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Girlhood, Interrupted: An Intersectional Feminist History Of Decolonizing And Reclaiming Womanhood, Ayden Kelly

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

In the past few decades, social and political discourse surrounding womanhood and who is considered a "real" woman has led to the execration of transgender women. This work will explore how recent discourse and rhetoric surrounding who is and who is not a “real woman” can be traced to nineteenth century notions of “true womanhood” that excluded women of color. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with westward expansion, settler colonialism, residential schools, slavery, and post-emancipation serving as backdrops, this work will also analyze how ideologies of womanhood have interrupted and suppressed women of color throughout Western American …

Human Dignity In The Foundational Political Documents Of The United States, Kalista Roades

Honors Theses

Human dignity is integral to modern discussions of human rights and liberties, but this connection can be found stretching back through history to the early developments of human rights. This paper begins with modern philosophical definitions of human dignity, especially from Rosen and Kateb. Rosen discusses four “strands” of dignity- Intrinsic Dignity, Status Dignity, Manner Dignity, and Respect Dignity. This paper then uses that framework to find human dignity implicit within the founding documents of the United States including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, as well as “Common Sense” and the Magna Carta to …

"Chinese" And Chinoiserie: Exoticization And Orientalism In The West During The 19th And 20th Century And Its Effects On Museum Practices, Janine Salapantan

Honors Capstones

During the 19th and 20th centuries, the west experienced a keen interest in the lives of the east. In an era of mystery, the people of the west relied on furniture, textiles, and objects to fill in the gaps of their fantasy of the mystical east and its people. This led to the boom of East Asian export and attempts of replication through Chinoiserie, the west’s interpretation of East Asian aesthetics. Chinoiserie and exportquickly filled the homes of affluent families in the west, such as the Ellwood family in Dekalb. This study aims to investigate the origins of various East …

The Brethren In China: Cross-Cultural Relationships Within An Imperial Structure, Sebastian S. Kochall

History and Political Science Student Scholarship

No abstract provided.

"Principle Before Party": Samuel "Golden Rule" Jones And The 1899 Ohio Gubernatorial Election, Connor Hand

Honors Projects

As partisan loyalty declined and resentment grew against American social, political, and economic conditions at the end of the nineteenth century, political reformers saw an opportunity to spread their ideals for a better society. Most reformers opted against running for office, and those who did often used standard or newly formed political parties. Mayor of Toledo and progressive businessman Samuel Jones differed from the standard reformer by seeking office while embracing a non-partisan ideology. By analyzing Jones’ writings, the partisan response to his movement, and contextualizing him amongst reformers, this essay explores how Jones stood out from the standard political …

The Myth Of Homespun, Valeria Delaportilla

Undergraduate Scholarly Works

In this work, delaPortilla analyzes the Homespun Movement, a boycott largely led by women during the American Revolution that encouraged the use of homespun fabrics to avoid purchasing fabrics from Europe. DelaPortilla argues that the homespun movement was not as widespread as existing historiography allows us to believe and explains that the movement was largely limited to people of means who could afford to commit to a fully homespun lifestyle. DelaPortilla further argues that the forceful application of the homespun movement in New England largely contributed to the mass criticism and in some occasions abuse of women.

Where Do Policy Demanders Come From? Protestants And Party Formation In The Antebellum Period, John W. Compton

Political Science Faculty Articles and Research

The early 1830s were years of intense religious fervor, when well-organized moral reform movements seemed destined to remake the political landscape. Curiously, however, the party system that emerged from this period was premised on the exclusion of moral issues from party politics. How did the early Jacksonian Democrats and Whigs manage to construct an essentially amoral party system during a decade marked by large-scale moral reform movements? And why did the resulting system unravel in the mid-1850s? Answering these questions requires shifting the focus from party activists and elected officials to organized religion. Specifically, I show that the nation's largest …

The Sensationalizing Of Presidential Assassinations In Mass Media Throughout American History, Lindsay E. Smith

Undergraduate Theses

This project explores how mass media has shaped the public response to presidential assassinations across American history. By examining the deaths of Abraham Lincoln (1865), James A. Garfield (1881), William McKinley (1901), and John F. Kennedy (1963), we can trace how evolving media technologies – such as newspapers, yellow journalism, radio broadcasts, and live television coverage – have sensationalized violence, politicized tragedy, and transformed periods of national mourning into mass spectacles. The thesis analyzes reporting methods, narrative framing, and the news industry to show how each has influenced emotional response, political landscapes, and eventual presidential legacy. Ultimately, we find that …

Res Historica, Volume 5, Alpha Rho Epsilon Phi Alpha Theta, Lindsay Rae Smith Privette Phd

Res Historica

The 2026 journal of historical research by Anderson University students, Res Historica.

The editorial team for this edition of Res Historica was Dr. Lindsay Rae Smith Privette, Julia Ackerman, Callyn Wright, Logan Davis, and John Hinton. Cover art by Mary Beth Lee.

Book Bans In U.S. Prisons: A Legacy Of The Prisoners' Rights Movement, Allison Jansen

Honors Projects

The 1950s-1970s saw an unprecedented spike in organized resistance by American prisoners. This long era of rebellion, along with thousands of judicial appeals, made up the “prisoners’ rights movement”-- a political, legal, and social struggle that challenged the conditions of American incarceration and its penological paradigm. The timeline of the movement is abstract and difficult to measure. Nonetheless, what is certain is that it lost its momentum by the 1980s due to overhauling policy changes that quelled prisoner activism without achieving meaningful progress. This research examines the evolution of prison censorship policies within that paradigm shift and how they sought …

Calculated Self-Presentation: Japan At Twentieth Century American World’S Fairs, Mary Rose Comerford

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

World’s fairs are places of innovation, culture, and technology. They are places where visitors go to be wowed by the innovations of other countries, but do they have a deeper meaning? In this thesis I will argue that world’s fairs serve a purpose beyond the sharing of culture and innovation. They allow national commissions to control the narrative of their country through a careful curation of displays that meet the objectives of their government. Countries’ objectives at world’s fairs change all the time, depending on their position in the world and what serves their best interest. The fairs themselves each …

“Do Not Take Sex Into The Practice”: Lelia Robinson And Her Struggle To Become The First Female Attorney Of Massachusetts, Georgia Grace Peters

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

Lelia Robinson was the first woman lawyer in Massachusetts. Although her achievements paved the way for future female litigators, her efforts to partake in the legal profession were complicated. This was because she herself had a complex relationship with her own identity as a woman who wanted to practice law. In her early career and experiences at law school, Robinson publicly disregarded the discrimination she faced and framed her success as a result of her individual merit and capability, viewing herself as an equal to other male attorneys rather than part of a gendered struggle. Her brief to the Court …

Remembering In The North: How The Civil Rights Movement Is Told Through Monuments, Courtney Wight

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

This thesis, titled “Remembering in the North: How the Civil Rights Movement is Told Through Monuments,” examines how the Civil Rights Movement is remembered in the North through public monuments. The Civil Rights Movement in the North has not received the same level of recognition compared to the South in public memory, yet the stories and activists in the North deserve the same acknowledgement. The cities of Newark, NJ, and Albany, NY, act as case studies to illustrate how the racism and discrimination, which prompted the Civil Rights Movement, were present in the North during the movement. Both cities, like …

“Let The Goddess Guide”: Athena, Columbia, And The Greco-Roman Roots Of American Imperial Rhetoric, Bridget Goguen

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

The goddess of wisdom and war models intellect without complacency, valor without rashness. Claiming this duality—a civilized militancy—from their patron goddess Athena, an ancient Athenian citizenry could rationalize imperial conquest as democratic goodwill. Millennia later, the United States, seeking subtle proclamation of classical succession, crafted their national personification Columbia from the mold of Athena. From the Civil War until the First World War, Americans called on Columbia to symbolically sanction and spectacularize their own imperial ascent. This paper explores the American adaptation of Greco-Roman rhetoric through the mediums of cartoons, sculptures, and paintings in order to reveal the ancient roots …

Chalmers Library Research Award Winner 2026, Cooper Bertschi

Chalmers Library Research Award

No abstract provided.

"Under The Fig-Tree": Anti-Federalist Conceptions Of American National Identity, Clara Kernodle

Tenor of Our Times

The constitutional convention of 1787 gave America some of her most energetic and exciting few months in American history. The Federalists proposed the Constitution as a replacement for existing government, opposed by Anti-Federalists on principled grounds. Thus ensued a mountain of political writing and propaganda that historians still study today. The Anti-Federalists lost the debate, and then were lost to history. Few Americans have even heard of the Anti-Federalists and even fewer scholars study their writings. But reading and evaluating Anti-Federalist writing is an important part of studying the Founding era and Constitutional debates. The Anti-Federalists, as much as their …

Front Matter

Tenor of Our Times

Front Matter

Full Issue

Tenor of Our Times

Full Issue

Delenda Est Norfolk: The Tidewater Revolts!, Kiera Dillman, Alise Dunham, Kristen Gary, Olivia M. Haris, Nelliel A. Herrera, Logan Holzgrefe, R. J. Lynch, Adam M. Manis, David Mogan, Luke Pickard, Shayla M. Shaw, Landon Swain, Kenny Wilcox, Bailey M. Wimberly, Tracy L. Barnett

Student Projects

Introduction to the Exhibit:

Today—exactly 250 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence—many Americans trace the origins of the nation’s revolutionary sentiment to Boston, Massachusetts or Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We remember the violence of March 1770, when red-coated British soldiers fired into a crowded Boston street, massacring innocent colonists and igniting outrage. We recall the patriotic defiance of the Sons of Liberty, who boarded three East India Company ships and dumped chests of imported British tea into the Boston Harbor in December 1773. We can still hear, too, the reverberations of the “shot heard ’round the world,” when British …

History Day At Harding 2026, Julie E Harris

Tenor of Our Times

History Day in Arkansas summary.

“Opening Up The Flood Gates:” A Review Of The International Response To The Hungarian Refugee Crisis 1956-57., Jacob N. Anderson

Tenor of Our Times

Following the suppressed Hungarian Revolution in 1956, there was a massive emigration from Hungary to surrounding European nations and the United States to escape oppression under the new Soviet regime. As a result, many of those nations faced large humanitarian debates about accepting refugees from Soviet tyranny and were forced to alter their refugee and immigration policy. Some of these alterations appear to be sincere and reflect popular sentiment, but some appear to be simply a false act of solidarity amidst the international stage, reflecting very conservative ethnic and religious reservations.

The Last Boat: How American And Polish Domestic And Foreign Policies Shaped The Polish Jewish Emigration Experience, 1933–1939, Jesse Spadaccini

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

The interwar period from 1918 to 1939 saw Poland and the United States contend with major international and domestic questions regarding Jewish emigration. In a matter of twenty years, Polish policy developed from protecting its Jewish minority to actively persecuting it in political, economic, and social spheres with radical antisemitism. In the United States, immigration was limited post-1924 because of a nationality-based quota system introduced by the Immigration Act of 1924. Despite diplomats arguing for increased numbers, American officials’ position remained strong on limiting immigration, continuing unchanged as an understanding of Polish-Jewish plight became clear in the 1930s. The Polish …

Hyphenated America: The Story Of Swedish Immigrants In The 20th Century, Ryan D. Coons

Department of History

This thesis examines the memorialization of two Swedish immigrants John Ericsson and Joe Hill by their contemporaries. The first section, focusing on socially mobile upper class Swedish immigrants who immortalized Ericsson as a symbol of their "Americanness," The latter documents the life of Joe Hill and the IWW. His labor activism forever typified Hill as an outside foreigner. Both Ericsson and Hill's actual lived experience demonstrate a more complex weaving between Swedish and American. Ericsson frequently confirmed a loyalty to his native Sweden, even with his final wishes being to be buried under Swedish soil. Hill on the other hand, …

Studies In Rio Grande Valley History - Volume 19, Thomas Daniel Knight, Antonio N. Zavaleta, Anthony K. Knopp, Andrik Gonzalez, Milo Kearney

Studies in Rio Grande Valley Regional History Series

Early Days of the U.S. Mexican War in South Texas / James W. Mills -- La Configuración de la Frontera Mexicana Desde El Mar / Arturo Zárate Ruiz -- Ethnic Trends in The Growth of Brownsville / Anthony Knopp -- How McAllen Became the Economic Center of the Rio Grande Valley: Further Considerations / Edward F. Wallace -- Cobbling in the Rio Grande Valley / Noe E. Perez -- Cultural Crossroads: Expressions of Identity, Resistance, & Belonging on the Texas-Mexico Border / Andrik Gonzalez -- Two Women, Two Journeys, One Border: Stories From the Migrant Generation / Manuel F. Medrano …

A Culture Divided: How Irish Americans Responded To Ireland’S Wartime Neutrality, Robert J. Barron

Honors College Theses

In the Second World War, the nation of Ireland declared its neutrality and maintained this status through the course of the long conflict. Meanwhile, Germany, Great Britain, and eventually the United States all competed to gain Ireland’s support in the war. However, one overlooked group continued to keep tabs on the affairs within their homeland: Irish Americans. How does one respond to a nation you have a connection with staying neutral in such a deadly conflict? The answer, for Irish Americans, was that it depended on the year. Before the United States entered the war, Irish Americans firmly defended the …

Spanglish: Un Viaje Al Pasado Observado Por El Presente, Nyleen Benavides, Raquel Christopherson, Rose Jouini, Kennedy Kuchta

Posters - 2026

Since its founding in 1852, St. Mary’s University has evolved from a small institution into a diverse and inclusive community that has worked to overcome discriminatory barriers. Originally founded to serve Mexican students in underserved communities, the university has reflected San Antonio’s Cultural diversity since its earliest years. Its founder, Reverend John Marie Odin, envisioned supporting a “melting pot” of cultures within the city (Flores, 2019). While the university has grown significantly in enrollment, Hispanic culture and traditions have remained a central part of its identity. Today, with over two thousand students enrolled, St. Mary’s University continues to not only …

Mapping A World’S Fair: A Comparative Analysis Of Native American Experience At The Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Margaret Jones

Mendel Sato Research Award Projects

This brief attempt to look into a few historical moments has demonstrated how quickly and dramatically the possibilities open to Native American people in the St. Louis region have changed over time. In 1904, to be a Native person standing at the entrance to the 1904 World’s Fair could mean a number of things, perhaps simultaneously: you were a tourist, you were returning to land you had been Indigenous to, you were visiting a part of the country you had never seen before, or you were a Native person at the largest celebration of American colonialism ever organized. This thesis …

The Ladies' Home Journal: Dormant Seeds Of The Feminine Mystique Pre-Wwii, Isis Santos Villaça

University Honors Theses

At the turn of the 20th century, magazines were becoming increasingly available to the middle class. Throughout the 1890–1930s, the industry put forth an entire new iteration of publications that came to be popular with female readers. One of the most successful publications from this period, The Ladies' Home Journal, distinguished itself through its strong editorial presence on the page. The editors of the Ladies' Home Journal intended to create a "traditional" female identity that reflected domesticity in the journal, which countered the rising notions of the New Woman. Simultaneously, the publication aimed to create an educational product with …

Unearthing "Storied Lives:" Building Resilient And Recontextualized Collections At Unh Library Through Community Archives Collaborations, Kai H. Uchida, Eleta Exline, Morgan Wilson

Faculty Publications

A strength of the University Archives at the University of New Hampshire is its strong administrative and institutional history collections through the mid 20th century, with hundreds of linear feet of manuscripts from offices across campus. However, some of these collections were processed more than 30 years ago and are missing descriptive work that would ideally highlight communities of color on campus and their inclusion and self-advocacy in the history of higher education.

In the absence of resources that would prioritize reprocessing these collections, the University Archives has partnered with the Digital Collections Team at UNH to broaden the access …

Aristotle And The Proslavery Writings Of The Antebellum South, Ace Farris

The Cardinal Edge

This paper explores how nineteenth-century Southern intellectuals appropriated and adapted Aristotle’s ancient defense of slavery to legitimize racial slavery in the antebellum United States. Although Aristotle’s theory of “natural slavery” emerged from the social and economic conditions of classical Greece, where enslaved people constituted essential components of the household, Southern thinkers tailored his argument to justify the peculiar institution. The paper begins by outlining Aristotle’s defense of slavery in his Politics, which states that some individuals naturally lack the capacity for rational deliberation, thereby benefiting from enslavement. Then, it traces how the American South’s investment in classical education allowed …