United States History Commons^™

Separate Showing Times, Elyse Rose Echevarria

Methods of Historical Research: Spring 2021 (Archived)

Nowadays, when you go to watch a movie, it does not matter who you are, what you are, or especially what skin color you are. You can walk into a movie theatre, buy a ticket, and go watch your movie. Unfortunately, this was not the case for all movie theatres in the first half of the twentieth century. San Antonio theatres were segregated throughout in this era, which encouraged segregation throughout the city. Segregation occurred in many places, but who could have thought that segregation could have occurred at family-oriented places such as the Majestic Theatre, the Rex Theatre, and …

Progressive Era Black Midwives And Healthcare In San Antonio, 1892-1920, Gloria Edwards

Methods of Historical Research: Spring 2021 (Archived)

An African American midwife was a revered woman who was seen as a wise and knowledgeable person in her respective community, an essential healthcare worker long before the term was ever conceived. For many, a midwife was the only healthcare option for maternity care and would remain so into the mid-20th century, decades after the growing professionalization of the medical field discredited their work. These developments were especially pronounced in progressive-era San Antonio, Texas, where African Americans did not have the option to use a professional healthcare facility. Black women, then, most of whom suffered from poverty and discrimination, were …

Lafayette Walker: Not A Republican Lapdog, But A Pitmaster, Joseph R. Vasquez

Methods of Historical Research: Spring 2021 (Archived)

Lafayette Walker (1822 – 1902), an enslaved black man in Tennessee before the Civil War, became a soldier for the Union in 1861. After the war, he was regarded as a political activist, as a community leader capable of controlling who the next mayor of San Antonio would become, blacksmith, and a “barbecue artist.” The argument here does not lie in what exactly his bbq tasted like or what a black man was doing identifying as a republican. The argument goes much deeper and shows that he did not care he was black or a slave, but instead he showed …

Dr. Seuss And Uncle Sam, Ziv R. Carmi

Student Publications

This is an examination of the WWII era political cartoons of Theodor Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss), which covered a variety of topics ranging from isolationism to anti-Axis propaganda to racism and bigotry at home. The project further investigates the attitudes of German-Americans towards Hitler, using Geisel's very vocal hatred of the Nazi leader to compare his sentiments with many of his contemporary peers.

Looking Beyond Binaries: How Native Activists Create Decolonized Futures, Sam Guido

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Native people in the United States and Canada have been resisting settler colonialism for as long as settlers have tried to impose it upon them. That activism has been continuous across centuries; however, sometimes that overall narrative has been lost due to the imposition of settler perspectives that constrain Native activism. Recent Native activist movements in the United States and Canada such as the anti-Keystone Pipeline protests and Idle No More received a lot of attention from both the public and the media, but there was an impulse to define these movements within binary categories like “male or female” or …

Music Hears No Color, Nicholas Laurel

Methods of Historical Research: Spring 2021 (Archived)

Growing up on the westside of San Antonio off of Rounds Street, my friends and I played basketball at Ojeda Park nearby. Across the creek from the park sat an old, funky blue building. Some nights we would pass by this blue dome-shaped building and hear the roars of a crowd yelling and cheering for their favorite luchador. From time to time this mysterious blue building hosted outdoor wrestling matches on the weekends. You would have never imagined that this building had been a place where racial barriers were broken down. It was a place where local law enforcement and …

The Shields Family: A Dichotomy Of Race In Us Society Through Two Family Lines, Joseph C. Platt

Methods of Historical Research: Spring 2021 (Archived)

The history of the Shields families of North and South Carolina, beginning with William Bryant Shields Sr. and Moses Shields respectively, offer dichotomous responses to American racial hierarchies over the decades. Generations of race mixing within the Shields family has its roots in the sons of Irish immigrants pursuing relationships with enslaved women. The one-sided nature of the power dynamic in these relationships takes on different dimensions in the lives of the mixed-race children of William Bryant Shields Sr. and the lives of Moses’ son, Henry Wells Shields, Henry’s slave Melvinia Shields, and her children. Both family lines take efforts …

George E. Banister, Casandra Gutierrez

Methods of Historical Research: Spring 2021 (Archived)

Whenever we think about African American history, we put our focus straight to slavery or the civil rights era, though it is much more than that. African American history in San Antonio has impacted the city’s business and economics, education, religion, migration, and foodways. Regarding foodways, I chose to research the life of George Banister, an African American man who became a well-known fraternalist and chef from working at the Argyle Hotel for over 30 years. George Banister used his expertise as a chef to offer support to the education system, church, social clubs, and actively integrating Black foodways into …

The Grizzly, April 1, 2021, Simra Mariam, Claude Wolfer, Rosalia Murphy, Alissa Diguglielmo, Ava Compagnoni, Julia Paiano, Griffin Banks, Dominic Nattle

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

Reflections on Trans Day of Visibility • Spring Sports Return! • Advice to a College Underclassman: "Keep an Open Mind" • Omega Chi • The Rotaract Club • Opinion: For Better or Worse? A Review of Zack Snyder's "Justice League"; The Perfect Streaming Service • Hope is Still There • The Hidden Opponent

Aerial Terror: The Shift In American Daylight Bombing Over Europe During World War Ii, Joseph Sullivan

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

In the final two years of the Second World War, the United States abandoned daylight precision bombing for terror bombing. During the interwar years, the United States cited international norms and laws to speak out against unjust air attacks by Germany and Japan. Even during the United States’ period of neutrality, President Franklin Roosevelt criticized Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union for their tactics. But, as the war dragged on, the ferocity and persistence of the Nazis forced the United States to change their approach to strategic bombing. With fewer military industrial targets remaining and Allied casualties rising, the US …

Reagan’S State Of Grace: J. Peter Grace And The Effort To Cut Government Expense At The Public’S Expense, Kevin Michels

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

Ronald Reagan’s ideological basis in neoliberalism and the difficulties with cutting out programs to which the citizenry had grown accustomed prompted him to change the narrative on government expenditures, focusing on the rooting out of wasteful and inefficient government agencies and programs as a means by which to lower taxes. In doing so, Reagan created a private sector survey for cost control that placed the responsibility of identifying such waste and inefficiencies under the purview of J. Peter Grace and the private sector—a group of corporate businessmen who shared Reagan’s deregulatory ideology yet were accountable to their own shareholders rather …

Bringing “Justice To Every Man’S Door”: John Jay’S Struggle To Build The Supreme Court, Sean Gray

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

In December of 1800, as his presidency concluded and he became desperate for the Federalists to maintain power, John Adams nominated John Jay for a second term as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Days later, Jay unequivocally rejected the job. “I left the bench,” he responded, “perfectly convinced that under a system so defective, it would not obtain the energy, weight, and Dignity which are essential to its affording due support to the national government, nor acquire the public confidence and respect, which, as the last resort of the justice of the nation, it should possess.” Adams then nominated …

Spymaster Of Setauket: The Impact Of Benjamin Tallmadge And The Culper Spy Ring On The American Revolution, Kyle Burgess

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

Despite the staunch support that British occupiers enjoyed in New York and Long Island amongst Anglicans, there still remained plenty of citizens whose disdain for their new overseers provided Tallmadge with a large pool to recruit agents. In Patriot super spy Benjamin Tallmadge’s home of Suffolk County, Presbyterians endured an oppressive occupation at the hands of the British Army as many became wartime refugees following the destruction of their farms. This made many of them eager participants in Tallmadge’s schemes and some would even accompany Tallmadge on his whaleboat raids. Although none of these skirmishes proved decisive in tipping the …

A Comparative Analysis Of Political Climates In Lithuania, Poland, And Ireland In The Early 1900s Related To Us Immigration And Media Culture, Annelise Silkaitis

Senior Theses

This thesis explores the process and experience of Lithuanian, Irish, and Polish immigrants during the late 1800s and early 1900s, as well as the role of media, specifically newspapers and books, in creating the representation and portrayal of these immigrant groups. These different ethnic groups left Europe for a variety of reasons, mainly economic and political, and sought a better life in the United States. Upon arrival, each group struggled with the Americanization process, learning English, building connections, and forming a new society. Although some immigrant groups formed stronger networks and communities upon arrival, each group faced poverty and discrimination. …

Legal Services Needs Assessment For Rio Grande Valley Residents In Texas: A Comprehensive T3 Report, Amber Baylor, Nandita Chaudhuri, Luz E. Herrera, Felipe Hinojosa

Faculty Scholarship

This report presents the findings of a legal needs assessment and oral history project that was simultaneously undertaken from August 2019 to September 2020 in the Rio Grande Valley region of Texas. The purpose of the research is to provide a detailed discussion about access to legal information and to document the pertinent legal needs in the Rio Grande Valley. The project documented respondents’ perceptions of the area’s legal assets and needs.

The report captured information from more than 600 individuals who participated in surveys, focus groups, and interviews to create an overview of the historic legal-resource environment that exists …

Who We Are: A Chronicle Of Racism In America, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America (2021), directed by Emily Kunstler.

Give Peace A Chance: Responses To The Vietnam War On Catholic College Campuses, Elizabeth Gleason

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, colleges and universities were at the center of the anti-Vietnam War movement in the United States. While there were certainly moments of tense, violent protest at American institutions such as Columbia University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, there were many more moments of nonviolent, peaceful protest at other institutions, particularly Catholic colleges and universities such as Providence College, Notre Dame University, and its sister school St. Mary’s College. While Catholic college students were not the only American students to employ peaceful methods of protest in conveying their opposition to the war, they comprised a …

3rd Place Contest Entry: Sovereignty, Statehood, And Subjugation: Native Hawaiian And Japanese American Discourse Over Hawaiian Statehood, Nicole Saito

Kevin and Tam Ross Undergraduate Research Prize

This is Nicole Saito's submission for the 2021 Kevin and Tam Ross Undergraduate Research Prize, which won first place. It contains her essay on using library resources, a three-page sample of her research project on the consequences that Japanese American advocacy for Hawaiian statehood had on Native Hawaiians, and her works cited list.

Nicole is a junior at Chapman University, majoring in Political Science, History, and Economics. Her faculty mentor is Dr. Robert Slayton.

The Origins Of The Pledge Of Allegiance, Paul T. Zurheide

Publications and Research

To some, the Pledge of Allegiance is a patriotic celebration of the nation, as it was advertised since its beginning. However, it is not simply a salute to a flag. It is also vow of loyalty to the nation, a vow that is consistently repeated by schoolchildren to ensure that loyalty is ingrained in them from the start, before they can even cognitively grasp the meaning of a vow, loyalty, or even the nation. This is because when the Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892, the United States, and its people, were undergoing tremendous change. It was becoming a …

Ursinus Magazine, Spring 2021, Tom Yencho, Ed Moorhouse, Jennifer Meininger Wolfe, Andy Edwards, Jonathan Marks

Ursinus Magazine, 1995–Present

An eye on public health • Bonner Leaders address food insecurity • High honors for prevention efforts • Commons earns architectural award • Getting to know: Carol McMillin • Office space: A purposeful life • A bridge from past to present • A community of care • 2020 in six words • William the conqueror • Class notes • Births • Weddings • In memoriam • Alumni Award winners • Scholarship spotlight • Can conservatives be at home in higher education?