United States History Commons^™

The Ponce De León Celebration: History And Mythmaking In St. Augustine, Florida, 1885-1930, Abbra Pyle

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Between 1885 and 1930 visitors and residents in St. Augustine, Florida were treated to a historical pageant, the Ponce de León Celebration. Presented over the course of several days in spring, the Celebration featured a historical pageant and other forms of entertainment. While there were repeated claims from event organizers of historical accuracy, the scenes presented during the pageant represent largely fictionalized views of early Florida, Native American, and African American history. Over the years, organizers carefully crafted St. Augustine’s founding myth through a process of glorification, misrepresentation, and erasure. Each chapter will examine one of the methods PDLC organizers …

"Who Will Teach The Poor Little Ones To Say Their Prayers?" Catholics, Protestant, And Black Education In Reconstruction Era St. Augustine, Florida., Justin Stuart

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In 1968, the doors of St. Benedict the Moor’s school in St. Augustine, Florida, closed after nearly seventy years of service to members of the city’s African American community. But St. Benedict’s school represented a long tradition of black Catholic education in St. Augustine. Under Spanish rule, a boy’s school existed that offered equal education to blacks and whites. Florida’s possession by the United States complicated matters as territorial and state laws ended black education in the city, and the Catholic Church chose to side with the South over the issue of slavery in the United States. With the town’s …

San Antonio De Pocotalaca: An Eighteenth-Century Yamasee Indian Town In St. Augustine, Florida, 1716-1752, Amanda A. Hall

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Following the Yamasee War of 1715, many of the Yamasee Indians rekindled alliances with the Spanish and returned to La Florida. San Antonio de Pocotalaca (1716 to 1752) was one of three initial Yamasee Indian towns to relocate from South Carolina and settle on the fringes of St. Augustine. In South Carolina, Pocotalaca (referred to there as Pocotaligo) served as the primary upper town of six Yamasee towns and was the political center for conferences and council meetings between Yamasees, their Indian allies, and South Carolina officials. When Pocotalaca relocated to St. Augustine after the Yamasee War, the town …

Soldiers And Civil Rights: The Impact Of World War Ii On Jacksonville's African American Community, 1954-1960, Bryan Higham

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research explores the role of returning African American veterans in the Civil Rights Movement in Jacksonville from 1945-1960. Black World War II veterans not only faced the typical challenges of returning to civilian life, but took up the fight for equality as well. While this work acknowledges existing arguments about black veterans in the Civil Rights Movement, it emphasizes and analyzes the importance of their military benefits and experience. The mechanizing revolution that occurred in the United States military in this era had a lasting impact on the soldiers fighting as well as communities back home, Jacksonville included. This …

Camp, Combat, And Campaign: North Carolina's Confederate Experience, Peter R. Thomas Jr.

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research examines a sample of North Carolina Confederates as they transitioned from citizen to soldier between 1861 and 1863 during the American Civil War, and it questions how levels of commitment and devotion emerged during this transformation. North Carolina Confederates not only faced physical and emotional challenges as they transitioned from citizen to soldier, but also encountered social obstacles due to the strict social order of the Old South. Orthodoxy maintains this social dissent hindered any form of solidarity among North Carolina Confederates. The question remains, though, why did so many North Carolinians remain committed to the Confederacy until …

The Struggle Against Bandits: The Cuban Revolution And Responses To Cia-Sponsored Counter-Revolutionary Activity, 1959-1963, Anthony Rossodivito M

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Following the 1959 victory of the Cuban revolution, the United States government along with the CIA and their Cuban émigré allies immediately undertook a campaign of subversion and terrorism against the Cuban revolution. From 1959 until 1963 a clandestine war was waged between supporters of the revolution and the counter-revolutionary organizations backed by Washington. This project is a new synthesis of this little-known story. It is an attempt to shed light on a little known aspect of the conflict between the United States government and the Cuban revolution by bringing together never-before seen primary sources, and utilizing the two distinct …

From Chaos To Order: Balancing Cross-Cultural Communication In The Pre-Colonial And Colonial Southeast, Nicole Lynn Gallucci

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This Master’s Thesis examines the ways in which the culturally distinct groups who inhabited the pre-colonial and colonial Southeast approached cross-cultural communication. The extensive and violent entradas led by Spaniards into the Southeastern interior in the 1500s represent a watershed moment in North American history that deeply impacted the economic, social, and geopolitical landscapes of an already well-populated and politically sophisticated region. The subsequent establishment of St. Augustine in 1565 and the arrival of the British in the mid-seventeenth century are similarly seen as pivotal moments in the region’s history that forced many culturally and linguistically dissimilar groups to interact. …

Before King Came: The Foundations Of Civil Rights Movement Resistance And St. Augustine, Florida, 1900-1960, James G. Smith

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called St. Augustine, Florida, the most racist city in America. The resulting demonstrations and violence in the summer of 1964 only confirmed King’s characterization of the city. Yet, St. Augustine’s black history has its origins with the Spanish who founded the city in 1565. With little racial disturbance until the modern civil rights movement, why did St. Augustine erupt in the way it did?

With the beginnings of Jim Crow in Florida around the turn of the century in 1900, St. Augustine’s black community began to resist the growing marginalization of their community. …

Women In Antebellum Alachua County, Florida, Herbert Joseph O'Shields

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role and status of women in Alachua County, Florida, from 1821 through 1860. The secondary literature suggests that women throughout America had virtually no public role to play in antebellum society except in limited circumstances in some mature urban, commercial settings. The study reviewed U.S. Census materials, slave ownership records, and land ownership records as a means to examine the family structures, the mobility and persistence of persons and households, and the economic status of women, particularly including woman headed households. The study also examined laws adopted by the Florida legislative …

Lavilla, Florida, 1866-1887: Reconstruction Dreams And The Formation Of A Black Community, Patricia Drozd Kenney

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Several factors which influenced the formation of an urban black community following the Civil War are examined in this study. Prior to the war, LaVilla, a suburb of Jacksonville, Florida, was sparsely populated by wealthy white families. At war's end, freedmen seeking shelter and work took advantage of the inexpensive housing and proximity to employment LaVilla offered and, by 1870, became the majority population. The years 1866 through 1887 have been chosen for this study because they demarcate LaVilla's inception on the one hand and, on the other, its disappearance as an independent entity. Local, state, and federal records have …

Greater Jacksonville's Response To The Florida Land Boom Of The 1920s, Philip Warren Miller

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Florida land boom was an orgy of real estate speculation and development that swept the state during the period 1924 through 1926. The few books and articles that deal with that event rarely mention Jacksonville, although it was Florida's largest city and its chief commercial and transportation center. This could lead one to the conclusion that the North Florida city did not become caught up in the boom. Yet scattered throughout the Jacksonville area are the remains of a number of real estate projects that date from that period.

Therefore, this thesis examines the effects of the boom on …

Sallye B. Mathis And Mary L. Singleton: Black Pioneers On The Jacksonville, Florida, City Council, Barbara Hunter Walch

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In 1967 Sallye Brooks Mathis and Mary Littlejohn Singleton were elected the first blacks in sixty years, and the first women ever, to the city council of Jacksonville, Florida. These two women had been raised in Jacksonville in a black community which, in spite of racial discrimination and segregation since the Civil War, had demonstrated positive leadership and cooperative action as it developed its own organizations and maintained a thriving civic life. Jacksonville blacks participated in politics when allowed to do so and initiated several economic boycotts and court suits to resist racial segregation. Black women played an important part …

Nuclear Armament/Disarmament As A Topic In Decision-Making Models In Secondary Social Studies Classrooms, Karen Holman Reeves

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study sought to determine the current status of the nuclear armament/disarmament issue as a topic for the moral decision-making model in secondary social studies curriculums and to establish guidelines for its inclusion in future lessons. A review of the relevant literature provided the basis for a questionnaire mailed to four hundred, randomly selected social studies department chairpersons. Their attitudes regarding the legitimacy of the topic and methods employed in instructional lessons were addressed. Survey results were categorized according to respondents' incorporation of the topic into their curriculum and whether they taught in public or private institutions. A majority of …