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The American Whig Party And Slavery, Mitchell Rocklin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explains why the American Whig Party consisted of the most anti-slavery and pro-slavery segments of American politics during the Second Party System (1834 to 1854), as well as why it broke up. I argue that slavery was a major reason for the creation and continuation of the party, particularly in the South. A common Whig political culture – economically capitalistic while also emphasizing the integrity of the “social fabric” over individualism – helped spur both northern and southern Whigs to oppose Democrats over slavery from opposite perspectives. Southern Whigs honestly and understandably saw themselves as more pro-slavery, prioritizing …

Merchant Seamen, Sailortowns, And The Shaping Of U.S. Citizenship, 1843-1945, Johnathan Thayer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation argues that merchant seamen, because of their inherent transience, diversity, and the unique nature of their work, occupied a marginal position in U.S. society, and that that marginalization produced a series of confrontations with shoreside people, communities, institutions, and the state, most specifically over the nature and definition of citizenship. This argument is developed through examination of a series of encounters and negotiations that merchant seamen provoked from the piers, back alleys, and boardinghouses of the nation’s “sailortowns” from the 1830s through World War II, including: 1) nineteenth century maritime ministry projects in the Port of New York …

The Distant Early Warning Line: Geographies, Infrastructures, And Environments Of Warning, Jordan Steingard

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line was a Cold War era project aimed at providing advanced warning of incoming Soviet attack via the northern periphery of Canada and the United States. The Line was comprised of radar stations across the 69th parallel, spanning from Western Alaska to Baffin Island, about 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Academic institutions and research labs, private corporations, and military entities collaborated to develop the DEW Line.

The domes used to shield the radar from the extreme terrain were designed by architectural icon Buckminster Fuller, who was elaborating upon a symbolic language of security …

"The Right To Play" The Establishment Of Playgrounds In The American City, Kyle James Fritch

Graduate Masters Theses

The Right to Play is focused on the development of playgrounds in America at the end of the 19th century. This overall development is shown through a focus on Boston, the city that instituted the first playground in the country and mirrors the similar rise of playgrounds in other cities. Throughout the 1800s children in cities played in the streets or any abandoned lot they could find. However, parents wanted what they believed to be a safer and healthier environment for their children to play. Along with this, reformers believed that these mostly immigrant and poor children were in need …

Sketchbook Of James T. Shannon - Background Information, Ben Huseman

Sketchbook of James T. Shannon

Background information about the Sketchbook of James T. Shannon

Toward Culturally Competent Archival (Re)Description Of Marginalized Histories, Annie Tang, Dorothy Berry, Kelly Bolding, Rachel E. Winston

Library Presentations, Posters, and Audiovisual Materials

Influenced by the radical archives movement, panelists discuss their (re)processing projects for which they wrote or rewrote descriptions in culturally competent approaches. Their case studies include materials regarding underrepresented peoples and historically oppressed groups who are marginalized from or maligned in the archival record. Targeted to processors, this session aims to teach participants to apply their cultural competencies in writing finding aids through an introduction to cultural competency framework, the case study examples, and a short audience-participation exercise.

Parting The Waters Of Bondage: African Americans’ Aquatic Heritage, Kevin Dawson

International Journal of Aquatic Research and Education

Since the 1960s, when the United States Center for Disease Control began compiling racial statistics on drowning death rates, it has been painfully obvious that African Americans are far more likely to drown than their white counterparts. While segregation denied black people access to most public swimming pools and racial violence transformed natural waterways into undesirable places for swimming a leisure, perceptions that swimming as an “un-black” or “white” pursuit have marginalized its acceptability within African American communities. “Parting the Waters of Bondage” is an original article based on decades of the author’s historical scholarship. It seeks to reduce the …

Dunham, Josiah, 1769-1844 (Sc 3246), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid, scan and typescript (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3246. Letter, 25 December 1842, of Josiah Dunham, Lexington, Kentucky, to his brother-in-law Daniel Chipman, Ripton, Vermont. He welcomes news of Chipman’s family and describes his own domestic life, including his and his wife’s health and advancing age, her able household management, and the cost of his African-American servants, who appear to be slaves hired out by their owner. He refers to Chipman’s participation in Vermont’s constitutional convention; he also comments on Henry Clay’s travel to the South, where people acknowledge his talents but will likely …

The Paternal Lineage Of Nathan Hale: A Puritan Tradition, Andrew Rossignol

Masters Theses

This thesis discusses the paternal family history of Revolutionary War hero, Nathan Hale. A history of Robert Hale, John Hale, Samuel Hale, and Richard Hale is told as well as information regarding Connecticut and Hale’s hometown of Coventry. The thesis concludes with an examination of Nathan Hale and his actions as well as a critique of commonly accepted Hale myths.

The Seventeenth Amendment: The United States Senate And The Transformation From Legislative Selection To Direct Popular Election, John Joseph Janora

History Theses

The passage of the Seventeenth Amendment helped to democratize the United States Senate and tied the legislative branch closer to the people, but it undermined the links between the state and the federal systems. Any thoughtful discussion on the Progressive Era will generally lead towards the idea of increased involvement of both the government, at all levels, in the lives of the general population, and the increased involvement of the general population in the functioning of the government at large. One seemingly obvious decision made in the early part of the 20^th century was the implementation of the Seventeenth …

Zona Libre: Conservatism, Urban Growth, And The Rise Of The New Economy In The San Diego Borderlands, Daniel Elkin

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Both the rise of conservatism as well as the neoliberal turn of the twentieth century have received much scholarly attention in recent decades. Often, these two subjects are examined separately, with the former focusing on questions of party realignment in the United States and the latter on global economic shifts toward privatization, finance, and the segregation of labor types across international boundaries. As a result, efforts to trace the dual movement between questions of domestic politics and international economy are left underdeveloped. “Zona Libre: Conservatism, Urban Growth, and the Rise of the New Economy” remedies this gap by exploring the …

The Rise Of Political Factions In The United States: 1789–1795, William Wehrs

History Summer Fellows

Organized factions were something that did not arise with the creation of the United States. Rather, they slowly emerged during George Washington’s presidency. Initially, the Founding Fathers were highly resistant to the idea. There was resistance to political parties partly because of their association with the perceived dysfunctionality of England, and also because major influential thinkers like John Trenchard or David Hume were strongly against them. Soon, however, conflicts began to emerge. These stemmed from the conflicting views the Founding Fathers had on human nature. While Hamilton and Adams were both highly dubious about the trustworthiness of the common people, …

2018-2019 Ursinus College Course Catalogue, Office Of The Registrar

Ursinus College Catalogues, 1869-Present

A digital copy of the 2018-2019 Ursinus College Catalog. It contains details of the curriculum, departmental requirements and courses of instruction as well as core requirements such as the Common Intellectual Experience (CIE) and Independent Learning Experience (ILE). Academic policies, special opportunities and scholarships, off-campus programs and graduation requirements are also outlined.

Traces Volume 46, Number 2, Kentucky Library Research Collections

Traces, the Southern Central Kentucky, Barren County Genealogical Newsletter

Traces, the South Central Kentucky Genealogical Society's quarterly newsletter, was first published in 1973. The Society changed its name in 2016 to the Barren County Historical Society. The publication features compiled genealogies, articles on local history, single-family studies and unpublished source materials related to this area.

2018-07-16 Oral History With Myrtle Ross, Matthew R. Griffis

Oral History Archive

Myrtle Jackson Ross was born in 1929 in Austin County, Texas, where her father worked as a cotton-picker. When she was about eight years-old, Ross’s family moved to Houston, settling on Mason Street in the city’s Fourth Ward. There, her father worked at a hospital and her mother worked as a homemaker. Ross graduated from the Gregory School on Victor Street before attending Booker T. Washington High School on West Dallas Street.

Ross was in high school when she began visiting Houston’s Colored Carnegie Library, which was situated directly behind Booker T. Washington High School. For Ross, the library served …

Threads Of The Zoot Suit Riots: How The Initial Explanations For The Riots Hold Up Today, Antonio Franco

Voces Novae

This paper is about the 1943 Los Angeles Zoot suit Riots. These riots lasted for five days and were fought between the city’s young Mexican-American population and U.S. servicemen who were in the city. The name comes from a popular style that many young Mexican-Americans in L.A. wore at the time called the zoot suit. The Zoot Suit Riots was one of the most important moments in Chicano history. Throughout the riots as well as sometime afterward, many who were in the city at the time tried to discern its origins. The local newspapers, the Los Angeles Police Department, Mexican-Americans, …

The Warner Brothers Prove Their Patriotism, Lara Jacobson

Voces Novae

Warner Bros. Pictures did not become the widely successful company they are today by sitting back and letting “the world go to pot.” The Brothers patriotic beginnings in America earned them a reputation as trailblazers in the motion picture industry. Their Polish and Jewish family heritage initially motivated the four brothers to take a stand when they released Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939) as a direct result of Hitler’s growing reign in Europe. Many of the Brothers’ early movies focused on injustice, prejudice, and violation of basic human rights; the era of World War II would be no different. …

Seattle’S Municipal Ski Park At Snoqualmie Summit 1934-1940, John W. Lundin

Works by Local Authors

The Seattle Park Board opened its Municipal Ski Park at Snoqualmie Summit in January 1934, on U.S. Forest Service land, and operated it as a park facility through the ski season of 1940. This was likely the only municipally owned and operated ski area in the country at the time. The Ski Park was made possible by the availability of federal funds under programs adopted by the Roosevelt Administration to put people back to work in the Great Depression, and reflects how skiing had grown in popularity in the Northwest by the early 1930s.

Clarke, Mary Louise (Washington), 1913-1999 (Mss 634), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 634. Research, correspondence and photographs relating to the scholarly study of Kentucky author Jesse Stuart by WKU English and folklore professor Mary (Washington) Clarke. Includes correspondence with Stuart, editors and other scholars in connection with her book Jesse Stuart’s Kentucky and other publications. Also includes research and correspondence relating to Clarke’s book Kentucky Quilts and Their Makers.

Amjambo Africa! (June 2018), Kathreen Harrison

Amjambo Africa!

Welcome to Amjambo Africa! Welcome to Amjambo Africa! We are Maine’s free newspaper for and about New Mainers from Sub-Saharan Africa.

Amjambo Africa! is here to help New Mainers thrive and to help Maine welcome and benefit from our new neighbors.

Amjambo Africa! will serve as a conduit of information for newcomers as they navigate life in Maine.

Amjambo Africa! will include background articles about Africa so those from Maine can understand why newcomers have arrived here.

Amjambo Africa! will profile successful New Mainers from Sub-Saharan Africa in order to give hope to those newly arrived as well as make …

Exhibit Notebook, Department Of Library Special Collections, Sandra L. Staebell

Exhibit Documents

No abstract provided.

George C. Marshall, A Dynamic Leader Of Transition & Adaptation, John Robert Isaiah Emmert

Masters Theses

George Catlett Marshall was the Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the tumultuous years of the Second World War. Prior to the war, Marshall headed various officers’ schools and professional development centers, mentoring an entire generation of young officers who would become field commanders and general officers during the World War II. Eventually, he oversaw the monumental task of modernizing and enlarging the United States Army as World War II began and escalated. Together with President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his opposites in the British military, he helped formulate the grand strategy that the Allied powers implemented …

Faith And Art: Anne Bradstreet’S Puritan Creativity, Sophia Farthing

Masters Theses

As one of Puritanism’s best-known Puritan writers, Anne Bradstreet is a popular topic for scholars exploring gender issues in a Puritan context. Bradstreet’s poetry has drawn attention to the possibility of Puritan theology as inspiration for art. However, misunderstanding of Puritan cultural complexity and cursory readings of Bradstreet’s texts have resulted in misrepresentations of Bradstreet’s interaction with Puritan culture and ideas. This thesis examines Bradstreet’s life and work, including the variety of supportive literary influences she experienced as a child. The historical value of Bradstreet’s texts is made clear by her poetic insight on political issues, history, and gender conflict, …

President Jimmy Carter As An Activist?: Understanding President Carter’S Human Rights Policy In El Salvador During 1980 Through A Social Justice Lens, Vanaaisha Das Pamnani

History

During 1980, Salvadoran citizens endured increased violence, torture, and overall suppression of their basic human rights. Many prominent figures were assassinated by either right-wing death squads or leftist insurgents. Then on December 2, 1980 came the murder of four American churchwomen from the Maryknoll Order. Their purpose was to aid the poor within Latin America; El Salvador gave them the opportunity to help the Salvadoran poor in the midst of this violence. However, they were met with suspicion by security forces and, as a result were raped and killed on a dirt road. Within a week, President Jimmy Carter cut …

Unescorted Guests: Yale’S First Women Undergraduates And The Quest For Equity, 1969-1973, Anne G. Perkins

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

“Unescorted Guests” provides a richly detailed portrait of a fundamental change at one US institution: Yale University’s 1969 transition from an all-men’s to a coed college. This study disputes several dominant narratives about the 1970s youth and women’s movements, and deepens our understanding of three core issues in higher education research: access, the experiences of previously excluded students, and change towards greater equity. I contest the myth of alumni as foes to coeducation, and show that the greatest opposition to equity for women came instead from Yale’s president and trustees. I document how women students, absent as powerful figures in …

Setting The Record Straight, Nathaniel Pockras

Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America has existed since the 18^th century, and the actions of its governing Synod are published in annual minutes, but the actions have never been recorded in a single catalogue. An organizational schema is proposed, improving on the schemata of similar catalogues for other Presbyterian denominations: actions are listed chronologically and assigned subject headings to facilitate the creation of a thesaurus. Inclusion criteria are specified, and the catalogue is described in a manner approachable without specialized training.

A Place Of Gemütlichkeit: The Holden Village Of Augustana German Professor Erwin Weber, Julia Meyer

Celebration of Learning

Lying in Augustana’s Special Collections are three insignificant looking items. Two three-inch black binders with white labels which read “Holden I Copy” and Holden II Copy” in red ink. These two binders along with a plastic spiral-bound paper compilation are photographs and memories of former Augustana German professor Erwin Weber’s summer at Holden Village in 1977. Titled “My Days at Holden,” this compilation is an unpublished photo-book detailing the wilderness and the people of the community of Holden Village. This isolated village situated in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State draws many individuals, including Erwin Weber who in the summer …

Dorothea Lange: Capturing The Reality Of The Great Depression And The New Deal Era, Laura Vandemark

James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal (JMURJ)

Dorothea Lange created some of America’s most enduring and influential images as she documented the reality of the Great Depression in the 1930s and early 40s for the Farm Security Administration. Featured in government publications, printed on postage stamps, and used by social activists, Lange’s photographs helped define the era and the emerging field of photojournalism. This paper examines Lange’s motives and process as she tried to capture her subjects’ most intimate moments without exploiting their lives. It draws on Lange’s field notebooks and interviews and surveys the existing body of scholarship to assess how Lange’s life impacted her work …

Treehouses: Civilizing The Wildness Of Men And Nature, Courtney Mckinney

English Undergraduate Distinction Projects

In this paper, I explore how treehouses operate symbolically in tandem with culture. Through an analysis of British and American print culture, I argue that the treehouse building project became bound to boyhood at the turn of the twentieth century as the naturalist movement spread and youth organizations embraced treehouses as part of their vision for the development of boys. Parents and youth leaders intend for treehouse projects to build self-reliance, independence, imagination, and courage in their boys. Congruously, this activity associated with a child’s personal growth takes place in an actual growing organism. I analyze how treehouses juxtapose humans …

The Home Front: The Experience Of Soldiers And Civilians In The Louisiana Maneuvers Of 1940 And 1941, John G. D'Antoni

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In the years before and during World War II, the United States Army conducted a series of military maneuvers in north-central Louisiana. The two biggest maneuvers occurred in May 1940 and September 1941. The Louisiana Maneuvers are credited with helping to prepare the U.S. armed forces for World War II. Previous studies of the 1940 and 1941 maneuvers have focused on the day-to-day activities during the maneuvers or the generals behind the maneuvers. This study will focus on the impacts of the maneuvers on the soldiers themselves and on the citizens of north-central Louisiana who lived in the maneuver area. …