United States History Commons^™

Cuny In The News: A History Of Reporting On The Humanities At The City University Of New York, Jacqueline R. Cahill

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project compiles newspaper articles concerning humanities at the City University of New York, placing them on a timeline to establish patterns and changes within media reporting and public perception. The archival research of this project explores four distinct eras, grouped around major events in the history of the university: 1961-1971, for the founding of the university and open admissions struggle; 1980-1990, for the response to the ‘70s fiscal crisis and introduction of the Board of Trustees; 2000-2010 for the post-open admissions era and the centralization of CUNY; and 2020-present, for COVID and a new fight for racial equity. Examining …

Counter-Hegemony In The Captive State: Recasting Katrina’S Carceral Legacy Through Conjuncture, Joseph S. Muratore

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis traces the historical development and contemporary manifestations of carceral power in Louisiana, arguing that racialized systems of control—from slavery and convict leasing to mass incarceration—have been sustained through shifting alliances of political and economic elites. Using The Historic New Orleans Collection (HNOC) and its exhibit Captive State: Louisiana and the Making of Mass Incarceration as a foundational timeline, this study demonstrates how Bourbonism forged a regional bloc that institutionalized racial domination through incarceration and labor exploitation, later reconstituted through neoliberal policies of abandonment, privatization, and militarization. I chose to focus on Hurricane Katrina because its aftermath reflects many …

Full Issue

Swiss American Historical Society Review

No abstract provided.

Meet The New Additions To The Sahs Editorial Board

Swiss American Historical Society Review

With an increase in article submissions and book proposals, the Editorial Board is happy to add two new members to our ranks. Jocelyn Moore and Jonah Schaller have already been very helpful proofreading and making suggestions to articles that we receive. They join Tom Marabello, Marianne Derron, Richard Hacken, Jurg Siegenthaler and Rob Sherwood as additions to the dedicated volunteer SAHS Editorial Board.

The Friends Of The Swiss American Historical Society Annual Outing And General Meeting In The Historic Château D’Hauteville, Canton Vaud, St. Légier, Barbara Miller

Swiss American Historical Society Review

In cooperation and with the generous help of Yvon Bordet and Pepperdine University Swiss Campus, this year’s annual outing will take place on Wednesday, September 10, 2025, starting in Ouchy Lausanne at 11:55 and then traveling to Vevey by boat. We will meet at the boat harbor in Ouchy Lausanne at 11:40 AM. To get there you take either a bus or the metro across the street from Lausanne station to go to Ouchy Olympique.

Memorial Day – May 23, 2024: Wreath Laying Ceremony In Münsingen, Canton Bern, Switzerland, Barbara Müller

Swiss American Historical Society Review

It was a rather cold rainy day in May when the U.S. Embassy celebrated Memorial Day services in a village in Bern-Mittelland. Why here in this village of Münsingen?

I received the invitation to attend the service, and with the cold rainy day my thoughts turned from World War II and the many victims to another war much too close for comfort that of Ukraine. I seemed not to be the only one with these thoughts, as after the Bugle call when the Deputy Chief of Mission Bradford J. Bell just before his speech mentioned the ongoing war in Ukraine …

Proposed Changes To Discuss & Vote On At The 2025 Sahs Annual Meeting

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Members will have an opportunity to discuss and vote on the two following items at the annual general meeting in New York City on October 4, 2025. If you are unable to attend in person or virtually, and have any questions or comments, please send an email to: [email protected].

B17 Aircraft, Known As “Denny Boy”, Yvon Bordet

Swiss American Historical Society Review

The B17 “Denny Boy” took off from the British base at Thurleigh (England) on the night of Saturday, July 15 to Sunday, July 16, 1944. Objective: To bomb the BMW factories in Munich (Germany).

The aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft fire near its target, then again on the return to Mulhouse. Smoke filled the cockpit, an engine failed and the plane lost altitude. The captain decided to attempt a landing in neutral Switzerland. But it was in a small field, near a chapel, that he miraculously managed to land the bomber, in the commune of Féternes... in France, just a …

Swiss American Historical Society Annual General Meeting: October 3–4, 2025, New York City

Swiss American Historical Society Review

We are pleased to offer members a tour of the United Nations Headquarters building on the afternoon of Friday, October 3rd. The building is closed to visitors that day, but thanks to the staff at the Swiss Consulate, they have arranged a guided tour for us at 4:00 PM! If you want to do the tour, there is a question on the required registration Google Form that is linked on the next page (and it has also been sent by email to all members). The cost is $20.00 per person and we can take a maximum of 20 people on …

Embodied Archives, Emerging Futures, Xuân-Lam Nguyen

Masters Theses

Fifty years after the end of the U.S.–Vietnam War, this thesis reflects on the entangled relationship between the two nations, inspiring hope while challenging dominant representations of trauma and tragedy. Drawing from autobiography, family history, folk art traditions, colonial photographs, hierarchies within art history, archives of student activism, and key geopolitical events, the work explores the complex intersections of queer identity and glitchy historical narratives. Combining research-based inquiry with time- and labor-intensive processes, it reimagines historical materials to construct alternate possibilities for the future.

The Rainbow War: Ballot Measure 9 And The Fight Over Gay Rights In Oregon, Patrick Douglas Lasalle

Dissertations and Theses

On November 3, 1992, Oregonians were asked to vote on Ballot Measure 9, an amendment to Oregon's constitution that would prohibit anti-discrimination protections for homosexuals, prohibit the use of public funds and facilities to "promote" homosexuality, and require schools to actively discourage homosexuality as "abnormal, wrong, unnatural, and perverse." In this narrative history, I will explore Measure 9 and the ways in which it divided the state, beginning with its introduction in May 1991. I examine the history and reasoning of the Oregon Citizens Alliance, the Christian Right organization behind the measure, as well as the gay and lesbian community’s …

The Silk Butterfly Effect: Japan And The United States 1853-1941, Melodee Birlew

Dissertations and Theses

This study examines the rise and fall of the silk industry in both the United States and Japan in the first half of the twentieth century. While silk had been a valuable commodity for millennia for royalty, aristocrats, and the extremely wealthy, the opening of Japan's ports in 1853 soon made silk more accessible to lower classes around the world.

Consequently, Japan's newfound wealth catapulted her status among other rich and powerful nations. Japan's military might, financed in large part by the silk trade and displayed by her victory over Russia in 1905, earned her even more prestige on the …

Considering The Ethics Of Conserving American Art: White Nationalism And The Evolving Meanings Of Nineteenth-Century Genre And Landscape Painting, Evan M. Crocker

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis analyzes the stylistic and conceptual qualities of American genre and landscape painting from the antebellum period and how these qualities acted in service to establishing white nationalism before the Civil War. The intricate and calculated system of typing in genre painting presented carefully crafted idealizations of quintessential Americans, defined by their whiteness and maleness. Landscape painters of the early- to mid-nineteenth century endowed their compositions with a sense of wondrous opportunity which justified and upheld westward expansion under Manifest Destiny. At the intersection of genre and landscape practices sits plantation paintings—specifically house portraits—in which the plantation serves as …

Disability: A Dirty Word? How Language Historically Perpetuates Exclusion And Systemic Oppression, Kelly E. Imm

Graduate Masters Theses

In 1990, the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) marked a pivotal moment in the American disability rights movement, which began in the 1960s and sought to secure civil rights for people with disabilities. Despite this monumental achievement, this thesis considers how the language used throughout American history and culture to describe people with disabilities, even within the confines of progressive legislation like the ADA, remains deeply rooted in ableist and oppressive historical attitudes. At the heart of this issue, this thesis demonstrates how the medicalization of disability, which has dominated American culture for centuries, continues to frame …

“To Prepare The Mind For Wonder”: Popular Science And Mass Media In The 1920s, Alexander Olson

Journal of 20th Century Media History

This article examines the creation and development of the Science Service, a 1920s initiative aimed at popularizing science through mass media. Founded by biologist William Ritter and newspaper magnate Edward Scripps, the wire service sought to disseminate accurate scientific information to the American public via newspapers, radio, and other popular media. While Scripps favored a commercially viable, accessible style that used entertainment to hook readers, Ritter envisioned science journalism as a tool for democratic education and intellectual empowerment. These conflicting philosophies created lasting tensions within the organization around how to address challenges such as sensationalism, editorial independence, and public skepticism. …

Selected Artificial Intelligence Provisions In U.S. Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

The 2025 Fiscal Year National Defense Authorization Act contains multiple provisions relating to artificial intelligence (AI). These congressionally mandated provisions direct various sections of the Department of Defense (DOD) and individual U.S. armed service branches to execute congressional intent for AI policymaking. Examples of such intent include identifying and planning DOD's AI workforce, demonstrating AI biotechnology applications for national security, improving the human usability of AI systems, and establishing an AI security center. This presentation will note that reports on these initiatives must be prepared for relevant congressional oversight committees, and, in many cases, are in many cases, publicly released …

Oral History Interview With Fairolyn Livingston, Fairolyn Livingston, Wenxian Zhang

Oral Histories

Fairolyn H. Livingston ’83 is known as the “institutional memory of Winter Park’s west side,” where she was born and raised by what she lovingly refers to as a village. She earned her bachelor’s degree in humanities from Rollins’ Hamilton Holt School, is a retired human service specialist with the State of Florida, and has been associated with the Heritage Center since it opened in 2007, becoming its chief historian in 2014. In 1997, Livingston received the Rhea Marsh and Dorothy Lockhart Smith Research Grant—awarded annually by Rollins’ Olin Library in partnership with the Winter Park Public Library—to support research …

“That's Our Junior College”: Black Leadership And The Expansion And Integration Of Mississippi Gulf Coast Junior College, Kristy Wittman Howell

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Mississippi Gulf Coast Junior College (MGCJC), was a single-campus institution until the early 1960s, when it began plans to create two new White-enrolling, segregated campuses: the Jefferson Davis Campus in Harrison County, and the Jackson County Campus to its east. Plans for a third, Black-enrolling, segregated campus were abandoned, and when the two new campuses opened, the first students to register for classes were Black. Through the leadership of Black residents active in labor and civil rights organizations, the Black community of George, Harrison, Jackson, and Stone Counties successfully demanded expanded, integrated educational access in the deep south, some five …

Balance, Liberty, And Law: Montesquieu’S Legacy In U.S. Constitutional Thought, Christian Yockey

History Student Research

In 1787, a Constitutional Convention was convened to revise the weak Articles of Confederation. However, the delegates at this convention ended up creating an entirely new system of government—that is one with a much more powerful structure of federal power. This paper examines the influence of the French philosopher Baron de Montesquieu on this process and the creation of early U.S. political culture. While previous academic scholarship has acknowledged Montesquieu’s influence on this process of writing the Constitution, this paper seeks to explore further the specific ways his influence shows itself in the U.S. Constitution and the creation of U.S. …

Highways To Hell: How The Intersections Of Cinema, Rock Music And The Resurgence Of Evangelicalism Influenced The 1985 Senate Hearing On Rock Music, David J. Fewell

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The Senate hearing on the “Contents of Music and the Lyrics of Records, held on September 19, 1985, was as much a popular culture event as a public airing of concerns about explicit content in music. Much has been written about the significance of the Parents’ Music Resource Center (PMRC), the Senate hearing and the issues it engaged in, and how it colored conversations about censorship of the arts, the effectiveness of rating systems to police popular media and the effects of media on children’s behavior and development. The thesis will explore aspects of formative trends that influenced the PMRC’s …