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Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

American Studies

Articles 1 - 24 of 24

Full-Text Articles in African History

The Life And Legacy Of Marie Couvent: Social Networks, Property Ownership, And The Making Of A Free People Of Color Community In New Orleans., Elizabeth Clark Neidenbach Jan 2015

The Life And Legacy Of Marie Couvent: Social Networks, Property Ownership, And The Making Of A Free People Of Color Community In New Orleans., Elizabeth Clark Neidenbach

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

This dissertation recovers the life of Marie Justine Sirnir Couvent and the Atlantic World she inhabited. Born in Africa around 1757, she was enslaved as a child and shipped to Saint-Domingue through the Bight of Benin in the 1760s. In the tumult of the Haitian Revolution, Couvent fled the island, along with tens of thousands of Saint-Domingue inhabitants. She resettled in New Orleans where she eventually died a free and wealthy slaveholder in 1837. Although illiterate, Couvent left property to establish a free black school in her will. L'Institution Catholique des Orphelins Indigents was founded on her land in 1847 …


'I Get A Kick Out Of You': Cinematic Revisions Of The History Of The African American Cowboy In The American West, Stephanie Anne Maguire Jan 2014

'I Get A Kick Out Of You': Cinematic Revisions Of The History Of The African American Cowboy In The American West, Stephanie Anne Maguire

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.


Strange Fruit: Images Of African Americans In Advertising Cards And Postcards, 1860-1930, Meghan Brooke Holder Jan 2012

Strange Fruit: Images Of African Americans In Advertising Cards And Postcards, 1860-1930, Meghan Brooke Holder

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.


Bottomless Pits: The Decline Of Subfloor Pits And Rise Of African American Consumerism In Virginia, Danny Brad Hatch Jan 2009

Bottomless Pits: The Decline Of Subfloor Pits And Rise Of African American Consumerism In Virginia, Danny Brad Hatch

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.


"The Brownies' Book": An Open Window To Early Twentieth-Century African American Childhood, Regina Ann Clark Jan 2009

"The Brownies' Book": An Open Window To Early Twentieth-Century African American Childhood, Regina Ann Clark

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.


"They Opened The Door Too Late": African Americans And Baseball, 1900-1947, Sarah L. Trembanis Jan 2006

"They Opened The Door Too Late": African Americans And Baseball, 1900-1947, Sarah L. Trembanis

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

During Jim Crow, the sport of baseball served as an important arena for African American resistance and negotiation. as a (mostly) black enterprise, the Negro Leagues functioned as part of a larger African American movement to establish black commercial ventures during segregation. Moreover, baseball's special status as the national pastime made it a significant public symbol for African American campaigns for integration and civil rights.;This dissertation attempts to interrogate the experience and significance of black baseball during Jim Crow during the first half of the twentieth century. Relying on newspapers, magazines, memoirs, biographies, and previously published oral interviews, this work …


You Just Had That Gut Feeling': Film, Memory, And The Lynching Of James Byrd, Jr, William Brian Piper Jan 2006

You Just Had That Gut Feeling': Film, Memory, And The Lynching Of James Byrd, Jr, William Brian Piper

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.


Breaking With Tradition: Slave Literacy In Early Virginia, 1680--1780, Antonio T. Bly Jan 2006

Breaking With Tradition: Slave Literacy In Early Virginia, 1680--1780, Antonio T. Bly

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

"Breaking with Tradition" is a study of slave literacy in eighteenth-century British North America, the era of the First Great Awakening and the American Revolution. Instead of highlighting the work of a few northern slave authors (the present emphasis in African American literary history), it focuses on the relationship between slave education in colonial Virginia and the social and political circumstances in which slaves acquired a knowledge of letters. A social history of life in the slave quarters, the "great house," and in towns, "Breaking with Tradition" is at once a case study of slaves reading and writing in the …


Medicating Slavery: Motherhood, Health Care, And Cultural Practices In The African Diaspora, Ywone Edwards-Ingram Jan 2005

Medicating Slavery: Motherhood, Health Care, And Cultural Practices In The African Diaspora, Ywone Edwards-Ingram

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

A sophisticated exploration of the intricacies of motherhood and health care practices of people of African descent, especially the enslaved population of Virginia, can shed light on their notions of a well-lived life and the factors preventing or contributing to these principles. I situate my dissertation within this ideal as I examine how the health and well-being of enslaved people were linked to broader issues of economic exploitation, domination, resistance, accommodation, and cultural interactions. Historical and archaeological studies have shown that the living and working conditions of enslaved people were detrimental to their health. Building on these findings, I explore …


Nathaniel Jocelyn: In The Service Of Art And Abolition, Toby Maria Chieffo-Reidway Jan 2005

Nathaniel Jocelyn: In The Service Of Art And Abolition, Toby Maria Chieffo-Reidway

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

Through my dissertation, I embark on a biographical, cultural and historical study of artist and abolitionist Nathaniel Jocelyn (1796-1881), primarily known as a nineteenth-century portrait painter and engraver in New Haven, Connecticut. Although Jocelyn received little formal training, he sought to become a preeminent portrait painter. Together with his younger brother, Simeon Smith Jocelyn (1799-1879), he established a successful engraving firm designing banknotes, maps, atlases, and book illustrations.;Jocelyn lived in an age of evangelical revivalism commonly called the Second Great Awakening. He was a devout Congregationalist and saw the various aspects of his life embedded in his religious convictions. Jocelyn's …


Absconded: Fugitive Slaves In The "Daybook Of The Richmond Police Guard, 1834--1844", Leni Ashmore Sorensen Jan 2005

Absconded: Fugitive Slaves In The "Daybook Of The Richmond Police Guard, 1834--1844", Leni Ashmore Sorensen

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

In the antebellum period Richmond, Virginia newspapers ran advertisements for runaway slaves. Most of the ads concerned individuals absconded from outlying counties, distant regions of the state, or nearby states. These short notices have been used frequently to describe and discuss runaways and the link between flight and freedom in Virginia. In contrast to the brief newspaper entries the Daybook of the Richmond Police Guard, 1834--1844 provides names and detailed descriptions of nine hundred-thirty-five runaways all of whom lived in the city and were reported within the city precincts during one ten year period. The Daybook is a hand written …


African American Cultural Products And Social Uplift, The End Of The 19th Century - The Early Of The 20th Century, Juan Zheng Jan 2004

African American Cultural Products And Social Uplift, The End Of The 19th Century - The Early Of The 20th Century, Juan Zheng

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.


Postbellum Education Of African Americans: Race, Economy, Power, And The Pursuit Of A System Of Schooling In The Rural Virginia Counties Of Surry And Gloucester, Benjamin Andrew Swenson Jan 2004

Postbellum Education Of African Americans: Race, Economy, Power, And The Pursuit Of A System Of Schooling In The Rural Virginia Counties Of Surry And Gloucester, Benjamin Andrew Swenson

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.


Colonial Williamsburg's Slave Auction Re-Enactment: Controversy, African American History And Public Memory, Erin Krutko Devlin Jan 2003

Colonial Williamsburg's Slave Auction Re-Enactment: Controversy, African American History And Public Memory, Erin Krutko Devlin

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.


Anguilla And The Art Of Resistance, Jane Dillon Mckinney Jan 2002

Anguilla And The Art Of Resistance, Jane Dillon Mckinney

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

This study begins with two premises. The first is that American Studies needs to move beyond the borders of the United States to examine the ideological, cultural and economic effects our country has had on others. The United States has historically been deeply involved in Anguilla's economy, revolution and ideology. The second is that history is a commodity that is selectively deployed in the creation of personal and national cultural values in Anguilla. I use Sherry Ortner's concept of serious games and James Scott's theory of the arts of resistance to analyze how Anguilla's contemporary culture is a product of …


Desegregating Monument Avenue: Arthur Ashe And The Manufacturing Of A New Social Reality In Richmond, Virginia, Melinda Cameron Hapeman Rose Jan 2002

Desegregating Monument Avenue: Arthur Ashe And The Manufacturing Of A New Social Reality In Richmond, Virginia, Melinda Cameron Hapeman Rose

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.


Creole Gumbo: Ingredients For Maintaining Creole Identity At Laura Plantation, Katherine W. Schupp Jan 2002

Creole Gumbo: Ingredients For Maintaining Creole Identity At Laura Plantation, Katherine W. Schupp

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.


A Literature Of Combat: African American Prison Writers Of The Vietnam Era, John William Weber Jan 2002

A Literature Of Combat: African American Prison Writers Of The Vietnam Era, John William Weber

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.


The Slave In The Swamp: Disrupting The Plantation Narrative, William Tynes Cowan Jan 2001

The Slave In The Swamp: Disrupting The Plantation Narrative, William Tynes Cowan

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

In nineteenth-century plantation literature, the runaway slave in the swamp was a recurrent "bogeyman" whose presence challenged myths of the plantation system. By escaping to the swamps, the runaway, or "maroon," gained an invisibility that was more threatening to the institution than open conflict. The chattel system was dependent upon an exercise of will upon the body of the enslaved, but slaves who asserted control over their bodies, by removing them to the swamps, claimed definition over the Self. In part, the proslavery plantation novel served to transform that image of the maroon from its untouchable, abstract state to a …


"The Freemasonry Of The Race": The Cultural Politics Of Ritual, Race, And Place In Postemancipation Virginia, Corey D. B. Walker Jan 2001

"The Freemasonry Of The Race": The Cultural Politics Of Ritual, Race, And Place In Postemancipation Virginia, Corey D. B. Walker

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

African American cultural and social history has neglected to interrogate fully a crucial facet of African American political, economic, and social life: African American Freemasonry. "The Freemasonry of the Race": The Cultural Politics of Ritual, Race, and Place in Postemancipation Virginia seeks to remedy this neglect. This project broadly situates African American Freemasonry in the complex and evolving relations of power, peoples, and polities of the Atlantic world. The study develops an interpretative framework that not only recognizes the organizational and institutional aspects of African American Freemasonry, but also interprets it as a discursive space in and through which articulations …


"Neither Bedecked Nor Bebosomed": Lucy Randolph Mason, Ella Baker And Women's Leadership And Organizing In The Struggle For Freedom, Susan Milane Glisson Jan 2000

"Neither Bedecked Nor Bebosomed": Lucy Randolph Mason, Ella Baker And Women's Leadership And Organizing In The Struggle For Freedom, Susan Milane Glisson

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

This dissertation examines the feminized and racialized strategies of women organizers in the struggle for freedom. The lives of Lucy Randolph Mason and Ella Jo Baker suggest much about the ways in which women reject and change traditional leadership roles in order to create, build, and maintain the momentum of mass movements. Both women believed in the fundamental necessity of local people determining the responses to their oppression. This work, therefore, is an attempt to offer a description of Mason and Baker's organizing strategies and leadership styles, a description which can be read as a manual for creating social change.;Each …


Born Into Slavery: The American Slave Child Experience, Melissa Ann Mullins Jan 1997

Born Into Slavery: The American Slave Child Experience, Melissa Ann Mullins

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.


R C Scott: A History Of African-American Entrepreneurship In Richmond, 1890-1940, Michael A. Plater Jan 1993

R C Scott: A History Of African-American Entrepreneurship In Richmond, 1890-1940, Michael A. Plater

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

This study examines the socioeconomic aspects of ethnicity as a way to understand African-American entrepreneurship in the early twentieth century. In an attempt to separate the influence of ethnicity from the social and environmental elements that restrained many African-American entrepreneurs, the study focuses on the African-American funeral industry. The funeral industry provides a rare example of an industry that successfully operated on a voluntarily segregated basis. Sheltered from discrimination and racism, African-American funeral directors not only survived and surpassed their white counterparts, but also organized a national fraternity of economic and political elite who wielded significant power in the United …


Presenting The Past: Education, Interpretation And The Teaching Of Black History At Colonial Williamsburg, Rex Marshall Ellis Jan 1989

Presenting The Past: Education, Interpretation And The Teaching Of Black History At Colonial Williamsburg, Rex Marshall Ellis

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation began in 1926. Within four years after its initial construction, the need to begin some means of presenting information to a growing population of visitors became apparent. In this study, an attempt will be made to answer the question, "How has the history of interpretation at Colonial Williamsburg influenced its teaching of black history?".;The major research question and the subsidiary questions were prompted by the recent inclusion of a black history program at the foundation. In this study, primary focus will be given to the history of interpretation at Colonial Williamsburg. An attempt will be made …