United States History Commons^™

Facing The Apocalypse: Bomb Shelters And National Policy In Eisenhower’S Second Term, Angela A. Badore

Student Publications

This paper explores the issues of civilian defense from a federal perspective during Eisenhower’s second term, particularly focusing on the issue of bomb shelters during the period from 1956-1958. Despite widespread efforts to promote bomb shelters, or fallout shelters, during this period, no significant progress was made toward a federal program. By examining federal efforts such as the Holifield Committee, the Gaither Committee, Operation Alert, and the National Shelter Policy, this paper shows that efforts to set up shelter programs actually made the public and the Eisenhower administration less likely to trust such programs at all.

I Am Who I Am: The Book Of Exodus And African American Individuality, Joseph L. Kirkenir

Student Publications

Scholars often attempt to construct collective ideologies in order to generalize the beliefs and views of entire populations, with one target population frequently being the African American community during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Unfortunately, doing so fails to recognize the individuality of the population’s members and, especially in the case of the country’s oppressed Blacks, establishes a system where assumed notions and ignorant ideas abound. One might argue that the popularity of the book of Exodus in the time’s African American expressive outlets indicates that there did exist a collective ideology based upon the biblical narrative. However, …

Musical Influence On Apartheid And The Civil Rights Movement, Katherine D. Power

Student Publications

Black South Africans and African Americans not only share similar identities, but also share similar historical struggles. Apartheid and the Civil Rights Movement were two movements on two separate continents in which black South Africans and African Americans resisted against deep injustice and defied oppression. This paper sets out to demonstrate the key role that music played, through factors of globalization, in influencing mass resistance and raising global awareness. As an elemental form of creative expression, music enables many of the vital tools needed to overcome hatred and violence. Jazz and Freedom songs were two of the most influential genres, …

A Rising Image And A Brighter Future: Gettysburg College In Spring 1929, Jesse E. Siegel

Student Publications

The spring semester of 1929 at Gettysburg College saw a unique combination of ambition and aspiration from many different quarters of the college community. While the college still struggled with antiquated student life and a male-dominated population, the college broke new ground by building its first ever library, winning the conference basketball title, and seeing a new generation of female students gain academic prominence. At the peak of the Roaring Twenties and led by College President Henry Hanson, Gettysburg College was creating for itself a brighter future.

A Changing Force: The American Civil War, Women, And Victorian Culture, Megan E. Mcnish

Student Publications

The American Civil War thrust Victorian society into a maelstrom. The war disrupted a culture that was based on polite behavior and repression of desires. The emphasis on fulfilling duties sent hundreds of thousands of men into the ranks of Union and Confederate armies. Without the patriarchs of their families, women took up previously unexplored roles for the majority of their sex. In both the North and the South, females were compelled to do physical labor in the fields, runs shops, and manage slaves, all jobs which previously would have been occupied almost exclusively by men. These shifts in society, …

The War Powers Resolution Of 1973 And Its Relevance In The “War On Terror”, Samuel Day

Political Science Theses and Capstones

In September of 2013, President Obama asked Congress to take a vote that would authorize the United States to use military drones against the Syrian army and provide support for the Syrian rebels. This action by President Obama raised the question that many have been wondering since the creation of our country, who has the power to declare war and initiate hostilities against those who threaten the United States? My thesis focuses on the War Powers Resolution of 1973 and the arguments surrounding its Constitutionality, specifically the arguments supporting the Executive or Legislative branches. For my research supporting the argument …

“Gentiles By Nature”: Indian–Dutch Relations In New Netherland/New York, 1524–1750, Stephen Staggs

Dissertations

This work evaluates the evolution of the cross-cultural encounters that took place between the Eastern Woodland Indians and the Europeans living in and around the Dutch colony of New Netherland during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It challenges a common view that the Dutch generally lacked curiosity about Indians, made no serious attempt to convert them, maintained a social distance from them, and were only interested in establishing commercial relationships with them. Using the extensive pamphlet and sermon literature and the records of the West India Company, Classis of Amsterdam, and patroonships available in the Netherlands as well as the …

Spread The Word! A Look At The Development Of Communication Technology, Sue Leahy

Lesson Plans

No abstract provided.

A Southerner For The Union: Major General George Henry Thomas - A Brief Biographical Sketch And Analysis Of The Causes And Effects Of His Decision For The North, Miranda Becker

Masters Theses

The American Civil War was a conflict that set a country against itself, making enemies out of friends, severing familial bonds, and leaving a legacy that is evident to this day. There is no better illustration of this conflict than the life of Union Major General George Henry Thomas of the Western theater in Tennessee. When the Southern states seceded, each citizen had an important decision to make whether to side with the Union or the Confederacy. For some it seemed an easy conclusion, whether it meant staying loyal to their state or because they believed in the cause of …

"Heal Their Land": Evangelical Political Theology From The Great Awakening To The Moral Majority, Joseph D. Harder

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In the 1970s, a movement arose among white American evangelicals and fundamentalists that has been labeled variously as the “Christian Right,” or more broadly, “the Religious Right.” While they had not been entirely apolitical in the middle decades of the twentieth century, in the 1970s many theologically conservative Protestants began to organize specifically around their religious concerns, forming a number of groups—of which the Moral Majority was the best-known—in an effort to “bring the nation back to God.” They also moved to the political right, joining forces with “New Right” activists who were seeking to push the Republican Party in …

Bracero Families: Mexican Women And Children In The United States, 1942-64, Rachael Frances Delacruz

History Theses & Dissertations

The Bracero Program created a bilateral agreement between the United States and Mexico that legalized US agricultural growers to import Mexican workers on seasonal labor contracts between 1942 and 1964. The Bracero Program exclusively contracted men, allowing male laborers known as braceros to migrate according to seasonal patterns. Many braceros left their families behind in Mexico. However, some bracero families made the dangerous choice to remain together, with women and children migrating illegally to the United States. The experiences of these women and children are silenced in traditional documentary sources like government reports and sociological studies, as well as glossed …

The World Of Goods In Pre-Revolutionary Virginia, Ronald C. Merritt Jr.

History Theses & Dissertations

This paper will study the effects that the expansion of consumerism and nonimportation had in the colony of Virginia. It will analyze the validity of the arguments made by T. H. Breen's The Marketplace of Revolution. Breen's first contention was that a world of goods had been formed in the American colonies and that this consumer culture helped unite the colonists. This second contention was that the non-importation and non-consumption associations were successful in unifying the colonies and quelling opposition to the Continental cause.

Evidence of the growth of consumerism in mid-eighteenth century America will be analyzed and a …

Set Adrift By The Confederacy: The Civil War Occupation Of Virginia's Eastern Shore, Paige Kelly Solomon

History Theses & Dissertations

Despite the profusion of literature examining the importance of Virginia's Civil War, the Old Dominion's two Eastern Shore counties have been too often ignored by historians. To correct this deficiency, this thesis examines the events that occurred there during the Civil War Era, illuminating specifically President Lincoln's attempt to rekindle loyalty to the Union through an evolving military occupation strategy. Although Federal soldiers and sailors invaded the land and waters of the Eastern Shore with relative ease, citizens found ways to resist occupation and aid the Confederacy. In the end, the four-year Federal occupation brought an end to slavery, but …

Questioning The Marshall Plan In The Buildup To The Cold War, Sam O'Brien

Inquiry Journal 2014

No abstract provided.

The Octofoil, April/May/June 2014, Ninth Infantry Division Association

The Octofoil

The Octofoil is the offical publication of the Ninth Infantry Division Association, Inc., an organization formed by the officers and men of the 9th Infantry Division in order to perpetuate the memory of fallen comrades, preserve the esprit de corps of the Division, promote peace and serve as an information bureau about the 9th Infantry Division. The Association is made up of 9th Infantry veterans from WWII and Vietnam, spouses, widows and lineal descendants.

Warriors Of Dauphin County: The 127th Pennsylvania Volunteers, Kevin P. Lavery

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

When Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Gregg Curtin charged the men of his state to enlist in July 1862, he was desperate for soldiers to fill the federal quota set for Pennsylvania. Heeding the call, William Jennings – citizen of Harrisburg and then the Adjutant of Camp Curtin – approached the governor to proffer his services to state and nation. Curtin acceded; if Jennings could form a regiment, the ambitious young officer would be granted its colonelcy. [excerpt]

Stambaugh, S. R. (Sc 2821), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2821. Letter, 11 November 1860, of S. R. Stambaugh to Henry Matthews in Pennsylvania. Writing from Johnson County, Kentucky on his way to New Orleans, Stambaugh describes his travel down the Ohio River to Kentucky, his lack of success in the oil business, and his readiness to “risk my life for money” in New Orleans. He asks for news from home, “and of the girls especially.”

Allison, James Nicholls, 1848-1918 (Sc 2822), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2822. Letter of Brigadier General James N. Allison, Military Service Institution of the United States, Governors Island, New York, to Professor Albert Bushnell Hart, Harvard University. He offers examples from his own career and those of others to dispute the contention in Hart’s book, The War in Europe, that barracks life is a threat to soldiers’ morality. Includes data on Allison and the Kentucky infantry regiment in which he served during the Civil War.

An Ernie Banks Season, Steven Gimbel

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The dawn of the baseball season is an existential moment. For big market teams with owners willing to pay for marquee players, and general managers who build playoff-bound teams, it is a time of great anticipation.

It's also a time of hope, albeit dim, for those die-hard fans of teams who are off the playoff pace by double digits year in and year out. Their cautious optimism is one that illuminates the human condition. [excerpt]

American Indian Activism And The Rise Of Red Power, Rachael Guadagni

Graduate History Conference, UMass Boston

Recent historical scholarship has determined that the socio-political environment of post-World War II America provided the necessary catalyst for Native American activism which when combined with the socio-political atmosphere of the civil rights era lead to the development of the Red Power Movement. In the thirty or so years immediately following World War II America witnessed profound social and political change. Initial fear of communism lead to strict, pro-capitalist Indian legislation resulting in the termination of hundreds of tribes and the relocation of countless Indian people. From this same environment rose strong leaders, including many veterans, influenced by Cold War …