Cultural History Commons^™

The Grizzly, April 16, 2026, Renee Washart, Adam Denn, Sidney Belleroche, Cassidy Denning, Dylan Mchugh, Erin Ewing, Erik Groff

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

Graml Announced as President • Ursinus Dance Program Shift • Paige Dickerman '28 Receives St. Andrews Scholarship • Strusowski's Second Year Surge • From Player to Coach: Ursinus Alum Ryan DiVergilis • Opinion: The Missing LINQs • Ursinus Golf Swings for Improvement in 2026 • Ursinus Tennis Teams Tear Through Non-Conference Play

Patriotism, Philia, And Stereotyping During World War Ii: Correspondence Between Black Composers, Selise Phillips, Joi Carr

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

The 20th century was a monumental time for Black composers, especially for those in the UK. Rudolph Dunbar was the first black musician to perform at Royal Albert Hall in London, England. During this time, correspondence between him and William Grant Still, a famous black composer based in America, exists. Still’s rhetorical choices in these letters demonstrate the attitudes of these composers, specifically Still, and how these choices reflect the success of Dunbar’s career. Still, whose compositions started gaining traction in the 1930s, often praised Dunbar for his achievements. These letters all take place during World War II and during …

Hotels As Placemakers In Downtown Los Angeles, 1890-1950, Chrissie Alea Rensing, Megan Kendrick

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

Early twentieth-century Los Angeles is often characterized as a rapidly expanding metropolis shaped by informal segregation along lines of race, class, and gender. Yet within this landscape, hotels and lodging houses sometimes functioned as unexpected sites of inclusion and community for marginalized populations. This project investigates how these spaces of hospitality served women and racial minorities between 1890 and 1950 in Los Angeles. Drawing from recent scholarship from Natalia Molina and others, we set out to examine the role of vernacular hotel architecture and the “placemakers” who operated them.

The project involved examining hundreds of handwritten census pages and original …

The Grizzly, April 9, 2026, Renee Washart, Sidney Belleroche, Erin Ewing, Andrew Mihniak, Jesse Cherone, Ava Wood

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

Third Annual Lenape Symposium • Watson Fellowship: What to Know • Join The Grizzly Newspaper! • Ursinus Hosts Girls & Women in Sports Day • Sexual Assault Awareness Month • Opinion: I Hate Cashless Everything • Baseball Blasts Out to Hot Start! • Softball's Young Talent Shines Through

Where Do Policy Demanders Come From? Protestants And Party Formation In The Antebellum Period, John W. Compton

Political Science Faculty Articles and Research

The early 1830s were years of intense religious fervor, when well-organized moral reform movements seemed destined to remake the political landscape. Curiously, however, the party system that emerged from this period was premised on the exclusion of moral issues from party politics. How did the early Jacksonian Democrats and Whigs manage to construct an essentially amoral party system during a decade marked by large-scale moral reform movements? And why did the resulting system unravel in the mid-1850s? Answering these questions requires shifting the focus from party activists and elected officials to organized religion. Specifically, I show that the nation's largest …

The Legend Of Emanuel Loewner “Cap” Klingstein: “The Al Capone Of The Shenandoah Valley?” Aspire 2026 Presentation, Josh Payne

ASPIRE 2026

Emanuel Loewner “Cap” Klingstein (1894-1971) was a notable Jewish entrepreneur in the area, owning multiple businesses and real estate between the 1920s and 1970s.  However, possible shady business practices and criminal activities, such as tax evasion and alcohol possession during prohibition, as well as local stories and legends, have raised questions about how he should be remembered. At times, he was even referred to as “the Al Capone of the Shenandoah Valley.” By utilizing primary source archival letters, genealogical records, court documents, and personal testimonies, as well as secondary sources on Jewish business in the area, organized crime, and the …

Belle Époque French Fashion: Understanding French Clothing Labels In Historical American Media, Meg E. Smith

Scholars Week

A period of French prosperity know as the Belle Epoque followed the Franco-Prussain War from 1871-1914. Within this time, Parisian Fashion would blossom and flourish with couturiers, fashion designers, rising in fame and influence within textile and clothing markets. Credit to this prosperity can be given to the second industrial revolution, the end of a long depression, and a dominating industry of luxury market goods production in tandem with a sharp increase in foreign trade. Foreign media, such as American newspapers, would display the array of reactions to the success of Parisian styles. Retail progression and the commercialization of leisure …

The Grizzly, April 2, 2026, Renee Washart

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

This is an April Fool's parody edition of the Ursinus College Grizzly newspaper entitled "The Goofly."

Autocratic Legacies: Analyzing The Political Divergence Of Turkmenistan And Uzbekistan, Kolea Suehiro

Global Tides

Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, two countries nearly identical in their foundational features, are moving along starkly different governmental trajectories. The dominant explanation for this divergence accounts for both structural and personalistic influences. In Turkmenistan, literature examines how an established patronal authoritarianism, necessitated by a concentrated elite and economic network, led the country along a strong authoritarian trajectory with a high degree of cult of personality. In contrast, a networked patronal authoritarianism in Uzbekistan, comprised of political and economic power-sharing, led the country along a weaker authoritarian trajectory with a lower degree of personalism. Thus, previous research has addressed how institutional structures …

Res Historica, Volume 5, Alpha Rho Epsilon Phi Alpha Theta, Lindsay Rae Smith Privette Phd

Res Historica

The 2026 journal of historical research by Anderson University students, Res Historica.

The editorial team for this edition of Res Historica was Dr. Lindsay Rae Smith Privette, Julia Ackerman, Callyn Wright, Logan Davis, and John Hinton. Cover art by Mary Beth Lee.

The Legend Of Emanuel Loewner “Cap” Klingstein: “The Al Capone Of The Shenandoah Valley?”, Josh Payne

Honors Projects

Emanuel Loewner “Cap” Klingstein (1894-1971) was a notable Jewish entrepreneur in the area, owning multiple businesses and real estate between the 1920s and 1970s.  However, possible shady business practices and criminal activities, such as tax evasion and alcohol possession during prohibition, as well as local stories and legends, have raised questions about how he should be remembered. At times, he was even referred to as “the Al Capone of the Shenandoah Valley.” By utilizing primary source archival letters, genealogical records, court documents, and personal testimonies, as well as secondary sources on Jewish business in the area, organized crime, and the …

Chalmers Library Research Award Winner 2026, Cooper Bertschi

Chalmers Library Research Award

No abstract provided.

Let's All Go To The Lobby: Examining The American Cold War Experience Through Film, Renaldo Gonzales Jr.

GLI MA in American History Student Works

The films of the American film industry produced and released during the Cold War are as varied as the complex events that occurred throughout the entirety of the conflict. These films can provide an understanding of how the feelings and attitudes of the American people shifted and evolved as the Cold War progressed. This work will examine a small sample of these films, focusing on one film from the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. By providing critiques and reviews of the film from the time of its original release, information about the motives of the director of the films being …

Artifacts As Ambassadors: How Archaeological Artifacts Dictate Modern Diplomatic Relations And Repatriation, Emma Boyd

Honors Papers and Posters

In this thesis, I examine and re-center the roles of archaeological artifacts and conceptions of ownership in global politics, drawing on debates about cultural heritage and diplomacy. This thesis will emphasize debates around ownership and repatriation, articulating their value in international relations and diplomacy between Western countries and postcolonial nations, as well as between federally recognized Native American Indigenous Tribes and the United States government. The thesis review takes the Elgin Marbles, arguably the most debated subject, as a model for my case study analysis. I will explore complications driven by conversations of repatriation. Overall, this thesis will propose theories …

Made In Ireland: A Postcolonial Analysis Of Irish Cultural Revival And Its Impact On Ireland’S International Relations, Emma Boyd

Political Science Student Papers and Posters

This thesis examines the impact of how British colonial rule led to the decline of Irish cultural components, such as Gaelic (Gaeilge), and how postcolonial revival efforts have shaped Ireland’s modern identity and its use of soft power in international relations. Drawing on mobilization and postcolonial theories, this paper defines key concepts, mobilization, remobilization, and postcolonial identity, to provide an analytical foundation. The analysis explores how colonial policies eroded Irish culture and language, intensified by the Great Famine, and how the Irish Diaspora serves as a global network for remobilizing Irish identity abroad. The ongoing conflicts in Northern Ireland will …

2nd Place Contest Entry: "Destablizing U.S.-Japan Relations: Nikkatsu Film Noir As Postwar Social Critique", Thomas Graham Buchanan

Eric M. Scandrett Graduate Library Research Prize

This is Thomas Buchanan's submission for the 2026 Eric M. Scandrett Graduate Research Prize, which won second place. It contains their essay on using library resources, a summary of their research project on how a generation of Japanese filmmakers in the 1950s and 1960s borrowed the formal strategies of Hollywood film noir to mount a critique of U.S. Cold War policy, and their bibliography.

Thomas is a student in the Master of Arts in Film & Media Studies program at Chapman University. Their faculty mentor is Dr. Emily Carman.

Thomas' thesis is the scholarship that emerged from the research discussed …

Delenda Est Norfolk: The Tidewater Revolts!, Kiera Dillman, Alise Dunham, Kristen Gary, Olivia M. Haris, Nelliel A. Herrera, Logan Holzgrefe, R. J. Lynch, Adam M. Manis, David Mogan, Luke Pickard, Shayla M. Shaw, Landon Swain, Kenny Wilcox, Bailey M. Wimberly, Tracy L. Barnett

Student Projects

Introduction to the Exhibit:

Today—exactly 250 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence—many Americans trace the origins of the nation’s revolutionary sentiment to Boston, Massachusetts or Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We remember the violence of March 1770, when red-coated British soldiers fired into a crowded Boston street, massacring innocent colonists and igniting outrage. We recall the patriotic defiance of the Sons of Liberty, who boarded three East India Company ships and dumped chests of imported British tea into the Boston Harbor in December 1773. We can still hear, too, the reverberations of the “shot heard ’round the world,” when British …

Stakhanov Lives Forever: How Art And Culture Outlasted Politics In The Communist World, Samuel Shewmake

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

The Stakhanovite movement and its long term consequences has been heavily debated in the field of Soviet history for several decades. The dominant scholarly narrative is that the Stakhanovite movement and Stakhanovism were largely extinguished during the period following the buildup to the Second World War. Previous works have relied heavily on solely political analysis of the movement, presuming that its character was primarily state-driven with little social component. This paper analyzes the social and artistic legacy of the Stakhanovite movement through novel analysis of film, music, and art of the Stakhanovite period and following decades. Contrary to what has …

Spanglish: Un Viaje Al Pasado Observado Por El Presente, Nyleen Benavides, Raquel Christopherson, Rose Jouini, Kennedy Kuchta

Posters - 2026

Since its founding in 1852, St. Mary’s University has evolved from a small institution into a diverse and inclusive community that has worked to overcome discriminatory barriers. Originally founded to serve Mexican students in underserved communities, the university has reflected San Antonio’s Cultural diversity since its earliest years. Its founder, Reverend John Marie Odin, envisioned supporting a “melting pot” of cultures within the city (Flores, 2019). While the university has grown significantly in enrollment, Hispanic culture and traditions have remained a central part of its identity. Today, with over two thousand students enrolled, St. Mary’s University continues to not only …

Baseball Is Back, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

As the Baseball Season opens today, its popularity seems to be peaking. The recently concluded World Baseball Classic (WBC) generated great interest and considerable excitement. The climax of games between the Dominican Republic and the United States, and the championship game between Venezuela and the United States went down to the last pitch.