Digital Commons Network^™

American Gibraltar: Key West During World War Ii, Abraham H. Gibson

Florida Historical Quarterly

As visitors and locals alike will attest, there is no other place in America quite like Key West. Separated from the Florida peninsula by more than a hundred miles, the island city lies closer to Havana than Miami. The archipelago to which it belongs not only boasts the only tropical climate in the lower forty-eight, but also features flora and fauna found nowhere else on Earth. Even the ground underfoot is unique. A mere hundred thousand years ago, Key West was not only underwater, but alive. Its entire surface teemed with millions of tiny coral which slowly built the island's …

"The Most Exotic Of Our Cities": Race, Place, Writing, And George Allan England's Key West, Philip Levy

Florida Historical Quarterly

In the late 1920s, a prominent American writer arrived in Key West. He and his wife came to this Florida backwater to escape chilly winters and to carve out time for writing. Once settled in town, the writer gradually eased into the rhythms of Key West life. He built personal connections and began observing local characters who, in time, would re-emerge in his stories. He liked boats and the outdoors life. He had an inclination toward dangerous adventures and enjoyment of killing animals as well as an ability to convey these sentiments to audiences through popular literature. While in the …

Introduction: This Incomperable Lande, Maurice O'Sullivan

Florida Historical Quarterly

Taking their cue from Michael Gannon, Florida's historians are fond of pointing out that by the time Jamestown was founded, St. Augustine was ready for urban renewal. Our state's literary scholars add that long before the Virginia Company established Jamestown, Florida already had an extensive library of works in three languages. From the beginning, that linguistic diversity would mark the region's literary tradition. While many of the earliest works about Florida, from Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca's La Relacion (popularly known as Naufragios) in 1542 to the Gentleman of Elvas' history of DeSoto's expedition in 1557, were in Spanish, other …

A Translation History Of Fontaneda, Peter Ferdinando

Florida Historical Quarterly

The captivity of Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda by the Calusa Indians led to the creation of a series of documents that vividly depict the indigenous peoples of southern Florida. These writings clearly have proto-ethnographic qualities. Students of Florida history and archaeology have frequently utilized this information to better understand native peoples who lived on the peninsula.2 In the case of Fontaneda's writings, however, we must ask vital questions about translation. He wrote in sixteenth century Spanish, yet the current lingua franca of the academic and research community in the United States is the English of the twenty-first century. This paper …

Unearthing The Witch: Reckoning With Gender, Magic, And The Unusual Dead Within Anglo-Saxon Deviant Burials, Samantha Melvin

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

The fifth to seventh centuries CE, or the Migration Period, marked the development of Anglo-Saxon culture and society in England. The early Anglo-Saxons are known largely through their material culture and mortuary practices, left behind in medieval cemeteries that twist their way across the English landscape. The remains of early Anglo-Saxons tell rich and interesting histories about past peoples, but within the broader landscapes of these cemeteries are deviant burials. These are burials that are specifically typified as ones that ‘deviate’ from the norm, usually indicating that the inhumed individual was punished in death for actions committed in life. These …

Book Reviews, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

Lewis, The Spanish Convoy of 1750: Heaven's Hammer and International Diplomacy. by Maurice P. Brungardt; Piecuch, Three Peoples, One King: Loyalists, Indians, and Slaves in the Revolutionary South, 1775-1782. by Richard Durschlag; Knetsch, Fear and Anxiety on the Florida Frontier: Articles on the Second Seminole War, 1835-1842. by Samuel Watson; Shepard, Rationing Justice: Poverty Lawyers and Poor People in the Deep South. by Felicia Kornbluh; Pittman and Waite, Paving Paradise: Florida's Vanishing Wetlands and the Failure of No Net Loss. by Robert Krause; Nichols, Voices of Our Ancestors: Language Contact in Early South Carolina. by S. Lynne Farabee; Finley, Delaying …

Book Reviews, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

Ash, Finbrand of Liberty: The Story of Two Black Regiments that Changed the Course of the Civil War. by Aaron Sheehan-Dean; Albion, The Florida Life of Thomas Edison. by Mark R. Finlay; Turner, A Journey into Florida Railroad History. by Jesus Mendez; Perez, Jr., Cuba in the Amerian Imagination: Metaphor and the Imperial Ethos. by Jose B. Fernandez; Mills, Peterkin, and McCullough, eds., Coming Through: Vices of a South Carolina Gullah Community from WPA Oral History. by Melissa Walker; Conkin, A Revolution Down on the Farm: The Transfomation of American Agriculture Since 1929. by Claire Strom; Clune, Jr., and Stringfield, …

The Burden Of Southern Literature: Can Florida Bear It? 2007 Jillian Prescott Memorial Lecture, Ron Cooper

Florida Historical Quarterly

Historians bristle when asked, "So how do you characterize the South? What makes something Southern? And please, be brief." Most respond that the region is much too complex for a simple answer. After all, this is the land of Thomas Jefferson and John C. Calhoun; Dizzy Gillespie and Britney Spears; Jasper Johns and Junior Samples. To make matters worse, we rarely agree on geographical membership. Is Texas the South? Missouri? Maryland? And, of course, what about Florida? If a culture is unified largely by the stories it tells about itself, even when those stories have little resemblance to historical fact, …

Book Reviews, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

Hann, The Native American World Beyond Apalachee: West Florida and the Chattahoochee Valley by Evan Peacock; Nelson, Pharsalia: An Environmental Biography of a Southern Plantation, 1780-1880 by Robert E. Krause; Smoot, The Edisons of Fort Myers: Discoveries of the Heart by Kelly Enright; Kleinberg, Black Cloud: The Great Hurricane of 1928 by Donald Willett; Ogle, Key West: History of an Island of Dreams by Tana Mosier Porter; Dyckman, Floridian of His Century: The Courage of Governor LeRoy Collins by Walter W. Manley II; Marshall, The Tumultuous Sixties: Campus Unrest and Student Life at a Southern University by Benjamin D. Brotemarkle; …

Schism And Suppression: Early Threats To The Esperanto Language, And Resulting Impacts On International Acceptance, Anabel E. Cull

Young Historians Conference

The constructed language of Esperanto, created by Polish linguist Ludovic Lazarus Zamenhof in 1887, was founded with the intention of facilitating global peace and unification. Due to the mission and philosophy of the language, known as Esperantism, Zamenhof’s invention gained popularity among political reformers and communities facing religious discrimination. Aiming to resolve conflict through common language, Esperantism inspired hope amidst the increasingly oppressive social and political climate present in Eastern Europe and Russia during the early 1900’s. This paper explores the contributing factors to Esperanto’s decline, and the impact of internal conflict, political affiliation, and religious significance on efforts to …

32nd Annual Young Historians Conference, Portland State University History Department, Portland State University Challenge Program

Young Historians Conference

This is the 2022 Young Historians Conference schedule and abstracts.

Resurrecting Gaelic: Modernity And Heritage Language Revival In Scotland In A Comparative Perspective, Sean Coady

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

Many people from across the world have little or no connection to their heritage languages. Whether this loss is caused by conquest, colonialization, or simply lack of parent-child transmission, many believe that they are missing an integral part of their cultural identity and want to reclaim the languages of their forebearers. There is wide debate about how, why, and if this linguistic reclamation and revitalization should happen because, in the face of modernity and language evolution, the best solutions are not always clear. What constitutes successful language revitalization in the modern world, and why does it happen? Gaelic in Scotland …

Coming North To The South: Migration, Labor And City-Building In Twentieth-Century Miami, Melanie Shell-Weiss

Florida Historical Quarterly

Over the past decade, scholars have worked to develop a rich array of transnational and global theories to better explain the cultural, social, and demographic processes that take place within nations, and which transcend them. As Shelley Fisher Fishkin reminded us in her presidential address to the annual meeting of the American Studies Association last year, "As the transnational becomes more central . . . we are likely to focus not only on the proverbial immigrant who leaves somewhere called 'home' to make a new home in the United States, but also on the endless process of comings and goings …

Taking The State Out: Seminoles And Creeks In Late Eighteenth-Century Florida, Andrew K. Frank

Florida Historical Quarterly

Between 1750 and 1810, the Muskogee Indians held the upper hand in intercolonial affairs and made Florida "Indian country." More than two centuries after Spain had claimed the region as part of its dominion and sent soldiers and missionaries to subdue its inhabitants, the Muskogee Indians enjoyed a sustained period of autonomy that was at odds with the experiences of Indians elsewhere in the Spanish and British empires.' Neither conquered nor subdued, Muskogee Indians still controlled Florida. Technically surrounded by European and later American powers, these Creek and Seminole Indians lived in semi-autonomous villages that routinely disregarded the interests of …

Book Reviews, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

Power, Early Art of the Southeastern Indians: Feathered Serpents and Winged Beings, by Christina Snyder; Burnard, Mastery, Tyranny, and Desire: Thomas Thistlewood and His Slaves in the Anglo-Jamaican World, by Colleen A. Vasconcello; Missall and Missall, The Seminole Wars: America's Longest Indian Conflict, by Samuel Watson; Dubois, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution, by John K. Thornton; Stockel, On the Bloody Road to Jesus: Christianity and the Chiricahua Apaches, by Rodney R. Alvarez; Lakwete, Inventing the Cotton Gin: Machine and Myth in Antebellum America, by Patrick W. O'Neil; Nelson, Reign of Iron: Story of the …

Hurricanes And The Shaping Of Circum-Caribbean Societies, Stuart B. Schwartz

Florida Historical Quarterly

Every Puerto Rican knows this plena and can sing its chorus, and on that island where, from July to October, everyone frequently checks the weather reports and looks to the sky, the song seems to describe a generic situation, a way of life, and a common reality. Few people today remember that the song was originally composed to commemorate a particular storm-the great hurricane of San Felipe that diagonally traversed Puerto Rico on September 13, 1928. Hurricanes are no novelty to the islanders, but the fury of that one was memorable. No one who lived through it forgot it. Don …

Book Reviews, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

McGoun, Ancient Miamians: The Tequesta of South Florida, by John H. Hann; Milanich, Laboring in the Fields of the Lord: Spanish Missions and Southeastern Indians, by Amy Turner Bushnell; Richter, Facing East from Indian Country: A Narrative History of Early America, by Juliana Barr; Perdue and Green, The Cold Guide to American Indians of the Southeast, by Daniel Murphree; Gallay, The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670-1717, by Karl L. Davis; Schafer, St. Augudne's British Years: 1763-1784, by Charles W. Arnade; Bonney and Paredes, eds., Anthropologists and Indians in the New South, …

Florida's Forgotten Ethnic Culture: Patterns Of Canadian Immigration, Tourism, And Investment Since 1920, Eric Jarvis

Florida Historical Quarterly

Since the 1920s, Florida has been an important factor in the lives of many Canadians who either traveled ot the state as tourists, became short of long term residents, or invested in its land and businesses. As a result, a close and involved interrelationship has developed between the culture and people of the northern country and that of the souther state. Different in type from either overseas or nothern American visitors and investors, Canadians have provent to be a significant but often overlooked ethnic culture in Florida, providing demographic diversity and financial support while at the same time creating a …

World War Ii, Displacement, And The Making Of The Postwar Ukrainian Diaspora, 1939-1951, Jennifer Lauren Popowycz

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

As a result, in an effort to expand the literature on the Ukrainian DP experience, this dissertation will specifically examine how foreign occupation, forced labor, and displacement impacted the construction of Ukrainian cultural nationalism between 1939 and 1951. Using a variety of memoirs written by Ukrainian DPs, published primary sources, as well as archival material from the online Interview Archive of Forced Labor 1939-1945, Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University, the United Nations Archive, and the online Archive of Ukrainian Periodicals it will argue that cultural nationalism not only served as a common link that united Ukrainians, but also served …

Teaching And Integrating Women’S Studies Into The Classroom: Perspectives Of Elementary Teachers, Thomas Lucey

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

Women’s studies represent an underappreciated aspect of elementary education. Whether or how classrooms and their resources portray, present, and value women role-models informs both boys and girls about what passes for acceptable communication, treatment, and conduct towards women. Indeed, the extent to which and the basis that a young citizenry is taught to appreciate others informs the nature of the conversations engaged.

This paper describes the results of a research study that interpreted elementary teachers’ perspectives of women’s studies in elementary settings. The online survey was administered as part of the registration for two workshops that prepared teachers in the …

Oral History Interview With Elena Davidiak, Mona Ramonetti, Victoria Pilato

Racial Unrest of 2020: Experiences from the Stony Brook University Community

Elena Davidiak has been a full-time, non-contingent faculty for about 13 years in the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literature. The narrator's affiliation with Stony Brook University was true at the time of their interview.

Z Force On The Ground: The Canadian Deployment To Iceland, 1940-41, Steven J. Bright

Canadian Military History

The date of 10 May 1940 is well known for the start of the German blitzkrieg and the end of Neville Chamberlain’s tenure as British Prime Minister. That fateful day also opened a chapter in Canada’s war story that, in the end, saw more than 2,600 Canadian servicemen deployed to far-away but strategic Iceland. The Canadian commitment to that remote island from June 1940 to April 1941 was a metaphoric stepping-stone in the long Allied struggle against the Axis powers in the North Atlantic, building what ultimately became a secure strategic bridge for the deployment of the forces that liberated …

Amjambo Africa! (April 2022), Kathreen Harrison

Amjambo Africa!

In this Issue

Community updates .............2/3

Remembrance ....................... 4/5

Novruz celebration ...................7

Financial Literacy/Professional Development

Français ...................... 8/9

Iswahili ..........................9

Somali ......................9/10

Ikinyarwanda ........10/11

Português ...............11/12

Espanõl ...................12/13

English .........................33

Candidate Mana Abdi ........... 14

Legislative update ...................15

Skin bleaching ........................16

Paul Farmer .............................17

Jacob Lawrence at Colby .......18

Checking in with businesses .20

French renaissance .................21

Tips & Info

Covid 2 ................................2

Driving ........................30/31

Work permits ...................35

Health&Wellness ...............24-30

In 7 languages

Columns ............................32-37

New Voices columns ........34/35

Gashi/Roseline Souebele

Poems by Maya Williams

Uneasy Is The Head That Imagines The Burden, Michael Adelson

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

This paper deconstructs and criticizes the very notion of “an obligation to help humanity.” I argue that such an idea of an obligation is an evolution of the ideas that emerged in the 19^th century regarding the “white man’s burden.” Referencing historical allusions to the 19^th and 20^th century European ideas of the white man’s burden, the concept of a greater obligation to help others can be demeaning and self-aggrandizing, creating a modern, updated “new white man’s burden.” As dispositively confirmed through my own anecdotal experiences in higher education, an obligation to help humanity, specifically non-white peoples, …

Journal Of Big History (Volume 5, Number 1), David R. Blanks

Faculty Publications - History & Political Science

The Journal of Big History is a publication of the International Big History Association. The mission of the International Big History Association is to promote Big History. Big History Big History seeks to understand the integrated history of the Cosmos, Earth, Life, and Humanity, using the best available empirical evidence and scholarly methods.

The American Congress Digital Archives Portal Project White Paper, Danielle Emerling

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This white paper documents the work of the American Congress Digital Archives Portal project to aggregate congressional archives into a single, online platform and make them more broadly available. Congressional archives document the democratic process; the development of public policy; and multiple narratives related to the country’s social, cultural, and political development. Work of the project included developing standards and best practices; creating governance structures for the one-year project and future phases; developing a web portal that meets user needs and adding archival content; determining digitization priorities via a research survey; conducting usability testing; and communicating and publicizing the project. …

The Cornbread Country: Cornbread And The Development Of Southern Identity, Ashton Doar

Senior Theses

Following the chronological development of the American South from the pre-colonial era to the present day, this thesis analyzes the importance of cornbread in relation to historical circumstances. Native Americans, British settlers, early Americans, and self-identifying Southerners all related to the land and to its food in unique ways. Narrowing the scope of this broad topic to the specific point of cornbread allows for an analysis of the continuity and change of people's circumstances and life experience, as well as the ways in which people define themselves by their food.

Oral History: A Tool For The Elementary And Middle Classroom, Jessica Keiser

Senior Honors Theses

Modern historical instruction requires educators to cover broad expanses of history and prepare students for standardized testing. In the push to meet state standards and cover the vast curriculum in short periods of time, many educators have begun to teach to the textbook. Much to the detriment of students, this educational practice has favored periodization and content quantity over the development of crucial historical skills. Rather than adhering to popular education trends, teachers can consider implementing oral history projects within their elementary and middle school classrooms. Oral history is a methodology that employs first-hand accounts to teach about key historical …

“Understanding Russian And Soviet National Identity Through Soviet War Literature”, Mackenzie A. Jones

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

“Any Lady Can Now Learn To Cut Perfect Fitting Dresses”: The Role Of Pattern Drafting Systems In The Production Of Women’S Dress, 1880–1900, Alyssa Smith

Department of Textiles, Merchandising and Fashion Design: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This research conveys findings from my MA thesis research focused on pattern drafting systems for women’s garments developed between 1880 and 1900. The study builds on the seminal work of Claudia Kidwell, who divided these systems into three categories: proportional, hybrid, and direct measure. To date, the study of this textile technology and how it positioned women and sewing in both domestic and professional spheres has received little scholarly attention, but pattern drafting technology transformed the possibilities for pattern creation and proportionate measurements, especially for home sewers. It also aided in the paper pattern and ready-made clothing industries. This research, …