Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Makeup During World War Ii: How Consumer Cosmetics Became An Essential Product, Georgina Lau

History & Classics Student Scholarship

Major: History
Minors: Marketing and Dance

Law Library Blog (June 2022): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

The Hidden Power Of Images: An Allegory Of Chaos And Performance In The Digital Age, Livia Xandersmith

MFA in Visual Art

Within this text, I explore the hidden power of images in American visual culture through painting-based installations. I investigate images of the past and present juxtaposed in a surrealist landscape. Through the use of images in the news, entertainment, advertising, and images within the home, I depict how the problems of the past bleed into our perceptions of the present. I find that this cycle of problem inheritance connects us as humans regardless of time, generation, and place. In my work, I explore the complexity of image culture and its shifting presence within the digital age. Using surrealist collage, I …

Race Films & American Society, Angie Pierre

History & Classics Student Scholarship

Angie Pierre ’25
Major: Global Studies
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Alyssa Lopez, History and Classics

This project will explore Black cinema, specifically the race film industry and its relationship to Black identity and American society. Through an analysis of a number of early race films and archival documents from the 1920s, the project seeks to reveal how these films contributed to positive political, social and economic changes in Jim Crow America. Ultimately, the successes of race film pioneers are reflected throughout Black film history and the Black films we still watch today.

Navigating Culture In The Home, Church, School, And Community: Norwegian American Youth In Norman County, Minnesota, 1870-1925, Brianna Rose Devalk

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Since the centennial celebration of Norwegian migration to America in 1925, historians have frequently reflected upon the creation of the Norwegian American identity throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Yet, while investigations on culture and identity continue to expand our understanding of Norwegian America, youth are still frequently left on the margins of focus. The voices of children and adolescents are frequently difficult to hear as they leave few written historical records for historians to analyze. Additionally, few scholars have explored the sources they have left as adults remembering their childhood due to the skepticism of memory. As a …

Reframing Leadership Narratives Through The African American Lens, Marion Missy Mcgee

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Reframing Leadership Narratives through the African American Lens explores the context-rich experiences of Black Museum executives to challenge dominant cultural perspectives of what constitutes a leader. Using critical narrative discourse analysis, this research foregrounds under-told narratives and reveals the leadership practices used to proliferate Black Museums to contrast the lack of racially diverse perspectives in the pedagogy of leadership studies. This was accomplished by investigating the origin stories of African American executives using organizational leadership and social movement theories as analytical lenses for making sense of leaders’ tactics and strategies. Commentary from Black Museum leaders were interspersed with sentiments of …

“What Sort Of Man Reads Playboy?”: Gender, Heterosexuality, And Reader Letters In Playboy Magazine, 1953-1963, Kess Carpenter

Major Papers

Existing Playboy scholarship overlooks the significance of magazine’s audience outside of the bachelor subculture it fathered in the 1950s. In fact, consumers fitting Playboy’s desired readership of white, financially affluent, single men formed only a small percentage of its actual subscribers. This study makes evident that students, soldiers, sailors, military servicemen, middle- and working- class men, both single and married, as well as women, made up most of its readership. To date, no historical study has been conducted of reader letters to Playboy, which reveal the magazine’s significance to this audience.

This paper argues that postwar men used Playboy as …

More Than A Museum: Museums' Past, Current, And Future Involvement With Racial Issues, Madeline B. Friedler

Museum Studies Theses

The year 2020 has been universally acknowledged as an extraordinary point in activist history. The Black Lives Matter organization has spearheaded a new wave of activism comparable to the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and 70s. By evaluating how cultural learning centers such as museums have presented racial history in the past, an effective plan can be made on how museums should interpret this present-day history. Museums should not only recognize #BlackLivesMatter as an important part of history in an academic sense, but they should also actively promote positive racial change in the communities they serve. Research shows that …

Folklore Of The Shenandoah Valley, Heather Good

Honors Projects

The Shenandoah Valley of Virginia has a long and storied history, which has resulted in the development of a rich folklore unique to the area. Stories and traditions have been passed down through generations, often by family and community members but also through the few texts that have been written on the subject. As a writer and local of the area, this cultural tradition has played a significant role in helping me to discover my own voice through looking at the voices that came before me.

This project will fist focus on two significant periods in the history of the …

Sweetened Blood, Sweat And Tears, Nathan Celestine

All Theses, Dissertations, and Capstone Projects

Of the transatlantic diffusion of culture, there is no better example than what developed out of Caribbean enslavement. The loss of African identity among slaves with a common, methodically destroyed ancestry, along with the diversity inherent to the different groups of Africans and Europeans and their respective cultural elements and identities resulted in a complex homogeny of culture, race, nationality, and socioeconomic status that has continued its development since the introduction of slaves to West Indian soil. It was this same soil that would cause the demand for slave labor to explode throughout European-controlled Caribbean islands, from the addition of …

Is This A Christian Nation?: Virtual Symposium September 25, 2020, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Tổi Là Người Viet (I Am Vietnamese): The Construction Of Third-Wave Vietnamese Identity In The United States, Eric Pham

History Undergraduate Theses

This paper focuses on the third wave of Vietnamese migration to the United States, which occurred from the 1980s to the 1990s, and how this group of immigrants constructed their identity in a new country. From a Western perspective, particularly an American one, it is easy to categorize all Vietnamese immigrants under the same umbrella. Although there are similarities among all three waves, one significant element that differentiates the third wave from the other two is the United States’ enactment of the Amerasian Homecoming Act of 1987, which facilitated an influx of Vietnamese Americans to the U.S. mainland. This allowed …

Religion And Culture In Inherit The Wind, Zachary Sheldon

Journal of Religion & Film

Stanley Kramer’s Inherit the Wind (1960) has long been considered a classic for its indictment of McCarthyism as allegorized in a dramatic treatment of the Scopes Monkey Trial. But for all its political messaging, the film is also patently up front in its treatment of religious perspectives on culture. The presence of such material may be read allegorically but may also be read in connection with the period of the film’s production, as a statement piece on religious perspectives of media such as film. This article examines the religious messaging in Inherit the Wind in conjunction with religious perspectives of …

Horses, Culture, And Trade: The Impact Of The Horse On Southeastern Native Nations, 1650-1830, Jacob Featherling

Master's Theses

A small portion of the regional literature details the impact of horses on Southeastern Native nations and focuses on a few of the larger groups, particularly the Choctaw, from the mid-eighteenth to the nineteenth century. This thesis intends to increase the scope to analyze the entire Southeastern region, as well as multiple Native nations in the area. The thesis argues that Southeastern Natives slowly adopted horses into their economies and cultures over a longer period of time than previously believed, allowing them to increase their use of horses easily to meet market demands. Instead of southeastern nations rapidly adapting their …

The Mixed Reception Of The Hamilton Premiere In Puerto Rico, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner

Faculty Publications

In this article originally published in The Atlantic, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner wonders about the challenges of premiering the famed Broadway musical, Hamilton, during a time of political discord in the aftermath of 2017's Hurricane Maria, in Puerto Rico.

Visionaries Of The Road, Storm A. Wright

English Department: Traveling American Modernism (ENG 366, Fall 2018)

What is space? It is a personal concept that people develop while on journeys toward discovery. Through means both intentional and not, that space can be shared with the world and make the knowledge gained on the journey available to anyone with the same curiosities. By looking into the travels of Ezra Meeker on the Oregon Trail, Horatio Nelson Jackson across country, and William Least Heat-Moon on the blue highway, space can be conceptualized and understood as these three men allow us to understand them through their own words and experiences.

Tanks And Tinsel: The American Celebration Of Christmas During World War Ii, Samantha Desroches

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

“Tanks and Tinsel: The American Celebration of Christmas during World War II” is an examination of the American celebration of Christmas during World War II. As the first comprehensive investigation into the most well-known holiday in Western culture and its role in shaping Americans’ experience and understanding of the war, it contributes to historical scholarship in three ways. First, it continues the trend of blending analyses of society into military-focused narratives of the war, and it expands the scope of this by fusing the literature of War and Society with that of Holiday History. Second, it challenges traditional views of …

An American Myth In The (Re)Making: The Timeless Fantasy Appeal Of 'The King And I', Lina Purtscher

Scripps Senior Theses

It is now well-known that The King and I has little claim to truth. Recent research has exposed the inaccuracy of the “biographical” works on which the musical is based: Anna Leonowens invented many things about her personal background and experiences. Much of her life, then, is a contrived fantasy. Yet her life of fantasy has been resurrected in countless adaptations, including the 1951 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical and its 2015 revival production, that ceaselessly draw audiences. The fascination of American audiences with Anna’s tale lies their belief in the timeless American ideals that her fantasy employs: those of freedom …

A Dramaturgical Exploration: Setting Oliver Goldsmith’S She Stoops To Conquer In Post-Civil War Virginia, Amanda Ward

Senior Honors Theses

A reputable theatrical company will hire a dramaturg to implement historical research and to provide reputable information where the director or staff desires it. They ensure that the play’s elements are as truthful to the time period as possible and aid in a performance’s overall success. If a theatrical company were to set Oliver Goldsmith’s play She Stoops to Conquer in 1870 Virginia, it could strengthen the play’s underlying religious, political, and cultural elements.

The paper is comprised of seven sections: a biography of the playwright, a religious exploration, a political analysis, a cultural comparison, a delineation of suggested script …

Exorcising Power, John Jarzemsky

Theses and Dissertations

This paper theorizes that authors, in an act I have termed “literary exorcism,” project and expunge parts of their identities that are in conflict with the overriding political agenda of their texts, into the figure of the villain. Drawing upon theories of power put forth by Judith Butler, I argue that this sort of projection arises in reaction to dominant ideas and institutions, but that authors find ways to manipulate this process over time. By examining a broad cross-section of English-language literature over several centuries, this phenomenon and its evolution can be observed, as well as the means by which …

The Intersection Of Culture And Activism In The Filipino Community In Soma, Ericka J. Martynovych

Master's Theses

My research analyzes the intersection between culture and activism, through oral histories with participants and organizers of SoMa Pilipinas, the Filipino cultural heritage district in the South of Market neighborhood of San Francisco. I analyzed the impact of the establishment of the Filipino cultural heritage district on the Filipino community in the South of Market neighborhood. I examined what motivates members of this community to be politically active by organizing and attending protests and rallies, speaking at Planning Commission hearings at City Hall, attending planning meetings for SoMa Pilipinas, building relationships across organizations and fields, and providing resources for community …

The Melting Pot: America, Food, And Ethnicity: 1880-1960, Jacob Kaus

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This paper attempts to provide an overview of the effect immigrants had on the food culture of America from 1880-1960. French, German, Italian, Jewish, as well as Chinese immigrants, to name only a few, had a direct impact on formulating the unique and diverse American cuisine we enjoy today.

"The Property Of The Nation": Democracy And The Memory Of George Washington, 1799-1865, Matthew Ryan Costello

Dissertations (1934 -)

This dissertation explores how Americans personally experienced George Washington’s legacy in the nineteenth century through visits to his estate and tomb at Mount Vernon. By the 1820s many Americans had conflicting memories of the American Revolution and its most iconic figure, George Washington. As America grew more divided, so too did the memory of Washington. On multiple occasions, government factions and organizations attempted to claim his remains for political reasons. At the same time, Americans and foreign travelers journeyed to Mount Vernon to experience his tomb and forge a deeper personal connection with the man. These visitors collected objects such …

Creating The Back Ward: The Triumph Of Custodialism And The Uses Of Therapeutic Failure In Nineteenth Century Idiot Asylums, Philip M. Ferguson

Philip M. Ferguson

"My focus in this chapter is on the origin of the back ward rather than its demise. Where did the “back wards” that [Burton] Blatt and [Senator Robert] Kennedy witnessed come from in the first place? What 3 exactly were those “antecedents of the problems observed” that Blatt cited? This chapter reviews that history and argues that, in fact, there is a specific narrative to the evolution of the institutional “back ward” as an identifiable place where people with the most significant intellectual disabilities were to be incarcerated and largely forgotten."

The Lady On Angel Hill: Mary Jane Folsom And Movement In The Nineteenth Century St. Croix River Valley, Taylor M. Yetter

Departmental Honors Projects

Mary Jane Folsom’s life in the St. Croix River Valley demonstrates the previously uninvestigated complexities of life on the American Frontier in the nineteenth century. Previous scholars of the Frontier have all assumed the traditional East to West model of movement, but this model fails to recognize the many directions people took to reach their final destinations or the influences they brought with them. Before further research is conducted on the American Frontier, scholars must answer the question of how people, objects, and ideas actually travelled through the Frontier. This paper uses Mary Jane’s correspondence with her family to investigate …

Foreign Affairs: Policy, Culture, And The Making Of Love And War In Vietnam, Amanda C. Boczar

Theses and Dissertations--History

Foreign Affairs: Policy, Culture, and the Making of Love and War in Vietnam investigates the interplay between war and society leading to and during the Vietnam War. This project intertwines histories of foreign relations, popular culture, and gender and sexuality as lenses for understanding international power relations during the global Cold War more broadly. By examining sexual encounters between American service members and Vietnamese civilian women, this dissertation argues that relationships ranging from prostitution to dating, marriage, and rape played a significant role in the diplomacy, logistics, and international reception of the war. American disregard for South Vietnamese morality laws …

We Are Aquin: The Creation Of Community And Personal Identity In The Freeport Catholic Schools, Sherry Ann Cluver

Theses and Dissertations

Aquin Central Catholic High School, a tiny institution in the rural, Midwestern town of Freeport, Illinois, is a case study unlike the schools from Chicago, Boston, and other large cities highlighted in previous scholarship. Freeport's patterns of schooling in the 1970s and 1980s were largely unaffected by race or "white flight," and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockford afforded to its schools a greater than usual degree of local control. Yet, Aquin (founded in 1923) followed the trends of Catholic schools with regard to the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), assimilation of previously immigrant Catholic families into middle class American social …

Creating The Back Ward: The Triumph Of Custodialism And The Uses Of Therapeutic Failure In Nineteenth Century Idiot Asylums, Philip M. Ferguson

Education Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"My focus in this chapter is on the origin of the back ward rather than its demise. Where did the “back wards” that [Burton] Blatt and [Senator Robert] Kennedy witnessed come from in the first place? What 3 exactly were those “antecedents of the problems observed” that Blatt cited? This chapter reviews that history and argues that, in fact, there is a specific narrative to the evolution of the institutional “back ward” as an identifiable place where people with the most significant intellectual disabilities were to be incarcerated and largely forgotten."

Cold Warriors In The Sunbelt: Southern Baptists And The Cold War, 1947-1989, Matthew J. Hall

Theses and Dissertations--History

Cold Warriors in the Sunbelt studies the ways in which the Cold War experience shaped the attitudes, values, and beliefs of white evangelicals in the South. It argues that for Southern Baptists in particular—the region’s most dominant religious majority—the Cold War provided a cohesive and unifying fabric that informed the world views Southern Baptists constructed, shaping how they interpreted everything from global communism, the black freedom movement, the Vietnam War, and controversies regarding the family and gender. This dissertation further contends that the Cold War experience, and the formative influence it had over several decades, laid the groundwork for the …

From A Northern Home To A Southern School: Cultural Imperialists Or Just Stubborn Yankees, Janel Janiczek Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the cultural influences on the lives of northern teachers in southern schools. During the 1860s, white, northern, middle-class women traveled to southern homes to begin and maintain schools for the recently freed slaves. Each woman carried with her an independent set of cultural systems that predetermined her perspective for educating the African American students. Furthermore, the northern relief agencies, Freedmen's Bureau agents, southern white citizens, and southern freedmen all had their own opinions for the education of the students. Although much time has elapsed between the 1860s and 2013, the same topics …