Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Review Of Amenta And Caren, Rough Draft Of History, Karen Miller Russell

Journal of 20th Century Media History

Review of Rough Draft of History

Broadcast History Gaps When Archival Material Exists: Inserting Peg Lynch And Ethel And Albert Into Sitcom History, Lauren Bratslavsky

Journal of 20th Century Media History

Lucy and Desi. Burns and Allen. Ozzie and Harriet. Ethel and Albert? The first three television couples tend to be the familiar husband-wife pairs that typify American 1950s sitcoms. These characters and their namesake programs, along with the Andersons in Father Knows Best and the Cleavers in Leave it to Beaver, are credited as templates for the domestic sitcom genre, where the narrative logic oscillates between morality lessons and outlandish plots to escape domestic life. When we study or reminisce about 1950s television, Ethel and Albert and their namesake program do not readily come to mind. However, the popularity …

License To Spill: Credentialing In 20th Century Journalism Education, Nate Floyd

Journal of 20th Century Media History

This study begins with a war of words between industry insiders and journalism educators in 1947 regarding the establishment of the American Council on Education for Journalism (ACEJ). Although the accrediting agency for journalism education was still a year away from announcing its first list of accredited programs, discussions surrounding how to elevate the status of journalism and regulate entry into the profession had been ongoing since at least 1923, involving metropolitan newspaper editors and journalism educators. This study explores a plan formulated during the interwar period, involving metropolitan newspaper editors affiliated with the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) …

Anthology On Racism, The Black Experience, And Privilege, Marshall University Society Of Black Scholars, Marshall University Office Of Intercultural Affairs

Marshall Books

RACISM IN YOUR LIFE

The depth, impact, and experience of “racism” in our personal lives is a story that we do not often tell. These are predominantly private matters, only occasionally shared and with only certain people in our lives. Unfortunately, many people in our world are unaware of its full existence and do not know the truth about the experiences of racism in our daily lives. Without knowledge of these truths, society, including university leadership, cannot make adequate advancements to address these demoralizing experiences of people of color. In this anthology, writings on this subject will bring clarity, truth, …

Sandra Clements, Kelli Johnson

Oral Histories – NPS AACR Civil Rights In Appalachia Grant

Kelli Johnson conducting an oral history interview with Sandra Clements.

This oral history is part of the National Park Service African American Civil Rights History and Appalachia Grant Program.

Anna Belle King, Kelli Johnson

Oral Histories – NPS AACR Civil Rights In Appalachia Grant

Kelli Johnson conducting an oral history interview with Anna Belle King.

This oral history is part of the National Park Service African American Civil Rights History and Appalachia Grant Program.

Shirley Ann Williams And Joseph L. Williams Jr. -- Part 2, Kelli Johnson

Oral Histories – NPS AACR Civil Rights In Appalachia Grant

Part 2 of Kelli Johnson's oral history interview with Shirley Ann and Joseph L. Williams Jr..

This oral history is part of the National Park Service African American Civil Rights History and Appalachia Grant Program.

Review Of Liberia, South Carolina: An African American Appalachian Community, By John M. Coggeshall, Cicero Fain

History Faculty Research

Examining 150 years of history of a small, rural African American community, John M. Coggeshall’s Liberia, South Carolina: An African American Appalachian Community, contributes to recent studies elevating Black Appalachian voices, perspectives, and cultures previously historically elided. Located in Pickens County in the Blue Ridge region of western South Carolina, Liberia, like a lot of rural communities, exists less “as a legally defined entity and more a culturally defined area of recognized neighborly ties.”

Shirley Ann Williams And Joseph L. Williams Jr. -- Part 1, Kelli Johnson

Oral Histories – NPS AACR Civil Rights In Appalachia Grant

Part 1 of Kelli Johnson's oral history interview with Shirley Ann and Joseph L. Williams Jr..

This oral history is part of the National Park Service African American Civil Rights History and Appalachia Grant Program.

William "Bill" Austin Smith Sr., Kelli Johnson

Oral Histories – NPS AACR Civil Rights In Appalachia Grant

Kelli Johnson conducting an oral history interview with Bill Smith.

This oral history is part of the National Park Service African American Civil Rights History and Appalachia Grant Program.

Arthur "Billy" Leonard Pegram Jr., Kelli Johnson

Oral Histories – NPS AACR Civil Rights In Appalachia Grant

Kelli Johnson conducting an oral history interview with Billy Pegram.

Mr. Pegram is know as Billy Pegram.

This oral history is part of the National Park Service African American Civil Rights History and Appalachia Grant Program.

Marcia Lynn Hoard Williams, Kelli Johnson

Oral Histories – NPS AACR Civil Rights In Appalachia Grant

Kelli Johnson conducting an oral history interview with Marcia Williams.

This oral history is part of the National Park Service African American Civil Rights History and Appalachia Grant Program.

“Fortunate Art”: Short-Writing And Two Of Its Practitioners In Colonial New England, David Powers

Sermon Studies

Following the publication of Timothie Bright’s Characterie: An Art of shorte, swifte and secrete writing by Character in 1588, a spate of books on shorthand appeared in England. This technology echoed long-forgotten methods which had developed centuries before, while providing fresh techniques for composing and recording spoken speech. From their very beginnings these new systems proved especially applicable to religious purposes, though they also found academic, legal, and governmental applications. Clergy from those centuries left hundreds of “short-writing” manuscripts which are as yet untranscribed.

This article describes the principles behind “short-writing” as exemplified in two major systems in use in …

American Mythology: How Storytelling Shapes Modern Cultural Perceptions, Kristin Maynard

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This thesis will examine the American storytelling tradition, paying particular attention to American folktales and legends that arose as the nation expanded westward, such as the stories of Paul Bunyan, John Henry, Billy the Kid, etc. This text will utilize a lens of European narrative tradition (especially those which lent themselves to the written records of oral fairy tales and folktales) and trace the cultural significance and social purpose of these formative American stories. I will discuss the reasons why we so readily recognize the echoes of outside narrative traditions in American storytelling and the ethical implications of these narratives …

0074: Letters Received By The Office Of The Adjutant General [Microfilm], 1876-1896, Marshall University Special Collections

Guides to Manuscript Collections

These sixteen microfilm reels contain correspondence relating to military operations in the Departments of the Platte and Dakota against the Sioux tribes ("Sioux War Papers"), 1876-96. Letters are organized by date of receipt and include materials received between 1876 and 1896.

Be A Man: Childhood, Masculinity, Mental Hygiene, And The Asylum In The 1950'S, Emily Lonna Miller

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This project studies the use of mental hygiene films in the 1950s to understand the American ideal of gender, sex roles, and mental health. Focusing specifically on masculinity, this project shows that psychologists and psychiatrists of the mid-twentieth century helped to define what it meant to be a real man in America. Sources for this research included mental hygiene films, psychological studies and articles from the 1950s, and news broadcasts. Upon examination of these sources, it becomes clear that mental health specialists were concerned with the development of correct masculinity in male children and becoming the modern doctors that could …

The Cape Fear Ran Red: Memory Of The Wilmington Race Riot And Coup D'État Of 1898, Jacob Michael Thomas

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

On November 10, 1898 the city of Wilmington erupted in racial violence as the members of the white population massacred anywhere from twenty-five to a hundred of the black citizenry. The result of the Wilmington Race Riot was the reassertion of white supremacy in North Carolina and a flip in Wilmington’s population, as whites became the majority. This paper will argue that the events of the Wilmington Race Riot and Coup D’état came about from the direct interference of Wilmington’s white elite along with outside interference from Democratic Party Leaders across the state of North Carolina as well as the …

The "Noble Savage" In American Music And Literature, 1790-1855, Jacob Mathew Somers

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

In the aftermath of the War of 1812, America entered a period of unprecedented territorial expansion, economic growth, and political unity. During this time American intellectuals, writers, and musicians began to contemplate the possibility of a national high culture to match the country’s glorious social and political achievements. Newly founded periodicals urged American authors and artists to adopt national themes and materials to replace those imported from abroad, and for the first time Americans began producing their own literary, artistic, and musical works on a previously inconceivable scale. Though American writers and composers explored a wide range of “national themes,” …

Missing Mother: The Female Protagonist's Regression To The Imaginary Order In Shirley Jackson's The Haunting Of Hill House, The Sundial, And We Have Always Lived In The Castle, Julie Ann Baker

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This study examines the psyches of the female protagonists from three of Shirley Jackson’s Gothic novels: Eleanor Vance in The Haunting of Hill House, Aunt Fanny Halloran in The Sundial, and Merricat Blackwood in We Have Always Lived in the Castle. A psychoanalytic and feminist reading is applied to the texts to elucidate the characters’ rejection of the Symbolic Order and regression to the Imaginary Order, and Lacan’s theories of the Desire of the Mother and objet petit a are also applied to the texts to further delineate this regression. Julia Kristeva’s work regarding the lost object of the mother …

The Power To Overcome: The Resistance And Resiliency Of Black Motherhood, Nathan Full

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Motherhood is not a monolithic experience. The intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and class are integral facets that influence and control how one practices maternity, especially in a white hegemonic state. Further, control and choice serve as contributing factors, influencing the level of control women have over entering maternity and how a mother claims ties to her offspring. With these intersectional factors and control measures combined, motherhood is a complicated matter, one that influences how women practice maternity. The practice of motherhood is influenced by race, with black women experiencing a historical struggle in their relationships with motherhood. These difficulties …

A Cartographic History Of Huntington, West Virginia, 1871-1903, Brooks Bryant

Manuscripts

Excerpt:

Maps provide a visual representation of the space that surrounds us, revealing how streets, towns, cities, states and countries developed physical boundaries. Plotting change over time through maps allows people to study and reflect on the environment leading to a better understanding of spatial reality. Just like any other primary source, maps are a creation of their social and cultural context conveying certain details while omitting others.

What I’M Reading: Harper Lee’S 2 Novels, Jerome A. Gilbert

President's Research and Writings

Last fall, shortly after it was published, I read Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, and this summer I reread her classic To Kill a Mockingbird. The controversy around Watchman intrigued me. I saw the differences in the books mainly as the change between the perspectives of the young Scout and the adult Scout (aka Jean Louise). Unlike some, I saw the Watchman as an honest book reflecting the complicated reality of white America in the Jim Crow era.

"Or This Whole Affair Is A Failure": A Special Treasury Agent's Observations Of The Port Royal Experiment, Port Royal, South Carolina, April To May, 1862, Michael Edward Scott Emett

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This thesis covers two critical months (April and May, 1862) during the Port Royal Experiment, which took place during the Civil War in the Sea Islands of South Carolina. This abolitionist-influenced experiment has been enriched by numerous primary sources from a range of people: military officials, General Superintendents of the Treasury, abolitionists and educators. However, this topic has been missing one important source: Special Treasury Agents. These men implemented the orders of various groups involved with the Experiment. The unpublished papers of one such agent, James Severance, provides a new depth in Port Royal analysis. This firsthand account shows the …

"Let Us Bury And Forget:" Civil War Memory And Identity In Cabell County, West Virginia, 1865-1915, Seth Adam Nichols

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This thesis covers the events of the Civil War in Cabell County, West Virginia, and how those events were remembered by the county’s residents in the decades after the war. It provides a brief look at the early development of the county and how its inhabitants sought to exploit the county’s topography in order to facilitate commercial investment in the region. Cabell Countians were deeply divided and several skirmishes between Union and Confederate forces produced a time of terror and hardship. When the war was over, Cabell Countians sought a return to normality and to renew projects that might bring …

Buffalo Soldier, Deserter, Criminal: The Remarkably Complicated Life Of Charles Ringo, Cicero Fain

History Faculty Research

This case study chronicles the remarkably complicated life of Charles Ringo who served nearly two enlistments as a Buffalo Soldier before deserting and embarking on a life of petty crime. It details his military service, his nomadic occupational life, his marriage, his acquittal of two sets of murders--one of his stepsons in West Virginia, the other of a white married couple in Illinois, and the assistance of white authorities who intervened to save and protect Ringo from the predations of angry mobs and racist courts. It situates Ringo’s exploits within the oppositional/alternative nature of African American working-class life, the failure …

Navigating With Harriet Quimby, Rachael Peckham

English Faculty Research

My maternal grandmother Ruth never missed an episode of the game show Jeopardy! One night in 2008, while I was working on my dissertation about a long-forgotten aviatrix with whom my family and I share connections, Grandma Ruth called to tell me about a Jeopardy! clue she had just heard: "The first woman to fly across the English Channel." My grandmother was reserved and soft-spoken, but I imagine her slapping the armrests of the recliner, disturbing the outstretched cat at her side, and beating all three contestants to the buzzer: "Who is Harriet Quimby?"--the subject of my dissertation.

Terror, Hospitality And The Gift Of Death In Morrison’S Beloved, Puspa Damai

English Faculty Research

The “us versus them” narrative still pre-dominates the analysis of terrorism in the West, which invariably associates “them” with terrorism. Toni Morrison’s hauntingly memorable novel – Beloved – provides a radically different and historically grounded view of terror and terrorism in the West. The novel not only releases us from the “us versus them” paradigm by demonstrating America’s intimacy with terror, it also enables us to examine terror and terrorism from the perspective of a gendered and ethnic subject who subverts the easy categorization of “us” and “them” or civilized and terrorist. Following Jacques Derrida’s contemplations on death and terror, …

Mike & Molly -- An Other World, Maureen Elizabeth Johnson

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This thesis explores the impact of the television show Mike & Molly on the modern debate related to fat in America. The thesis uses the work of Michel Foucault as well as disability scholars such as Lennard Davis and feminist scholars such as bell hooks to examine how a comedy show like Mike & Molly can further disenfranchise fat people in society. The thesis shows that fat makes people an Other in society, and television shows and other forms of comedy that mock those who are fat just reinforce that Other status.

Mothers At Work: Reconstruction And Deconstruction Of Patriarchy In Gone With The Wind, Catherine Willa Staley

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

In this thesis, I explore the performances of motherhood in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind and how those performances conflict with culturally constructed expectations of that role. An analysis of Scarlett O’Hara and Melanie Wilkes, and how each woman compares to the South’s model for motherhood, reveals implications that extend beyond the novel’s Civil War setting to reveal the ongoing negotiation of modern readers still living within patriarchal conceptions of mothering. In Chapter 1, I outline the novel’s spectrum of motherhood, which is composed of characters who nurture and manage others. Each individual on that spectrum contributes to or …

After A Funeral, Before A Test; And Other Stories, David Stewart Robinson

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

After a Funeral, Before a Test; and Other Stories is a collection of nine fictional short stories. Their focus is diverse in regard to multiple aspects of creative fiction: subject matter, theme, style, setting and characters. Despite the array of material, one common method was to provide narration that would invite readers to make their own interpretation rather than to present overt, didactic stories. This narrative strategy was accomplished by using fictional concepts of setting, the objective correlative, and literary minimalism. Other elements include surrealism, Hemingway’s “iceberg effect,” and psychologically complex narrators. Literary influences include F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great …