European History Commons^™

Swiss Settlers On The Nebraska Prairie In The 1880s, Karl Horat

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Hundreds of thousands of emigrants from all over Europe, as well as many Americans, were attracted to the West in the nineteenth century. It was the time of the “Homestead Act,” a law for land settlement signed by President Abraham Lincoln. It had taken force on New Year’s Eve, 1863.

Among the early settlers in the Great Plains of Nebraska in the 1880s were landless Swiss farmers. The presence of two families from the Bernese Oberaargau, Lisette and Ueli Uhlmann-Schütz, along with Annelies and Hans-Ueli Kleeb-Heiniger, was documented on 19th century photographic plates. The black and white pictures illustrate both …

Front Matter

Swiss American Historical Society Review

No abstract provided.

Officers (Executive Board)

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Thomas Quinn Marabello became President of the Swiss American Historical Society in November 2024. As president, he is focused on increasing membership, organizing engaging and interesting annual meetings, and supporting young historians.

Beth Zurbuchen has been Vice President of the Swiss American Historical Society since November 2024. She served as President of the Swiss Center of North America in New Glarus, Wisconsin from 2009 until retiring in April 2024.

Barbara Müller joined the SAHS in 2013, became Vice President of the SAHS Swiss Chapter in 2016 and is President of our sister organization, Friends of the Swiss American Historical Society …

Swiss American Historical Society Annual Business Meeting Report, Jane C. Maurer

Swiss American Historical Society Review

The meeting was called to order at 9:30 AM. Observed Moment of Silence to remember longtime members who passed away in the past year (Dr. Heinz B. Bachmann, former SAHS President and Treasurer; Heinrich L. Wirz, Max A. Gonzenbach, Fred C. Moser, Richard Blatter and Paul R. Judy).

Annual Membership Report

Swiss American Historical Society Review

We have 208 current members, a 1% increase over the 205 reported last year at this time. We received a donation of $10,000 from the Northlands Foundation. And one of $1,000 from the Gonzenbach Family Foundation, in honor of former member Max Gonzenbach (now deceased.). Other members made extra contributions this year totaling $1,240, and one became a Life member.

Friends Of The Swiss American Historical Society (Sahs) Switzerland Chapter, Barbara Müller

Swiss American Historical Society Review

The Swiss Chapter of SAHS held their annual general meeting and outing in St. Legier, Canton Vaud at the Pepperdine University campus in the renovated Château d’Hauteville on September 10th, 2025. The château belonged to Pierre-Philippe Canac, who installed Benjamin Franklin’s lightning rods on the château roof when he built it in the 1760s. It then passed through marriage to Daniel Grand, the youngest son of Franklin’s French banker. The installed lightning rods still protect the château today from the storms passing over Lake Geneva. Pepperdine has done a wonderful job in renovating the château and keeping it for generations …

A Feminine Flame In The Midst Of Repression: The Concealed Role Of Women In The Isolated Siberian Tundra, Jenny N. Liang

Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History

The modern Russian state is distinctive in her history of utilizing the isolated Siberian tundra for eliminating political dissent, with millions of dissidents disappearing into penal colonies, labor camps, and gulags, some never to reappear. Of the incomprehensible mass of numbers are the stories of steadfast wives refusing to abandon their husbands, women surviving the brutal political prison camps, and girls manipulated as political pawns into Siberia. In a historically patriarchal Slavic society, the stories of women have been conveniently pushed aside. The distinctive Russian practice of exiling political dissidents to the remote Siberian tundra has led to stories of …

Gold, Manuscripts, And Misunderstanding: The Forgotten Intellectual Wealth Of Timbuktu, Caroline A. Valdovinos

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

This article re-examines Timbuktu’s legacy, challenging European myths that imagined the city as a hidden African “El Dorado” while overlooking its intellectual wealth. From the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, Timbuktu thrived as a hub of trade, religion, and scholarship, home to mosques, libraries, and networks of learning that drew scholars from across the Islamic world. Manuscripts on theology, law, medicine, and science circulated widely, placing the city at the heart of West Africa’s intellectual life. Yet European explorers and mapmakers, influenced by accounts like those of Leo Africanus, recast Timbuktu as a treasure-laden city of gold. This obsession, reinforced by …

Wedded To Power: Dynastic Marriages And The Hidden Diplomacy Of Women In Early Modern Europe, Amelia H. Earl

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

The diplomatic power of women in the ‘Great Power’ dynasties of Europe has been passed over in historiography because very often their power rested in their relationships to their male counterparts. Dismissing these women’s diplomatic and political power as “soft power” of the domestic sphere overlooks the fact that the political structure of Europe relied heavily on familial ties. In early modern Europe, the whole continent was a kinship; thus, familial relationships between two dynasties were inherently political. The daughters and mothers of these dynasties discovered that there was permeable access to the European political arena through marriage and motherhood. …

Infinite Line, Infinite Knowledge: The 'Spera' And Organized Chaos In Lambert's Encyclopedia, The 'Liber Floridus', Ava Romano

Theses and Dissertations

The Liber Floridus is a medieval encyclopedia renowned for its program of circular diagrams, or sperae. Inside this manuscript of 190 chapters, these diagrams frame and embody written knowledge, revealing a connection between encyclopedism and life in the Benedictine monastery by creating a coherent visual organization of chapters.

Negotiating Sacred Space: Monastic Endurance And The Spatial Politics Of Sistematizare In 1980s Bucharest, Symantha G. Byrd

Theses and Dissertations

Under Ceaușescu's 1980s Sistematizare program, Bucharest's Orthodox monasteries sustained sacred life through "negotiated resilience": ritual repetition and spatial adaptation under surveillance and constrained visibility. Văcărești, Mihai Vodă, and Antim map a spectrum—erasure, relocation/concealment, and institutional negotiation—complicating binaries of resistance and collaboration.

A Cold War Story: The Emigration Of Soviet Jews 1967-1980, William Bernstein

History Honors Papers

No abstract provided.

“No Future For Ireland Under The Heel Of England”: Sinn Fein’S Voice Of Revolution, Agostina Pieri

Cohort 2025-2026

Agostina Pieri is a junior double majoring in History and Philosophy with a Spanish minor. She is fascinated by the intersection of morality and revolutions. Her Time Machine Project focuses on three pamphlets published by Sinn Fein during the Irish Revolution. This propaganda begs the question: how does Sinn Fein justify the use of violence? Her analysis focuses on the evolution of Sinn Fein’s arguments through the influence of the First World War and President Wilson’s “Fourteen Points.”

Rare Books Used: Ireland and the British Army, Eamonn de Valera states his case, The case of Ireland

Debauchery And Decorative Art: Framing The Relationship Between Dining And Material Culture In British Country And Town House Dining Rooms During The Long 18th Century, Guoyang Sun

MA in Fine and Decorative Art and Design Dissertations

This dissertation explores the profound effect of material culture and rituals in elite British dining interiors during the long eighteenth-century. As spaces greatly influenced by the process of museumification, they are often perceived by contemporary and historical observers as settings intended for the ostentatious display of family lineage, taste and affluence. The dining rooms of British Georgian formal houses were highly curated proto museums with huge potential for display through architectural expressions, artworks and decorative objects, however, they were more importantly extremely complex environments that require complete analysis from multiple disciplines and perspectives.

In framing the intimate relationship between dining …

“The Irishmen – Immigrants, Soldiers, And The Spark Of Revolutions”, Joshua Hanscheck

History Theses

The Irish, as a people and a revolutionary inspiration, have been the subject of research and discussion for much of the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. A trope has emerged that the Irish could take over the world, if they were not so busy chasing the bottom of their pub glasses, but the trope – stereotypes about Irish drinking aside – is grounded in some truth. The diaspora encouraged many things: a revival in Gaelic culture, a general disdain among outsiders for the Irish as a people group, and, most importantly, a revolutionary fervor that seemed almost infectious. This fervor …

Eurovision As A Platform For Cultural Diplomacy In Times Of Conflict, Lucy Meza

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines how states utilize the Eurovision Song Contest as a platform for soft power, focusing on the conditions under which cultural performance translates into reputational gains. Drawing on Joseph Nye’s concept of soft power, Biasioli’s theory of songwashing, Zamorano’s typology of cultural diplomacy, Anholt’s competitive identity framework, and Feklyunina’s analysis of identity and narrative, it argues that Eurovision’s effectiveness as a soft power platform is fundamentally contingent on the alignment between a state’s cultural narrative and dominant international perceptions of its legitimacy. Through a qualitative comparative case study approach, the thesis examines two nations whose Eurovision participation during …

The Cost Of Defense: Labor And Construction Of 10th Century Danish Fortifications, Noah James Eckert

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

Religious And Cultural Dimension Of The "Ringing Cedars Of Russia" Movement In The Context Of Hybrid Warfare, Oleksandr Lukyanenko, Vitaly Dmytrenko, Vita Dmytrenko

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The article is devoted to a comprehensive religious analysis of the neo-religious movement “The Ringing Cedars of Russia,” based on the works of Vladimir Megre and the image of the prophetess Anastasia. The study covers the ideological and doctrinal foundations of the movement, its socio-cultural practices, the functioning of tribal settlements, as well as mechanisms of influence on individual and collective consciousness. Particular attention is paid to the concepts of “Vedrussia”, the sacralization of “Russian space” and the mythologization of Russia’s calling to revive the “primitive civilization of harmony.” The analysis shows that the movement, while declaring ecological and humanistic …

An “Outburst Of Irish Feeling”: Fascism In The Irish Free State, Keira Ilene Codey

Open Access Master's Theses

This study examines the ideological development and political significance of the Blueshirt movement in the Irish Free State, focusing mainly on how the transnational fascist thought developed amidst local conditions. It argues that although the Blueshirts, associated with organizations such as the Army Comrades Association (ACA) under the leadership of Eoin O'Duffy, incorporated aesthetic and ideological features of other interwar European fascisms into their program, including palingenetic ultranationalism, corporatism, and paramilitarism, these elements developed within the context of Ireland’s postcolonial political culture. These ideas were rooted in commonly held anti-British sentiment, which linked fascist politics of resentment and national regeneration …

Shakespeare’S Martyrs And The Poetics Of Transformation, Robert Keim

Theses and Dissertations--English

At the beginning of William Shakespeare’s career as a playwright, England’s most widely read book, after the Bible, was Acts and Monuments of These Latter and Perilous Days, commonly known as John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. Foxe’s martyrological literature, along with the inherently theatrical nature of martyrdom itself, helped the lives and deaths of Reformation martyrs to assume a prominent place in England’s literary consciousness. Shakespeare was not immune to their influential presence, and though overt representations of martyrdom were too controversial for the popular stage, he did enrich his plays by endowing certain characters—through imagery, allusive diction, …