebellum America: The Christian Quarrel Over The Sanctity Of Sunday, Kathryn Kaslow

Theses and Dissertations

In the first half of the 1800s, American Christians posed fundamental questions about the role of faith in daily life by debating blue laws, which restricted Sunday travel, mail delivery, and recreational activities on the basis of the Fourth Commandment. Historians have largely focused on how pro-blue law Christians, or Sabbatarians, answered these questions. They also present anti-Sabbatarian concerns as socially, economically, or politically motivated, largely ignoring religion. However, an examination of religious periodicals, convention reports, correspondence, and petitions shows that many anti-Sabbatarians did indeed frame their arguments in theological terms. Case studies from various faith traditions over four decades …

Creating Herstory: Female Rebellion In Arundhati Roy’S "The God Of Small Things" And "The Ministry Of Utmost Happiness", Priyanka Tewari

Theses and Dissertations

In The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness novels, the author Arundhati Roy is not only attempting to give feminist weight to the multiplicity of locations in which gender is articulated by recasting her female characters in their quest for selfhood, she is also focusing on women and women-identified characters as agents of history, thereby contributing to an ongoing project of feminist historiography.

Lunatics And Idiots: Treatment Of The Mentally Ill And Mentally Disabled Population In The Rio Grande Valley, 1860-1962, Emily Gray

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the conditions the mentally ill and mentally disabled population in the Rio Grande Valley faced during the era of the asylum in the United States, from 1860 until 1962. The treatment options for the citizens of the Rio Grande Valley are compared with the treatment of the mentally ill in the nation as a whole, as well as in the state of Texas. The Rio Grande Valley has been geographically distant from large population centers, and the state of Texas neglected to place any state-funded health care centers in the region until the 1960's. The Rio Grande …

Measured Expectations: An Examination Of Urban Agriculture Development And Operations In Milwaukee, Wi, Jamison Ellis

Theses and Dissertations

Urban agriculture has begun to shape urban spaces throughout the United States. Building from research on urban agriculture projects in Milwaukee I argue that in order for researchers to better understand urban agriculture, they must more thoroughly examine the various developmental and operational strategies that urban agriculture nonprofit organizations implement. The research questions that guides my thesis are the following: first, how do the developmental and operational strategies of urban agriculture projects differ? Second, how do different stakeholders perceive the implications of these approaches for creating positive and negative effects? To do this, I collected data through interviews and participant …

The Invisible Crisis: Framing The Remediation Of Milwaukee's Lead Laterals, Isabella Rieke

Theses and Dissertations

When Milwaukee’s municipal water system was developed in 1874, one-half-inch lead pipes were used to convey water from the mains in the street to a customer’s home; the City has since acknowledged that nearly 100,000 such lead pipes are still in use today, a revelation which has opened for debate whether or not these pipes pose a galvanizing public health risk with far-reaching policy and infrastructure implications. This study explores the community response to Milwaukee’s lead laterals through the efforts of the Freshwater for Life Action Coalition (FLAC). How do Milwaukeeans understand the risks posed by the lead laterals? In …

The Relationship Between The Methodist Church, Slavery And Politics, 1784-1844, Brian D. Lawrence

Theses and Dissertations

The Methodist church split in 1844 was a cumulative result of decades of regional instability within the governing structure of the church. Although John Wesley had a strict anti-slavery belief as the leader of the movement in Great Britain, the Methodist church in America faced a distinctively different dilemma. Slavery proved to be a lasting institution that posed problems for Methodism in the United States and in the larger political context. The issue of slavery plagued Methodism from almost its inception, but the church functioned well although conflicts remained below the surface. William Capers, James Osgood Andrew, and Freeborn Garrettson …

Layered Histories, Interpretive Desires, Rachelle Dang

Theses and Dissertations

I aim to excavate source material from the past and reinterpret its significance in the present through art. I merge history with the contemporary through acts of appropriation and material exploration, creating conditions for the viewer to grapple with colonial legacies in an affective space of visual experience.

“After-Ozymandias”: The Colonization Of Symbols And The American Monument, H. R. Membreno-Canales

Theses and Dissertations

After-Ozymandias examines the visual rhetoric of American patriotism through its many symbols, including flags and monuments. My thesis project consists of photographs of empty plinths, objects, products and archival materials. Countless relics remain today memorializing leaders and empires that inevitably declined, from antiquity to modern times. Looking back at distant history feels like a luxury, though: the question for our time in America is whether we have the strength of mind as a society to scrutinize our history, warts and all.

Instituting Protest (Film), Joshua Eisenberg

Theses and Dissertations

The road-trip story of one man looking at how first and fourteenth amendment rights have effected college campuses over time in the United States, while also looking at the possibility of revoking a diploma from a white nationalist for having different views than ones preferential to a certain college.

The Romance Novel Cover, Jessica D. Spears

Theses and Dissertations

Romance novel covers dating from the 1980s and 1990s reflect complex and contradictory ideas about gender, power, and sexuality. The covers overflow with stereotypes of what women are attracted to such as enormous pink roses, lush folds of silk, and hair long enough for Rapunzel. To this socially acceptable women’s imagery, the covers add two less reputable aspects: sexual imagery and, occasionally, suggestions of female submission. Since the association of romance and conventional femininity is so strong, the covers make a visual argument that submission and sexuality are things that a conventional woman wants. Readers have to deal with what …

Population Change In Times Of War: Biodistance Analysis Of Medieval And Early Modern Skeletal Populations From Adriatic Croatia, Lindsey Jo Helms Thorson

Theses and Dissertations

Research by doctoral candidate Lindsey Jo Helms Thorson, under the supervision of Dr. Patricia Richards, investigated population during the Ottoman expansion into Croatian territories to determine whether migration contributed significantly to changes in the biological make-up of the population. The study focused on phenotypic trait variation, using cranial and dental metric and nonmetric data, in two skeletal samples from the Medieval (pre-Ottoman) period and two skeletal samples from the Early Modern (Ottoman) period in the central Dalmatian region of Croatia, curated at the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts – Anthropology Center. Historical narratives suggest that as the Ottoman Empire …

Picturing And Preserving The War: Herbert Hahn's World War Ii Photograph Album, Samantha Sue Schwarz

Theses and Dissertations

Following his return from World War II, Herbert Hahn assembled an album using photographs he had taken during the war, photographs he had collected, and other materials that he had acquired during his time overseas. This thesis addresses questions posed by the album in Hahn’s collection, including: What was the purpose of the photographs taken by Hahn? Why did he assemble them into an album, which he then kept hidden? And, finally, what can the photograph album contribute—beyond understanding Hahn’s experiences—to larger discussions regarding soldiers’ personal photograph collections. While there is no single answer as to why Hahn created the …

Samuel Adams And John Hancock: The Relationship That Determined The Formation Of America, Bruce D. Griffiths

Theses and Dissertations

This paper argues that the relationship between Samuel Adams and John Hancock and their cooperation played critical/pivotal roles, especially in garnering New England support for the beginning of the American Revolution as well as the ratification of the Constitution.

Landscapes Of Recovery: Belonging And Place In Post-Katrina Literatures, Lee Martin Abbott

Theses and Dissertations

In Landscapes of Recovery: Belonging and Place in Post-Katrina Literatures, I analyze narratives of physical and social change following the events of Hurricane Katrina while providing a critical reading of the representations of New Orleans’s and the Gulf Coast’s urban landscapes in works of urban planning, nonfiction literature, and activist writing. A general line of inquiry informs this project: how do narratives about the disaster landscape following Katrina make visible or invisible certain political subjects? I assert that, by telling stories about the post- and pre-disaster landscape and its urban development history, these narratives carry out the process of displacement. …

Faouda Wa Ruina: A History Of Moroccan Punk Rock And Heavy Metal, Brian Kenneth Trott

Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

FAOUDA WA RUINA: A HISTORY OF MOROCCAN PUNK ROCK AND HEAVY METAL

by

Brian Trott

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2018

Under the Supervision of Professor Gregory Carter

While the punk rock and heavy metal subcultures have spread through much of the world since the 1980s, a heavy metal scene did not take shape in Morocco until the mid-1990s. There had yet to be a punk rock band there until the mid-2000s. In the following paper, I detail the rise of heavy metal in Morocco. Beginning with the early metal scene, I trace through critical moments in its growth, building …

Sheltering Opportunity: City Planning And Housing In Chicago, 1909-1941, Kari Renae Smith

Theses and Dissertations

City planning in the United States has undergone continuous evolution; the profession has struggled to produce solutions that match the caliber of its ambitions while keeping up with the ever-changing city. Furthermore, at times special interests have co-opted city planning, utilizing and constraining the profession to meet those interests – often focused on increasing property values while neglecting other social needs, not least of which is the provision of adequate housing. This dissertation aims to contribute to a better understanding of how the definition and scope of city planning changes to include or exclude social issues by examining the relationship …

Squatters, Shanties, And Technocratic Professionals: Urban Migration And Housing Shortages In Twentieth-Century Chile, Nathan C. Norris

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the struggles of squatters and slum dwellers for housing prior to the 1973 coup in Santiago de Chile, Valparaíso, and surrounding areas, with a focus on the Frei era of the late 1960s. The work argues that severe urban overcrowding generated advocacy for housing during the rise of progressive and leftist politics in Chile. It also explores the dynamics of efforts to promote housing through the lens of the work of professionals in the fields of architecture and urban planning. It argues that Chilean professionals adopted modernist principals in the fields of architecture and planning when promoting …

The Impact Of Ethnic Cleansing And The Eurocentric International System On The Entrance Of The Ottoman Empire Into The Great War, 1878-1914, Parker Lake

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the reasons for the Ottoman Empire’s entrance into the First World War. It claims that the Empire’s decision was rooted in the failure of the European international system to uphold its diplomatic agreements and the resulting refugee crisis in the Balkans caused by Russian imperialism.

Better Than Before, Makia Harper

Theses and Dissertations

Better than Before is an experiential art installation that profiles the life of James Isreal, a Vietnam vet who shares a spiritual journey that is filled with self-discovery, introspection, and hope in the midst of war and abhorrent racism. His poignant retrospective follows his struggle to find peace in the midst of trauma and disease, providing life lessons that transcend the pangs of adversity and the unknown.

An 'Alter Kampfer' At The Forefront Of The Holocaust: Otto Ohlendorf Between Careerism And Nazi Fundamentalism, Jennifer B. Capani

Theses and Dissertations

On April 7th, 1951, Holocaust perpetrator Otto Ohlendorf’s death sentence was carried out according to the ruling of the United States Military Courts in Nuremberg. In The United States vs. Otto Ohlendorf, et. al., leaders of the Einsatzgruppen, mobile killing units, were tried for war crimes which led to the deaths of millions of Jews and partisans. Under Ohlendorf’s leadership of Einsatzgruppen D, more than 90,000 people were liquidated in the Ukraine. After this assignment, Ohlendorf resumed his positions head of Domestic Security in the Reich Security Main Office. As the war ended, he surrendered, and revealed the full scope …

Mother Knows Better: The Donna Reed Show, The Feminine Mystique And The Rise Of The Modern Maternal Feminist Movement, Anne M. Newton

Theses and Dissertations

In 1958, actress Donna Reed formed her own production company to create The Donna Reed Show, which ran successfully until 1966. One of only two female television producers working in Hollywood, Reed’s show foreshadowed much of the discontent illustrated in Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. The series explored Donna’s frustrations with housework, her interest in professional activities outside the home, and her determination to be an equal in her marriage. However, The Donna Reed Show also diverged from Friedan on key issues by elevating the housewife and establishing her moral authority, thus foreshadowing more conservative “maternal” feminism as …

Women In Music: Letting A Long Story Be Long Contemplating Women’S Sonic, Musical, And Spiritual Experiences In Prehistory, Deborah J. Saidel

Theses and Dissertations

Situated within deep history, this study explores the auditory and spiritual lives of Paleolithic women. It considers their personal agency in mediating the spiritual power of sound and how doing so contributes to a multifaceted musicality. The theoretical framework involves a wide spectrum of topics, from ways of rethinking the writing of history and reckoning with time, to sound studies and the study of acoustics in ancient sites, to a critical examination through a feminist lens of normative disciplinary scholarship in anthropology and archaeology, religious studies, and musicology. I explore potential audio-visual-lithic relationships for their implications for deepening an understanding …