Social History Commons^™

A History Of The Underground Comix Scene: The Seriousness Of An Unserious Genre, Harris Darcie Shugart

Master's Theses

The Underground Comix Scene of the 1960s and 1970s was born out of an age of censorship. The Comics Code Authority, a regulatory body created by the Comics Magazine Association of America in 1954, established guidelines requiring publishing houses to self-regulate following a recommendation from the United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency in 1953. Comix with an X, for their X-rated nature, represent an emerging counter-culture in the latter half of the 1960s and the 1970s, with an epicenter of San Francisco. These comix and their artists were not interested in obtaining the looming ‘Seal of Approval’ from the …

Let Freedom Read: Exploring Mississippi’S Defiance Of National Book Banning Trends, Olivia S. Hoover

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Why have book bans have surged so dramatically across the United States in recent years, especially as they have become a defining political project for conservative lawmakers? At the center of this uptick in book bans lies a confusing puzzle: while book bans overwhelmingly occur in Republican-dominated states, Mississippi, despite its conservative political landscape, has seen almost none, even as states like Florida have enacted more than a thousand in a single year. Much of the existing scholarship on book bans focuses on national patterns of them or on the lawmakers and advocacy groups driving these bans, leaving a gap …

The New Deal In Georgia: Oral History Research Collection, Zach S. Henderson Library Special Collections

Finding Aids

This collection contains materials from an oral history research project on the New Deal in Georgia conducted in 1987 by Marchanita R. Coleman as part of Dr. R. Frank Saunders’ historiography course. Materials include a typed final report, oral history interview audiocassette tapes, and one photograph. Interviews are with African American residents of Liberty and Chatham County who lived during the Great Depression or remember the New Deal era in Georgia.

Jadughar: The House Of Magic, Dhruvi A. Shah

Masters Theses

Jadughar or the House of Magic is what people call a 'museum' in parts of South Asia. The practice of museum making, at its origin, is the act of collecting, preserving, interpreting and representing a culture’s tangible and intangible heritage to make it accessible to diverse audiences. Since the early 19th century such practices have been performed at various kala bhandars (art centers) in India, without the need of a formal or institutional organisation. The British introduced the model of a ‘museum’ in South Asia, with the aim of not only preserving ethnographic collections, but also showcasing their power and …

Asia Pacific Perspectives Vol. 19 No. 1, 2025, University Of San Francisco

Asia Pacific Perspectives

Articles

Think Pieces

Photo Essay

Book Reviews

Old World Ranks On A New Frontier: Noncommissioned Officer Command In The United States Military, Robert K. Whillock

History Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines the development of the United States Noncommissioned Officer (NCO) Corps and the regulatory limits placed on its authority. The early American military adopted European traditions that reserved command for commissioned officers and confined NCOs to supervisory and disciplinary roles. Regulations reinforced this hierarchy by preventing NCOs from exercising autonomous command and limiting opportunities for advancement into the officer corps through merit. Over time, however, egalitarian reformers began to question whether these rigid distinctions served the needs of the evolving American military.

The paper argues that foreign military examples and operational necessity gradually challenged the established roles of …

Corazones Urbanos: Literary Cartographies And Southwest Cities In The Mexican American Spatial Imaginary, Jorge A. Hernández Jr.

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

Corazones Urbanos: Literary Cartographies and Southwest Cities in the Mexican American Spatial Imaginary examines how Mexican American writers from Tucson, San Antonio, and Albuquerque narrate, critique, and reimagine urban space across the U.S. Southwest in the twentieth century. Integrating literary studies, cultural geography, urban history, and critical regionalism, the project analyzes responses to racialized development, urban renewal, and gentrification that have displaced Mexican American communities from historic downtowns. Moving beyond borderlands and transnational models, it advances a critically regional approach attentive to local histories, municipal policies, and community pressures shaping urban life. Through close readings of creative and nonfiction texts …

Vietnamese American Anti-Imperialism: South Vietnamese History And Analysis Of Publications Pre-1975, Jeannie Nguyen

Master's Theses

During the Vietnam War, citizens contested US imperialism at multiple levels. In South Vietnam, citizens published newspapers and magazines to challenge their government and expose the depth of US aggression in South Vietnamese society and culture. Inside the imperial core, Black, Chicano, and Asian American activists formed solidarities to resist the war and challenge racial inequality. At the intersection of imperialism inside and outside its borders, lies a group of South Vietnamese students and scholars who became American, migrating during the war via state-structured projects. However, in response to the heightening of war and drawing inspiration from their ‘Third World’ …

Within Melbourne: Landscape, Labor, And Material Culture In A Derbyshire Parish, 1650-1750, Mia Powell

Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses

In May of 1695, a group of inhabitants walked the grounds of the English locality of Melbourne (Derbyshire) and collected demographic data from every household within the parish boundaries. From this perambulation came a uniquely detailed census-type listing. Combining that listing with other available sources, including probate records, criminal litigation, property disputes, financial papers, antiquarian accounts, maps, and enclosure agreements from across seven record offices, this project uncovers the complex social and economic developments experienced by those who lived in Melbourne from 1650 to 1750. To analyze this well-documented parish, this thesis utilizes various methodologies. Nominal record linkage connects Melbourne’s …

From Farewell To Fáilte: The Voices Of Iowa’S Irish Daughters, Katie Hermanson

History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

Irish women’s immigration to Iowa brought rich culture and lasting impacts, despite their contributions being silenced by history. Women left Ireland for economic opportunity and education abroad to support their impoverished families. Millions emigrated between 1830 and 1915, spreading across the world. The Irish women who came to the United States encountered discrimination and cultural stereotyping as they worked in domestic service, developed religious orders, taught school, owned businesses and raised families. Women bore the burden of supporting their families in Ireland by sending remittances home and communicating between countries. Their cultural identity as exiles dwelled in guilt for leaving …

Penitential Systems In The Latin West And Byzantine East, Elijah C. Dodson

Honors Theses

This thesis examines the development and organization of penitential discipline in early medieval Christianity through a comparison of the penitential tradition associated with Theodore of Canterbury in the Latin West and the canons attributed to John the Faster in the Byzantine East. The study focuses on how these texts regulated sexual sin and what their structures reveal about the institutional role of the Church in different historical contexts. The analysis is based on a comparative reading of penitential texts, supported by patristic writings and modern scholarship. By examining how specific categories of sexual misconduct are classified and disciplined, this study …

The Grizzly, May 7, 2026, Renee Washart, Sidney Belleroche, Dylan Mchugh, Andrew Mihniak, Adam Denn, Cassidy Denning

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

Ursinus College Announces Shifts to Berman Museum • Ursinus Food Pantry: Coming Soon? • Students Learn From MLS Senior Director of Social Media Dan Stelly • Theater Department Presents Independent Capstone Production • Renee Washart Signing Off! • Adam Denn Signing On! • Sidney Belleroche Signing On! • AI: Humanity's Silent Killer • UC Sports Network Returns In Full Force • Ursinus Baseball's Miracle Run Comes to a Close

A Weapon Waiting To Be Used: The Strategic Importance Of The Women Airforce Service Pilots Of World War Ii, Piper Hanson

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASP, were a group of women pilots who worked in a civilian capacity with the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) during World War II. The air war in both Europe and the Pacific Theaters was extremely deadly with high casualty rates, and the USAAF struggled to train new aircrews. Established in 1943, the WASP program aimed to free male pilots on the home front for combat duties by allowing women pilots to take over non-combat roles. WASPs ferried military planes from manufacturers to bases, test-piloted damaged or dangerous aircraft, and trained military personnel …

Unmaking And Remaking Crimean Tatar Identity Stalin’S Deportation, Sürgün Stories, And The Claiming Of Indigeneity, Milo A. Clarkson

International Studies Honors Projects

The Crimean Tatars exist within a framework of historical and modern Russian settler colonial oppression. By examining their preferred form of identification, this thesis argues that claiming indigeneity holds promise for combating this colonial structure. Further, it identifies the construction of collective memories of the Sürgün (1944 deportation of the Crimean Tatars) in virtual museum project Tamirlar’s oral histories as a form of discursive decolonization—the reclamation of cultural, linguistic, and historical representation and primacy on the land. Novel analysis of fifty interviews with Sürgün survivors preserves indigenous Crimean identity and challenges the retrospective settler colonial construction of Crimea as “Russian.”

Disney's Illusion Of Inclusion, Marissa Davis

All Theses

Walt Disney’s films were not simply entertainment, but a use of racial stereotypes as a profit strategy. Even scholarship that explores these tactics and critically analyzes his most problematic misrepresentations do not to consider the role of Walt Disney, as a man, in creating and promoting these narratives. These depictions, while somewhat in line with the culture when he first entered the business, failed to evolve as society changed. Rather, they were deliberate choices to attract white audiences and increase revenue.

Over time, these tropes became socially unacceptable, yet Disney maintained them for public consumption. While Disney and his company …

House Of Ill-Fame: A Historical, Cartographic, And Archaeological Study On The Spatial Evolution Of Commercial Sex Work In New Orleans, 1875 – 1925, Austin Roebuck

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This research examines the historic spatiality of commercial sex‑work in New Orleans by analyzing targeted addresses associated with the trade across three census years. Using the establishment and closure of Storyville (1897–1917) as a temporal frame, it compares demographic patterns in dwellings labeled as “houses of ill fame” in 1880, 1900, and 1920 to trace changes in household composition and social identity. Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, newspapers, and city directories contextualize these patterns within three ten‑year intervals (1875–1885, 1895–1905, 1915–1925), revealing how sex‑work spaces were regulated, represented, and embedded in the urban landscape. The study also incorporates an archaeological assemblage …

“We Have Not Failed Our Country In The Past; We Shall Not Fail Her In The Future.”: The Army National Guard In Peace And War During The Interwar Period And World War Ii, Bearington C. Curtis

Dissertations

This dissertation explores one of the most fundamental questions in the War & Society field of American history: how the American people organize for war and how the citizenry has negotiated with themselves and their government to formulate a compromise that is culturally acceptable and militarily practical. Addressing such an elemental yet sweeping question of how a society organizes for war necessitates engagement with a broad swath of historiography, including institutional history, traditional and new military history, cultural assumptions of race and masculinity, politics, and civil-military relations. By taking a holistic approach, the various interests that shaped American military policy …

They Returned Fighting: World War I, Disillusionment, And The Remaking Of African-American Political Life In New York City, Michael Frank

Theses and Dissertations

They Returned Fighting examines how Black New Yorkers used World War I service, wartime activism, and postwar protest to press claims to citizenship and democracy, even as racial violence, discrimination, and contested public memory exposed the limits of that belonging in New York City and the United States.

The Geography Of Race: A Spatial Analysis Of Free People Of Color In The City Of Charleston (1790-1861), Alexandra Ullman

All Theses

In Charleston, South Carolina, for all but one year from 1790 to 1860, the enslaved and free Black population outnumbered that of the white. Through manumission, the process of an enslaved person gaining their freedom, the free Black population grew substantially and reached a peak in South Carolina during the nineteenth century. This large community of free people of color (FPOC), shifted the social climate by upsetting the balance of white power, thus increasing racial conflict, tension, and legislation that aimed to control the movement of FPOC.

Despite FPOC comprising a significant portion of the total population of Charleston, there …

Women In The Chancery Court Of Maryland From 1669 To 1679, Emily A. Cole

All Theses

This project examines women who appeared in the Chancery Court of Maryland from 1669 to 1679. This thesis used the Archives of Maryland Online and the volume of proceedings of the Chancery Court. Across the three chapters, I argue that historians have largely ignored these proceedings, and that women did not appear in court out of empowerment but rather out of legal duty and requirement. I examined how these women appeared in both their legal status and the types of positions they held. This included the life cycle women typically followed from wife to widow to remarriage. They also appeared …