Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Writing The Nation: Ignacio Manuel Altamirano's Romantic Vision And Porfirian Development, Jason C. Denzin

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

As articulated in Ignacio Manuel Altamirano’s Romantic novel El Zarco (1888) and the accounts of contemporary travelers, various interpretations about the pace and course of the country’s development abounded in Mexico during the late nineteenth-century. The current project evaluates El Zarco as a historical text and uses it as a window into the Porfirian nation-building project. By comparing the vision outlined in the novel with the published accounts of contemporary travelers this project demonstrates the contested nature of development among Mexico’s national elites during the Porfiriato. This thesis argues that from the competing visions of national development specific categories for …

Reform And Empire: The British And American Transnational Search For The Rights Of Black People In The Late Nineteenth And Early Twentieth Centuries, Thomas E. Smith

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Late nineteenth century modernity forced reformers in Great Britain and the United States to embrace a new sense of immediacy in their strategies. These new strategies, however, rarely extended to black people who were often subject to violence and discrimination in the period of high imperialism. Instead, when most reformers discussed the problems black people faced all they could offer were traditional promises of religious-based protections or “uplift.” The violence of lynching in the 1890s forced reformers to address the problems of white supremacy in a direct fashion, while promoting an understanding of the connection between the plight of African …

South Dakota Bison Go To War: Preservation Success And The Politics Of Surplus , David Nesheim

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

By 1920, the recovery of the American Bison was assured. Due to the biology of buffalo, the question facing managers of the protected herds in South Dakota was how to manage population growth. In response to the mandate of the South Dakota State legislature for economic self-sufficiency, Custer State Park chose to develop a market in meat. In the 1930s, Wind Cave National Park distributed surplus animals to the Pine Ridge Reservation, creating another herd. With the entry of the United States into World War Two, the demand for bison meat escalated as a result of shortages in the domestic …

Review Of Livestock Hotels: America's Historic Stockyards By J'Nell L. Pate, David Nesheim

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Heretofore, historians have overlooked the stockyards' role in the development of the meat industry, choosing to focus on railroads and the packing giants. Livestock Hotels, although not definitive, is the first comprehensive examination of the stockyard industry. Complete with a glossary of stockyard terminology, several statistical tables, photographs of most of the stockyards mentioned, and a map, Livestock Hotels offers an important compendium of data while suggesting many questions for further research.

Overland Freighting In The Platte Valley 1850–1870, Floyd Edgar Bresee

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

CONTENTS
CHAPTER I: THE ROUTE–WHEN AND WHERE: The valley of the Platte; "Great Medicine Road"; The Astorians; Milton Sublette; First use of wagons; General William R. Ashley; South Pass discovered; Captain Benjamin L. E. Bonneville; Nathaniel J. Wyeth; Periods of the trail; The "Oregon Trail”; The Mormon or California Trail; Active period of overland trade; The eastern depots; The Big Blue; The Little Blue; Where freighters entered Nebraska from Kansas; Big Sandy; Results of a prairie fire; Meridian; Up the Little Blue; King's Ranch; Dogtown; Fort Kearny; Buffalo herds; Kearney City; Plum Creek; The Platte Valley; Fort McPherson; O’Fallon’s Bluff; …

Kickapoo Foreign Policy, 1650-1830, Matthew R. Garrett

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The Kickapoos are an Algonquian tribe that historically resided in the western Great Lakes region. Their early interactions with Europeans required political adaptations to secure their territorial sovereignty and growth. From 1650 to 1763 French explorers, traders and Jesuits entrenched themselves in the Kickapoos homelands south of Lake Michigan. Kickapoo treatment of these intruders progressed from indifferent interaction to opposition, cooperation, and then detachment during the French and Indian War. As Spanish and later British agents likewise penetrated up the Mississippi and west of the Ohio, respectively, Kickapoos exploited the competing European nations that vied for their fidelity. While pledging …

Native American History, Comparative Genocide And The Holocaust: Historiography, Debate And Critical Analysis, Brenden Rensink

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study explores the complex issues surrounding comparative genocide studies and how Native American history relates to this field. Historical contexts for Native American historiography, particularly the scholarship of Vine Deloria, Jr., are examined. In addition, the manifestation of some problematic trends in the field is detailed through the mordant debate between scholars of native America and the Jewish Holocaust. Arguments over Holocaust uniqueness and how the depopulation of Native America should be classified typifies how certain aspects of comparative genocide studies have a propensity for subjectively motivated and biased methodology. Finally, a case study using the historiography of the …

Immigration, The American West, And The Twentieth Century: German From Russia, Omaha Indian, And Vietnamese-Urban Villagers In Lincoln, Nebraska, Kurt Kinbacher

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The North American West is a culturally and geographically diverse region that has long been a beacon for successive waves of human immigration and migration. A case in point, the population of Lincoln, Nebraska -- a capital city on the eastern cusp of the Great Plains -- was augmented during the twentieth century by significant influxes of Germans from Russia, Omaha Indians, and Vietnamese. Arriving in clusters beginning in 1876, 1941, and 1975 respectively, these newcomers were generally set in motion by dismal economic, social, or political situations in their sending nations. Seeking better lives, they entered a mainstream milieu …

Review Of To Save The Wild Bison: Life On The Edge In Yellowstone By Mary Ann Franke, David Nesheim

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Mary Ann Franke investigates the recent controversy regarding the Yellowstone bison and the efforts to control their movements, the longer history of their management in the twentieth century, and a brief natural history of the species.

Redeeming The Time: Protestant Missionaries And The Social And Cultural Development Of Territorial Nebraska, Robert J. Voss

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in May of 1854 formally opened a new region of the United States to settlers. Hundreds came with news of the creation of Nebraska Territory, but not in comparable numbers to the major western migrations that would follow after the Civil War. Instead, the initial small waves of Nebraska settlers would cling to the Missouri River and its settlements establishing communities on the eastern edges in the newly opened territory. These first settlers set the foundations for culture and society in Nebraska.

From 1854 until 1860, pioneers claimed lands near the Missouri, with few …