Digital Commons Network^™

Exposing The Truth Behind The Stanford Prison Experiment, Leo Novack

Young Historians Conference

In 1971 Philiip Zimbardo, a Stanford University professor, designed an experiment to study human behaviors in the prison system. He sought to understand the effectiveness of the prison system, however, the experiment ended early due to the ethical concerns toward participants. It is considered one of the most important psychological experiments, not for what it helped reform, but for what it pointed out about the importance of safety for research participants. Calling upon primary sources from participants and the researchers’ findings, as well as secondary sources primarily from psychologists and research ethics, the research reveals that this study was unreliable …

A Crucial Western Foothold: Uyghur-Americans In The Fairfax-D.C. Metro Area, Jake C. Mccauley

Young Historians Conference

Since the 1980s, the Uyghur people of East Turkestan, now known as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, have migrated from their ancestral homeland in China in search of a better life. As an ethnically, linguistically, and religiously distinct group, the Uyghurs face severe oppression, with the Chinese state targeting them economically, socially, and physically. Since 2017, mass internment efforts have escalated, leading to the establishment of labor camps that claim to transition Uyghur labor from agricultural to industrial sectors but also serve as sites of ideological indoctrination, torture, and death. As a result of these human rights violations and other …

A Revolutionary Curtain Call: Yiddish Theatre, The Jewish Enlightenment, And The Russian Revolution, Sidonie James

Young Historians Conference

This paper explores the impact of Yiddish Theatre in Moscow and broader Russia in the era of the Russian Revolution as a Jewish cultural and political force. The intersection of the Russian Revolution and the Jewish Haskalah reformation created the space for Yiddish theatre, a cultural movement combining Jewish identity with revolutionary ideals, to thrive. Yiddish theatre became a space for community discourse and political critique during Stalin’s rule, preserving Russian-Jewish cultural identity amid growing Soviet hostility. By examining the Russian Jewish community and its relationship to Russian government and society through the lens of Yiddish theatre, this paper reveals …

How The Cheating Of East And West Germany Reveals A Global Trend Of Doping In International Sports, Olivia L. Cheng Miss

Young Historians Conference

In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, representing the end of both a deep physical and ideological divide between East and West Germany. The fall of the Berlin Wall revealed a state-sponsored doping program in East Germany created in order to compete for the political and economic symbol of strength: Olympic medals. Years later, the exposure of widespread West German doping in competitions shows the capacity of cheating to spread like a pathogen, passed from one nation to another in a pattern still visible today. Though East and West Germany were the epicenter of the doping outbreak, the trend spread globally …

Riding Through The Great Depression: The Impact Of Pack Horse Librarians, Madison G. Reed

Young Historians Conference

Supported by Eleanor Roosevelt and the Roosevelt Administration during the Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) was part of Roosevelt’s “alphabet soup” agencies. It didn’t take long for the WPA, which sought to provide work, education, and culture to Americans who were struggling economically, to introduce the Pack Horse Library Project to rural Eastern Kentucky. The Pack Horse Librarians were local women hired by the federal government to bring reading material to isolated, unemployed people and children of all ages. Both secondary scholarship, focused on the role Pack Horse Librarians played in the development of community, as well as …

Guidelines For A Good Life: How Morality Tales Have Shaped Communities And Cultural Landscapes, Kate E. Mcfarland

Young Historians Conference

Morality tales have played a crucial role in shaping moral and political structures throughout history. These stories, varying in format from plays, to books, to even musical albums, are easily accessible to readers. They use simple language and terms that can be understood between social classes and strata to teach people how to live a more “moral” life. This paper studies the socio-political effects of these morality tales through in-depth analyses of the Greek Aesop’s Fables, Confucius’ the Analects, the Indian Panchatantra, the medieval play Everyman, and a modern American musical album “Free to Be… You …

Islands In Motion: The Transnational Ties Between Japan And Hawaii, 1885-1945, Annalise Jones

Young Historians Conference

Native Hawaiians have been joined on their islands by Japanese, Filipino, Chinese, and Europeans in recent centuries. Because of this, Hawaii has generally had a more tolerant attitude towards racial diversity. However, the relationship between Hawaii and Japan is a transnational one that has evolved over generations. In 1941, 37% of Hawaii’s population was Japanese. Beginning with only 150 contract laborers in 1868, immigrants had come from Japan to Hawaii in droves throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, attracted by steady work and wages. Since then, Japanese people and their descendants have had a marked impact on the …

“Through Science To Justice” Magnus Hirschfeld’S Role In Queer Liberation, Katarina L. Stoll

Young Historians Conference

Magnus Hirschfeld was a scientist who researched sexuality and gender, as well as an activist for “sexual minorities.” He challenged previously held beliefs that homosexuality should be treated as an illness and is credited with being the first to view gender identity as separate from sexuality. Additionally, Hirschfeld argued that queer people simply act in accordance with their nature. Through the creation of various institutions, he worked to uplift the queer community through publishing his research, undertaking advocacy work, and creating safe spaces. Though not immune to the prejudices of his time, Hirschfeld was able to help improve the lives …

The Role Of Feline Goddesses In Advancing Women’S Rights In Ancient Egypt, Caitlin Moran

Young Historians Conference

The ancient Egyptians highly valued cats, worshipped female feline deities, and granted women more rights than other ancient civilizations. These three facts are widely acknowledged, but they have an intriguing link—and the key lies in the divine feline. This paper explores the extent to which ancient Egyptian feline goddesses, particularly Bastet, Sekhmet, and Mafdet, contributed to the treatment of women and their freedoms that surpassed those of women in other ancient civilizations. Examining historical records, religious artifacts, and scholarly journal articles, it illustrates how feline deities shaped gender dynamics in ancient Egypt. By analyzing the relationship between cats, feline deities, …

Oregon’S Compulsory Education Act: Americanism, Nativism, And Assimilation, Andrea M. Bell

Young Historians Conference

In 1922, Oregonians voted on and passed the Compulsory Education Act. Often referred to as the Oregon School Bill, this ballot initiative mandated public school education for children aged 8 to 16, creating a de-facto ban on private education in the state. While many states considered passing compulsory public education bills, and several managed to get the issue on the ballot, including Michigan in 1920 and Washington in 1924, only one state actually managed to pass such a bill through the electorate—Oregon. This paper explores how the School Bill and similar ballot initiatives reflected the nativist and anti-immigrant sentiments prevalent …

Teaching From Past Example: Various Interpretations Of Livy's Rape Of Lucretia, June Baeck

Young Historians Conference

The final kings of Rome were expelled in 509 B.C.E. after one of their princes raped a woman, driving her to end her own life. Pure and chaste, this woman was the utmost model of feminine virtue. Her death would bring great political change at the end of the sixth century B.C.E., but her story would be carried on and projected to provoke something similar for millennia. One significant driver of this was Titus Livius, who wrote of her in the first book of his Ab Urbe Condita, a history of Rome written c. 29 B.C.E. His account showcased …

The Roots Of Ethno-Political Strife In Ceylon: The Dividing Power Of British Colonialism, Audrey Francioch

Young Historians Conference

A bloody civil war has rocked Sri Lanka for decades, as the Sinhalese and Tamil populations fight each other for recognition, access, and control. Since the 1950s, each group has feared domination by the other, resulting in bitter battles on the ballots and in the streets to assert or retain power and subjugate the culture of the other. Each conflict perpetuates the vicious circle of retaliation and retribution through the generations, and the roots of this divide can be directly traced to the colonial occupation of the island in the 1800s. What began with the Dutch and became refined by …

From Prison Cells To Parliament: How The H-Block Hunger Strikes Transformed Sinn Féin To Enable Peace In Northern Ireland, Madeleine E. Wallenberg

Young Historians Conference

The 1988 Good Friday Agreement signed in Belfast is regarded as a landmark feat of diplomacy. Allowing for a non-violent redistribution of power, the Good Friday Agreement marked the end of a nearly thirty-year period of violence known as The Troubles. The efficacy of this agreement relied on the participation of members of the I.R.A. and Sinn Féin, something that likely would not have happened if not for a 1981 Hunger Strike that changed the public’s perception of the Irish Republican movement and launched the platform for Sinn Féin as a legitimate political organization. This paper explores the development of …

The Confluence Of Millenarianism And Sabbateanism In The Seventeenth-Century Netherlands, Madison J. Alexander

Young Historians Conference

The seventeenth century was a time of religious tension and a spike in apocalyptic rhetoric across not only the European continent, but also the Middle East and North Africa. Shabbatai Tzvi, a false Messiah based in the Ottoman Empire, promoted his own divine nature along with his subversive rewriting of Jewish law. Tzvi gained traction by capitalizing on the belief among persecuted Jewish communities worldwide that the Jews were soon to be redeemed; Protestants, facing their own predicted end-of-days in 1666, found commonalities in this theology. In a Netherlands newly free from Spain’s Catholic rule, Amsterdam boasted some of the …

Form Follows Function: An Analysis Of De Architectura And Its Influence, Weston Klein

Young Historians Conference

Over 2000 years ago, the Roman architect and engineer, Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, scribed De Architectura, a multi-volume work unearthed in the 15th century, in St. Gallen, Switzerland. As the only surviving architectural source from antiquity, the book has been indispensable in the study of Greco-Roman architecture, positioning Vitruvian and Greco-Roman architectural concepts in many ways as one in the same. Additionally, Vitruvian ideas, as expressed in De Architectura, regarding architectural form, materials, location, and process have been foundational to the evolution of Western architecture. This paper explores De Architectura’s impact on Western architectural theory and practice spanning the Early Middle …

The Not-So-Great Result Of America’S Greatest Idea: How Indigenous Americans Were Affected By The Creation Of Yellowstone, Glacier, And Yosemite National Parks, Tess Larson

Young Historians Conference

Since the mid-19th century, America’s government has been working to locate the nation’s places of stunning natural beauty and preserve them for the public. This has led to the preservation of 63 National Parks across the country—said to be “America’s Best Idea.” However, these lands for centuries were inhabited by Indigenous Americans. This paper studies the early stages of three National Parks—Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Glacier—and examines the original values they were founded on. It then identifies the tactics the US government used to negotiate or steal this land from indigenous tribes. Finally, it analyzes the further exploitation of Indigenous Americans …

35th Annual Young Historians Conference Program, Portland State University History Department, Portland State University Challenge Program

Young Historians Conference

This is the 2025 Young Historians Conference schedule and abstracts.

Colonial Waste And Liminal Space: A Look Behind The Muhlenberg General Store, Ciara S. Chagnon

Anthropology Honors Papers

The following project includes both a comprehensive site report on the archaeological field school hosted by Ursinus College and Historic Trappe in the summer of 2024, as well as spatial representations and analysis of colonial window glass distribution over the excavation units. Descriptions of the results of this archaeological investigation aim to expand on the body of knowledge concerning the Muhlenberg general store and the Speaker’s House property where the field school was conducted. An exploration of liminality and archaeological boundaries provides a lens into the structural nature of the general store zone as well as its colonial-era functions. In-depth …

Mr. Ruben "Papa" White

African American Funeral Programs

Mr_Reuben--Papa--White_Jr.pdf - Funeral program for Ruben White

Louise Ward Sims

African American Funeral Programs

No abstract provided.

Little Andre Henry Hudson

African American Funeral Programs

Little_Andre_Henry_Hudson.pdf - Death notice for Andre Hudson

Out Of Many, (Some) People: Race, Identity, And Beauty In Jamaican Nationalism, Shamoy Dixon

Binghamton University Undergraduate Journal

When Jamaica gained independence in 1962, it grappled with the question of how to define Jamaican national identity. With the absence of Indigenous culture, Jamaican nationalism sought to develop an identity that would unify its diverse population that comprised the descendants of African, Asian, Middle Eastern, and European peoples. Despite this approach towards racial inclusion, this multiracial vision of nationalism reflected colonial power arrangements and beauty aesthetic standards.The biggest proponents of Jamaican nationalism, the mixed-race government, were invested in valorizing a mixed ‘Brown’ identity over and above the Black identity shared by the majority of Jamaicans. Thus, 20th-century Jamaican nationalism …

The Chanticleer, 2025-04-24, Graduation Issue, Coastal Carolina University

The Chanticleer Student Newspaper

The editorially independent student produced weekly newspaper of Coastal Carolina University.

Early Integrated Baseball In Missouri, Revised, Mark E. Eberle

Monographs

Beginning in the years before the US Civil War, African Americans fled or emigrated from the South to northern and western states and territories. Descendants of these emigrants occasionally had the opportunity to play baseball for predominantly white town teams and minor league clubs prior to 1946 under circumstances documented in states such as Kansas and California. Those same opportunities were virtually nonexistent in states where slavery had been legal at the outset of the Civil War. A few instances of integrated baseball teams involved in intercity competition in Missouri, a border state that remained in the Union, have been …

Integrated Baseball In Ohio, 1891–1907: Chavous, Harrison, Fountain, And Follis, Revised, Mark E. Eberle

Monographs

In addition to Moses Fleetwood Walker, Welday (Weldy) Walker, John “Bud” Fowler, and Grant “Home Run” Johnson, other Black baseball players were members of integrated teams involved in intercity competition in Ohio during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when racial segregation was widespread. The experiences of four of these players are described. James Chavous was a native of Marysville who pitched for Marysville and several other teams, including the Page Fence Giants. In 1904, an injury to his hand limited his role on the diamond to serving as an umpire, primarily in games between white teams. Edward Webster …

Integrated Baseball In Ohio, 1883–1900: Sol White And Richard Male, Revised, Mark E. Eberle

Monographs

Two essays amend and expand what has been published about two Ohio natives who played baseball in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as the sport became increasingly segregated. The first essay clarifies the early years of Sol White, a Black ballplayer from Bellaire, Ohio, who played on integrated amateur teams in his hometown beginning in 1883, as well as the integrated first nine in Wheeling, West Virginia in 1886–1887 and the segregated Pittsburgh Keystones in 1887–1888. About this same time, Richard Male, who was born in Columbus but was a longtime resident of Cleveland, played under the pseudonym …

The Evolution Of Women's Rights In Iran, Rebecca G. Buis

Senior Honors Theses

Over the past 46 years, Iran has undergone change; substantial change that will impact the lives of women for generations to come. The ones who have been at the forefront of this challenge are women. Islamic extremism and religion have created a substantial shift in the lives of women over the past half century. As time has gone on, more women have protested, leading to an increased resistance. Prior to the Iranian Revolution of 1979, Iranian women experienced increased liberties and freedoms. However, with the rise of Khomeini, their freedoms were increasingly replaced with expectations as to how they should …

A Tale Of Two Faiths: Contemporary Protestantism In The Spanish-Speaking Catholic World, Jackson B. Mitchell

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the shifting religious landscape of the Spanish-speaking Catholic world through the lens of Protestant growth, particularly Pentecostal and Evangelical movements. Beginning with a historical account of Spain’s Catholic hegemony and its colonial export of Catholicism to Latin America, the study traces how Latin America’s religious identity has gradually diverged from its Spanish roots. Over the past half-century, Protestantism has grown rapidly across Latin America, challenging Catholic dominance and reshaping the region’s spiritual and social fabric.

The thesis then turns back to Spain, where rising immigration from Latin America and changing cultural dynamics have facilitated the reintroduction of …

2025 Acssc Program, Acssc Planning Committee

Annual Celebration for Student Scholarship and Creativity

No abstract provided.

Centering Relation In Media Literacy Practice, Paul Mihailidis, Bobbie Foster, Shannon Burth, Srividya Ramasubramanian, Melissa Tully, Patrick Johnson

Journal of Media Literacy Education

As calls for media literacy in formal and informal learning spaces continue to grow, educators’ understanding of media literacies and their purposes remains complex. In 2021, the authors of this paper led a multi-methods research project on media literacy education in the United States, focusing on impact and equity. Findings showed that educators share a commitment to equity and justice but are unclear on how to incorporate them into their work. In response, our research team developed a field guide that maps out equitable media literacy practices for classrooms and communities. In this study, we detail the findings from 11 …