United States History Commons^™

Buffalo, New York’S Citizen Soldiers: Personal Histories Of Combat, Trauma, And Returning Home After The Second World War, Drew H. Lewandowski

History Theses

Buffalo, New York’s Citizen Soldiers: Personal Histories of Combat, Trauma, and Returning Home after the Second World War

This thesis focuses on interviews from nine World War Two veterans who are from Buffalo, New York and the immediate surrounding areas. Included are three infantry men from the European theatre, including one paratrooper. Three who served in the Pacific theatre, including one medical officer, a medic, and one man served in the occupation of Japan. The remaining three served in the Air Corps in Europe, one pilot, one bombardier, and one fighter pilot.

Through extensive interviews, both written and filmed, this …

Theodore Roosevelt And The Boone And Crockett Club: The Saving Of America's Buffalo, Alexandra Mogan

Global Tides

The American buffalo is a symbol of the American West. It is well established that this American species faced extinction in the late nineteenth century. Many also know that at the turn of the century, President Theodore Roosevelt was a champion for the protection of America’s natural beauty, including its wildlife. As I began my research on Theodore Roosevelt and his role in conservationism, I discovered that he was involved in wildlife preservation well before his presidency. Most historians, who focus on Roosevelt’s actions while in the Oval Office (1901-1909), have overlooked his early roles in conservationism. Thus, one of …

William Colmer And The Politics Of The New Deal Labor Legislation 1933-1940, Zachary Wyatt Moulds

Master's Theses

William (Bill) Colmer first entered Congress in 1933, the same year that President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal began to reshape the role of government in the United States. While the New Deal's efforts to combat the Great Depression proved popular in the beginning, by 1935 many congressmen, especially southerners, began to distance themselves from the administration's attempts at social reform. Although many of his colleagues refused to endorse the increasingly liberal agenda of the New Deal, Congressman Colmer remained loyal throughout the decade. His loyalty to the administration was due in part to the south Mississippi district …

Furnish The Balance: The 1863 Roots Of Hard Strategy In The American Civil War, Angela Maria Riotto

Master's Theses

Scholars consider U.S. Major General William T. Sherman's 1864 Meridian campaign as the origin of hard war strategy during the American Civil War. While Sherman's 1864 expedition is a clear demonstration of hard war, it did not begin there. Rather, U.S. Major General Ulysses S. Grant's planned and Sherman's implemented destruction of Jackson, Mississippi in May 1863 was their first use of hard war and is key to understanding the Union's acceptance of hard war strategy. Chapter I and Chapter II of this thesis explore the Army of the Tennessee's march to Jackson and Sherman's destruction of the city, along …

From Seed To Mighty Tree: Susan Blow And The Development Of The American Kindergarten Movement, Madelyn Silber

Undergraduate Theses—Unrestricted

St. Louis is home to the first continuously running public kindergarten in the United States. In 1873, Susan Blow began teaching a small group of students at the Des Peres School using the methods of German educator Friedrich Froebel, “the father of the kindergarten.” Despite the rejection of Froebel’s ideas in Germany, Blow studied his pedagogy and implemented his curriculum into classrooms in America. Her first class was known as the kindergarten “experiment,” which would later become a standard in schools across the nation. Froebel’s kindergarten curriculum was unique because it was based on learning through play, an understanding of …

Intimate Frontiers: Indians, French, And Africans In Colonial Mississippi Valley, Sonia Toudji

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Historians have agreed that the French were more successful than their competitors in developing cordial relations with Native Americans during the conquest of North America. French diplomatic savoir faire and their skill at trading with Indians are usually cited to explain this success, but the Spaniards relied upon similar policies of trade and gift giving, while enjoying considerably less success with the Indians. Intimate Frontiers proposes an alternative model to understand the relative success of French Colonization in North America. Intimate Frontiers, an ethno-historical examination of the colonial encounters in the Lower French Louisiana, focuses on the Social relations between …

A Family Affair: The Pre-Kansas Saga Of James Henry Lane, James Robert Bird

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Historian Craig Miner suggests that territorial Kansas between 1854 and 1861 was "a nursery of weird and manic figures." Foremost among the weird and manic figures of Kansas history stands James Henry Lane, formerly a U.S. congressman from Indiana, and destined to become one of Kansas' first pair of senators. Writing at the midpoint of the twentieth century, Albert Castel pronounced Jim Lane "the most colorful and fascinating personality in the history of Kansas," adding that "Very likely, too, he was mentally unbalanced and paranoid."

Yet, James H. Lane never set foot on Kansas soil until he was well into …

The Truth Shall Set You Free: The Bible, The Revolution, And The Debate Over Slavery In The American South, Kevin Simon

Masters Theses

Before the slavery debate pushed a divided American nation to the brink of civil war, the argument divided the family of God. By the time cannon fire erupted at Fort Sumter, Christians had already staked out positions based on sophisticated lines of argument they used to justify or condemn chattel slavery. The generation coming of age during the Civil War era witnessed a debate more intense and contentious than their ancestors had seen, but in terms of the arguments employed, it broke very little fresh ground. Contrary to the assumption that antebellum apologists in the South invented the defense of …

The Invisible Woman And The Silent University, Elizabeth Robinson Cole

Dissertations

Anna Eliot Ticknor (1823 – 1896) founded the first correspondence school in the United States, the Society to Encourage Studies at Home. In the fall of 1873 an educational movement was quietly initiated from her home in Boston, Massachusetts. A politically and socially sophisticated leader, she recognized the need that women felt for continuing education and understood how to offer the opportunity within the parameters afforded women of nineteenth century America. With a carefully chosen group of women and one man, Ticknor built a learning society that extended advanced educational opportunities to all women regardless of financial ability, educational background, …

Due Process As Separation Of Powers, Nathan S. Chapman, Michael W. Mcconnell

Scholarly Works

From its conceptual origin in Magna Charta, due process of law has required that government can deprive persons of rights only pursuant to a coordinated effort of separate institutions that make, execute, and adjudicate claims under the law. Originalist debates about whether the Fifth or Fourteenth Amendments were understood to entail modern “substantive due process” have obscured the way that many American lawyers and courts understood due process to limit the legislature from the Revolutionary era through the Civil War. They understood due process to prohibit legislatures from directly depriving persons of rights, especially vested property rights, because it was …

Paradise Found: Religiosity And Reform In Oberlin, Ohio, 1833-1859, Matthew Hintz

All Theses

Founded as a quasi-utopian society by New England evangelists, Oberlin became the central hub of extreme social reform in Ohio's Western Reserve. Scholars have looked at Oberlin from political and cultural perspectives, but have placed little emphasis on religion. That is to say, although religion is a major highlight of secondary scholarship, few have placed the community appropriately in the dynamic of the East and West social reform movement. Historians have often ignored, or glossed over this important element and how it represented the divergence between traditional orthodoxy in New England and Middle-Atlantic states, and the new religious hybrids found …

Landscape History In The G.K. Warren Missouri River Maps, Graham Alan Callaway

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In 1855 and 1856, military surveyor Gouverneur K. Warren and his assistants produced what was at the time the most accurate map ever made of the Missouri River. This series of highly detailed sketch maps records numerous cultural features and an extraordinary level of environmental detail, making it an invaluable resource for research on the history of the region. This paper represents the first attempt to comprehensively interpret the content of these maps, identifying the features recorded where possible and assessing the probability of archaeological preservation of those not previously known. A subset of the recorded environmental data, from roughly …

The Problem With Nuclear Diplomacy: Jimmy Carter And Pakistan's Nuclear Program, Brittany Raymer

Masters Theses

A detailed history of Pakistan's attempt to build the atomic bomb in the 1970s and Jimmy Carter's reaction to the tense diplomatic situation.

Defined By What We Are Not: The Role Of Anti-Catholicism In The Formation Of Early American Identity, Brandi Hatfield Marchant

Masters Theses

From the colonial era through the mid-nineteenth century, anti-Catholicism colored key points of development in America's early history. Amidst the English colonial experience, the Revolution and establishment of the republic, and the educational reform efforts of the nineteenth-century, anti-Catholicism emerged as a fundamental factor in the development of America's characteristically Protestant political and religious identity. While many studies of early American anti-Catholicism focus on one region or time period, drawing connections across geographic boundaries and constructed historical periods attests to the sentiment's pervasive and enduring influence. While this sentiment varied in intensity throughout America over time, its presence profoundly shaped …

Reclaimed From A Contracting Zion: The Evolving Significance Of St. Thomas, Nevada, Aaron James Mcarthur

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Historians tend to treat Mormon history separately from the larger patterns of western American and U. S. history. The history of St. Thomas, Nevada, the remains of which are within the boundaries of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, show that this segregated treatment is inadequate. St. Thomas was established in 1865 by Mormon missionaries after the Mormon leader Brigham Young sent them to the Moapa Valley in what is now southern Nevada to grow cotton. The town, like a few other Mormon sites in the region, was abandoned by the LDS Church, taken up by other people, and assigned …

"So Much For Fond Five-Dollar Memories": Prostitution In Las Vegas, 1905-1955, Marie Katherine Rowley

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Over the fifty years examined in this thesis, the interactions between federal and local officials shaped prostitution policy in Las Vegas and Clark County. At times that federal authorities were concerned about prostitution in the county, local leaders balanced tradition and economic necessity in their responses. In the early twentieth century, prostitution's benefits to the local economy outweighed fear of federal reprisals, so local officials worked to protect the city's brothels. By the start of World War II, the federal government's increased power and presence in the West made local officials more willing to abandon the tolerance for prostitution in …

Buffalo Bill's Wild West In Germany. A Transnational History., Julia Simone Stetler

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation examines European and especially German responses to Buffalo Bill's Wild West show during its two European tours in 1890-1891 and 1906. It argues that the different European countries creatively adapted the content and message of the show according to their own specific cultural values and needs. By considering Buffalo Bill's Wild West within the specific cultural contexts of the nations it toured, we are able to better explain reactions to it, including Germany's astoundingly positive response. The show was an entertaining event for American and European audiences alike with its exoticized figures, spectacular stunts, and colorful drama; however, …

Die Deutschen In Kalifornien: Germans In Urban California, 1850-1860, Carole Cosgrove Terry

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

German immigrants came to San Francisco, Sacramento and Marysville, urban northern California, seeking a better life than they had in the Germanic states of central Europe. Some came directly from Germany but some made an intermediate stop during their journey in Europe or the United States. In all three cities, they created an ethnic community where they practiced the social, economic and cultural traditions from their homeland,including Vereinswesen (associational life) and Gemutlichkeit (celebration of the joy of life), led by their ethnically based association, the Turnverein. They interacted with the main steam Anglo-Americans through associations and celebratory events to create …

The Nation Before Taste: The Challenges Of American Culinary History, Andrew P. Haley

Faculty Publications

Food is material and familiar, and because it is, we are often overconfident about our ability to understand the culinary past. It is easy to believe that if we can discover the recipe for some forgotten dish, the history of the dish becomes intelligible. When it does not, it tempts those who consume culinary history to impose modern sensibilities on our predecessors. The Nation before Taste" argues that historians and museum curators must be especially vigilant when presenting the history of food. Reviewing a series of historical challenges that stemmed from studying the United States in the late nineteenth and …

Missions, Republicanism, And Anti-Catholicism: The Ideological Origins Of The Methodist Church’S Support For The Mexican-American War, Luke Clay Schleif

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The Methodist Church’s support of the Mexican-American War arose from its commitment to the missionary endeavor and spreading the gospel. The self-imposed mission of the Methodists to evangelize the nations and their commitment to the United States war with Mexico cannot be understood without taking into account two other developments. Of first importance was the Church’s adoption of republicanism. By the 1840s, the Methodist Church accepted republicanism as the best form of human government and inextricably linked it to Protestant Christianity. Protestant (or biblical) Christianity was now not only necessary for salvation but was also a necessary component for political …