Digital Commons Network^™

The Early Beats: Humanity And Machinery, James A. Winders

Honors Theses

The beatnik has been a favorite character in American films and television in recent years. Somewhere in the lost shuffle of Jerry Lewis movies is found a scene containing typical Hollywood treatment of the bohemian of the 1950's. A "square," i.e., a "normal" person, finds himself in a smoky tomb-like cafe featuring the props necessary to represent a "beatnik scene:" expresso coffee, unwashed, bearded men wearing sweatshirts, dungarees, and sneakers accompanied by classic beatnik "chicks" (female bohemians) with long, straight hair, an abundance of dark eye shadow, perhaps sunglasses, and, of course, they are clad entirely in black. Without fail, …

Shaw's Comic Tone : From Laughter To The Broken Harp String, R. K. Thomas

Honors Theses

George Bernard Shaw's literary career lasted over seventy years. He wrote prolifically. The most complete collection of his work, the Ayot St. Lawrence Edition, runs to over thirty-one volume, yet it is not all inclusive. His efforts were always motivated by the desire to expand and expound his social and political philosophy. Although the canon of Shavian criticism approaches his motives from a wide of variety of angles and avenues, Shaw singled out "passion of pure political Weltverbesserungwahn (worldbettermentcrase)" as his "own devouring malady." Defining his artistic objectives as conveying a "feeling" to an audience and making "them sympathetic with …

The Rebellion Of Tyrone, Rosanna Painter

Honors Theses

Tyrone was not successful in his goal of preservation of Gaelic traditions and institutions. Irelandwas a medieval and barbaric state and in competin gwith the English the Irish were dealin gwith a well-governed, well-organized, unifie dstate. With the defeat of Tyron, "Old Ireland" was ended. No longer would any Gaelic traditions persist in the social or political systems of Ireland. The authority of the chiefs was gone. The government at Dublin and Englissh common law would prevail. The Tudor conques was complete.

The Rise And Fall Of The Farmers' Alliance Of Virginia, Nancy Byrd Manning

Honors Theses

The purpose of this paper is to trace the quick rise and

equally sudden fall of the Virginia State Farmers' Alliance. Emphasis

was given to the unique socio-economic conditions prevalent in Southern

Virginia during the latter part of the nineteenth century which forced

individual farmers into cooperation, and to the vacillating political

situation which precipitated the death of the Virginia Farmers' Alliance.

The structures and activities of the Alliance received particular attention

because they were extremely important in attracting and maintaining

membership.

"What Else Is There?" : Surrealism And The Love Of Life In Catch-22 /, Dobbs Eric

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Party Lines Drawn By The Spectator, Emily W. Zehmer

Honors Theses

The concept of political parties as they existed in England during the reign of Queen Anne has been the source of considerable conflict among Stuart historians. The traditional view, postulated by G. M. Trevelyan, is that the Tory and Whig parties were organized in the 1670's as outgrowths of the Cavalier and Roundhead factions of the Civil War, changing very little in the process. The Tories were a "solid phalanx of squires and parsons," whereas the Whigs were united not by class or vocation but by their agreement on various political issues: religious toleration for all Protestants, war with France …

An Ecological Study Of Coliform Bacteria Associated With Vaccinium Corymbosum, Harry C. Bittenbender

Honors Theses

Recent research has shown that there are coliform populations associated with the cultivated high bush blueberry, Vaccinium corynbosum. This study is aimed at determining the ecology of these colofirms, as they are related to blueberry production from the farm to the warehouse. Tests will be made to identify the Salmonella group, those associated with "food poisoning." Total bacterial coliform counts will also be made. This paper is primarily an ecological study of the coliforms found on blueberry farms near Grand Junction, though fruit samples were taken from all warehouses of the M.B.G.A.

"The Beau Ideal Of A Soldier" : Brigadier General Charles Dimmock, Eugene M. Sanchez-Saavedra

Honors Theses

Charles Dimmock (1800-1863), the subject of this biography, played "many parts" in his lifetime; Soldier, Educator, Hero, Businessman, Engineer, Promoter, Family man and Civil Servant. A northerner by birth, Dimmock adopted the state of Virginia as his mistress and place of residence and he devoted the last twenty years of his life to the state's military and civil development.

With Richmond, Virginia, in the 1840's and 50's, as his stage, Dimmock, who was certainly the hero of his own biography, worked with an astonishing variety of supporting players, ranging from the top civil and military leaders in America to the …

Background, Data And Biographical Information On The 104 First Jamestown Settlers, Catharine H. Ryland

Honors Theses

Permanent colonization called for the common man as well as the adventurer, to whom life in the old England had become, for some reason or another, joyless and burdensome, and who welcomed the opportunity that new lands offered to better his worldly estate. Colonization required leaders and capital, but it demanded people as well -- men, women and children -- to build homes, till the soil, and provide for the coming generations. Without colonists of this type, settlement was bound to be costly and permanance was never assured. Why they came, how they were organized, who were in the first …

Senator William E. Borah's Dry Campaign : Its Effect On The Presidential Election Of 1928, Emily White Zehmer

Honors Theses

Like many of its predecessors, the campaign for the Presidency of the United States in 1928 began months before candidates were nominated and ballots were cast. The Republican Party found itself without a candidate when President Coolidge announced late in the summer of 1927 that he would not seek re-election in the following year. There was a slight scramble within Republican ranks for the nomination. Among those considered were Senator Charles G. Curtis of Kansas, majority floor leader, who subsequently was elected Vice-President; Senator William E. Borah, the Idaho Progressive whose role in the campaign is explored herein; Dr. Nicholas …

The Southern Attitude Towards Texas, 1844-1846, Kenneth H. Clevenger

Honors Theses

The purpose of this paper is to study the Southern attitude towards Texas between 1844 and 1846. To understand the range of Southern opinions it is necessary to realize that Texas was a political issue in national affairs at this time, and national politics were extremely fractious during this era. Both Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun had a hand in the in the controversy as did the lesser luminaries of the day, Presidents John Tyler, James K. Polk and Martin Van Buren. Because some national overview is vital for a proper perspective on the problem, the first section of …

The Case Of Margery Kempe, Mary Marshall Taylor

Honors Theses

There are few today who would consider Margery Kempe as an individual displaying characteristics of a normal, well-adjusted person. As a woman and representative of her era, Margery is atypical. In W. A. Pantin's words: "Margery was of course abnormal in several ways, but she was an abnormal specimen of what was a large and familiar class of devout lay people...," one whose spiritual experiences were realized in the fifteenth century, but who is a fourteenth-century product. As a mystic, David Knowles evaluates her as the "less highly respectable Margery Kempe." Among her townsmen her identity is not especially clear, …

The Effects Of Repetitive Stimulation On The Aggressive Behavior Of The Fighting Cock: A Test For Habituation, Howard E. Farris, Thomas W. Cey

Honors Theses

A fighting cock was repeatedly presented with its own mirror image. The rate of aggressive display and attack behavior elicited by the mirror rapidly decreased to zero. Subsequent exposure of the experimental subject to a live target bird was found to be sufficient to reinstate responding to the mirror. However, upon repeated exposure to the mirror image alone aggressive responding quickly decreased again to zero.

Richmond's Reaction To The Depression Of 1837, Barbara Cahoon

Honors Theses

Depressions affect people and institutions in a variety of ways, from leveling the wealth until a recovery is impossible to showing the weaknesses inherent in the system, thus enabling workable solutions to be a result. The economic emergency of 1837 was such a phenomenon. Much has been written about its effects on a national and state level, but localities have been slighted. All do not necessarily react the same, and consequently the aim of this paper is to show Richmond’s particular response to her poor market conditions, and the political developments of the havoc that occurred from 1837-1842.

The bulk …

Richmond And Virginia In The 1867 Election For A Constitutional Convention, Nelson Lankford

Honors Theses

The purpose of this paper is to present the reaction of Richmond's conservative white newspapers to the election in October 1867 for a constitutional convention. The three papers include the overtly racist Enquirer, the moderate Whig, and the Dispatch, which claimed a larger circulation than the other papers combined. All three newspapers, however, considered the Negro to be inferior and feared radical reconstruction as the ultimate disaster for Virginia. The press unanimously favored maintaining white supremacy and editorialized for the organization of conservative white opposition to the radical party in the October election.

Dairy Farms And Agricultural Prosperity In Virginia, 1890-1915, Harold E. Conover

Honors Theses

In the two-hundred-fifty plus years from the Jamestown landing to the first shots of the Civil War a careless, staple crop agriculture wrought havoc on thousands of acres in Tidewater and Piedmont Virginia. A Virginian looked around him in the Spring of 1859 and was moved to write: "Every county of Virginia from the Seaboard to the head of tidewater now present a standing monument against the ruthless destroyer tobacco, in a wilderness of piney old fields and gullied hillsides..."

The Unity Of A Shropshire Lad, Robert B. Brown

Honors Theses

To understate the case, one might point out that there are those readers whose initial reaction to A Shropshire Lad is that it is a disunified bundle of poems. I assert, however, that this judgement should not endure, for when this volume of poetry is viewed in a more critical perspective there arises a deeper understanding and, consequently, a more rewarding appreciation. Moreover, I assert that it is in this final analysis alone that A Shropshire Lad emerges in its proper perspective.

In addition, it is the contention of this thesis that this unity may be viewed through at least …

Virginia's Dissension Toward The Mexican War, Angela Lilly

Honors Theses

The Mexican War was not a nationally popular war. Dissent came in various forms from opposition to extension of slave territory through the annexation of Texas, to fear of increased Executive power. The majority of dissension in Virginia came from the Whig party as the largest anti- administration faction.

Thus, I trie dto measure popular dissent by examining the "mouthpiece" of this opposition party, the Richmond Daily Whig. In trying to narrow my topic, I chose for the limits of my paper the period from Fall, 1845 to the war declaration of May 11, 1846 and the repercussions immediately following …

Robert Penn Warren's Brother To Dragons : A Poem To Fit Its Theme, Marjorie Scott

Honors Theses

Robert Penn Warren is a writer obsessed with ideas, to the extent of spending most of his literary life searching for a form that would enable him to express them. Most of his searching has taken place within the framework of the novel form: in fact, within that form he has tried eight different combinations of characters, plot, and point of view in an effort to find an arrangement that would say what he so urgently wanted to say. Judging from the results, however, it was always what he wanted to say that interested him more than the actual mechanics …

The Electoral College: Retention, Reform, Or Abolition?, Gary E. Brown

Honors Theses

Several Presidential elections during our history have shown that the electoral college machine is a crude invention that has never been "well-oiled" and two elections within the last decade are vivid proof of this problem.

Fourteenth Century Normans In West Africa, Kaye Louise Centers

Honors Theses

During the seventeenth century, a legend grew among the French which claims that during the reign of Charles V of France, a group of industrious and daring sailors of Normandy sailed to northwest Africa and then into the unknown waters of West Africa. By 1383 these Normans had reached the Gold Coast and had established a flourishing trade with the people there. This story seems very remarkable because it was not until the mid-fifteenth century that the Portuguese,under the direction and guidance of Prince Henry, ventured for the first time into West African waters and not until 1*4-86 that they …

Factors Influencing American Opinion For And Against Recognition Of The Soviet Union, 1928-1933, Nelson Lankford

Honors Theses

The purpose of this paper is to present the reaction of Richmond's conservative white newspapers to the election in October 1967 for a constitutional convention. The three papers include the overtly racist Enquirer, the moderate Whig, and the Dispatch, whcih claimed a larger circulation than the other papers combined. All three newspapers, however, considered the Negro to be inferior and feared radical reconstruction as the ultimate disaster for Virginia. The press unanimously favored maintaining white supremacyand editorialized for the organization of conservative white opposition to the radical party in the October election.

The Agony Of Lindsay Almond : Virginia's Transition From "Massive Resistance" To "Freedom Of Choice", John G. Mizell Jr

Honors Theses

An analysis of the events in Virginia resulting from the Brown desegregation decision of 1954 has justifiably been the subject of considerable study. The importance of this period of "massive resistance" to integrated schools should not be minimized because the South looked primarily to the Old Dominion for leadership. However, studies undertaken thus far have concentrated principally on the initial reaction of Virginia to the decision and the formation of the maze of obstructionist measures contrived to prevent integration, while largely neglecting the important aspect of the state's use of the "freedom of choice" policy in Virginia's schools.

An examination …

Henry Parker's Doctrine Of The Consent Of The Governed /, Barbara Cahoon

Honors Theses

The role of Parliament in England's history has been one of interest to historians for centuries. The background and origin of a rule based on the people's consent has been attributed to many people in England's past. I hope to show that one of the first men who developed this theory of government which was later taken up by Locke and other philosophers was Henry Parker. The people choosing their types of government and laws was a new idea that few had voiced. Parker writing in the 1640's saw the tendency of government evolving to Parliamentary sovereignty, not monarchy.

I …

Tobacco And Soil Relationships In Tidewater Virginia To 1670, Harold E. Conover

Honors Theses

The seventeenth century was the golden age of Virginia's Tidewater tobacco industry. The virgin soils had not yet been exploited by a careless agriculture. Before 1670, adventurous men had not planted west of the Fall Line, where superior tobacco land waited quietly. The shadow of chronic debt to his English factor had not yet fallen on the Virginia planter. Fortunes were still to be drawn from the rich earth; there was promise in the golden leaf for ambitious pioneers. The tobacco kingdom was young, and it was Spring in Tidewater.

The Levellers' View Of History, Margaret Trowe

Honors Theses

The name "Levellers" applies to a political organization which functioned as a potent force in the politics of England in the late 1640s. During this period a fierce struggle for power was being fought, partly on an ideological level. The fighting of the first civil war had ended in 1646; the army of Parliament had defeated the royalist forces and had captured the King. In the wake of military victory, the various factions among the victors began to vie for power. In 1645 and 1646 tracts supporting the establishment of a representative democracy, the guarantee of civil and religious freedoms, …

Loyalists And Rebels : The Election Of 1928 In Virginia, Susan Parker

Honors Theses

The election of 1928 was a unique event in the political history of Virginia. For the first time since Reconstruction the state went Republican in a national election, Herbert Hoover getting 53.9% of the total vote. This was not the beginning of a definite trend because the state did not go Republican in a presidential election again until 1952. The hold of the Democratic Party over the people appeared as strong as ever on both the local and national levels after this bolt.

Since the Civil War the Republican Party in the South had been identified with Reconstruction, emancipation, and …

Laud's Influence On The Star Chamber From 1630-1637, Leonard I. Sweet

Honors Theses

If the Virginia denominations could have forecast President Lincoln's request that the Commonwealth supply 2,340 troops to enforce the suppression of her sister southern states, unanimity would have prevailed from 1859 onward, and this paper would be unnecessary except for a single statement: The religious elements in Virginia endorsed secession. Although many of the clergy professed gifts of prophecy, their vision was eternal rather than secular. A religious calling meant exemplary stewardship as God's vassal, and as such their interests and concerns transcended political affairs. The men of the cloth kept abreast of current event,s but, as God's viceregents, felt …

The Immediate Reaction To The Nat Turner Rebellion (August - November, 1831), Rebecca Saunders

Honors Theses

Being primarily concerned with the safety of their wives and children, however, they felt it necessary to secure their protection. This was done in a variety of ways. Some in the grip of terror fled to the woods with only those provisions they could carry by hand, remaining there for days at the time. Others congregated in public places such as Cross Keys, Jerusalem and the surrounding county seats of Virginia and North Carolina. A letter from Jerusalem on August twenty-forth described the situation there: "Every house, room, and corner in this place is filled with women and children, driven …

The Virginia Resolutions Of 1798 : A Study Of The Contemporary Debate, Alice J. Retzer

Honors Theses

The Virginia Resolutions of 1798 have been praised as a defense of the basic freedoms of person, speech, and press and equally denounced as an early precedent for the principles of states rights, nullification and interposition. Involved in the crisis which arose over the Alien and Sedition Laws were such outstanding Virginians and national figures as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Taylor, William Branch Giles, John Marshall, Patrick Henry, and Henry Lee. Without major emphasis upon the contributions or activities of these statesmen or the historical implications of the Resolutions, the purpose of this paper is to examine the contemporary …