History Commons^™

Between Faith And Nation: The Complexities Of Jewish Identity In Interwar Austria, Sarah E. Townsend

Honors College Theses

During the period between the First and Second World Wars, the people of the newly established Austrian Republic faced many changes: the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Habsburg Monarchy, economic hardships during and following the First World War, and the question of German ethnic nationalism and unification with Germany. The question of national identity was relevant to the entire Austrian population and Austrians had to make an important decision about their nationality: Austrian or German? For Austrian Jews, the dilemma was more complicated. Zionism promoted the idea of Jewish statehood and a solely Jewish identity. This thesis explores the …

Navigating Culture In The Home, Church, School, And Community: Norwegian American Youth In Norman County, Minnesota, 1870-1925, Brianna Rose Devalk

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Since the centennial celebration of Norwegian migration to America in 1925, historians have frequently reflected upon the creation of the Norwegian American identity throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Yet, while investigations on culture and identity continue to expand our understanding of Norwegian America, youth are still frequently left on the margins of focus. The voices of children and adolescents are frequently difficult to hear as they leave few written historical records for historians to analyze. Additionally, few scholars have explored the sources they have left as adults remembering their childhood due to the skepticism of memory. As a …

Reframing Leadership Narratives Through The African American Lens, Marion Missy Mcgee

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

Reframing Leadership Narratives through the African American Lens explores the context-rich experiences of Black Museum executives to challenge dominant cultural perspectives of what constitutes a leader. Using critical narrative discourse analysis, this research foregrounds under-told narratives and reveals the leadership practices used to proliferate Black Museums to contrast the lack of racially diverse perspectives in the pedagogy of leadership studies. This was accomplished by investigating the origin stories of African American executives using organizational leadership and social movement theories as analytical lenses for making sense of leaders’ tactics and strategies. Commentary from Black Museum leaders were interspersed with sentiments of …

Visit Which Scotland? Political Events Illuminating Two Competing Visions Of Re-Emerging Scottish Identity Since The Late Twentieth-Century, Erin W. Delaney

Senior Independent Study Theses

Since the late twentieth century, Scotland has undergone a series of political changes. I argue that a consequence of these changes has been increased support for a separate national Scottish identity. By analyzing competing visions of this identity through the tourism industry and Gaelic revival, this IS shows the complexities of this move towards nationalism. While many scholars have analyzed the re-emergence of Scottish identity since 1707, the relationship between Gaelic revival efforts and the tourism industry have not been connected to show the complexities of this re-emerging Scottish identity. This IS draws on a vast array of interdisciplinary sources …

Overview And Acknowledgments, Marc Roscoe Loustau

Journal of Global Catholicism

No abstract provided.

Shock And Awe, Sectarianism, And Violence In Iraq Post-2003, Sarim Al-Rawi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The violence systematically deployed upon the prosperous nation of Iraq in 2003 was directly influenced by the Shock and Awe doctrine set forth by Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade in their 1996 book Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance. The experimental methods of warfare and violence outlined in the text describe methods for the systematic destruction of every major aspect of a nation and society, militarily, economically, and socially. In the wake of the US Invasion of Iraq, we saw the direct implementation of these methods by the occupation forces, setting off a brutal cycle of violence that …

Teaching The Empire: Education And State Loyalty In Late Habsburg Austria, Scott O. Moore

Central European Studies

Teaching the Empire explores how Habsburg Austria utilized education to cultivate the patriotism of its people. Public schools have been a tool for patriotic development in Europe and the United States since their creation in the nineteenth century. On a basic level, this civic education taught children about their state while also articulating the common myths, heroes, and ideas that could bind society together. For the most part historians have focused on the development of civic education in nation-states like Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. There has been an assumption that the multinational Habsburg Monarchy did not, or could …

Social Standards Of Imposition: Respectability And The Raj Through The Eyes Of Governess Marjorie Ussher, Erin A. Nelsen

Antonian Scholars Honors Program

The British Empire possesses a long history of imposing ways of thinking, political structures, economic structures, and social standards on their territories. From 1934 to 1940, during the final years of the Raj (British sovereignty in India), this imperialism extended to standards of beauty and respectability in Hyderabad, the capital of the Hyderabad state. These standards arise in the archived letters British governess Marjorie Ussher wrote to her family during this timeframe. Through a close reading of the letters, this thesis recognizes and reflects on Ussher’s aesthetics depictions of the people, objects, and the natural landscape around her. Within this …

Tổi Là Người Viet (I Am Vietnamese): The Construction Of Third-Wave Vietnamese Identity In The United States, Eric Pham

History Undergraduate Theses

This paper focuses on the third wave of Vietnamese migration to the United States, which occurred from the 1980s to the 1990s, and how this group of immigrants constructed their identity in a new country. From a Western perspective, particularly an American one, it is easy to categorize all Vietnamese immigrants under the same umbrella. Although there are similarities among all three waves, one significant element that differentiates the third wave from the other two is the United States’ enactment of the Amerasian Homecoming Act of 1987, which facilitated an influx of Vietnamese Americans to the U.S. mainland. This allowed …

“The Spirit Of Turbulence”: East Indian Political Imaginaries In Early 20th Century British Guiana, Faria A. Nasruddin

Honors Projects

After the abolition of slavery, the Colonial Office instituted an indentured labor scheme that lasted from 1838 to 1917, in which they brought East Indians to the plantation colonies as laborers under five year contracts. Due to the planter class’ desire for permanent sources of labor in British Guiana, the Colonial Government incentivized East Indians to permanently settle. East Indians thus dominated the British Guiana’s agricultural landscape and became the single largest ethnicity in the Colony by 1920. This thesis explores the early negotiations of the meaning of diaspora and diasporic citizenship for East Indians in British Guiana. They comprised …

The Border-Seas Of A New British Empire: Security And The British Atlantic Islands In The Age Of The American Revolution, Ross M. Nedervelt

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

“The Border-seas of a New British Empire” explores the relationship between the rebellious thirteen colonies and the British Atlantic Islands of Bermuda and the Bahamas, and how the “on the ground” impact of the American Revolution explains not only why they did not join the rebellion—despite initial sympathy for the cause—but illustrates also the long-term political, cultural, commercial, and military transformation wrought by the war and its aftermath. To understand the British Atlantic islanders’ allegiances during the American Revolution and the impact of the islands’ loss on the United States, this dissertation employs Atlantic, borderlands and border-seas, and security interpretive …

Italian/Americans And The American Racial System: Contadini To Settler Colonists?, Stephen J. Cerulli

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores the relationship between ethnicity and race, “whiteness,” in the American racial system through the lens of Italian/Americans. Firstly, it overviews the current scholarship on Italian/Americans and whiteness. Secondly, it analyzes methodologies that are useful for understanding race in an American context. Thirdly, it presents a case study on the Columbus symbol and the battle over identity that arose out of, and continues over, this symbol. Finally, this thesis provides suggestions using the case study and methodologies to open up new ways of understanding Italian/Americans and the American racial system.

Name Changes In Search Of A New Identity: Southern And Eastern European Immigrants And The Fashioning Of White Identity In The United States, Kathryn A. Penick

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

This thesis examines the reasons, methods, and implications of the process by which immigrant individuals and families changed ethnic/heritage surnames to anglicized/Americanized surnames. Eastern and Southern immigrant groups are the focus of this work. Names have implications for group membership and personal identity; as a broad trend, the changing of family names was a significant way in which immigrant groups acculturated to mainstream American culture. In American history, immigration has been inextricably linked to issues of race and racial identity. These themes are explored in depth as they relate to personal and group identification and belonging.

From Davao City To Daly City: Examining Translanguaging And Transnationalism In The 1.5-Generation Filipin(A/O) Americans Of Daly City, Rita Ewing

Master's Theses

In the field of migration studies, research on transnationalism has been well

established. Applying an intersectional framework of post-colonial narrative and

linguistic anthropology to transnational migration, this research allows us to better

understand how the transnational immigrant deploys language. Through a nostalgia

studies approach, this study is able to analyze how transnational immigrants place value

on their heritage and second languages, and reflexively deploy their language sets to

reflect their unique positionality. This paper is a case study examination of five adult

members of the 1.5-generation of Filipin(a/o) American immigrants, who immigrated to

the US before the age of eighteen …

Zycie W Ameryce: Life In America (Poster), Brett A. Cotter

Summer Research Program

Poster complementing author's summer research project exploring the history of the Polish-American community of Worcester, Massachusetts centered on the parish of Our Lady of Czestochowa and how its members responded to the forces of Americanization. Research in area archives such as the Worcester Historical Museum, the Worcester Public Library, and at Our Lady of Czestochowa’s rectory and its parish school of Saint Mary’s, as well as oral history interviews with past and longtime members of the community test the assumption that the story of Worcester’s Polish community is one of loss and decline. On the contrary, Polish-American efforts to preserve …

Zycie W Ameryce: Life In America, Brett A. Cotter

Summer Research Program

My project explores the history of the Polish-American community of Worcester, Massachusetts centered on the parish of Our Lady of Czestochowa and how its members responded to the forces of Americanization. Like many ethnic groups new to America, Polish-Americans and Polish immigrants in the twentieth century had to adapt in a world that demanded conformity in exchange for social mobility and departure from tradition and community. Over eight weeks, I conducted research in area archives such as the Worcester Historical Museum, the Worcester Public Library, and at Our Lady of Czestochowa’s rectory and its parish school of Saint Mary’s, as …

A Theory Of Veteran Identity, Travis L. Martin

Theses and Dissertations--English

More than 2.6 million troops have deployed in support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Still, surveys reveal that more than half feel “disconnected” from their civilian counterparts, and this feeling persists despite ongoing efforts, in the academy and elsewhere, to help returning veterans overcome physical and mental wounds, seek an education, and find meaningful ways to contribute to society after taking off the uniform. This dissertation argues that Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans struggle with reassimilation because they lack healthy, complete models of veteran identity to draw upon in their postwar lives, a problem they’re working through collectively …

Identity To Be Determined: The Development Of The American Ideal In The Early Republic, Andrew S. Mills

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Late victories in the War of 1812, like General Andrew Jackson’s triumph in the Battle of New Orleans rekindled the growing sense of nationalistic fervor that had appeared after the American Revolution. Americans saw themselves as a people with a unique destiny granted by God. Between the 1780s and the 1820s, different political party visions of American identity competed. The Jeffersonians were agrarian-focused. They envisioned a nation based on the morality of citizens. Federalists saw a more hierarchical, European-like society as the best hope for the American cause. These competing visions of identity led to continued attacks by the leading …

The Behavioral Revolution In Contemporary Political Science: Narrative, Identity, Practice, Joshua R. Berkenpas

Dissertations

The behavioral revolution of the 1950s and early 1960s is a foundational moment in the history of political science and is widely considered to be a time in when the discipline shed its traditional roots by embracing its identity as a modern social science. This dissertation examines reference works published between 1980 and 2012 in order to gauge the contemporary significance of the behavioral revolution. The behavioral revolution is discussed in many foundation narratives throughout reference works like dictionaries, encyclopedias, and handbooks. After sixty years, why does the behavioral revolution still figure centrally in the way political scientists remember their …

The (Dis)Ability Of Color; Or, That Middle World: Toward A New Understanding Of 19th And 20th Century Passing Narratives, Julia S. Charles

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation mines the intersection of racial performance and the history of the so-called “tragic mulatto” figure in American fiction. I propose that while many white writers depicted the “mulatto” character as inherently flawed because of some tainted “black blood,” many black writers’ depictions of mixed-race characters imagine solutions to the race problem. Many black writers critiqued some of America’s most egregious sins by demonstrating linkages between major shifts in American history and the mixed-race figure. Landmark legislation such as, Fugitive Slave Act 1850 and Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) are often plotlines in African American passing literature, thus demonstrating the …

Embattled Communities: Voluntary Action And Identity In Australia, Canada, And New Zealand, 1914-1918, Steve Marti

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation examines voluntary mobilization during the First World War to understand why communities on the social and geographical periphery of the British Empire mobilized themselves so enthusiastically to support a distant war, fought for adistant empire. Lacking a strong state apparatus or a military-industrial complex, the governments of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand relied on voluntary contributions to sustain their war efforts. Community-based voluntary societies knitted socks, raised funds to purchase military equipment, and formed contingents of soldiers. By examining the selective mobilization of voluntary participation, this study will understand how different communities negotiated social and spatial boundaries as …

"The Struggle For The Supremacy Of The Coast": Baseball And Identity In Boothbay Harbor, Maine, Christopher G.F. Hoffman Ma

All Student Scholarship

During the summer months of the first decade of the twentieth century, the Boothbay Harbor region was invigorated with baseball fever. By 1900, Americans had come to understand baseball as its national game, and Boothbay Harbor discovered and nourished the game in the final decades of the nineteenth century. But as the twentieth century began, baseball became more than a game: it was a business, a spectacle, and an opportunity for inhabitants of the region to define themselves based upon the team they supported.

Lost In Translation: Interpreting And Presenting Dublin’S Colonial Past, Theresa Ryan, Bernadette Quinn

Conference papers

As Alderman (2010: 90) has recently written, the potential struggle to determine what conception of the past will prevail constitutes the politics of memory. This paper aims to investigate the politics of memory at play in determining how Dublin’s colonial heritage is constructed and represented to tourists. Dublin’s profile as a tourism destination has grown recently. It attracted 5.4 million visitors in 2009 (Fáilte Ireland 2010). Culture and heritage underpin both its touristic appeal and the city’s official efforts to represent itself as a destination. Much of Dublin’s most iconic built heritage is strongly associated with its development as a …

To Assimilate The Children: The Boarding School At Chemawa, Oregon 1880-1930, James Alan Smith

All Master's Theses

Separating Native American children from their people to train them for entering white society was seen by proponents as an alternative to extinction. Reformers implemented this goal by establishing off-reservation boarding schools like that at Chemawa, Oregon. Though their methods changed, the objective of assimilation remained constant. This case study argues that this emphasis was well-intentioned but flawed. Examination of a fifty year period reveals the unrealistic assumption that Native children would forsake their identity for another.