United States History Commons^™

Book Review - Borderland Blacks: Two Cities In The Niagara Region During The Final Decades Of Slavery, Susanna Ashton

Publications

No abstract provided.

Home: Where The Art Was, Molly Mcclain

History: Faculty Scholarship

California plein air artist Alfred R. Mitchell (1888-1972) and his wife Dorothea Webster Mitchell designed a unique studio space in the Arts & Crafts style in their home in Golden Hill with the assistance of architect Lloyd Ruocco.

Learning By Doing In The Segregated South: The Robert Hungerford Normal And Industrial School For African Americans In Central Florida, Wenxian Zhang

Faculty Publications

The development of the Robert Hungerford Normal and Industrial School is an important chapter in the history of African American education in Florida. Through careful examinations of the school publications, records, archival correspondence, and newspaper clippings, the article seeks to document the history of the Hungerford School from its founding in the late nineteenth century until it became a public school in the Orange County, Florida in the early 1950s. Following Booker T. Washington’s ideals, the school was established with a great emphasis on economic self-help and individual advancement for African Americans. Its mission was to teach vocational skills to …

Attempted Book Bans: The Censorship Of Queer Themes In The 1950s, María J. Quintana-Rodriguez

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

This article aims to explore queer book banning during the 1950s in response to Cold War national defense tactics. The decade witnessed the formation of the first public LGBTQ+ rights organizations in the United States as well as a rise in queer literature and publications. This publicization of queerness in society was seen as a rejection of traditional societal norms and threatened the Cold War-imposed gender ideology. In addition, the fear of Communist expansion led to the conflation of homosexuals and Communists, categorizing queerness and queer-related themes as immoral and as an interference in the United States' fight for democracy. …

Silence From The Great Communicator: The Early Years Of The Aids Epidemic Under The Reagan Administration, Jacqueline A. Ortiz

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

1981 not only commenced Ronald Reagan’s presidency but also marked the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). The early framing of the disease as an exclusively homosexual affliction disadvantaged gay communities. This sexually transmitted disease proliferated across the United States; yet, the AIDS epidemic failed to reach the Reagan administration as a top priority until it was too late. When discussing the Reagan administration’s early response to AIDS, historians tend to follow one of two positions: avoid mentioning the disease and in its entirety; or blame Reagan’s homophobia for the deaths of thousands of …

“Spreading The Gospel Of Good Taste”: Home Design And American Character, Anna Maher

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

During the early twentieth century, a plethora of design pamphlets, magazines, organizations, exhibits, lectures, and more were established to fill a perceived demand for guidance on interior home design. Home decoration emerged as an important method to create an American taste that reflected democratization, emphasizing thrift, hard work, and intelligence in design across the class spectrum; the nation’s unique interaction with its own history and the history of the world; and the growing capabilities and responsibilities of a professional design community. Primarily through discussions of furniture, color schemes, and wall and floor decoration, popular magazines and guidebooks from the early …

It’S Complicated: Field Hockey And Feminism In The United States, Dara Anhouse

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

Only in the United States is field hockey considered a "women's sport," and the story of its unusual transformation of male-dominated “hockey” from the British Isles to women’s-only “field hockey” in America reveals a deeper connection between sport, feminism, and society. A symbol of unlocked freedom for the "New Woman" at the turn of the twentieth century, under Title IX the sport becomes a case study in how gender is reproduced in modern society.

“A Freedom Rider Before Freedom Rides:” Jackie Robinson Beyond Baseball, Amy Elizabeth Cantrell

Gettysburg College Headquarters

This paper seeks to evaluate the historical discourse surrounding the narrative of Jackie Robinson. Famed for being the first African American player to break the long withstanding color barrier in professional sports, a vast majority of discussion surrounding his story has centered solely on his athletic prowess and triumphs. However, as this paper will explore, Jackie Robinson’s contributions to the wider framework of racial equality and civil rights within America extend far beyond the baseball diamond. Evaluating both his laurels as an activist and socio-political figure as well as how these merits have been depicted, or neglected, in media representations …

“For The Right To Live”: Radical Activity In Portland’S Parks During The Great Depression, Eliana Bane

Anthós

During the Great Depression, Portland's working class joined in the national surge of radicalism to fight for economic relief and social justice. One of organized labor’s most effective strategies was to stage mass demonstrations in highly visible public spaces, such as Plaza Park adjacent City Hall in downtown. Rallying in city parks represented workers’ determination to exercise their free speech in spite of Red Scare suppression of leftist radicals. This essay explores the role of public parks in the history of the labor movement in Portland during the Depression, primarily focusing on Plaza Park since it was a hub for …

[2023 Honorable Mention] What Does The Absence Of My History Do To My Identity & Pride?: Utilizing Autohistoría-Teoría Methodology To Trace Educational Experience, Jissel Antonio

Ethnic Studies Research Paper Award

Utilizing Gloria Anzaldúa’s Autohistoria-teoría methodology, this humanistic study explores embodied experiences in the education system, guided by the question, What does the absence of my history do to my identity and pride? Theorizing across historical and personal contexts, I weave together personal archival materials, including school test scores, magical thinking, storytelling, and historical legacies of colonialism and American education. Inspired by Anzaldúa’s method of inquiry, I explore the relationship between identity and education by theorizing the reverberations between history and personal/collective experience.

Historical Trauma: Literary And Testimonial Responses To Hiroshima, Mariam Ghonim

Theses and Dissertations

The concept of trauma is controversial in literature. While one may be able to come up with ways to describe trauma in fiction, representing historical trauma is a hard task for writers. Some argue that trauma can not be described through those who did not experience it, while others claim that, provided some elements are added, one can represent trauma to the reader. This thesis focuses on twentieth-century historical traumas related to a nuclear catastrophe and explores the different literary and testimonial responses to the catastrophic man-made event of Hiroshima (1945). In this thesis, Kathleen Burkinshaw’s historical fiction The Last …

A Church Of The People: Coptic Church Building And Direction In Central New Jersey, Bishoy Garis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Building off Michael Akladios’ work on early Coptic migration and the ad hoc institutionalization of the Coptic Orthodox Church in North America, this dissertation proposes that the construction and direction of Coptic churches in Middlesex County, New Jersey was laity driven, ad hoc, reactive, and dependent on local variables. Additionally, it reveals that the creation of St. Mary’s Coptic Orthodox Church in East Brunswick, New Jersey spurred migration to the Middlesex County area and transformed their small community into a domestic and international Coptic migration center. Unlike previous scholarship that places greater attention on urban Coptic communities and transnational networks, …

Indigenous Economies In Wisconsin: The Impact Of Allotment Policies And The Indian New Deal, 1800s – 1930s, Kyle Davis

History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

Indigenous peoples in Wisconsin experienced many significant economic changes during their history. Currently, there are eleven federally recognized tribal nations within the Badger State. Americans forced the Oneida and Stockbridge-Munsee peoples to move west, while the Menominee, Bodewadmi, Ho-Chunk, and Ojibwe homelands in Wisconsin preceded European settlement. This thesis looks at the histories of the Oneida, Stockbridge-Munsee, Menominee, Bodewadmi, Ho-Chunk, and six Ojibwe reservations in Wisconsin and the transition of economic dependence on seasonal natural resources to wages earned from tourism between the late 1800s and the Indian New Deal in 1934. Indigenous peoples have relied on seasonal economies that …

Stolen Votes And Silenced Voices: An Overturned Colorado Election And The Suppression Of Free Speech, David Hosansky

History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

Against the backdrop of violent labor disputes in Colorado’s mining districts, a pro-labor Democratic candidate in the 1904 gubernatorial race appeared to oust the Republican incumbent by 10,000 votes. But amid widespread allegations of fraud, Republicans used legal and political maneuvers to seize the governorship and establish control over the General Assembly, the state supreme court, and even local offices in the traditional Democratic strongholds of Denver. When U.S. Senator Thomas Patterson, a Colorado Democrat and publisher of two Denver newspapers, reacted with scathing commentary about the Colorado Supreme Court’s role in the takeover, the court fired back, fining Patterson …

The Intersection Of American Nativism And Eugenics: Anti-Japanese Sentiment Prior To World War Ii, James Richard Chesemore

History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

This thesis examines how the anti-Japanese sentiment and legislation promoted by those leading the American eugenics movement contributed to the key economic, diplomatic, and social policies that influenced the start of the Pacific War. In the years leading up to and following World War I, Japan desired and sought full parity, including diplomatic racial equality, with the United States and other Anglo-Saxon powers. However, the United States wanted to maintain the pre- and post-World War I world order, which meant the continued subordination of Japan on the world stage. As both nations sought global economic expansion and colonialism in the …

Hist 104: America Since 1865, Douglas Manson

Open Educational Resources

This history course utilizes materials that are open sourced

Wagon Tracks Volume 37, Issue 3 (May 2023)

Wagon Tracks

Contents

2 On the Cover: Leaving Independence by Charles Goslin

4 Insights from your President

5 Joanne’s Jottings

6, 32 Art and the Trail: Edward Holslag at 21c Kansas City, by Joanne VanCoevern

7 In Memoriam: George Bayless Donohow, John Conoboy, Mary Cottom, Dorothy Kroh, Star Jones, Dr. Joyce Thierer

8 2023 Symposium

11 Board of Directors Nominees

14-20 Rebecca Mayer's 1852 Honeymoon with 50 Men and 500 Mules, Part 2 by Joy Poole

21-24 Searching for Page Blackwood Otero by Dr. Michael Olsen

24-25 What’s in the News along the Santa Fe Trail? Using Newspapers for Historical Research by …

Citing Seeds, Citing People: Bibliography And Indigenous Memory, Relations, And Living Knowledge-Keepers, Megan Peiser Choctaw Nation Of Oklahoma

Criticism

By turning the page or reading further, you are accepting a responsibility to this story, its storyteller, its ancestors, and its future ancestors. You are accepting a relationship of reciprocity where you treat this knowledge as sacred for how it nourished you, share it only as it has been instructed to share, and to ensure it remains unviolated for future generations.

This story is told by myself, Megan Peiser, Chahta Ohoyo. I share knowledge entrusted to me by Anishinaabe women I call friends and sisters, by seed-keepers of many peoples Indigenous to Turtle Island, and knowledge come to me from …

Critique! Critique! Critique! Black Labor In The Early American Book Trade, John J. Garcia

Criticism

This article pursues two lines of inquiry: first, recovering the presence of Black labor in the history of the book in colonial North America, the British Caribbean, and the early United States, with a second and complementary discussion of why critique must be foregrounded in the field formation of critical bibliography. Free and enslaved Black men and women helped make early American books possible. Their presences are to be found at the edges and vicinities of print cultural production, in roles such as papermaking, wagon driving, and forms of domestic labor that extended to the libraries and reading practices of …

Empire At Play: The United States’ Cultural Influence On Nicaragua’S National Sports’ Identity, Jason R. Old

Selected Faculty Publications

‘Empire at Play’ seeks to contextualize the inception of a Nicaraguan surfing subculture in the first decade of the twenty-first century by situating it within the broader scope of the United States’ influence on Nicaragua’s sporting history. By weaving together primary and secondary sources, as well as oral histories from expatriate surfers, Nicaraguan nationals, and members from the local indigenous communities, this article shows how international actors from the United States introduced Nicaragua to three of their major sports: baseball, boxing, and surfing—all of which became part of Nicaragua’s cultural identity. As these three sports grew in popularity domestically, so …