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Grand Valley Magazine, Vol. 25, No. 2, Spring 2026, Grand Valley State University

Grand Valley Magazine

Grand Valley Magazine is a quarterly publication about Grand Valley State University produced by University Communications since 2001.

Calculated Self-Presentation: Japan At Twentieth Century American World’S Fairs, Mary Rose Comerford

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

World’s fairs are places of innovation, culture, and technology. They are places where visitors go to be wowed by the innovations of other countries, but do they have a deeper meaning? In this thesis I will argue that world’s fairs serve a purpose beyond the sharing of culture and innovation. They allow national commissions to control the narrative of their country through a careful curation of displays that meet the objectives of their government. Countries’ objectives at world’s fairs change all the time, depending on their position in the world and what serves their best interest. The fairs themselves each …

“Do Not Take Sex Into The Practice”: Lelia Robinson And Her Struggle To Become The First Female Attorney Of Massachusetts, Georgia Grace Peters

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

Lelia Robinson was the first woman lawyer in Massachusetts. Although her achievements paved the way for future female litigators, her efforts to partake in the legal profession were complicated. This was because she herself had a complex relationship with her own identity as a woman who wanted to practice law. In her early career and experiences at law school, Robinson publicly disregarded the discrimination she faced and framed her success as a result of her individual merit and capability, viewing herself as an equal to other male attorneys rather than part of a gendered struggle. Her brief to the Court …

Remembering In The North: How The Civil Rights Movement Is Told Through Monuments, Courtney Wight

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

This thesis, titled “Remembering in the North: How the Civil Rights Movement is Told Through Monuments,” examines how the Civil Rights Movement is remembered in the North through public monuments. The Civil Rights Movement in the North has not received the same level of recognition compared to the South in public memory, yet the stories and activists in the North deserve the same acknowledgement. The cities of Newark, NJ, and Albany, NY, act as case studies to illustrate how the racism and discrimination, which prompted the Civil Rights Movement, were present in the North during the movement. Both cities, like …

“Let The Goddess Guide”: Athena, Columbia, And The Greco-Roman Roots Of American Imperial Rhetoric, Bridget Goguen

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

The goddess of wisdom and war models intellect without complacency, valor without rashness. Claiming this duality—a civilized militancy—from their patron goddess Athena, an ancient Athenian citizenry could rationalize imperial conquest as democratic goodwill. Millennia later, the United States, seeking subtle proclamation of classical succession, crafted their national personification Columbia from the mold of Athena. From the Civil War until the First World War, Americans called on Columbia to symbolically sanction and spectacularize their own imperial ascent. This paper explores the American adaptation of Greco-Roman rhetoric through the mediums of cartoons, sculptures, and paintings in order to reveal the ancient roots …

Caroliniana Columns - Spring 2026, University Libraries--University Of South Carolina

University South Caroliniana Society Newsletter - Columns

Fall Events Recap ... p.2

Letter from the President ... p. 4

Report from the Director/Letter from the Dean of Libraries ... p. 5

Echoes of Independence: 250 Years of Revolution and Memorialization ... p. 6

Primary Sources: Authors Rely on SCL Holdings for Their Research ... p. 14

A Dream Deferred: The Art and Activism of Edwin Augustus Harleston by M. Akua McDaniel ... p. 14

The Conise Guide to South Carolina State Government by Vincent Sheheen ... p. 15

South Carolina Scalawags by Hyman Rubin III ... p. 16

Mother Emanuel: Two Centuries of Race, Resistance, and Forgiveness …

Chalmers Library Research Award Winner 2026, Cooper Bertschi

Chalmers Library Research Award

No abstract provided.

"Under The Fig-Tree": Anti-Federalist Conceptions Of American National Identity, Clara Kernodle

Tenor of Our Times

The constitutional convention of 1787 gave America some of her most energetic and exciting few months in American history. The Federalists proposed the Constitution as a replacement for existing government, opposed by Anti-Federalists on principled grounds. Thus ensued a mountain of political writing and propaganda that historians still study today. The Anti-Federalists lost the debate, and then were lost to history. Few Americans have even heard of the Anti-Federalists and even fewer scholars study their writings. But reading and evaluating Anti-Federalist writing is an important part of studying the Founding era and Constitutional debates. The Anti-Federalists, as much as their …

Front Matter

Tenor of Our Times

Front Matter

Full Issue

Tenor of Our Times

Full Issue

The Emigration Equation: A Study On Why Individuals Emigrate, Anielka S. Perez Brenes

Tenor of Our Times

Literature about migration often focuses on “refugee crises” or “immigration crises,” but the causes of these crises are those which take place in the origin country. The reasons, or push factors, of why individuals are emigrating from their home countries is the central question of this study. This cross-sectional research study focuses on seven of these potential causes in the year 2024 and spans one hundred and sixty five countries. These seven causes, or the independent variables, are: conflict, human rights, political rights, gross domestic product (GDP), civil liberties, unemployment, and education. This research study as a whole is statistically …

The Archives Magazine, 2026, Katie Shank, Ronnie Cannon, Amadeus Cigan, Rebekah Ehrhart, Donato Fhunsu, Abby Hrichak, Elsa Last, Joseph Tyler Nadzady, Avery Reel, Noel White

Kutztown University Archives

No abstract provided.

Delenda Est Norfolk: The Tidewater Revolts!, Kiera Dillman, Alise Dunham, Kristen Gary, Olivia M. Haris, Nelliel A. Herrera, Logan Holzgrefe, R. J. Lynch, Adam M. Manis, David Mogan, Luke Pickard, Shayla M. Shaw, Landon Swain, Kenny Wilcox, Bailey M. Wimberly, Tracy L. Barnett

Student Projects

Introduction to the Exhibit:

Today—exactly 250 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence—many Americans trace the origins of the nation’s revolutionary sentiment to Boston, Massachusetts or Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We remember the violence of March 1770, when red-coated British soldiers fired into a crowded Boston street, massacring innocent colonists and igniting outrage. We recall the patriotic defiance of the Sons of Liberty, who boarded three East India Company ships and dumped chests of imported British tea into the Boston Harbor in December 1773. We can still hear, too, the reverberations of the “shot heard ’round the world,” when British …

History Day At Harding 2026, Julie E Harris

Tenor of Our Times

History Day in Arkansas summary.

The Emergence Of Resistance Theory And Constitutionalist Thought: Political Thought In The French Wars Of Religion As A Response To A Body Politic In Crisis, Jacob Rooney

Tenor of Our Times

During the French Wars of Religion, both Huguenots and Catholics developed different models of resistance theory, as a response to the political and social crises that had been plaguing France. As a result of this, the theory, practice, and perception of French kingship, was greatly challenged and transformed, as both religious factions expressed their anxieties by calling for resistance against the monarch. Their conclusions, although often antithetical, draw upon a shared metaphor of the body, as a representation of the body politic. Their shared usage of this metaphor, was accompanied by a shared desire to see resistance against a tyrannical …

Long Live The Good King: A Niebuhrian Analysis Of Arthur’S Ethical Kingship In The Once And Future King, Camille Bewley

Tenor of Our Times

The classic The Once and Future King, written by T.H. White, is a selection of four fantasy novels with one, linear plot: the story of Arthur, the mythological King of England. Reinhold Niebuhr’s book Moral Man and Immoral Society details the Christian realism of a world in need of justice without the ability to achieve perfect application. Through good education, Arthur is well endowed with Niebuhr’s requirements for a functional society: knowledge, honor, wisdom, and compassion. Such king-like qualities make him one of the most influential mythological characters in history, and a grand exemplar for maintaining ethical goals and personal …

“Opening Up The Flood Gates:” A Review Of The International Response To The Hungarian Refugee Crisis 1956-57., Jacob N. Anderson

Tenor of Our Times

Following the suppressed Hungarian Revolution in 1956, there was a massive emigration from Hungary to surrounding European nations and the United States to escape oppression under the new Soviet regime. As a result, many of those nations faced large humanitarian debates about accepting refugees from Soviet tyranny and were forced to alter their refugee and immigration policy. Some of these alterations appear to be sincere and reflect popular sentiment, but some appear to be simply a false act of solidarity amidst the international stage, reflecting very conservative ethnic and religious reservations.

In The Eyes Of Empires: Depictions Of Ancient Illyria, Maeve Quinlan Miller

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

Illyria, called Illyricum under Roman governance, was an area in the ancient Mediterranean which extended across the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. Situated north of Greece, west of Macedon, and across the ocean from Rome, Illyria occupied a critical place in the world, and yet it remains underdiscussed in scholarship. The sources that have survived into the modern era come from non-Illyrian voices, like Livy from Rome, Polybius, a Greek historian, or Arrian, who took great lengths to record the campaigns of Alexander the Great. Without affiliation or deep understanding of Illyrian ways, places like Rome, Greece, and Macedon …

Diplomatic Misjudgments: The Decision-Making Process Before And During The 1870 Franco-Prussian War, Nathan Daly

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

How did emotions affect the diplomatic process during the waning days of the Concert of Europe?  Was the idea of national honor so prevalent that diplomats began to lack reason when it was called into question by opposing states?  What happens when overzealous officials make claims and requests that far outweigh their position and norms of the time?  To address these questions, this thesis examines the diplomatic negotiations that took place before and during the 1870-1871 Franco-Prussian War, with a focus on the French side. The first chapter, which examines the crisis before the war, highlights how the French diplomats …

The Last Boat: How American And Polish Domestic And Foreign Policies Shaped The Polish Jewish Emigration Experience, 1933–1939, Jesse Spadaccini

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

The interwar period from 1918 to 1939 saw Poland and the United States contend with major international and domestic questions regarding Jewish emigration. In a matter of twenty years, Polish policy developed from protecting its Jewish minority to actively persecuting it in political, economic, and social spheres with radical antisemitism. In the United States, immigration was limited post-1924 because of a nationality-based quota system introduced by the Immigration Act of 1924. Despite diplomats arguing for increased numbers, American officials’ position remained strong on limiting immigration, continuing unchanged as an understanding of Polish-Jewish plight became clear in the 1930s. The Polish …

"Ever Changing, Simply Amazing:" A Storymap Of Adaptive Reuse At Brookgreen Gardens, Lola G. Bellah

Senior Theses

In 1930, Archer Huntington, a scholar of Hispanic studies, used a portion of the fortune he inherited from the Central Pacific Railroad to purchase The Oaks, Brookgreen, Springfield, and Laurel Hill plantations in coastal South Carolina and build Atalaya Castle, a winter home on the Atlantic. His wife Anna Hyatt Huntington, a sculptor, led the effort to turn the 19,000 acres into America’s first public sculpture garden, known since as Brookgreen Gardens. In the construction process, some structures from Brookgreen Plantation were repurposed while others were removed from the landscape.

Though Brookgreen Gardens has since interpreted its plantation history through …

Hyphenated America: The Story Of Swedish Immigrants In The 20th Century, Ryan D. Coons

Department of History

This thesis examines the memorialization of two Swedish immigrants John Ericsson and Joe Hill by their contemporaries. The first section, focusing on socially mobile upper class Swedish immigrants who immortalized Ericsson as a symbol of their "Americanness," The latter documents the life of Joe Hill and the IWW. His labor activism forever typified Hill as an outside foreigner. Both Ericsson and Hill's actual lived experience demonstrate a more complex weaving between Swedish and American. Ericsson frequently confirmed a loyalty to his native Sweden, even with his final wishes being to be buried under Swedish soil. Hill on the other hand, …

New Insights From Old Sources: Using Hot Spot Analysis Of Fire Insurance Documents To Characterize The C. 1800 Built Environment Of Fredericksburg, Va, Grace Hannah Buck

Research and Creativity Symposium

The field of historic preservation makes use of many types of archival resources to understand past events, practices, and spaces that would otherwise be difficult to parse from extant objects.  Though they can be used in their initial state, application of geospatial methods to certain archival resources can improve their ease of use, reveal missing context, or provide new insight to the information they hold.  In that vein, this study applies geospatial analysis to a collection of historic insurance policies issued by the Mutual Assurance Society (MAS) of Virginia (1796-1867) for buildings in Fredericksburg, VA, at the turn of the …

Giovanni Da Legnano’S Reception Of Thomas Of Ireland’S Manipulus Florum (1306) In The Prohemium To The Somnium, Chris L. Nighman

History Faculty Publications

This article demonstrates the reception of the influential florilegium Manipulus florum in Giovanni da Legnano’s Somnium, a discovery that has major implications for future scholarship on not only this text, but all of this author’s surviving works. It also reports some very unusual, probably unique, contextual evidence for his reception of the Manipulus.

Reconstructing A Legacy: Zygmunt Lakociński, The Polish Research Institute’S Archive, And The Women Behind It, Alanna Gallo

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

Abstract: In 1945, Polish historian Zygmunt Lakociński embarked on a project to “document the truth against all myths.” Following the arrival of 7,300 Polish former prisoners, 6,000 of them women, to Sweden after liberation, Lakociński created the Polish Research Institute Archive (PIZ). The result was a collection of over 500 highly detailed and corroborated witness testimonies of Nazi war crimes at the Ravensbrück concentration camp. From its interview procedures and methodology to the composition of its staff, the Polish Research Institute Archive was utterly unconventional for its time. Aside from its scope, much of the archive’s importance lies in its …

Studies In Rio Grande Valley History - Volume 19, Thomas Daniel Knight, Antonio N. Zavaleta, Anthony K. Knopp, Andrik Gonzalez, Milo Kearney

Studies in Rio Grande Valley Regional History Series

Early Days of the U.S. Mexican War in South Texas / James W. Mills -- La Configuración de la Frontera Mexicana Desde El Mar / Arturo Zárate Ruiz -- Ethnic Trends in The Growth of Brownsville / Anthony Knopp -- How McAllen Became the Economic Center of the Rio Grande Valley: Further Considerations / Edward F. Wallace -- Cobbling in the Rio Grande Valley / Noe E. Perez -- Cultural Crossroads: Expressions of Identity, Resistance, & Belonging on the Texas-Mexico Border / Andrik Gonzalez -- Two Women, Two Journeys, One Border: Stories From the Migrant Generation / Manuel F. Medrano …

The Transparent Crypt: Temporal Stratification, Materiality, And The Affective Archive In Jenny Erpenbeck’S "Kairos", Mallory Wooldridge

Comparative Literature M.A. Essays

For Germany, the process of reckoning with the past is not a new one. Termed Vergangenheitsbewältigung in the post-war period and envisioned as a project extending beyond the academy into public consciousness, “dealing with the past” was first envisioned in response to the Nazi regime and its horrors. While already a disjointed project in the Nazi context, the question of how reunified Germany reckons with the former German Democratic Republic’s past remains unresolved.

In her 2021 novel Kairos, Jenny Erpenbeck proposes a different model of historical consciousness. Drawing on Theodor Adorno’s post-war theory of working through the past ( …

Stakhanov Lives Forever: How Art And Culture Outlasted Politics In The Communist World, Samuel Shewmake

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

The Stakhanovite movement and its long term consequences has been heavily debated in the field of Soviet history for several decades. The dominant scholarly narrative is that the Stakhanovite movement and Stakhanovism were largely extinguished during the period following the buildup to the Second World War. Previous works have relied heavily on solely political analysis of the movement, presuming that its character was primarily state-driven with little social component. This paper analyzes the social and artistic legacy of the Stakhanovite movement through novel analysis of film, music, and art of the Stakhanovite period and following decades. Contrary to what has …

No Fue Un Accidente: The Fascist Fantasy Of Self-Victimization In Alfonso Ponce De León’S Autorretrato (1936), Geovany Uranda

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

During the eve of the Spanish Civil War (1936 - 1939) Alfonso Ponce de León, a Falange propagandist and artist, created Autorretrato (1936), a self-portrait inspired by an automobile accident he experienced. He exhibited this work several months before his arrest, torture, and execution by Republican forces. This paper analyzes the self-portrait as a fascist work of self-victimization and ideological myth-making in line with fascist propaganda of the time. The painting presents Ponce de León as a dead or dying figure staged through the visual language of Catholic martyrdom. Drawing from Baroque compositional practices and iconographic tropes associated with the …

A Culture Divided: How Irish Americans Responded To Ireland’S Wartime Neutrality, Robert J. Barron

Honors College Theses

In the Second World War, the nation of Ireland declared its neutrality and maintained this status through the course of the long conflict. Meanwhile, Germany, Great Britain, and eventually the United States all competed to gain Ireland’s support in the war. However, one overlooked group continued to keep tabs on the affairs within their homeland: Irish Americans. How does one respond to a nation you have a connection with staying neutral in such a deadly conflict? The answer, for Irish Americans, was that it depended on the year. Before the United States entered the war, Irish Americans firmly defended the …