United States History Commons^™

Relationships, Credit, And Value: Analyzing Money As A Social Institution In Late Eighteenth-Century Virginia, Amanda White Gibson

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Uniting Interests: The Economic Functions Of Marriage In America, 1750-1860, Lindsay Mitchell Keiter

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

This dissertation, "Uniting Interests: Money, Property, and Marriage in America, 1750-1860," examines how marriage was an essential economic transaction that responded to the development of capitalism in early America. Drawing on scholarship on the history of economic development, household organization, law, and gender, I argue that families actively distributed resources at marriage as part of larger wealth management strategies that were sensitive to regional and national economic growth. I focus particularly on women's property holding and how families deployed the legal protection of women's property as bulwarks against financial disaster. This project restores the family and women to the narrative …

Eliza Potter's Story: Remembering The Civil War Fallen At Beaufort, Sc [Lesson Plan], Thomas G. Connors

Open Educational Resources

Learning Objectives

• Analyze an 1868 article about a nurse who erected monuments to Union soldiers and piece together information about her work and family

Featured Cemetery

• Beaufort National Cemetery, Beaufort, SC

Lesson Overview

• Students examine ways that women found to contribute to the war effort within the limits of the nineteenth century by learning about Eliza Potter, who cared for the sick and dying during the war and worked to honor the dead afterward. They look at Potter’s life as a Unionist in Charleston, losing two children during the war, nursing Union soldiers in the Confederate prisons, and memorializing them …

Battle Cry Of Freedom: Honoring African American Military Service In The Civil War [Lesson Plan], Thomas G. Connors

Open Educational Resources

Learning Objectives

• Describe the U.S. Government’s responsibility to fallen soldiers and their families.
• Discover how African American military service has been memorialized over time.

Lesson Overview

Historians now stress how many African Americans achieved their own emancipation by escaping slavery and fighting for what they knew the war was about: what Lincoln called “a new birth of freedom” and the end of slavery. African Americans were eager to fight for the Union, but they were not officially allowed to enlist in the military until 1862.

This lesson explores how the Confederate burial of African American Union troops and their white …

“The Most Poisonous Of All Diseases Of Mind Or Body”: Colorphobia And The Politics Of Reform, April J. Gemeinhardt

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Focusing on the mid-1830s through 1865, this thesis explores colorphobia—the irrational fear and hatred of black people otherwise known as racial prejudice—as a reform tactic adopted by abolitionists. It argues that colorphobia played a pivotal role in the radical abolitionist reform agenda for promoting anti-slavery, immediate emancipation, equal rights, and black advancement. By framing racial prejudice as a disease, abolitionists believed connotations, stigmas, and fears of illness would elicit more attention to the rapidly increasing racial prejudice in the free North and persuade prejudiced white Americans into changing their ways. Abolitionists used parallels to cholera, choleraphobia (fear of cholera), and …

Mount Vernon And Monticello : The Changing Representation At Two Presidents' Estates, Katherine J. Simmons

Honors Theses

Before 1980, complex and controversial topics were ignored and avoided at Mount Vernon and Monticello. Instead their curators favored the enshrinement of the presidents and their mansions, without any mention of the hundreds of people who built and managed these estates. In the 1980s, this began to change. This thesis discusses why and how the expansion of the interpretation of slavery happened over the course of the 1980s and 1990s. Additionally, it seeks to understand how Mount Vernon and Monticello experienced this expansion, and the internal and external reactions to the process. Specifically, it examines this trend as it relates …

Arnold Michael Shankman Papers - Accession 98, Arnold Michael Shankman

Manuscript Collection

The Arnold Shankman Papers consist mainly of photocopies of manuscript collections which Dr. Shankman used for his research and writing. Included are pamphlets, biographical sketches, correspondence and newspaper accounts. Most of the collection relates to the American Civil War, particularly in Illinois, Georgia, and Pennsylvania, but there is material relating to Jewish history, African-Americans and United States foreign relations.

Everyday Farm Life In The Moxee Valley 1915-1950: Historical Ethnography, Terri Towner

All Master's Theses

This study collected oral histories of those who lived or worked in the Moxee Valley, within the greater Yakima Valley of Washington State from 1915-1950. It documents and records the historical and cultural processes of farm life and its evolution for people living in this foremost hop-growing region of the United States. The larger goal is to characterize the community and social processes for use as primary source documentation to create historically accurate programs at the Gendron Hop Ranch-Living History Farm near Moxee. Nineteen participants were interviewed. Topics addressed in the study include farming in the Valley, the household, roles …

Political Entities: Churches And Taverns In Revolutionary Virginia, 1765-1780, Ashley Gilbert

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how churches and taverns became sites for political discussion and organizing during the Revolutionary era, 1765-1780. Taverns had long served a role in Virginians’ lives by providing places where news was exchanged and discussed, but with the political upheaval between the colonies and Great Britain many of the activities and discussions that took place there became far more politically charged. Analyzing churches and their role within the revolutionary era demonstrates that Virginia’s revolutionary leaders used an institution deeply rooted in their society to further political activism by Virginians and Virginia’s provisional government. But in several ways the …

Expansion And Exclusion: A Case Study Of Gentrification In Church Hill, Kathryn S. Parkhurst

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the gentrification process in Church Hill, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Richmond, Virginia. After World War II, Richmond residents knew Church Hill mostly for its crime rate and dilapidated housing. The white, middle-class flight to the suburbs left the remaining residents, mostly African American, to experience decades of disinvestment. Church Hill was considered a neighborhood to avoid for much of the late twentieth century. Yet, Church Hill is currently one of the most desired neighborhoods in Richmond, particularly for young professionals. This thesis seeks to explain the reasons why there has been such a dramatic change …

Lost In The Atlantic: Emotional History In New England Maritime Societies, 1745 To 1815, Lauren Leigh Percy

Honors Theses and Capstones

This study investigates the known successes and and failures of New England seamen, second-hand poetry about women on land and men at sea, personal narratives of family members ashore, and the deeply intimate writings of men on sailing ships. Through official documentation and the productions of literary circles, it is possible to determine the relationship between the external and intrinsic motivations of men and their families to go to sea and stay at sea. Life in seafaring communities intensified human experiences. Familial separation and loss has universally emanated grief in seafaring traditions. The New England maritime narrative is a story …

The Cuyuna Iron Range: Legacy Of A 20th Century Industrial Community, Frederick Sutherland

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The Cuyuna Range is a former North American iron mining district about 90 miles(145 kilometers) west of Duluth in central Minnesota. The district was the furthest south and west of the three Minnesota iron ranges (Vermilion, Mesabi, and Cuyuna). In 2011, Students and staff from Michigan Technological University's Department of Social Sciences were asked to identify and promote features of the Cuyuna Range's mining heritage. Methods and approaches of mulitsited archaeology were used to unify the diverse places and themes into a more cohesive narrative. Their investigations focused on sites of technological innovation, social conflict, and important people. One collaborative …

Inviting Us To Come Closer: Philip Levine's Portraits Of Detroit (Forthcoming), Christina Triezenberg

Christina Triezenberg

No abstract provided.

“William Clark, The Southern Plains Fur Trade, And The Santa Fe Trail.”, Jay H. Buckley

Jay H. Buckley