United States History Commons^™

Holding On To Culture: The Effects Of The 1837 Smallpox Epidemic On Mandan And Hidatsa, Jayne Reinhiller

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

The Mandan and Hidatsa tribes located in modern day North Dakota have a rich history characterized by elaborate social and religions structures and trade based economic systems; however, because of their stationary lifestyles and increased European and American trade, the Mandan and Hidatsa faced substantial loses during the 1837 smallpox epidemic. The tribal decimation altered both social and ceremonial structures resulting in a new and collective identity and a new ceremonial structure. Through the analysis of the anthropological studies of Alfred Bowers and the journals of fur traders and explorers like F. A. Chardon, Meriwether Lewis, and William Clark, it …

A Blend Of Absurdism And Humanism: Defending Kurt Vonnegut’S Place In The Secondary Setting, Krisandra R. Johnson

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

This essay argues that Kurt Vonnegut blends a unique humanist stance into his absurdist plots and characters, ultimately urging readers to confront the absurd with a kindness and human decency his protagonists often find rare. As a result of this absurd and humanist synthesis, I defend and promote Vonnegut’s place in the secondary English curriculum, despite his rank on many banned books lists, since his characters’ journeys correlate thematically with the growth and process of postmodern adolescents and encourage moral responsibility without sentimental manipulation.

Focusing on Cat’s Cradle, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, and Slaughterhouse-Five as primary sources, specifically …

Negotiating For The Environment: Lbj’S Contributions To The Environmental Movement, Nancy M. Germano

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

No abstract provided.

Our Nuclear Quandary: Deliberating U.S. Nuclear Armament & Its Alternatives For Execution 1946-1961, Andrew Ross

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Sitting amongst his National Security Councilors in 1958, President Eisenhower quipped of how he “could remember well when the military used to have no more than 70 targets in the Soviet Union and believed that destruction of these 70 targets would be sufficient.” Yet moments later, Eisenhower would grant his approval of a nuclear targeting plan which would strike all Soviet cities over the population of 25,000—a plan requiring thousands, not dozens, of nuclear weapons. The potential consequences of this dramatic surge in nuclear armament has led scholars to dispute how to characterize operational planning during the Nuclear Arms Race. …

Imprisoning Sexuality: The Abuses Of The State In Homosexual Male Incarceration At Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary (1934-1957), Vic Overdorf

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Between 1934 and 1957, J. Edgar Hoover - the presiding director of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation – signed documents approving the transfer of over twenty military men with a charge of “Sodomy” to Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. Through the first half of the twentieth century, Alcatraz was notorious for it’s incredibly violent and high profile criminals. Since the island was isolated and conditions were severe, Alcatraz was the designated site for the United States to imprison undesirable people: violent and influential men who they did not want to rejoin society. When considering the legal term “Sodomy”– which in 1934 …

Living The Lake Life: Indiana’S Lake James In The 1950s And 1960s, Warren Travis

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

At over a thousand acres, Lake James has been a staple for entertainment in northern Indiana for years. Lake James has changed significantly over the more than one hundred years of human interaction. This paper captures the scene of Lake James in the 1950s and 1960s.

The Crisis At Fort Sumter: The Symbolic Monument That Transformed Northern And Southern Opinions During The Start Of The Civil War, Olivia C. Cabanban

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Understanding the complexity of the Battle at Fort Sumter and the changing opinions of Northerners and Southerners acts as means of delving into the deeper roots of slavery, secession, and national discourse that laced our nation’s undeniable history. The first firings at Fort Sumter were the flashpoint of the entirety of the Civil War, triggering the four years of battle, death, destruction, and competing nationalisms that ensued between the North and South. Because the histories of the war—more specifically the battle of Fort Sumter—are biased because they are written from points of views laced with Confederate and Unionist undertones, comprehending …

"Send Forward Some Who Would Fight": How John T.Wilder And His "Lightning Brigade" Of Mounted Infantry Changed Warfare, Eric Maurice

Graduate Thesis Collection

The 17th Indiana Volunteer Regiment was part of “Wilder’s Lightning Brigade”, a mounted infantry brigade under Col. John T. Wilder. Through his efforts he mounted his infantry on horseback and equipped them with Spencer Repeating Rifles. This paper argues that these changes were deliberate on the part of John T. Wilder rather than emulating others, led to a conscious and noticeable change in tactics, that these changes were effective, and examines the Brigade’s influences on future military tactics. Through the use a various Primary and Secondary sources, with heavy emphasis placed on diaries, letters, unit histories, and drill manuals, I …

Manifest Imperialism: Race And American Imperial Aspirations In The Pacific, Bryan Richter

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

The Pacific Ocean has long been held by the United States as an outlet to project power and to forge and international fiefdom for themselves. The historical precedence of military intervention in this portion of the globe can be traced back to the colonial conflicts in the Philippines at the turn of the 20th century. This conflict began a century of heavy American military involvement which saw the United States become entrenched in four major wars from the Philippines in the south to its northern most point in the Korea. However, in each of these wars there were more at …

Searching For Their Real Home: Dependent Black Children In Indianapolis, 1910-1940, John D. Ramsbottom

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Concerns about the future for young people, reflected in contemporary headlines, were equally prominent in Indianapolis a hundred years ago. Then, as now, children whose parents neglected or abandoned them posed a special problem. In the midst of rapid social change that seemed to threaten traditional family stability, a small corps of professionals and volunteers worked to provide a nurturing environment.

Crafting Industrial Manhood In The Manual Training Movement, 1876-1920, James Jonathan Rick

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

No abstract provided.

Lew Wallace: An Unsung Hoosier Hero, Jordan C. Lee

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

The way in which the American Civil War is remembered varies from one region to another. People, places, and events bring moments of pride and sorrow for those who remember, and distinct figures rise and fade into memory over time. Some individuals, however, cling to their place in history through the words of those who remember them. For the state ofIndiana, I feel as if one individual in question is overlooked. We remember Benjamin Harrison, the future president, born in Ohio, serving as a colonel to the 70th Indiana, and eventually a general over an entire brigade. We remember Governor …

History: The Birth Of "America" In 1882, Robert H.I. Dale

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

This article concerns a New York Times story about the birth of the female Asian elephant calf, named America, at the winter headquarters of the "Greatest Show on Earth" in Bridgeport, Connecticut on February 2, 1882. Phineas T. Barnum, one of the owners of the show, and one prone to self-aggrandizing bluster, claimed that America was the second elephant ever born in captivity. America was born only to months before the arrival in New York of the most famous circus elephant of all time, Jumbo, on Easter Sunday, 1882, and only two years before the origin of a small wagon …

Federal Justice And Moral Reform In The United States District Court In Indiana, 1816-1869, George W. Geib, Donald B. Kite

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

In November 1840, William Martin, an Indiana mail stage driver found himself standing in United States District Court, convicted of stealing a letter containing bank notes from the mail.^1 District Judge Jesse Lynch Holman reviewed the evidence that convinced the jury, and then lectured the defendant upon his future prospects:

The prospect before you is truly dark and dreary; yet there is a distant ray of hope that may enlighten your path You may do much by a patient submission to the law—by a reformation of life and an upright line of conduct ... to some extent, to regain a …

Development And Preservation, George W. Geib

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Details the history of two Marion County Courthouses.

The Diary Of Calvin Fletcher And The Historians, George W. Geib

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

While we all make New Year's resolutions, few of us ever keep them with the tenacity that Calvin Fletcher kept the one he apparently made on this day. The diary that he had begun in fragmentary fashion in 1817 and continued intermittently to 1829, he maintained religiously thereafter. In so doing, he provided us with an extraordinary record of his life and times. Published in nine volumes by the Indiana Historical Society from 1972 to 1983, The Diary of Calvin Fletcher represents perhaps the single most important printed source for understanding Indiana's history. In commemoration of Fletcher's two-hundredth birthday on …

Benjamin Harrison, George W. Geib

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

An account of Benjamin Harrison's rise to the presidency beginning with his successful career during the Civil War.

Butler University Jordan College Of Fine Arts: A Chronological History Of The Development Of The College, Jack L. Eaton

Butler University Books

This document is dedicated to all the past present and future students, faculty and staff who have made the College the strong entity it is today and will bring about the great promise it holds for the future. To all who were and are a part of the history of the Metropolitan School of Music, the College of Musical Art, the Indiana College of Music and Fine Arts, the Arthur Jordan Conservatory of Music, the Jordan College of Music and the Jordan College of Fine Arts, I salute you.

Indiana's Civil Rights Commission: A History Of The First Five Years, David Sabol

Graduate Thesis Collection

Indiana's Civil Rights Commission evolved from the need to combat the often subtle racial injustices that permeated Hoosier society in the late 1950s and 1960s. A tradition of segregation along racial lines in Indiana was being challenged in the early 1960s by newly elected leaders who believed that their fellow black Hoosiers deserved to be treated fairly under the laws that were designed to protect their citizenship. For that reasonr Indiana's new leaders chose to create a state government agency based on the federal model for a civil rights commission. With the formation of the Indiana Civil Rights Commission [ICRC] …

The History And Influence Of Black Baseball In The United States And Indianapolis, Scott Clayton Bower

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

When Americans discuss the history of baseball, names like Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Connie Mack, and Walter Johnson are mentioned. But what about men like Rube Foster, Buck Leonard, C. I. Taylor, Josh Gibson, and Oscar Charleston? Most American baseball fans know little about black baseball and the lives of black players. A study of black baseball, focusing on the Negro leagues, answers some of the questions baseball fans and historians might ask out of ignorance. How did baseball become segregated? How did the Negro leagues evolve? What was life like for black baseball players? How was the …

Religious Society And The Family In Charlestown, Massachusetts, 1630 To 1740, Mary Macmanus Ramsbottom

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

By the early seventeenth century, English dissenters had developed a vital tradition of voluntary religious exercise operating within the shadow of the established church. Those who immigrated faced a new world of possibilities for public expression of religious commitment. How three generations of New Englanders altered and adapted these habits of religious sociability is the subject of this study.

The dissertation examines religious culture in Charlestown, Massachusetts through the history of three institutions: the family, the private devotional society, and the local church. The focus throughout is on lay religiosity and the interrelation of "private" and "public" religious activities. Church …

T. Thomas Fortune: Land, Labor And Politics In The South, 1883-1886, C. Edward Shacklee

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

This paper will deal with Fortune's economic ideology between 1883 and 1886, early years in a career that would span four decades. It is an attempt to show both the reformist and traditional approaches applied to the problems of his race, approaches that foreshadowed much of black though in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The Power Of The Purse, George W. Geib

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

The Army finance office was born two centuries ago in the midst of the American Revolution. From the golden orle insignia that legend reports was first authorized by George Washington, to the outline of its modern functions and limitations that emerged during the war, the service took form in the critical years of the struggle for independence.

Senator Albert J. Beveridge And The Politics Of Imperialist Rationale, Leone B. Little

Graduate Thesis Collection

This thesis is an unbiased attempt to look a Senator Albert Jeremiah Beveridge, a man who made history in his own time in his own way. Moreover, this thesis attempt to objectively present Senator Beveridge in the context of the era in which he lived as a generating force in America's colonial adventure at the turn of the century.

Senator Albert J. Beveridge, a Hamiltonian nationalist by inheritance, believed in a strong central government. Furthermore, he believed that the end of government should be the gaining of power and material forces, redeeming the redeemable nations of the world and subjugating …

The Restoration Of The Port Of Philadelphia, 1783-1789, George W. Geib

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

George W. Geib's contribution to American Neptune, Vol. 32, No. 4.

The Essex Bridge: Transportation And Politics In The Early Republic, George W. Geib

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

THE years that followed the War for Independence are commonly viewed as a period of rapid economic expansion. Deriving from such elements as a growing population, new foreign markets, increased capital resources, and a confident public spirit, this expansion is known to include a variety of new business ventures, notably in manufacturing and in transportation. Such new ventures are normally pictured in their business context, showing few political overtones apart from sporadic opposition by rural legislators.1 This latter emphasis may be mistaken, however, because many of these early innovative business ventures faced challenges in the form of local political controversies …

Yazoo: Compromise And Corruption, Ford Andrew Anderson Ii

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

No abstract provided.

The Foreign Policy Of Harry S. Truman, Patricia Reagan Slater

Graduate Thesis Collection

Without knowing it, a professor of mine, Dr. Emma Lou Thornbrough, stimulated my interest in President Truman when she stated in a freshman history course that Harry S. Truman would go down in history as one of the greatest American Presidents if not the greatest because of his ingenuity in foreign policy. The exact purporse of this paper is to examine these programs.

The Attitude Of Indiana's Congressional Delegation During The Civil War Toward Slavery And The Negro: 1861-1865, Emma T. Randall

Graduate Thesis Collection

In this thesis I have examined the attitudes on the Negro question of the members if the Indiana delegation to the Congress of the United States during the period 1861-1865. Two Congresses were is session during this period--the Thirty-seventh and the Thirty-eighth. The Globe and newspapers of the period have been my two primary sources of information. Every shade of opinion was expressed ranging from the utterances of so-called Abolitionist Republican George W. Julian, to the ultra-conservative sentiments voiced by Daniel Voorhees, Democrat.

Indiana And The Adoption And Ratification Of The Fourteenth Amendment, Ellsworth Shade

Graduate Thesis Collection

In this study I have attempted to present the reaction of a Northern state, Indiana, to the movement for the adoption and ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The significance of such a study results from the position of this amendment as the foundation of the Republican party's programs of national reconstruction and of Indiana as an important state in the movement for ratification. Of necessity, such a presentation involves a careful examination of the background of the two major political parties in Indiana as well as an investigation of the attitude of the …