History Commons^™

From The Editor In Chief, Antulio J. Echevarria Ii

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

Welcome to the Summer 2024 issue of Parameters. We open this issue with a special “In Memoriam” by General Charles A. Flynn, Commander US Army Pacific, honoring the life and legacies of our director and consummate colleague, Carol V. Evans. We dedicate this issue to her. General Flynn’s memoriam is followed by an In Focus commentary on China’s Belt and Road Initiative. We then feature three forums covering the Russia-Ukraine War, the Middle East, and Professional Development. This issue also contains special essays on the role of professional writing, the US Army War College’s Civil-Military Relations Center, …

Revenge Of The Nerds: Tech Masculinity And Digital Hegemony, Benjamin M. Latini

Doctoral Dissertations

Revenge of the Nerds provides a cultural history of the evolution of white nerd masculinities in American culture through interpretations of a wide variety of texts and representations using the methods of literary studies and American studies. The dissertation is organized around four overlapping stages of nerd masculinity based on changes in technology and their effects on culture, as well as white male nerds’ efforts to remain culturally relevant and gain the benefits of being close to hegemonic masculinity. The four nerd types are the computer nerd, the gamer, the gatekeeper nerd, and the maladaptive nerd which reflect the following …

Before Facebook And Twitter: The Online Computing Revolution Of The 1980s, David Scott Cooper

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The 1980s was the intersection of technological, economic, and social influences. Computer technology became smaller and more affordable, yet this alone did not spark online connectivity. Businesses experienced the available computers and online capabilities dating to 1950. Academic usage increased from the early 1970s. What made the 1980s the first computer generation was a combination of technological improvements, consumerism, business advertising, video games, and two-income households. Consumers were introduced to home computing through video game consoles, and the game console market crash of 1983 allowed home computers to increase sales. Computer manufacturers changed marketing strategies to educate the population on …

"1984" Apple Commercial, Eloise Sharkey

Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

In 1984, Apple released a commercial to advertise their first personal computer, The Macintosh. The ad aired during the 1984 Super bowl on January 22^nd and was titled “1984”. With the rise of computers and the information age, I set out to discover how Apple was able to distinguish themselves from IBM and why this was so important for them to do. The company used revolutionary rhetoric to address the dreaded social consequences of a world run by computers by positioning the Macintosh as a tool for agency and creativity in a world of mindless drones. This commercial took …

George Kohrman And The Family Legacy At Wmu, University Libraries

East Campus Oral Histories

Campus School and WMU Alum George Kohrman sits with Cassie Kotrch at Heritage Hall to go over his binder of memories from his time as a student at Campus School and U High. He also shares stories of his father (whom Kohrman Hall is named after), his 46 year career at WMU, and his undergrad and grad student says on campus.

Turning Small Steps Into Giant Leaps: Nasa’S Genesis And Its Culmination In The Apollo Program, Hunter L. Maples

Masters Theses

On July 16, 1969, NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong dropped himself onto the dusty surface of the Moon, momentarily followed by his lunar module pilot, Buzz Aldrin. It is simple to recognize the clear historical significance of the Apollo moon landings. It can also be easy, however, to overlook the work of thousands of individuals and decades of development that culminated in a lunar voyage. Because the moon landings were unprecedented, the hardware required had to be developed from scratch and mission protocol had to be written. Additionally, the United States was competing against its Cold War adversary, the Soviet Union, …

Man & Machine: A Narrative Of The Relationship Between World War Ii Fighter Advancement And Pilot Skill, Brian Burnett Ii

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

From 1938 until the end of World War II, the Curtiss P-40 fighter participated in the European, North Africa, and Pacific theaters of war. An aircraft’s success depends primarily upon the pilot’s expertise. Without skilled pilots, technology alone cannot win a war. Technological innovation still plays a crucial role in the success of a nation’s air force. Relative to technological developments, how impactful is a pilot’s skill on a fighter plane’s performance? My thesis structure is a deep look into each pilot’s experience and how victory was achieved with a plane that most military writings say is inferior. I investigate …

The "Therapeutic Relationship:" Emergence, Eclipse, And Transformations Of A Social Technology., Ulrich Koch

Clinical Research and Leadership Faculty Publications

This essay situates the history of "the relationship" as a therapeutic technology within the broader context of changing social relations in the twentieth-century United States. More specifically, it outlines the emergence and subsequent diffusion of practices that aim to cultivate a social bond between therapist and patient that may serve as a psychotherapeutic tool. The article highlights the transformations of this technology as its institutional and epistemic foundations became challenged. Initially conceived as an "artificial" social relation designed to help with "personal adjustment," the therapeutic relationship was soon also deployed by non-experts and became a model for more healthful social …

Elizabethan Technology: Thomas Watson’S Steam Bath For The Relief Of Gout, James Alsop

Quidditas

Thomas Watson (1513-84), Doctor of Divinity and deprived Marian bishop of Lincoln, developed an expertise in the treatment of gout. In his practice of experiential medicine in East Anglia, he used an innovative steam chest: the patient sat in a cut-open empty wine pipe, surrounded by heated bricks, and covered with a sheet. This device, with its method of enclosed steam heat, contrasts sharply with prevailing renaissance therapeutic philosophy.

Cobol Cripples The Mind!: Academia And The Alienation Of Data Processing, Neel Shah

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

This paper writes a social history of the programming language COBOL that focuses on its reception in academia. Through this focus, the paper seeks to understand the contentious relationship between data processing and the academy. In historicizing COBOL, the paper also illuminates the changing nature of the academy-industry-military triangle that was a mainstay of early computing.

Tightening Your Grip : The Unintended Consequences Of Export Control Policies, Keon C. Weigold

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation examines the effects that policies instituted to restrict the diffusion of technology between countries have on the development of technology and international relations. Diffusion restrictions such as export controls or strategic trade controls are often instituted for the purpose of increasing the national security of the implementing country. However, this project theorizes that these types of restrictions can have unforeseen effects on the level of technological development in the implementing country and other countries around the world. The implementing country will see a decrease in their relative level of technological development while other countries around the world will …

Australia And A Wire Through The Heart, Addison E. Lomax

Student Publications

Throughout a period of exploration in the colony of Australia, the development of the Overland Telegraph, as discovered by Charles Todd, increased Australian interaction on a global scale. Although the documentary A Wire Through the Heart does not depict all of the complex struggles English colonizers faced when settling Australia, the film accurately reflects the technological advancements, the significance of explorers, and environmental difficulties many colonizers encountered in Australia throughout the early 1800s. Alongside the increase in communication with the rest of the world, the Overland Telegraph assisted in the development of a unique, Australian culture separate from its original …

In Their Own Words: Forgotten Women Pilots Of Early Aviation, Fred Erisman

Purdue Studies in Aeronautics and Astronautics

Amelia Earhart’s prominence in American aviation during the 1930s obscures a crucial point: she was but one of a closely knit community of women pilots. Although the women were well known in the profession and widely publicized in the press at the time, they are largely overlooked today. Like Earhart, they wrote extensively about aviation and women’s causes, producing an absorbing record of the life of women fliers during the emergence and peak of the Golden Age of Aviation (1925–1940). Earhart and her contemporaries, however, were only the most recent in a long line of women pilots whose activities reached …

Vemi Lab 2021, Virtual Environments And Multimodal Interaction Laboratory

General University of Maine Publications

The Virtual Environments and Multimodal Interaction (VEMI) Lab embodies an inclusive, collaborative, and multi-disciplinary approach to hands-on research and education. By bringing together students and faculty from more than a dozen majors and disciplines, VEMI is uniquely positioned to advance computing and STEM initiatives both here at the university as well as in broader communities throughout Maine and nationwide.

Scientific Development Vs. Political Strategy: Nasa’S Commitment To Science Following The First Moon Landing, Sean Van Buskirk

Masters Theses

This work looks at the scientific program of NASA during the Space Race. (1961- 1975) During this period of the Cold War, NASA shifted it role from a political asset of the United States strategy to an agency of scientific discovery. This was not a smooth transition due to political opinions on the wastefulness and role of NASA. Many politicians, citizens and even scientists had doubts about the scientific potential of NASA’s manned missions to the Moon. Despite the power politics, the administrators at NASA were able to break out of the political arena and create a balanced program where …

Tools Of Rescue: A Review Of Silencio Para Rescatar: Documental Sonoro, Sonia Robles

RadioDoc Review

In this audio documentary, Mexican cultural promoter and sound artist Abraham Chavelas recounts rescue activities in which he took part after a 7.1 magnitude earthquake rattled Mexico on 19 September 2017. Answering a call for help, Chavelas was assigned to a collapsed factory where an unknown number of undocumented Asian and Central American women working as seamstresses were trapped under the rubble. For two days, he aided rescue efforts by using a high-tech microphone to help determine whether or not there was life under piles of concrete, glass and debris. Chavelas used the audio he gathered before the Mexican Marines …

Diabolus Ex Machina? A Comparative Case Study To Test Whether Automatic Weapons Can Disproportionately Benefit Irregular Forces, Harrison Durland

Honors Theses

Researchers in the field of irregular conflict have observed that irregular forces such as insurgents and guerrillas have been victorious or forced draws in a greater percentage of conflicts over the past century compared with the century prior. More generally, researchers and practitioners have sought to better understand why seemingly weaker, irregular forces are able to win some wars against enemies who have significant material and other conventional advantages. This thesis engages with some of the literature in this field and focuses on what appears to be a particularly understudied issue: the potential role of shifts/innovations in military technology. Specifically, …

Online Interpretation Guideline For Historic House Museums, Olivia A. Weixlmann

Museum Studies Theses

What does it mean to be a museum in 2020? How do cultural institutions, charged with preserving our history, navigate the challenges of the modern world? Technological advances including the internet, quickly produce an abundance of media outlets baiting attention that impact the sociopolitical climate driving civil unrest, and ideological division. The surplus of competing information from technology driven outlets result in audiences being overwhelmed and left questioning if the information they're receiving is from a reliable source.

The Economics Of Artificial Intelligence: A Primer For Social Studies Educators, Scott Wolla

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

This paper provides a framework for understanding the economic effects of automation and artificial intelligence (AI). First, it reviews how physical capital interacts with labor in the context of automation and AI. Next, it discusses recent advances in AI and potential economic outcomes such as job market polarization and income inequality. It then describes the role education has played in previous economic transitions and the role it will likely play as technology advances. Finally, the paper identifies key economic concepts and teaching resources that social studies educators can integrate into their instruction to help students understand the economic effects of …

Of Religion And Technology: Karachi’S Parsis Take A Unique Approach To Covid-19 Limitations, Anushe Engineer

EnviroLab Asia

As a result of Amid Karachi, Pakistan's "smart lockdown" during the COVID-19 pandemic, local Parsis, those of the Zoroarastrian faith, have found technology to have been a blessing: it has enabled them to listen to and participate in the annual communal prayers.

Making Vacationland: The Modern Automobility And Tourism Borderlands Of Maine And New Brunswick, 1875-1939, Sean C. Cox

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Modernizing nineteenth and twentieth century mobility reshaped and re- commodified the predominantly rural environments of Maine and New Brunswick. Landscapes like these can be better understood through the tripartite intersection of environmental commodification as “picturesque,” a democratizing tourism culture, and the development of modern individual mobility. The intersection of these forces produced a unique tourism borderland comprised of primarily second nature landscapes, which rapidly adapted to motor-tourism. All three themes are products of modernity, and their combination in Maine and New Brunswick produced a “tourism borderland” and “mobility borderland” between automotive spaces and the unprepared environments of pre-auto “Vacationland.” Before …

An Analytical Approach To Information And Communication Technologies, Sahir Hismiogullari

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The twentieth century was a century of scientific and technological development. Especially the fact of information and communication technologies, beyond being a technological leap, has led to different levels of development and changes / transformations. Therefore, developments, possibilities, changes and problems emerging in the Internet and other digital contexts have attracted the attention of communication scientists, sociologists, historians and philosophers, and have become a field of research that leads to interdisciplinary studies. Along with the mass media developed for the last two centuries (from the spread of newspapers to the invention of the internet), every social development or transformation is …

Antitrust In Times Of Information Technology: An Analysis Of Big Tech Monopoly Cases, Shamayeta Rahman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The information technology industry is one of the most rapidly growing yet concentrated markets existing today. Big Tech monopolies and their increasingly anticompetitive behavior posits risks for competition, technological innovation and consumer welfare. This ranges from price discrimination, limiting consumer choices to the unethical use of data. The particular nature of information technology, with its network effects and negligible marginal costs, incentivizes and facilitates predatory market practices making antitrust analysis in this industry extremely complex. Certain schools of antitrust thought are more sensitive (namely the post-Chicago school) to these implications than others, though antitrust application is still lacking in both …

From The Black Panther Party To Black Lives Matter: The Weaponization Of Surveillance Against Black Activists, Arianna Marinez-Perry

Senior Projects Spring 2020

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Fogler Library: Maine's Business, Science And Technology Library, Raymond H. Fogler Library, University Of Maine

UMaine Video

Raymond H. Fogler Library at the University of Maine is Maine's designated library for Business, Science, and Technology. Fogler Library provides free resources, expertise, and support for Maine business owners. A portal of free, handpicked resources is available through the Maine Business, Science, and Technology website.

The Historical Impossibility Of A Post-Truth Society, Diego Han

The Liminal: Interdisciplinary Journal of Technology in Education

Since 2016 the notions of post-truth and fake news have been playing an important role in the world's social and political life. They developed with the political victories of Donald Trump and Nigel Farage. However, what would have happened if they had lost their political gamble? Would be still talking about post-truth and fake news? In this Op-ed, I claim that these two concepts have only political value. Furthermore, through a short reasoning, I use a historical perspective to prove how biased and vague these two notions are and how wrong the approach of calling them so is.

Missed Moments: Kodak’S Failure To Define The Consumer Market For Digital Photography, Paul T. Moon Jr

History Theses

The focus of this thesis is to provide an expanded interpretation of the decline of the Eastman Kodak Company. Kodak is a company synonymous with cameras, pictures, and photography. The American photographic giant created a vast empire that was able to dominate the industry for the better part of the Twentieth Century. Yet, it missed the opportunity to develop its digital camera technology. This makes Kodak an interesting study in business decision making in the face of advancing disruptive technology.

In a historical context, there is a lack of work that deeply inspects the fall of the Kodak company in …

Time Traveling With Timelines: Web Apps For Storytelling In Libraries, Sharon Bradley, Rachel S. Evans

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

From online embeds to interactive displays, timelines can serve many purposes and tell powerful stories. At the University of Georgia’s Law Library we have teamed up with faculty and staff to bring history to life, engage students, and preserve scholarly and institutional milestones. Through trial and error we have found a variety of tools for creating timelines digitally. In this article we share our four favorite web-based applications for creating timelines including Tiki-Toki, TimeToast, Prezi and Piktochart.

Every Data Point Counts: Political Elections In The Age Of Digital Analytics, Julian Kehle, Samir Naimi

Honors Thesis

Synthesizing the investigative research and cautionary messages from experts in the fields of technology, political science, and behavioral science, this project explores the ways in which digital analytics has begun to influence the American political arena. Historically, political parties have constructed systems to target voters and win elections. However, rapid changes in the field of technology (such as big data, artificial intelligence, and the prevalence of social media) threaten to undermine the integrity of elections themselves. Future political campaigns will utilize profiling to micro-target individuals in order to manipulate and persuade them with hyper-personalized political content. Most dangerously, the average …

Fast Glass: Modernity, Technology, And The Cinematic Lens, Allain Daigle

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation tells a cultural history of how lenses became cinema lenses. While lenses are essential for film production, we know very little about the early history of cinema lenses. Rather than just focusing on which lenses were used on certain movies, I historicize how lens production became an industry. Between the 1880s and the 1920s, lens production shifted from an artisanal craft to a commercial industry. By looking at how companies created lenses for film production and projection, I expand early film history to account for the creative work of opticians, engineers, advertisers, and distributors. In more specifically focusing …