Digital Commons Network^™

Issue No. 119: Fall 2024

La Crónica de Nuevo México

Table of contents

2 A Letter from the President

3 The Governor’s Well by Robert J. Tórrez

10 Donaciano Vigil by Maurilio E. Vigil and Helene Boudreau

14 Central Avenue Underpass by Roger M. Zimmerman

18 The Manuelito by John Lewis Taylor

23 HSNM Announces 2024 Book and Service Award Winners

25 HSNM Remembers

27 New Books

Benedicta Riepp: An Analysis Of Structural Elements In Her Life, Mary L. Parks

Obsculta

Mother Benedicta Riepp struggled at a great personal cost for autonomy on behalf of North American Benedictine women. Her efforts ultimately led to the reshaping of the Benedictine tradition for women in the United States. This paper analyzes some of the most significant structural elements in Mother Benedicta’s life.

Outpatient Fall Prevention In Ambulatory Adults 65 Years Old And Over, Dorothy L. Osborne-White

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Scholarly Projects - Archive

Background: In the United States (U.S.), falls are the leading cause of injury among adults 65 and over, resulting in 36 million falls yearly (Moreland et al., 2020). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, 2023), one in four older adults experiences a fall each year. Falls are the world's second most prominent cause of accidental deaths (World Health Organization [WHO], 2021). Falls are the leading cause of both fatal and non-fatal injuries among older adults (Moreland et al., 2020).

Methods: A quality improvement project that included a fall bundle was implemented in a primary clinic. A …

Digital Resurrection Of Historical Figures: A Case Study On Mary Sibley Through Customized Chatgpt, James Hutson, Paul Huffman, Jeremiah Ratican

Faculty Scholarship

This study investigates the emerging realm of digital resurrection, focusing on Mary Sibley (1800–1878), the esteemed founder of Lindenwood University. The core objective was to demonstrate the capability of advanced artificial intelligence, specifically a customized version of ChatGPT, in revitalizing historical figures for educational and engagement purposes. By integrating comprehensive diaries from Sibley with Claude 2.0, the research utilized a substantial autobiographical dataset to develop a GPT beta version that replicates her distinct voice and tone. The incorporation of her official portrait and diaries into the GPT Builder was pivotal, creating an interactive platform that accurately reflects her perspectives on …

“You Are Not Obligated To Complete The Work, But Neither Are You Free To Desist From It.” Richmond Jews In Social Activism Post Civil Rights, Tracy S. Herman

Theses and Dissertations

For centuries, the Jewish people have faced expulsions, pogroms, massacres, and Propaganda. that runs so deep it would be like staring into an abyss. This oppression has motivated Jewish activists worldwide to fight back not only on behalf of the Jewish community but for many areas of perceived need. Jewish involvement in social activism in the U.S. has been particularly recognized by scholars of the labor and Civil Rights movements. This thesis is based on eighteen oral history interviews focused on social activism in Richmond, Virginia since the Civil Rights era. The author conducted these interviews in 2021, 2023, and …

Ua94/6/18 Stephen Flora Student / Alumni Papers, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records created by and about Stephen Flora during his years as a student at Western Kentucky University.

Mississippians In The Philippine Civil Service, 1901-1946, Bradley Brazzeal

UL Publications

The Philippines became an American colony after the Spanish-American War of 1898, and complete independence was not granted until 1946. The Philippine Civil Service was established in 1901, and this publication examines the lives of various Mississippians who worked for the Philippine government during the American colonial period, focusing on those who either held a prominent position or spent at least five years in the Philippines.

The Introduction And Spread Of Kudzu In Georgia, Ingrid E. Baker, Albert Way

The Kennesaw Journal of Undergraduate Research

Kudzu’s popularity in Georgia was born of necessity; the economic ravages of the Great Depression together with persistent soil erosion and depletion had left Georgia’s farmers in need of a thrifty solution. Kudzu’s nitrogen-enriching leguminous properties, along with its success as an inexpensive grazing crop, made it an attractive solution to Georgia’s agricultural woes. Channing Cope, through his radio program and regular contributions to the Atlanta Constitution, was among kudzu’s most ardent defenders. Cope’s charisma and enthusiasm helped to popularize the vine among farmers and laymen alike. At the federal level, the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) financially incentivized farmers to …

Gettysburg College Journal Of The Civil War Era 2024

The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era

No abstract provided.

The Unseen War: Struggles Of Andersonville Survivors, Rj Lehal

The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era

The American Civil War lasted from 1861-1865, in that period many lives were lost and many more lives were forever transformed. Families had lost loved ones and those who returned home were not themselves anymore. This paper will examine the post-war mental health of Andersonville survivors. Focus will also be placed on the difficulties of survivors trying to return to their post-war lives; along with the difficulties survivors faced in receiving a pension. And how Andersonville in recent American memory has been transformed into a place of remembrance, for all American POWs in all American wars. Different sources will be …

“Blackjack” Pershing’S Punitive Expedition, Jacob Breezeel

Tenor of Our Times

In 1916, General Pershing led a force of American troops into Mexico in response to a raid on Columbus, New Mexico. While unsuccessful in achieving the primary mission, the expedition produced advancements in military transportation and aviation and provided valuable experiences to the next generation of generals which were central to America's success in World War I.

Divided By Design? Urban Renewal’S Differential Impacts On Economic Outcomes By Race, Derik Suria

CMC Senior Theses

I study city-level effects of the federally and state-sponsored urban renewal program that aimed to improve living conditions for residents in blighted areas and slums. I use an interdisciplinary approach to estimate urban renewal effects on measures of income, property value, poverty, and employment. I first replicate the methodology and estimates of urban renewal effects on city outcomes in 1980 from Slum Clearance and Urban Renewal in the United States (Collins and Shester 2013). I extend this research by looking at a longer time horizon (1990, 2000, 2010) and incorporating race-based outcomes. From 1980 to 2010, estimated effects on property …

How World’S Fairs Conceive Of The Future During Times Of Turmoil, Mikayla Lauren Tilden

Honors Theses and Capstones

During the 20th century, the theme of World's Fairs in the United States broke away from previous World Exposition traditions and centered around concepts of progress and the future. This thesis investigates the conception of the future and the evolution of the World's Fair themes during times of economic and political turmoil at the Chicago 1933–1934, New York 1939­­­–1940, and Seattle 1962 World’s Fairs. In each instance, the fair’s organizers felt the need to respond to world events, which caused them to shift their initial focus from a local attempt to increase prosperity, to a national commentary on global conditions.

The Displaced Persons Act Of 1948 And Home-Grown Antisemitism, Felice Batlan

Lewis & Clark Law Review

This Article examines the 1948 Displaced Persons Act which provided for the ability of certain European refugees to immigrate to the United States following World War II. The 1948 Act discriminated against Jewish survivors of the Holocaust and imprinted Nazi racial laws and ideology upon U.S. law. Moreover, in debates over passage of such a law, a vast amount of overt antisemitism emerged, generated by politicians and ordinary citizens, which went well beyond the question of the admission of refugees to the United States. By examining the complex and transnational events leading up to the 1948 Displaced Persons Act, and …

The Power Of Portrayal: How The U.S. Media Portrayed The Doolittle Raid To The American Public, James Noah Seip

Undergraduate Honors Theses

On April 18, 1942, Americans woke up to the thrilling news that American airmen had bombed the enemy capital of Tokyo, Japan. Americans all across the country were made aware of the bombing of Japan by multiple media sources at the time including newspapers, propaganda posters, newsreels, and movies. The ways in which these media outlets portrayed the American bombing of Japan would directly impact the perception of American citizens regarding the event. The bombing, eventually termed the Doolittle Raid after the general who led the mission, James Doolittle, immediately became a source of American propaganda for the U.S. media.

Retracing Their Tracks: The Rediscovery And Memorialization Efforts Of The National Orphan Train Project, Joanna Lockwood

Master's Theses or Doctor of Nursing Practice

Between 1854 and 1929, the placement system that became known as the orphan trains in modern scholarship, removed neglected and orphaned children from the dangerous streets of New York City and attempted to place them into homes across America that would benefit their futures. While this charity-run program was well-intentioned, the estimated two hundred fifty thousand children of the orphan trains experienced a mix of encounters upon their placements. Although many homes provided a caring environment for these children, others did not. After years of struggle during their early childhood, numerous children had not only lost their parents and were …

Prince Basketball's Ambassadors: Virginia Union's "Dream Team" And The Origins Of Integrated College Basketball, 1938-42, Marvin T. Chiles

History Faculty Publications

This article explores the history of integrated college basketball in the United States, with a focus on the Virginia Union Panthers. The Panthers, known as the "Dream Team," broke the color barrier in college basketball in the 1930s and 1940s. The article also discusses the 1992 U.S. Men's Olympic Basketball Team, known as the "Dream Team," and its impact on race relations. It argues that the original Dream Team was actually the Virginia Union Panthers, who symbolized the defeat of white supremacy through athletic achievement. The article highlights the challenges faced by historically black college sports, such as lack of …

Alabama Postcards, Katie Nethery

Theses

I chose to write Alabama Postcards to give my reader a clear view of what different areas of Alabama are like, as well as the kinds of people you can find there, based on personal experiences throughout life. I also feel these essays serve as a memoir about my family and how they have helped shape me into who I am today, even those I never got to meet. I chose to use “postcards” in the title since I chose to write about different areas of Alabama, and aimed to give my reader a clear image of what these towns …

"Nothing In America Would Outrival Such A Spectacle": The Contested Histories Of Mount Rushmore, Western Tourism, And American Nationalism, Sophia Ciatti

Undergraduate Research Awards

Mount Rushmore, as one of the primary tourist destinations of both South Dakota and the American West in general, is an important source for an examination of American interstate tourism. However, while many scholars have discussed the physical history of Mount Rushmore, such as Gilbert Fite’s Mount Rushmore and Rex Allen Smith’s The Carving of Mount Rushmore, fewer historians have discussed the intellectual history behind the monument. The intentions imbued in the monument from its creators, and the impact the creation of Mount Rushmore had upon the American public are both worth analyzing because those two aspects ended up …

"Many Fabulous Stories And Idle Tales": The Intersection Of Elizabethan Political Gambits And Indigenous Erasure In The Early American Republic, Daniel Ryan Lewis

Theses and Dissertations--History

Welsh Indian Theory, originating in Elizabethan England, stated that a group of Welsh explorers settled in the Americas in the late 12^th century and intermarried with the Indigenous tribes, thereby explaining “advanced cultures” ranging from the Mississippians to the Aztec Empire. This act of erasure became rooted in Kentucky and the surrounding area in the 18^th and 19^th centuries; a series of prominent individuals from Kentucky in turn contributed to a growing body of false historical narratives that denied Indigenous Americans their cultural identities and connection their ancestral lands in the United States. With a 460-year trail …

History Of Federal International Education Policy (1900-2024): A Four-Dimensional View In Action, Winda Wastu Melati

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation examines the history of the evolution of United States international education policy from 1900 to 2024, employing document analysis methodology to explore key themes that have shaped its trajectory. The study utilizes Cooper et al.'s (2004) Four-Dimensional View of Policy theory (normative, structural, constituentive, and technical) to analyze the complex interplay between diplomatic objectives, economic considerations, national security concerns, immigration, internationalization of higher education, and international students in the United States. The research traces major policy shifts from early initiatives like the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program to post-9/11 security measures and recent administrative changes by examining primary sources …

Ship Shaping: How Congress And Industry Influenced U.S. Naval Acquisitions From 1933-1938, Henry H. Carroll

Harvey M. Applebaum ’59 Award

Studying shipbuilding politics across time can yield key insights into present-day shipbuilding acquisition reform issues, such as the effects of naval industry consolidation and potential “ally-shoring” of warship production on domestic political support for future naval funding. Past studies of naval acquisitions during the late interwar period often focus on how President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Navy Department prepared the nation for the beginning of World War II. However, Congress and the shipbuilding industry played an often-overlooked role in creating the political support needed to expand the Navy during the tumultuous late interwar period. Self-interested domestic interest groups were …

Echoes Of Internment: A Study Of The Removal And Reuse Of Buildings From The Former Minidoka War Relocation Center, Idaho, Ian Lennon Reischl

All Master's Theses

In the study of Japanese American relocation centers, much of the emphasis is put on the centers while they were still active detention centers, and not what happened to them after they closed. The buildings of the centers often were not scrapped and landfilled but removed and repurposed in the farms and towns surrounding the former center sites, and now blend into their current environments.

I built a comprehensive inventory of buildings that were part of the Minidoka Relocation Center, the site of which is now a National Historic Site. I compiled their former uses within the center, current uses, …

“Fear Of A ‘Scientific-Technological Elite:’ Contemporary Concerns In Light Of Eisenhower’S Initial Conception –A Useful Heuristic Or Obfuscating Rhetorical Device?”, Michael Schaefer

WashU Libraries Publications

U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s January 17, 1961 farewell address to the nation is mostly widely known for the former president’s warning of “the unwarranted influence…[of] the military-industrial complex” (hereafter MIC). However, a “less-widely known, seldom quoted, and often poorly understood”– one could add academically under-analyzed - of Eisenhower’s critical phrases from the same speech is “the danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite (hereafter “STE”).”1 This phrase has regained salience in the United States over last few years among a sociopolitical community critical of government COVID-19 protocols, Big Tech censorship, and centralized, top-down, …

The Regenarrative: How To Change The Story In Order To Change The Future, S. Rose Bigheart O'Leary

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Abstract

In the era of Climate Change, many are concerned that the end of the Anthropocene, or the end of the era of human life on Earth, is upon us. Western European colonialism and its subsequent systems (settler-colonialism, colonial-capitalism, and globalization - sometimes termed “neocolonialism”) have all been implicated in contributing to unsustainable behaviors linked to accelerating climate change. In searching for possible solutions, some have called for listening to Indigenous Peoples, citing ethics of sustainability found among many Indigenous cultures. However, the cultural products of settler-colonialism are still dominant in ways that do not allow for Indigenous worldviews to …

Lessons Not Learned, Kyle Missbach

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

In July 1936, Spain descended into chaos and civil war. Fascists in the military, Catholic Church, and aristocracy rebelled against a government elected to reform centuries old power structures. The United States reacted in surprise and joined France and Britain, staunchly refusing to be involved. For six months, the Department of State impeded attempts to material assist the Spanish government, until Congress passed an updated neutrality law prohibiting trade with Spain or the rebels. Congress again renewed and updated the law a year later. Yet in spring of 1939, at the end of the war, Franklin D. Roosevelt told his …

A Narrative Map Of Fort Missoula: Silence, Stillness And Death In Living Cultural Memory, Daniel A. Goldhamer

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Fort Missoula is a rare site of history, memory, and narrative. This project seeks to trace the complex web of identities and relationalities at the Fort through a narrative map: a method that combines site-based ethnography and qualitative storytelling relying on first-person perspective. This methodological framework reveals that Fort Missoula’s distinct character lies in its role as a living archive of cultural memory, accessible through the past, present, and future narratives of its places and spaces. Engaging with the theories of Foucault (1972), de Certeau (1984), and Low (2017), the narrative map of Fort Missoula is a work that investigates …

Digitizing Historical Resources On The Ohio & Erie Canal, S. Victor Fleischer

University Research

Louis Baus, photographer, shot numerous scenes along the Ohio & Erie, Miami & Erie, and the connecting feeder canals. This collection of over 400 photo negatives portrays a sense of canal life during the late 1800s to early 1900s. Found in this collection are images of canal boats, crew and passengers, as well as various locks, businesses and homes along the canal ways.

Religious Upheaval In A South Dakota Mennonite Community, 1874-1940, Ryan Mews

Dissertations and Theses

In 1874, multiple colonies of German-Russian Mennonites and Hutterites entered the Dakota Territory to settle into tightknit religious communities. These Anabaptists sought to escape religious persecution and assimilation in Russia but found themselves influenced by American religious groups. Their history of isolationism caused these groups to draw lines between their congregations that kept them small but allowed them to interact with new ideas in different ways, but caused them to redefine their German Mennonite identity. One such influence erupted from the Presbyterian Church called fundamentalism that encouraged evangelical works in America and sought to combat modernism in religious institutions. In …

Extracting Meaning: Museums, Power, And Shaping The Story Of Coal, Danielle Marie Petrak

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Organized into four case studies, this dissertation investigates how longstanding power relationships in the Central Appalachian coalfields have shaped the preservation and presentation of mining history at museums and historic sites. It contributes to scholarship in the fields of public history and Appalachian history by exploring how apolitical, noncritical, and biased narratives at mining history sites have obstructed the public’s acknowledgement of larger forces and systems that govern Appalachian society and often bring harm and misinformation to coalfield residents. To present more exhaustive, nuanced, and innovative interpretations of bituminous coal mining’s past and present, museums and historic sites must redirect …