Digital Commons Network^™

Fresh Studies In Rio Grande Valley History, Milo Kearney, Anthony K. Knopp, Antonio Zavaleta, Thomas Daniel Knight

Studies in Rio Grande Valley Regional History Series

Jim Wells, George Parr, Pepe Martin, and Gene Falcón: the spirit of ‘’El Patrón’’ along the Rio Grande of South Texas / Billy Hathorn -- The other underground railroad / Rolando Avila -- Frank Ellis Ferree, humanitarian / Norman Rozeff -- Chip Dameron's Rio Grande Valley: center of a narrowing universe / Ronny Noor -- Historia de la education superior en la ciudad de H. Matamoros, Tamaulipas / Miguel Sesis Botti y Maria Elena Flores Montalvo -- The quest for a public library for Brownsville / Anthony K. Knopp and Alma Ortiz Knopp -- Las Palomas Wildlife management area: a …

Handing Down The Heritage: Preserving Irish Diasporic Identities In The Festival City Of Montana, Margaret Mary Walsh

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Butte, Montana is a tough, historic industrial town in western Montana known for its mining, its Irish, and strangely, its festivals. The city boasts countless parades and community events each year for a variety of holidays as well as for showcases of traditions and ethnic pride. Three celebrations in particular, St. Patrick’s Day, Fourth of July, and An Rí Rá, attract visitors from all over the country – and world – who seek to experience the enthusiasm and splendor of these celebrations. So, what can these popular celebrations in Montana’s Festival City, Butte, reveal about the Irish community living there? …

A Legacy Of Community And Mourning: Aids & Hiv In Central Florida, 1983-1993, Andrew Weeks

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Given the primacy of Florida, and in particular Orlando, as an urban center with an above average rate of AIDS and HIV, this study examines how the outbreak of a deadly disease can affect a community. Complicating the response to this scourge, those who were most at-risk were marginalized groups such as those in the LGBTQ community, drug users, and often people of color. As a result, those who occupied positions of political power felt little incentive to curb the epidemic and mocked it by deeming it "the gay disease." As a result of neglect and the lack of investment …

Robert Cowley: Living Free During Slavery In Eighteenth-Century Richmond, Virginia, Ana F. Edwards

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the life of Robert Cowley, a formerly enslaved man living free during slavery in eighteenth-century Richmond, Virginia. The first chapter examines Cowley’s enslaved life through the records of others. The data collectors and historians of early America did not intend to capture the truth of Black people’s American experiences, except as defined their enslavement--people in service to the wealth-building capacity of the nation. Yet the lives of Black people who lived in proximity to prominent whites can be glimpsed in a variety of records and writings from account books to deeds, from private letters to newspaper advertisements. …

An Oceanographic Perspective On Early Human Migrations To The Americas, Thomas C. Royer, Bruce Finney

OES Faculty Publications

Early migrants to the Americas were likely seaworthy. Many archaeologists now agree that the first humans who traveled to the Americas more than 15,000 years before present (yr BP) used a coastal North Pacific route. Their initial migration was from northeastern Asia to Beringia where they settled for thousands to more than ten thousand years. Oceanographic conditions during the Last Glacial Maximum (18,000-24,000 yr BP) would have enhanced their boat journeys along the route from Beringia to the Pacific Northwest because the influx of freshwater that drives the opposing Alaska Coastal Current was small, global sea level was at least …

Ferrell, Ann Katherine, B. 1972 (Fa 1381), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1381. Interview conducted on 11 December 2019 by Ann Ferrell with Michael Ann Williams, who discusses her education and academic career as a folklorist and vernacular architecture historian. From 1987-2018, Williams was a faculty member in the Department of Folk Studies and Anthropology at Western Kentucky University.

Historic Resources Study Of Pullman National Monument, Illinois, Laura Walikainen Rouleau, Sarah Fayen Scarlett, Steven A. Walton, Timothy Scarlett

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

This Historic Resource Study is a Baseline Research Report for Pullman National Monument. This HRS summarizes the historical writings about Pullman, provides context for the significant themes identified in its founding document, collates collections of primary documents and historical resources that are important sources of information on those themes, and recommends questions that will require additional study. These cultural resources include primary historical materials in archives and oral history collections, as well as architectural, archaeological, museum collections, or landscape resources. While this report includes new historical narrative based in original archival research, other sections present synthetic reviews of existing publications. …

The Crucible Of History:How Apology And Reconciliation Created Modern Conceptions Of The Salem Witch Trials, Heaven Umbrell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For centuries, historians, authors, and amateur enthusiasts alike have been mesmerized by the Salem witch trials. Most of the literature focuses on the trials themselves and takes one of three approaches: anthropological; sociological; or conspiratorial. Recently Gretchen Adams, professor of history at Texas Tech University, approached the trials differently, focusing on memory. She narrowed on how the “specters of Salem” loomed over American cultural and public memory. Apart from Adams, little scholarly inquiry has focused on the aftermath of the trials, especially how it affected the people directly involved. This thesis will expand the historiography of the Salem witch hunt …

One Half Billion Strong They Came: Gray Squirrel Migrations In The American Old Northwest During The 19th Century, Diana L. Ahmad

History and Political Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

After the American Revolution ended in the 1780s, the citizens of the new United States moved north of the Ohio River into the Northwest. As they established homes, they saw many gray, furry creatures known scientifically as sciurus carolinensis. It took little time for the farmers to discover that the gray squirrels were their new enemy. Instead of being cute little forest dwellers, the squirrels proved to be a danger to the newly transplanted farmers when the animals suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere appeared by the millions. The squirrels ate the freshly planted seeds, as well as the crops …

Seventeenth-Century Spanish Colonial Identity In New Mexico: A Study Of Identity Practices Through Material Culture, Caroline Marie Gabe

Anthropology ETDs

This dissertation explores how seventeenth-century Spanish colonial households expressed their group identity at a regional level in New Mexico. Through the material remains of daily practice and repetitive actions, identity markers tied to adornment, technological traditions, and culinary practices are compared between 14 assemblages to test four identity models. Seventeenth-century colonists were eating a combination of Old World domesticates and wild game on colonoware and majolica serving vessels, cooking using Indigenous pottery, grinding with Puebloan style tools, and conducting household scale production and prospecting. While assemblages are consistent in basic composition, variations are present tied to socioeconomic status. This blending …

South Africa As A Dynamic Teaching Experience, Robert A. Simons, Christine Dickinson

The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs

No abstract provided.

Roses And Votes: Immigrant Jewish Women And The New York Woman Suffrage Movement, 1894-1917, Katelyn Johnson

History in the Making

The purpose of this article is to explore the role that Jewish immigrant women had in the Women’s Suffrage Movement. It is focused in New York due to the unique concurrency of a large, concentrated Jewish immigrant community and a heavily active location for the Women’s Suffrage Movement. The project draws a strong link to Jewish workingwomen’s influence and participation in the Labor Rights Movement, also during the early nineteenth century. The research draws upon several primary sources from the Lower East Side Jewish community, as well as the research of historians Susan A. Glenn and Melissa R. Klapper. The …

The Grizzly, October 10, 2019, Kevin Leon, Gillian Mccomeskey, Colleen Murphy, Lillian Vila Licht, Jen Joseph, Daniel Walker, Rosalia Murphy

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

"Si, se Puede!" Speaker Series Debuts • Charles Rafferty Reads his Brief and Humorous Poems • Highlights from the Annual Security and Fire Safety Report • Meet this Year's "Lantern" Editor • A Fresh New Look for the Ursinus Website • Opinions: Shane Dawson: YouTube's Savior or Sinner?; More Like Saturday Night Dead, am I Right? • Alumni Give Bears Strength

An Exclusion And An Agreement: Comparing The Chinese And Japanese Immigrant Experiences, 1870–1942, Eric Lowe

History in the Making

While the many immigrant stories associated with the American melting pot are set against the backdrop of the east coasts’ Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, it is important to note that immigration to America’s West Coast was arguably more influential in the development of U.S. immigration policy. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Chinese and Japanese fought for the right to become citizens while facing opposition from both the American public and the U.S. legal system. Examining these struggles against the common narrative contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of what it means to come …

Race, Town, And Gown: A White Christian College And A White Suburb Address Race, David B. Malone

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

Wheaton, Illinois and Wheaton College share a name derived from early settlers, a geographic space, and conservative political and religious values. In their early years, the college admitted black students and the suburb had black residents. Their paths diverged after pressure from religious movements and suburbanization: Wheaton continued as one of the few Chicago suburbs to have black residents, yet the college stopped admitting black students around the 1920s. Wheaton passed Illinois’ first fair housing law in 1967 but controversy regarding a significant downtown project led to subsequently pursuing development aimed at wealthier residents and the proportion of non-white residents …

The Evolution Of United States Supreme Court Jurisprudence Under The Leadership Of Chief Justices Melville Fuller And Edward White From 1888 To 1911, Christine Cromie

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

The phrase “What is Old is New Again” is a timeless adage. Indeed, on a deeper level, this sentiment can relate to political issues and governmental problems. Questions about how involved the federal government, especially the judicial system and Supreme Court, should be in the lives of the public tend to repeat themselves. A close reading of today’s headlines about monopolistic power as it relates to technology and the rise of Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple harkens back to similar issues and concerns at the turn of the nineteenth century as the United States moved from the Gilded Age to …

Imagining Africa: An Analysis Of Tropes And Motifs In Turn Of The Century Black Music, Shane Ortale

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

References to Africa exist in different forms in diasporic music from every country in the New World. In the case of the United States, an abundance of song lyrics of black writers and musicians from the turn of the twentieth century contain imaginings of the African continent. This thesis analyzes the many ways that these depictions were produced within the minstrel and vaudeville genres. While these artists faced many obstacles that limited the scope of their lyrical content, they used diverse strategies to undermine the racist world in which they lived. By juxtaposing and conflating tropes about black folks in …

Such News Of The Land: U.S. Women Nature Writers, Thomas S. Edwards, Elizabeth A. Dewolfe

History Faculty Books

This pathbreaking collection, which contains 19 essays from scholars in a variety of fields, illuminates the work of two centuries of American women nature writers. Some discuss traditional nature writers such as Susan Fenimore Cooper, Mary Austin, Gene Stratton Porter, and Annie Dillard. Others examine the work of Zora Neale Hurston, Gloria Anzaldua, and Leslie Marmon Silko, writers not often associated with this genre. Essays on germinal texts such as Marjory Stoneman Douglas's The Everglades: River of Grass stand alongside examinations of market bulletins and women's gardens, showing how the rich diversity of women's nature writing has shaped and expanded …

2019-2020 Ursinus College Course Catalogue, Office Of The Registrar

Ursinus College Catalogues, 1869-Present

A digital copy of the 2019-2020 Ursinus College Catalog. It contains details of the curriculum, departmental requirements and courses of instruction as well as the Open Questions core requirements, experiential learning and the Common Intellectual Experience (CIE). Academic policies, special opportunities and scholarships, off-campus programs and graduation requirements are also outlined.

Digital Educational Material For Jccc's Contemporary Native Art Collection, Allison C. Smith

Sabbatical Projects

My sabbatical project involves the creation of extensive digital educational material on the Nerman Museum’s American Indian art collection. The materials will be used to create content for a new art history course on Native American Art as well as for use by museum staff, museum docents, faculty, and Noon at the Nerman presenters.

Sex And Death On The Western Emigrant Trail: The Biology Of Three American Tragedies, Debra E. L. Martin

Anthropology Faculty Research

This book offers a different look at how to think about the starvation and death that hounded emigrants attempting to get to California and Oregon in the early years of nineteenth-century US expansion. Specifically, the Donner party and two lesser-known Mormon handcart groups are scrutinized for what the patterns of age at death by sex can reveal. In the subtitle The Biology of Three American Tragedies, “biology” here means solely demographic data on sex and age at death. These are really the only biological variables examined, so the title Sex and Death on the Western Emigrant Trail is more accurate …

Horses, Culture, And Trade: The Impact Of The Horse On Southeastern Native Nations, 1650-1830, Jacob Featherling

Master's Theses

A small portion of the regional literature details the impact of horses on Southeastern Native nations and focuses on a few of the larger groups, particularly the Choctaw, from the mid-eighteenth to the nineteenth century. This thesis intends to increase the scope to analyze the entire Southeastern region, as well as multiple Native nations in the area. The thesis argues that Southeastern Natives slowly adopted horses into their economies and cultures over a longer period of time than previously believed, allowing them to increase their use of horses easily to meet market demands. Instead of southeastern nations rapidly adapting their …

Their Culture Against Them: The Assimilation Of Native American Children Through Progressive Education, 1930-1960s, Jamie Henton

Master's Theses

The failure of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) to successfully assimilate Native Americans, especially Native children through education tactics such as boarding schools, led to a shift in the mid-twentieth century for pro-Indian reform. From the 1930s through the 1950s, BIA education reformers pursued progressive education. They imagined progressive education would allow the BIA to use Native American traditions and culture to educate and mold Native students into modern contributing American citizens. To appeal to students, the BIA commissioned a series of educational materials, primarily children’s books, designed to use Native culture to teach children how to adapt to …

Harbored: Like Museums, Videogames Aren't Neutral, Stephanie Hawthorne

Institute for the Humanities Theses

The following is comprised of: (1) an analysis of scholarship and contemporary works regarding videogames and museums that demonstrate the theory and method behind this project, (2) research regarding an historic maritime event that will serve as the subject matter for the proposed videogame, and (3) a conclusion that summarizes the game design. The historical research at the heart of this project surrounds the SS Quanza, a steamship that in September of 1940 carried Jewish refugees from Portugal to the US and Mexico only to be faced with the possibility of a return trip to Nazi Europe. Elevating the voices …

Wagon Tracks Volume 33, Issue 3 (May 2019), Santa Fe Trail Association

Wagon Tracks

2 On the Cover: Rock Creek Camping

4 President: As I See It

5 Manager: Joanne's Jottings

6 Trail News

7 Symposium 2019

10 Symposium 2021

12 SFTA 2019 Board of Directory Nominees

15 New Mexico Daughters Sent to School in St. Louis

20 St. Louis, the Santa Fe trade, and the Great Flood of 1844

27 Books: Coast to Coast Empire: Manifest Destiny and the New Mexico Borderlands

28 Chapter Reports

29 Membership Form

32 Calendar

Beware The Cat In The Hat: How Children's Literature Is The Modern Form Of Segregation, Lucy Kebler

Celebration of Learning

Every person grows up exposed to children’s literature. Unfortunately, much of the children’s literature that is published is racially discriminatory, historically inaccurate, blatantly offensive, or pure propaganda. The research for this presentation began in Augustana College’s library and has transitioned to a much broader space: The Saint Louis Country Library. Through this research, it has become obvious that diverse literature is hard to find and is often marketed as only readable for those in the minority race depicted. Many libraries mark literature that contains African Americans, as to help “guide” readers in their selections. Books labeled in this way make …

Texas Indian Holocaust And Survival: Mcallen Grace Brethren Church V. Salazar, Milo Colton

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

When the first Europeans entered the land that would one day be called Texas, they found a place that contained more Indian tribes than any other would-be American state at the time. At the turn of the twentieth century, the federal government documented that American Indians in Texas were nearly extinct, decreasing in number from 708 people in 1890 to 470 in 1900. A century later, the U.S. census recorded an explosion in the American Indian population living in Texas at 215,599 people. By 2010, that population jumped to 315,264 people.

Part One of this Article chronicles the forces contributing …

The Hydraulic Dimension Of Reconstruction In Louisiana, 1863-1879, Matthew P. Carlin

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Louisiana developed an extensive system of levees throughout the Atchafalaya Basin and along its territorial Mississippi River. This system reached its zenith on the eve of the American Civil War. It went into dramatic decline following the conflict due to the confluence of military activity, protracted irregular warfare, and neglect stemming from labor and capital revolution. These shifts intensified with the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation and finally consolidated after the ratification of Louisiana’s Constitution of 1879. The shift of responsibility for the construction and maintenance of levees during the Reconstruction Era led to many significant changes in the character and function …

Odum, Daisy Dean, 1877-1969 (Sc 3426), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3426. Letter, 19 August 1961, to WKU faculty member Frances Richards from Daisy Odum. She recounts a ghost story from DeKalb County, Tennessee, involving her nephew and the reaction of his horse to the sight of a spectral figure.

The Grizzly, May 2, 2019, Courtney A. Duchene, Skylar Haas, Sam Isola, Johnny Myers, Shelsea Deravil, William Wehrs, Jen Joseph, David Mendelsohn, Tom Cardozo

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

Hollywood Actor Visits Ursinus • UCDC Brings Dynamic Performances to COSA • Ursinus Student Makes History by Being First Student to be Accepted in Major Program • COSA Features Play About Racism on Campus • "Calling All Textures" Event Brings the Community Together • Sophomore AJ Belville Wins Scholarship to Study in Scotland for a Year • Opinions: We Must not Ignore China's Cultural Purging; Disney's Newest "Dumbo" Fails to Soar • Football Team Preparing for Fall Season with Spring Workouts • The "Fine, We'll do This Later" Award: Kayla Quinn • Bears' Playoff Push Falls Short