Political History Commons^™

Eisenhower: From “Do-Nothing” To “Did-Everything”, Holly F. Caldwell

Channels: Where Disciplines Meet

Dwight David Eisenhower was a modest man who led a modest life. The 34^th president of the United States was a country boy who hailed from the rural town of Abilene, Kansas. He was not born into instant greatness; instead, he grew into it. He held several notable positions, culminating in the achievement of being elected to the presidency. His presidential reign was relatively calm, with few drastic disruptions, and this period of tranquility led to a public perception of Eisenhower as a “do-nothing” president.

Contrary to the traditional portrayal, historical revisionism has exhibited Eisenhower as an experienced and …

Y'All Like Ike: Tennessee, The Solid South, And The 1952 Presidential Election, Cameron N. Regnery

Honors Theses

This thesis examines the changing nature of politics in the American South, specifically through the 1952 presidential election in the state of Tennessee. For much of the South’s history, the region was dominated by the Democratic party, earning it the nickname the “Solid South”. Following the Civil War and Reconstruction, the South became an aggressively one-party region in which the Republican party found little electoral success and the Democratic party reigned supreme. This partisanship began showing signs of fracturing in 1948 when southern Democrats began to leave the party over racial issues. The presidency of Harry S. Truman (1945-1953) further …

The Pendleton Act: Time For A Change, Isabel Waller

Tenor of Our Times

This paper identifies causes of the passage of the Pendleton Act of 1883, which ushered in American civil service reform by changing the spoils system to a merit system.

"Moses In Retirement": Andrew Johnson, 1869-1876, Evan Rothera

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

On March 4, 1869, a tailor from Greeneville, Tennessee, who began his political life as an alderman and then mayor of Greeneville, who served in both houses of the State Legislature and both Houses of Congress, who served as the Governor of Tennessee and later the wartime Governor of Tennessee, who was elected to the vice-presidency of the United States, and, by the bullet of an assassin, made President of the United States, gave his Farewell Address. A few days later, he slunk out of Washington, D.C., and began his long journey home. Henry H. Ingersoll wrote to Johnson on …