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Thou Art Not Yet Dead: The Existential Struggle Of Indians In Eighteen-Century North America, I. B. Landry

Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History

The popular narrative of Indians in America typically has its genesis in the era of the Revolution. By pushing the scope of this narrative back only twenty years, one would find thriving indigenous population groups, contrary to the perception given to them in a story of America that begins with the War of Independence. By taking a traditionally neutral position, the Indians helped in maintaining a North American balance of power in every conflict preceding the Seven Years’ War. The wars ebbed and flowed according to the allegiances of the Indians. Not only would the Seven Years’ War be …

Uncle Sam Plays Matchmaker: Intimate Encounters, War Brides, And Marital Policy In The Vietnam War Era, Daniel P. Ward

Dissertations

During the Vietnam War era, thousands of American GIs married Southeast Asian women who immigrated to the United States together. While considerable scholarly attention has focused on the political and social dimensions of the Vietnam era sex work industry, the regulation of marriage and immigration policies for Vietnamese American couples provide new perspectives to explore. Although intimate encounters with local women also pervaded other twentieth century conflicts, the Vietnam War saw the American military implement a new system to screen and regulate war bride marriages. In doing so, Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) constructed the first interservice set of marriage …

Manual For Independence: How Democratic-Republicans Used The Memory Of The Revolution To Start The War Of 1812, Chloe Pellegrin

LSU Master's Theses

In its earliest form, the memory of the American Revolution was far from pure, riddled with partisan jabs and purposeful currents of present events. This, however, has received little attention even with the rise of memory studies within professional history. Scholars have addressed the popular memory of a variety of other pivotal moments from the Civil War to both World Wars. Revolutionary memory has been studied within the contexts of later eras, but almost never in the era immediately following the end of the war. Other scholars such as Alfred Young, Margot Minardy, and Michael McDonnell have all done work …

Tumult, Terror, And Tripping: The Roles Of Psychedelics And Radical Politics In The Counterculture, Daniel J. Melbert

The Purdue Historian

From the immense political upheaval of the Civil Rights Movement and anti-war protests to the advent of the hippie counterculture and its psychedelic aesthetic, the 1960s is commonly conceptualized as a significantly transformative period in American history, socially, culturally, and politically. While this is certainly an accurate observation, the political and cultural shifts that occurred within this period are typically approached as separate, if not disparate, segments within the development of the period. The counterculture is often approached solely within the confines of its art, aesthetics, bohemian lifestyle, and perhaps most ubiquitously, the use of psychedelic drugs. As a result, …

2025 O'Callahan Society Newsletter, O'Callahan Society, College Of The Holy Cross

O'Callahan Society Newsletters

This annual newsletter of the O'Callahan Society includes articles about the 2024 O'Callahan Society Fall Dinner. Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Schmiegel, United States Marine Corps (Retired) and Holy Cross Class of 1989 was the guest speaker. VADM Nancy S. Lacore, HC ‘90 was 2025 Annual Meeting Speaker. Unit News. Alumni News. Society News.

Beyond The Gray Ghost: John S. Mosby And The Power Of Legend, Kevin R. Youngberg

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Civil War generals are among the most celebrated figures of their time. In the post-Civil war era, many of these officers retreated to farms, and businesses and disappeared into obscurity. This was not the case with Colonel John Singleton Mosby, who quickly transformed into a figure whose legacy from the Civil war gave him a unique place in the American imagination as the legendary Gray Ghost of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. He lived until 1916, a remarkable fifty years filling those decades with a host of accomplishments in public service both at home and abroad. His legacy is complex, …

The Role Of Imagination In Archaeology: Linking Contemplation And Method At The Amache National Historic Site, Sami Zepponi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Archaeology is both a science and an interpretative process, blending material discovery with imagination to reconstruct past experiences. This research, conducted through the 2024 University of Denver Amache Field School, explores the archaeological imagination and the creative and cognitive engagement that shapes historical interpretation. Using Amache, a WWII Japanese American incarceration site, as a case study, this thesis examines how material culture, landscape modifications, and reflection inform archaeological understanding. This study explores how imagination connects tangible findings to cultural narratives by integrating community-based archaeology, place and landscape theory, and contemplative inquiry. Findings highlight imagination as essential to archaeology, enabling deeper …

Our Relentless Objectification Of Native Americans: As Exemplified By Louise Erdrich And Cherie Dimaline, Lena Kozubek

The Kennesaw Journal of Undergraduate Research

Indigenous communities relentlessly challenge the normalized commodification of their culture and beliefs. One way they actively address these oppressions is through storytelling. Their accounts educate readers and encourage them to re-frame modern perspectives and how stereotypes affect Native communities. Their stories are not a simple myth; instead, they serve as an active participant to combat actions that treat Indigenous people as an anomaly. We should treat Native Americans as human beings who invariably struggle with present-day degradations, commodification, and continual displacement. Indigenous authors reclaim their narrative by using their historical context and storytelling skills to dissect the parallels between fact …

Counter-Hegemony In The Captive State: Recasting Katrina’S Carceral Legacy Through Conjuncture, Joseph S. Muratore

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis traces the historical development and contemporary manifestations of carceral power in Louisiana, arguing that racialized systems of control—from slavery and convict leasing to mass incarceration—have been sustained through shifting alliances of political and economic elites. Using The Historic New Orleans Collection (HNOC) and its exhibit Captive State: Louisiana and the Making of Mass Incarceration as a foundational timeline, this study demonstrates how Bourbonism forged a regional bloc that institutionalized racial domination through incarceration and labor exploitation, later reconstituted through neoliberal policies of abandonment, privatization, and militarization. I chose to focus on Hurricane Katrina because its aftermath reflects many …

Emulating Empire: Washington’S Preoccupation With British Counterinsurgency In Malaya And U.S. Commitment To Vietnam, Wen-Qing Ngoei

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This essay examines how Washington’s deep preoccupation with the British-Malayan counterinsurgency tactics–tactics that routed the guerilla fighters of the Malayan Communist Party–shaped US commitment to Vietnam. This US preoccupation, stoked by Britain’s (and Malaya’s) promotion of their counterinsurgency knowledge to US leaders, also influenced the lessons that US analysts and thinkers absorbed from the United States’ defeat in Indochina. Most studies of British-Malayan counterinsurgency and its connection to the Vietnam War fixate upon debating the relevance of the former to the latter and how this bears on US failures in Indochina. However, this essay focuses on the understudied fervor with …

The Chumash War Of 1824: Revolution And Counterrevolution In The California Missions Santa Inés, Santa Barbara, And La Purísima, Joseph V. Payne

Master's Theses

In 1824, the Indigenous Chumash of Missions Santa Inés, Santa Barbara, and La Purísima de Concepción went to war against the settler-colonial system that bonded them to the mission lands and forced labor regime demanded by the Spanish Franciscan missionaries and compelled by Mexican military force in Alta California. The conflict lasted months and included violent battles and skirmishes at all three missions, the militant occupation and reclamation of La Purísima, a mass exodus to the interior of the territory, and the subsequent counterrevolutionary collaboration of the Spanish missionaries and Mexican military to return many (but not all) of the …

Coming Of Age In A Time Of Darkness: Young Southern White Women During The American Civil War, Kylie Wroot

History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

The American Civil War is one of the most researched eras in history, but that does not mean that research will ever be complete. Historians are always discovering aspects of the war that had been largely ignored. One emerging topic has been the lives of young women and their experiences during the conflict. James MacPherson has analyzed several aspects of the war, including why its history is still relevant today. Amy Murrell Taylor and James Marten have both researched family life and children’s experiences during the war. Other historians like Drew Gilpin Faust, Giselle Roberts, and Victoria Ott have focused …

From Essential To Expendable – Montagnards, Kurds, And U.S. Army Special Forces In Vietnam And Northern Iraq, Jake Brooks

Masters Theses, 2020-current

In the Vietnam and Iraqi conflicts, the U.S. Army Special Forces teamed up with indigenous ethnic monitories to bring the fight to all corners of the battle space, and to take advantage of their immense local knowledge and strategic locations. The Montagnards of Central Indochina and the Kurds in Northern Iraq allied with the Special Forces for a number of reasons: protection from their ruling governments, recognition for their movements for autonomy, increased access to better medicine and equipment, and the opportunity to strike back at their historical enemies. The Montagnards and Kurds taught the Green Berets how to better …

Establishment Of Six Flags Over The Deconstruction Of Sandtown, John Ely

Master's Theses

Development, both private and public, has played a crucial role in the knowledge that historians can take from the land, but the desire to build quickly ultimately destroyed many sites before they were properly studied. The Chattahoochee River, along with almost all the other rivers and streams in the Southeast, supported not only survival but civilization. Unfortunately, almost the entire catalog of scholarly sources regarding these places was written by men of European descent, and these writers rarely discuss the details regarding the fate of the sites that were destroyed in the name of industry. Sandtown was an almost mythic …

American Collusion With The Republic Of South Africa During The Angolan Civil War (1975-1990), Stuart W. Ledbetter

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Between 1948 and 1994, the Republic of South Africa enacted one of the most brutal white supremacist regimes in recent history, known as Apartheid. Across the world, nations pressured South Africa to end its racist legislature through economic sanctions, limited diplomatic contact, and non-cooperation with the government. The United States was one such nation to decry Apartheid since it stood against American values of equality and freedom. This all changed when the Angolan Civil War broke out in 1975, and South Africa stood as the primary neighboring anti-communist interventionist in the conflict. This research explores exactly why and how the …

Northern Humboldt Indians: History Of Humboldt County People And Places, Jerry Rohde

Trade & Scholarly Monographs

In what is now Humboldt County and southern Klamath County, seven Indian tribes made their home: the Mawenok, Whilkut, Tsnungwe, Hupa, Karuk, Yurok, and Wiyot. They arrayed themselves upon the land and sent their roots down into the earth, so that they had become as one with the place. Their villages were of long standing, and even their individual houses could sometimes be traced back, by name, for hundreds of years. In 1850, whites arrived on the shores to rage like a gale across the land. For 15 years the gale would sweep up the rivers and over the ridges …

Can't Women Kill?: Women, Violence, And Power In Nazi Germany, Kelly Ornelas

History Theses

This thesis examines the role of women as perpetrators of violence within the Nazi apparatus, challenging traditional narratives that depict them as passive supporters or victims of their circumstances. Through a Foucauldian analysis, it explores how ordinary German women were conditioned by Nazi propaganda, manipulated discourses, and social expectations to engage in acts of brutality, often without direct orders. Case studies, including Erna Petri and Ilse Koch illustrate how women actively participated in the mechanisms of state violence without rank or official status, raising critical questions about complicity and moral responsibility. This study interrogates the bounds of guilt, arguing that …

Rewriting The Frontier: The Impact Of Collective Memory On The Mythos Of Western Settlement, Kelly E. Kooper

Theses and Dissertations

Using Paul Cohen’s methodological approach in History in Three Keys, this thesis examines the construction and debunking of the myths of manifest destiny, the rugged individual frontiersman, and the “noble savage” Native American in the writing about, experience of, and representation of the settlement American West. First, it analyzes the evolution of the historiography from Frederick Jackson Turner to William Cronon. Then it examines the experiences of four families (the Grices, Grahams, Deems, and McCormicks) who settled in Iowa and Nebraska from 1850 to 1880. Lastly, it surveys various popular cultural celebrations of the West. Through this triple lens, this …

Firearm Trauma Across Time: Investigating Civil War Gunshot Trauma And Their Impact On Modern Forensic Analysis, Morgan K. Reeder

Department of Anthropology: Theses and Student Research

This thesis will examine the ballistic trauma caused by Civil War-era firearms and ammunition. These weapons, each with distinct characteristics, had a profound impact on the nature of combat and the resulting injuries. By investigating how these firearms’ ammunition interacted with human bone structure, this research will offer a detailed analysis of the trauma these weapons produced.

This research intends to answer several key research questions. First, how did the different types of Civil War firearms affect skeletal remains? Second, what are the key characteristics of gunshot trauma caused by these firearms in terms of bone fracturing and fragmentation, and …

"Troublesome Medicine Man": Representations Of The Sword Bearer Incident In Newspaper Coverage, Cara Sue Swaim

History Undergraduate Honors Theses

Newspaper coverage of Native Americans during the nineteenth century had an “artistic bias,” or a tendency to emphasize action, danger, and treachery as a part of the “Indian formula.” This meant that vast amounts of journalistic zeal was spent on instances of conflict and tension between tribes, within tribes, between tribes and white settlers, or between tribes and the U.S. military, while times of peace and instances of cooperation received miniscule amounts of attention. This was largely motivated by a desire to justify American western expansion and the need to “civilize” Native groups. This “Indian formula” was also applied in …

The Adirondack Frontier: Reclaiming A Vital Role In Shaping The Nation, Peter Nelson

Master's Theses

The traditional version of Adirondack history from the revolutionary period to the middle of the nineteenth century, which portrays the region as unexplored primeval wilderness, is nineteenth-century romantic mythology. It ignores thousands of years of Indigenous habitation and misrepresents early Euro-American activity in the region as well. In fact, from the earliest days of colonial exploration of North America until the middle of the 19th-Century, New York's Adirondack region was a dynamic American frontier, as important in shaping the destiny of the nation as the Northwest Territory or, later, the West. Activities in the Adirondack frontier contributed to the decimation …

Displacement And Dreams: The Loss Of Home In A New South Town, Dora Helen Impson

All Theses

Despite much research regarding the experience of white city dwellers of Greenville, South Carolina, in the twentieth century, telling the stories of the city’s Black neighborhoods still remains to be done. This thesis chronicles the Black neighborhood of Little Texas, which was found northeast of the city’s central business district from its inception in the 1870s to its demise in the 1970s. By situating the city’s efforts to restrict and limit Black spaces within the historical framework of nationwide efforts of residential segregation ordinances, racially restrictive covenants, and city planning, this thesis argues that Greenville followed many other cities in …

Thompson’S Rifle Battalion: The Original Unit Of The Army Of The United Colonies (Now The United States Regular Army), John A. Bonin

Books, Monographs & Collaborative Studies

©2025 John A. Bonin

Although 1775 is indisputably the birth year of the US Army, two events occurred on June 14 of that year to which the Army can credit its birthday. One is the adoption by the Continental Congress of the collective militia forces from several colonies outside Boston to form a Continental Army, of which Congress appointed George Washington the commander in chief on June 15, 1775. In addition, the US Regular Army officially dates its beginning to June 14, 1775, when the Second Continental Congress directed 10 companies of expert riflemen to be raised immediately in Pennsylvania, …

Windmills As Symbols Of Economic Development And Progress In West Texas From 1860 To 2011, Stacy Taylor

Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History

The outline of a windmill against the sky is a popular image of Texas found on many forms of media including illustrations, photographs, and other print media. How did the image of a windmill become symbolic to Texas? The purpose of this paper is to determine how and why windmills became an important symbol representing the Texas Plains. Methodology used included analysis of scientific information to explore the geography of Texas, which demonstrated why windmills were needed in West Texas. Critical analysis of journals and books were performed to determine the history of the introduction and evolving use of windmills …

In Victory And In Infamy: An Examination Of America’S Revolutionary Struggle Through The Parallel Careers Of Colonel Peter Gansevoort And Major General Benedict Arnold, Wyatt Golden

Senior Honors Theses

The parallel careers of Peter Gansevoort and Benedict Arnold in Washington’s Continental Army during the American Revolution highlight the important role played by Washington’s junior officers in the success of the Revolutionary effort, while emphasizing the personal relationships forged in the crucible of that war. As their commands intersected in the crucial campaign seasons of 1776, 1777, and 1780, Gansevoort and Arnold developed a close personal relationship as each individually, with the aid of the other, played key roles in the retreats, victories, and betrayals that defined each of those respective campaigns. By examining Gansevoort’s largely forgotten career, an entirely …

“If, In That Strife, ‘T Were Given To See / The Glory Of Thermopylae”: Connections To The Classics In The Alamo And The Texas Revolution, Austin M. Pritchett

SPARK Symposium Presentations

This historical research paper argues that connections to classical tradition were made in the rhetoric and symbolism of the Texas Revolution as a means of creating a national identity as Texans and as a way of garnering support from the Unites States for their cause.

Having established the background of the Texas Revolution of 1835-1836, the famous Battle of the Alamo on March 6, 1836, and the Battle of Thermopylae in ancient Greece, I bring forth examples from primary sources of important figures using comparisons to classical history. The classical connections made in those writings were used to justify their …

Blood In The Snow The Mormon-Timpanogos Conflict At Battle Creek, Nathan Hale

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

On March 5th, 1849, a group of 36 Mormon men surrounded the Native American camp of a small band of Timpanogos at Battle Creek, which is present-day Pleasant Grove, Utah. The Mormon militia suspected this band of cattle rustling, and a conflict ensued that resulted in the shooting and killing of four Timpanogos men. During the battle, the women and children of the native camp took cover and endured exposure to the cold elements and frigid water of Battle Creek. Six days later, these same women and children arrived in Salt Lake City. Among the group of Native American survivors …

“To Inherit God Himself?” The Metaphysical Transformation Of Man As Theorized In Cotton Mather’S Biblia Americana, Michael Green

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

The tumult of the Enlightenment was enormous, not least in its impact on theologians of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Biblical exegesis (explanation of a scriptural text based on its own historical and cultural circumstances) of the Reformation that idealized interpretations grounded in unerring prophetic figures were suddenly and forcefully subjected to the tide of historical literalism propagated by major intellectual figures such as Hugo Grotius and Baruch Spinoza. They and their cohort believed that the Bible should be treated as a historical source and its merits scrutinized based on its literal accuracy

Whistleblowers: A Maya Narration On The Participation Of The Dead In The Cycle Of Life And Death, Emma Belnap

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

There is a common saying in modern American culture inspired by opera and the drudgery with which people view it. As the maxim goes, “It is not over until the fat lady sings.” If the Maya were to have their own variation on that saying, it may perhaps go, “Life is not over until the whistle is in the grave.” At burial sites on Jaina Island, an island near Campeche, Mexico rich with Maya history, hundreds of sculpted whistles have been found in graves, depicting various gods, animals, and humans.1 These objects give invaluable insight into the beliefs and practices …

William T. Sherman And The Union's 'Hard War' Approach In 1864-1865, Lori L. Infanzon

GLI MA in American History Student Works

This research is a historiography of the extent to which Sherman's actions in 1864-1865 represented a significant shift to a 'hard war' approach utilized by the Union army. Upon review of contemporary accounts, scholarship from the World Wars period, and scholarship from the 1960s to the present, this paper concludes that the scope and scale of Sherman's actions in 1864-1865 represented a significant escalation in the usage of hard war tactics designed to secure Lincoln's election 1864, accelerate the ending of the war, and dramatically revolutionize Southern society.