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Tuberculosis In Jim Crow Virginia, 1900-1972, Elizabeth Dooley

Theses and Dissertations

Tuberculosis (TB) was a major public health concern in the United States, especially in the first half of the twentieth century. Transmission and treatment of the disease, which is spread between humans through close contact, was complicated by racial segregation laws in the South known as Jim Crow laws. Virginia subscribed to these laws, which played a role in how and where Black Virginians with TB could be treated. Segregated treatment facilities with an inadequate number of beds for the number of infected people and deaths in the state added to these complications of disease control and plan for eradication. …

Civil War Memory In New York City, 1861-1902, Kevin J. Sugrue

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examines how New York City experienced, understood, and later remembered the American Civil War, from the outbreak of war (1861) through the dedication of major monuments at the turn of the twentieth century (1902). Although New York was the Union’s largest city and its most significant source of troops, casualties, industrial output, financial capital, and press coverage, the city’s wartime experience was deeply conflicted. As a Democratic stronghold and home to large populations of recent immigrants and working-class laborers, New York’s support for the Union was broad but conditional, fractured by class, ethnicity, race, and political allegiance. These …

From Ship To Shore: The Impact Of Sailor Resistance On The Anti-Vietnam War Movement, Trent Chamberlain

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This thesis explores the often-overlooked role of United States Navy personnel in the broader anti-Vietnam War movement. While civilian protests dominate historical narratives of the era, the impact of active-duty sailor resistance remains underexplored. To address this gap, this thesis examines shipboard and shore-based dissent to determine how Naval resistance influenced both military operations and domestic anti-war efforts. By conducting a historical analysis of primary source materials, including military records, underground press publications, and personal accounts, this research traces the evolution of sailor organizing and its intersections with civilian peace movements. The thesis shows that Naval dissent not only posed …

A Content Analysis Of Black Women's Race And Gender Depiction In American History Textbooks, Le'marqunita De'sharay Lowe

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Using a race and gender analytical lens, this research study examined how Black women were depicted in four secondary Advanced Placement Pearson’s history textbooks. Content analysis was the methodology to collect data from Pearson’s Advanced Placement history textbooks. Captions and images were analyzed to observe the patterns and themes that displayed the intersection between Black women's race and gender depiction. The interdisciplinary fields of history and education allowed an in-depth analysis of race and gender to be conducted throughout this research study. Two research questions were answered throughout this study. What do captions and images teach about the race and …

White Fear/Black Apprehension, Volume 2: An Analysis Of The Racialized Targeting Of African Americans In The Educational System, In The Southern U.S. States, Circa 1865–1965, Christopher Donell Gipson

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

For African Americans, the legacy of racial oppression extends across centuries, from the transatlantic slave trade and enslavement to the persistence of institutionalized racism, White supremacy, racial violence, and structural inequality within the United States. These racialized systems are reproduced intergenerationally through social institutions, education, media, political discourse, historical narratives, and cultural representations that repeatedly normalize negative constructions of Africans and African Americans. Such representations operate on conscious and subconscious levels, shaping social attitudes, institutional practices, and perceptions of racial difference. As argued in White Fear / Black Apprehension: An Analysis of White European American Racism and Mob Violence Through …

Divided Loyalties: Military Recruitment And Emancipation In Kentucky, Jacob Joseph Klinger

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation explores how Unionist Kentuckians leveraged their military recruitment to negotiate the scope of federal emancipation during the American Civil War. By 1863, the War Department’s need for troops superseded the racial sensitivities of inhabitants in loyal slave states like Kentucky by promising to free and enlist Black men if white recruits failed to fill the quota. Kentucky’s proslavery Unionists responded and white volunteerism surged by 23 percent, 10 percent more than the national average, to fill the quota and negate military emancipation. Kentucky leaders heralded the recruiting effort but struggled to sustain it alongside an uncredited militia which …

“This, To Me, Was My Town”: How Segregation Shaped Huntington, West Virginia’S Black Community, Jillian Alexis Kendall

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Using Huntington, West Virginia as a case study to examine Black urban-Appalachian communities, this thesis analyzes Huntington’s Black “city within a city” from 1934–1961, exploring how city-sanctioned segregationist practices shaped the community. In 1929, The Herald Dispatch asserted that Black Huntingtonians were able to thrive due to racial harmony facilitated by the “tolerant” attitudes of white Huntingtonians. However, closer inspection reveals that the city’s Black population survived in spite of persistent racial intolerance from white citizens, as well as city, state, and federal authorities. Though Huntington was not technically segregated by de jure means, it is apparent that the city …

Lifting The Political Fog: People, Power, And Antislavery Politics In Upstate New York, 1848-1861, Nicholas Thony

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

This work details the ascendance of the political antislavery movement in upstate New York, focusing on the roles a diverse array of actors played in constructing an unlikely Republican coalition of conservatives, reformers, black New Yorkers, nativists, prohibitionists, and abolitionists in the years preceding the Civil War. In weaving together the parallel and inextricable stories of powerful newspaperman Thurlow Weed, female reformers like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and black communities across the state, I argue the success of the political antislavery movement resulted from their combined efforts. Thurlow Weed was one of the most important politicians of …

[Introduction To] Shakers At The Center : Manifesting Spirits & Spectacles In Nineteenth-Century America, Douglas L. Winiarski

Bookshelf

Edited by Douglas WIniarski.

"Exploring the theological, social, and cultural dimensions of one of America’s most ambitious prophetic movements

The Shakers’ Era of Manifestations ranks among the most astounding events in American religious history. During the 1840s, members of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing embarked on an audacious project of receiving visions, revelations, and other manifestations from the spirit world and convincing both themselves and the world’s people of their reality. Gifted Shakers known as “instruments” surrendered their bodies to possessing spirits and celestial beings who, in turn, provided the Believers with an unimaginable number of …

Finding Aid For The Mississippi Politics Collection (Mum00316)

Archives & Special Collections: Finding Aids (alphabetical)

Artificially created collection on individual Mississippi politicians and the state’s politics in general.

Bloody Sunday: A Comparative Analysis Of Nonviolent Marches In Selma And Derry, Samantha J. Romero

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This thesis examines two different nonviolent civil rights marches: Selma’s march for voting rights in 1965 in the United States and Derry’s march to end internment without trial in 1972 in Northern Ireland. The two marches yielded drastically different outcomes despite employing the shared tactic of nonviolence. This research addresses the vital role that the political opportunity structure, rather than tactical repertoire alone, plays in determining whether state repression leads to reform or further conflict. Through a controlled comparative analysis, the research positions the march itself as a constant across the two cases. Subsequently, governmental allies, institutional openness, and regime …

“An Extremely Dangerous Institution:” The Cultures And Controversy Of Public Social Dances In Montana, 1900-1930, Danielle Allison Brown

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This paper explores public social dances east of the Continental Divide in Montana from 1900 to 1930. Rural social dances in schoolhouses and urban dances in dance halls created two different dance cultures. The relaxed nature of rural dances preserved the traditional values of nineteenth-century social dances, which reinforced community and family ties. Urban dances reflected the modern fads of the roaring twenties and challenged traditional values with sexual suggestiveness. Progressive Era moral reformers concerned about the possibility that social dance promoted illicit sexuality participated in an anti-dance movement and pushed for regulations of social dances. The anti-dance movement in …

“I Am A Refugee Direct From Mississippi:” Drafting And Substitution As Muster Methods In Shaping Black Participation In The Union Army, 1863–1865, Carson R. Maschmeier

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Historians have frequently emphasized voluntary enlistment as the primary means through which Black men entered military service, portraying military participation as an expression of autonomy and a pathway toward freedom and citizenship. Within this scholarship, few historians have examined how Black participation in the Union army as draftees and substitutes impacted Black men and their families. This thesis examines the role of drafting and substitution in shaping Black military participation in the Union Army during the American Civil War. By focusing on Pennsylvania's 8th United States Colored Troops (USCT), this study argues that drafting and substitution complicate the commonly accepted …

Reframing “Southern Justice”: Public History And The Cultural Legacy Of The Civil War In Orlando, Sarah M. Boye

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Civil War memory has shaped historical consciousness throughout the American South, sometimes in surprising and unexpected ways. An unusual example of this phenomenon can be found in Orlando, Florida. Unlike in other Southern cities, in Orlando, Civil War memory did not grow out of wartime experience. Instead, it developed decades later during the post-Reconstruction period as generations removed from the war itself constructed their own understanding of the war’s history and its meaning. As the city grew, Greenwood Cemetery became a key site where Civil War remembrance functioned in Orlando. Women’s organizations played a major role in shaping Civil War …

Something To Say: Nativism, Prohibition, And The Loss Of Political Alignment In Davenport, Iowa’S German-American Community 1848-1922, Clayton R. Schuler

Graduate Masters Theses

This thesis ends with the municipal elections of 1920 in Davenport, Iowa. Amid the First Red Scare, the Socialist Party was swept into power. The party won under inauspicious national conditions thanks in part to a successful campaign on local concerns; the party had something to say. An examination of the years prior to the election, however, reveals that other factors contributed to political unalignment for the city’s large German descended population. Frustrated with Republican and Democratic parties that seemed to have no place for them, these voters had something to say as well. Ultimately the opportunity that this unalignment …

Under The Influence: New York’S Crisis Of Addiction, Exploitation, And Drug Policy Within Depression-Era Films, Simone White

Rushton Journal of Undergraduate Humanities Research

During the 1930s, New York City stood at the center of media innovation and cultural influence. It was also the center of the continuing opioid epidemic and a pivotal site for the reception and promotion of addiction films. This article argues that Depression-era films, The Struggle (1931), Narcotic (1933), and Assassin of Youth (1938), reflected economic, political, and moral anxieties surrounding drug abuse. Using National Board of Review records, studio pressbooks, and contemporary periodicals, this study examines how cinematic portrayals of addiction influenced ideologies, criminalized users, and deepened social stigma.

From Guardsmen To Doughboys: The Lynchburg Musketeers In World War I, Timothy W. Brophy

Montview Journal of Research & Scholarship

“From Guardsmen to Doughboys: The Lynchburg Musketeers in World War I” traces the development of a local company of men from Lynchburg, Virginia, that went from the National Guard to the U.S. Army during World War I. The Lynchburg Musketeers was a small militia organized in the fall of 1915 that became Company L of the National Guard’s 1st Virginia Infantry Regiment in the summer of 1916. The article centers around the firsthand account of Edley Craighill, a member of the Lynchburg Musketeers, in his 1931 work, The Musketeers. After training in Lynchburg and service on the Mexican border …

Visible And Invisible Empires: The Revival Of The Ku Klux Klan 100 Years Ago, Christian Molina

Theses

Hatred and violence breed division, and division breeds more hatred and more violence. In an America where our politics has become name-calling, finger-pointing, scapegoating, and whataboutisms, and violence, unfortunately, it is safe to say our nation has entered this self-perpetuating cycle. A place for malicious groups concerned with growth, power, and profit to capture the angry, the stressed, and the less informed in their webs of elaborate lies and misleading, misinterpreted numbers the way they have in decades past.

Log Cabins, Hard Ciders, And The Misunderstood Campaign Of 1840: Looking At How The Whigs Really Created The First Modern Presidential Campaign Through Effective Storytelling, Eric V. Schesventer

Masters Theses, 2020-current

The Whig party crafted the first ever modern campaign seen in American History during the campaign and subsequent presidential election of 1840. They did this not merely through the use of flashy campaign slogans and festive events as previous historians have discussed. The Whigs created the first ever modern campaign by telling both realistic and symbolic stories through the use of media narratives and physical objects crafted for the campaign. By doing this, this helped mold then candidate and future President William Henry Harrison into a candidate for all Americans, even if he was not in practice.

Diplomacy Derailed: Discrimination’S Detour On Route 40, Gage A. Kivlen

Masters Theses, 2020-current

The 1961 Route 40 campaign in Maryland became a critical battleground where three competing approaches to addressing racial segregation revealed deep contradictions in Cold War America. Route 40, a major highway between Washington D.C. and New York, became an international embarrassment when African diplomats from newly independent nations were repeatedly refused service at restaurants and hotels. This crisis prompted responses from three distinct actors: the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), which employed grassroots organizing and direct action; the State Department's Special Protocol Service Section (SPSS), which pursued top-down diplomatic solutions; and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which conducted extensive …

Heroes By The Score, Owen J. Eastman

Honors Projects

Historians have increasingly examined how media other than yellow journalism helped manufacture consent for American imperialism during the Spanish-American War, yet commercial sheet music—despite its ubiquity at the time—remains overlooked. This study addresses that gap by analyzing fifty pieces of sheet music published around the period, employing a mixed-methods approach that combines quantitative, qualitative, and comparative media analysis. The corpus reveals four dominant themes: memorializing the sinking of the Maine; Cuban “liberation” rhetoric that often referenced American ownership or influence over the island; military hero worship that personalized and justified expansion; and messages of national unity that permitted overseas territorial …

Home Heat Money God: Texas And Modern Architecture, Rex Koontz

Journal of Texas History

No abstract provided.

Fighting For Control: Power, Reproductive Care, And Race In The Us-Mexico Borderlands, Rebecca A. Gonzalez

Journal of Texas History

No abstract provided.

Shared Space, Contested Space: Enslaved Women In The Contested Space Ofwhite Texas Baptists, 1840-1860, David Wilkie

Journal of Texas History

No abstract provided.

“River Of Death”: Industrial Pollution And The North Texas Trinity River Inthe Progressive Era, Meghan Scott-Chaber

Journal of Texas History

No abstract provided.

Redefining Frontier Womanhood: Irish Female Landownership In Mexican Texas, Kelly Mcmichael

Journal of Texas History

No abstract provided.

Rock, Rock, ‘Til You Drop: How Acid Rock Amplified The Counterculture Rebellion Of The 60s And 70s, Evan Bauer

Honors Projects

Acid rock’s rise to the top was aided by unprecedented times in American history. A collision of forces such as anti-war sentiment, youth rebellion, and the emergence of lysergic diethylamide exploded into a generation changing era of peace, love, violence, and above all else, music. Through the early years of acid rock's dominance, the outspoken virtues of the artists were held dear to their fans and listeners across the country, who never had to question its authenticity. Acid rock’s popularity was unlike anything the American people had ever seen, with major weekend long events which captivated the media and the …

Itadakimasu: Recipes From Japanese American Internment Camps, Alexander K. Nishida

Graphic Communication

This project presents a historical narrative told through the format of a cookbook, exploring the relationship between food, memory, and resilience during the Japanese American Internment of World War II. Using primary resources such as news publications from within the camps (Topaz Times,1943), historical interviews (Herzig, 1994), and secondary resources from an archival podcast (Campu, 2021) to highlight how food served as both a means of survival and an expression of identity under confinement.

The cookbook will combine recipes inspired by documented internment-era meals with stories and reflections gathered from interviews, archival materials, and community voices. Each section will contextualize …

Knowing One's Place At The Table: Taste As A Means Of Othering In The American Colonies, 1700-1775, Nicholas Harp

Master's Theses or Doctor of Nursing Practice

This thesis began as an inquiry into a simple question. How did people in the American colonies talk about the food that they ate? This question led to a fascinating look into the social dynamics of the people living in eighteenth century America. Their own personal writings demonstrate how they understood their place in society through the food that they ate. Moreover, they often wrote about the way that other people ate in ways that alienated or discriminated against different ethnic groups. A look into the secondary historiography revealed that other historians had noticed this trend. However, very few addressed …

The Edge Of The World: An Examination Of The Wild West In California, 1840-1880, Chloe J. Cushing

Master's Theses

“The Edge of the World” revolves around the history of the Wild West in California through the lens of Richard Maxwell Brown’s Western War of Incorporation theory. Rather than being a mythology sensationalized by Hollywood and literature, for the Golden State, the Wild West was a very real and tangible part of its early-American era, characterized by U.S. imperialism, high murder rates, anti-authoritarianism, and other rampant forms of chaos that affected the state for generations. By examining the conditions and effects of the late Mexican period, the Gold Rush, Confederate sympathizers, and the Southern Pacific Railroad, this thesis highlights the …