Arts and Humanities Commons^™

La Vie En Périphérie : Une Comparaison Critique De La Représentation Des Populations Marginalisées Et Le Racisme Systématique Aux Etats-Unis Et À La Banlieue Du Paris, Milan Essex

Honors Theses

Les populations marginalisées sont toujours examinées à la loupe : les médias, les nouvelles, les films et la littérature. D’une part, elles sont utilisées en tant d’artistes, d’innovateurs, de modèles. D’autre part, elles sont stigmatisées comme des criminels, des paresseux, des instigateurs. La violence est toujours attachée à la figure où la peau est enrichie avec de la mélanine, et les droits humains sont menacés pour les personnes avec la peau de plus en plus brune, et les yeux de plus en plus «exotiques». Les épreuves de la peau noire se fixent dans la manière dont elles ne sont pas …

Networks Of Resistance : Black Virginians Remember Civil War Loyalties, Amanda Kleintop

Honors Theses

On June 22, 1877, William Charity explained his neighborhood’s Civil War loyalties to special commissioner Isaac Baldwin of the Southern Claims Commission (SCC): “The colored people were mostly all for the union.” Charity, a free black Virginian, recognized that “mostly” did not mean all. He went on to suggest: “some of them were blind.” As a self-identified Unionist, Charity had difficulty envisioning a black man who was not loyal to the Union cause and emancipation during the Civil War. Current debates, however, have seized on those black Virginians Charity called “blind,” taking the “mostly” Unionist majority for granted. Like Charity, …

"A Change Has Swept Over Our Land": American Moravians And The Civil War, Adrienne E. Robertson

Master's Theses

When they first came to North America, the Moravians—a pietistic, Germanic Christian sect—settled in isolated communities where only a few people ventured out to do missionary work for the community. They separated themselves from their non-Moravian neighbors, one missionary community serving the North from its seat in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and the other serving the South from Salem, North Carolina, and neither participating in civic or military life. Then, over the course of a few decades, economic and civic circumstances forced the Moravians in North America to adapt their ways to be more like those of their non-Moravian neighbors, adopting styles …

The Inheritance Of Lawless Passion : An Examination Of Interracial Relationships Through Slave Narratives, Genna K. Murray

Honors Theses

WPA narratives uphold that during the institution of slavery there was a wide variety of interracial relationships that ranged from the most brutal rapes to the most loving relationships. While some white slave owners took sadistic pleasure in torturing their slave women, others jeopardized their social standing and career to be with the woman they loved. Therefore, it is difficult to make vast generalizations about interracial relationships during slavery and they should really be examined on a case‐ specific level. However, it can be argued that most interracial relationships fell somewhere in the middle of the two previously stated extremes. …

Enslaved Revolutionaries : Constitutional Rhetoric Of Eighteenth-Century Irish And American Patriots, Jacob Keith Johnson

Honors Theses

Following years of escalating tension, the thirteen American colonies crossed the threshold over to armed revolt, declaring a war for independence from the British in 1776. Restrictions placed upon the colonies and failed attempts at a compromise drove American patriots to initiate and execute a republican revolution that redefined their status from subsidiary colonies to independent nation. During this time, Ireland found itself in a unique situation, in an ambiguous status stuck between colony and nation. Desires for greater participation in Britain’s mercantilist economy and demand for Ireland’s legislative independence led to a revolutionary period orchestrated by an opposition group …

The Politics Of Sectional Servitude : The Construction Of American Abolitionist Discourse In Black And White, 1837-1847, Christopher M. Florio

Honors Theses

I argue that American political discourse surrounding abolition and slavery, sectional politics and violent insurrection, coalesced in the 1840s. The merger of such ostensibly disconnected streams of thought began with the perception of a new political need, as abolitionists came to believe that southern plantation elites had constructed a hegemonic proslavery order. Their interpretation of northern consent to southern domination impelled a proliferation of abolitionist possibilities, possibilities that were intended to sever the connection between national politics and the peculiar institution. Initially disseminated by freed blacks but subsequently appropriated by northern whites, these possibilities crossed the color line and challenged …

Deporting "Red Emma" : The Political And Legal Battles For Citizenship, 1917-1921, Kara D. Schultz

Honors Theses

As Americans worked to construct a national creed in the early nineteenth century, xenophobia and cultural exceptionalism were in constant tension with conceptions of free speech and personal liberty. The emergence of deportation as the solution to America's "radical problem" was built upon representations of the political subversive that had little grounding in reality. The differing ideologies and organizations of the anarchist and communist movements in America were constantly being reshaped, yet ... the press and political rhetoric blurred distinctions between parties, assuming that both philosophies were elements of the same menace that sought violent overthrow of the government. Reducing …

Self-Righteous Beneficence : American Diplomats And Missionary Perceptions Of The Ottoman Empire, 1908-1914, Ella M. Frantantuono

Honors Theses

At first glance, President Taft's praise of the Ottoman Empire's transformation seems to reflect optimism about the state of the Turkish Empire and America's role in the world. Still, the very source of this optimism, Turkey's evolution from "retrograde" to "constitutional," reveals Taft's assumption that progress for Turkey was based on adopting the "modem policies" of what he believed to be a superior culture. Taft was not alone in thinking that the event he described, the inauguration of the second Constitutional era of the Ottoman Empire, signified a tremendous improvement in the world or in linking that change to the …

An Unlikely Alliance : The Generals Who Won The American Revolution, Patrick Michael Elgin

Master's Theses

Seventy-seven men were asked to serve as Generals during the Revolutionary War by the Continental Congress. These men came from such disparate backgrounds that it may seem surprising that they could unite in such a dangerous venture as a rebellion against Great Britain. This thesis explores the military history of the Revolutionary War through the framework of these seventy-seven men by providing biographical sketches of each and drawing from these sketches to create a list of factors which affected their service in the war. Specifically, the thesis focuses on where these men came from, how they earned a livelihood, and …

"King Harvest (Has Surely Come)" : Rural Populist Imagery In Roots Rock Music, 1967-1973, Christopher Lee Witte

Master's Theses

Through a detailed focus on these five groups and their music, with an added emphasis on their lyrics, this thesis attempts to create a meaningful tie between Slotkin' s study of American myth-making and story creation with a key area of popular culture - music - that he did not focus on. The thesis itself is separated into three key chapters - the first reveals how nature and landscape are presented in these songs and how they viewed modern twentieth century America with idealized notions of a rural past. The second discusses their presentations of heroes and anti-heroes as musical …

White Savages In Hunting Shirts : The Rifleman's Costume Of National Identity And Rebellion In The American Revolution, Byron C. Smith

Master's Theses

This thesis relies on primary sources to address the significance of clothing and accoutrements worn by backwoods riflemen during the era of the American Revolution. As North America's rebellious colonies became a nation, they struggled to find cultural symbols that distinguished them from their European cousins. As Europeans often identified America symbolically as the "noble savage," in turn some Americans looked to the Indian for inspiration in their new search for national identity. During the Revolution many Americans from backwoods regions of the middle and southern colonies, wearing uniquely American garments called hunting shirts, openly rebelled against their European heritage …

The Interstate Highway Act Of 1956, Edward H. Bogle

Honors Theses

The purpose of this paper is to examine the development and passage of the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, the Interstate Highway Act. It begins by examining the background of federal aid highway legislation in the United States in the twentieth century, and the state of US roads in the mid 1950s. The paper then turns to focus on the development of governmental interest in an integrated, limited-access, national system of modem interstate highways. It further tracks the failure of several highway bills to pass in 1955, and then the successful passage of the 1956 bill: through the legislative …

United States - Indonesian Relations, 1945-1949: Negative Consequences Of Early American Cold War Policy, Robert Earl Patterson

Master's Theses

From 1945 to 1949, Indonesian nationalists struggled for independence against their Dutch colonial rulers. For most of the period, American foreign policy favored the Netherlands in its desire to reign once again over the archipelago. American foreign policy strategy advocated a "Europe first" position, and possessed finite resources to contain Soviet expansion in the developing cold war. State Department policy planners sided with European powers as they attempted to resume the status quo ante in Southeast Asia following World War II. Colonies were considered essential to the recoveries of Western European powers economically, politically, and psychologically.

Confederate Matrons : Women Who Served In Virginia Civil War Hospitals, A. Elise Allison

Honors Theses

In September 1862, the Confederate Congress authorized hospitals to employ white women as chief matrons, assistant matrons, and ward matrons. This paper examines the lives and experiences of matrons who worked in Confederate hospitals in Virginia. It concludes that only ''exceptional" women with the stamina to endure physical and mental hardships were able to defy conventional ideas about their proper role and contribute to the care of Confederate sick and wounded as matrons.

Leadership And The War Between The States, Matt Cobb

Honors Theses

The concept of a Servant Leader is fascinating because it seems to be an oxymoron. How can one be a servant if they are to lead? This seems even stranger when placed in the context of military leaders. Robert Greenleaf argued that "The servant-leader is servant first. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead."' Individuals such as Jesus Christ, Mohandas Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. immediately seem to fit the definition for servant leaders. Each individual involved with the military serve their respective …

Serbo-American Relations, 1903-1913, Jason C. Vuic

Master's Theses

Of the available studies concerning pre-World War I Serbia, few have shown more than a passing interest in that country's relations with the United States. Indeed, no books have appeared on the subject, while only four articles examine Serbo-American affairs during the kingdom's most dynamic decade, from 1903 to 1913. Though each is in some way valuable, these works fail to give an adequate account of the relations existing between Serbia and the United States. Therefore the following chapters explore Serbo-American affairs from the death of King Alexander I Obrenovic in June 1903, to the conclusion of the Second Balkan …

A Study Of Fraud In African-American Civil War Pensions : Augustus Parlett Lloyd, Pension Attorney, 1882-1909, Carrie Kiewitt

Master's Theses

This work examines fraud in the United States Civil War Military Pension system from 1882-1909 by showing how one attorney, Augustus Parlett Lloyd, defrauded the government on numerous occasions without ever being punished. Research for this work was conducted by studying a group of seventy-three African-American veterans who relied on Lloyd to assist in the application process and by using federal pension records, the manuscript census records, vital statistics, records of the federal Pension Bureau, and several secondary works to explore how Lloyd related to his clients, his associates and the Pension Bureau. This study concludes that Lloyd, the most …

Congressional Battles With Franklin D. Roosevelt Over Vetoes Of Veterans' Compensation, 1933-36, Valiant J. Heyer

Master's Theses

This thesis offers the first historical study specifically focusing on Franklin Roosevelt's battles with Congress over veterans' care and compensation from 1933 to 1936. The historical problem addressed in this thesis is, why did the New Deal congresses, with overwhelming Democratic majorities, rise in opposition to Roosevelt's policies and push for passage of veteran benefit programs that were known to be unacceptable to their President? Although most historians explain away the veterans' issue by attributing congressional efforts to pay the "bonus" to simple election-year pressure, this thesis provides a markedly different conclusion. Based on the Congressional Record, manuscript collections …

Half A Memory : The Vietnam War In The American Mind, 1975-1985, Mark W. Jackley

Master's Theses

This study attempts to show how Americans in general remembered the Vietnam War from 1975 to 1985, the decade after it ended. A kind of social history, the study concentrates on the war as remembered in the popular realm, examining novels as well as nonfiction, poetry, plays, movies, articles in political journals, songs, memorials, public opinion polls and more. Most everything but academic history is discussed. The study notes how the war's political history was not much remembered; the warrior, not the war, became the focus of national memory. The study argues that personal memory predominated over political memory for …

The Role Of The Tobacco Trade In Turkish-American Relations, 1923-29., Robert Carey Goodman

Master's Theses

This study of the tobacco trade between Turkey and the United States provides new perspectives on two major themes in Turkish-American relations between 1923 and 1929: the effect of Turkish nationalism on American interests in Ataturk's Turkey, and the effort to restore Turkish- American diplomatic ties broken during World War I. The marked rise in American cigarette consumption after World War I made the tobacco trade a crucial link between Turkey and America because it required the importation of aromatic tobacco. During the Turkish Republic' s first decades, the value of American tobacco imports from Turkey exceeded the value of …

The 1856 Presidential Campaign In Virginia, R. Randall Moore

Master's Theses

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the 1856 presidential election campaign was conducted in Virginia. The paper specifically investigates how Virginia newspapers interpreted the events of the campaign. The role played by the political leadership of Virginia in the 1856 election is also examined.

The paper is based on contemporary newspaper editorials and political speeches. The manuscripts of prominent Virginia politicians during the period are also utilized.

The paper illustrates how Democratic newspaper editorials in Virginia used scare tactics to convince readers that Virginia Know-Nothings were abolitionists. Know-Nothing editorials responded by emphasizing support for the Union and …

The Root Mission, William R. Conger

Master's Theses

The purpose of this study is to examine the Root Mission to Russia from it conception to its final report and to evaluate the effectiveness of each member individually as well as that of the Mission as a whole. Further, major actions and responses of the Wilson Administration and other American officials have been considered where these actions have a direct bearing on the effectiveness of the Root Mission. This study also provides a narrative account of the constructive work of the commission and attempts to highlight those experiences which might well have had a significant impact on the Mission's …

Methodist Circuit-Riders In America, 1766-1844, William A. Powell Jr.

Master's Theses

The Methodist Episcopal Church became the largest religious denomination in the United States during the 1820's. Local expressions of the national body were established in nearly every American community. Methodist expansion was largely a result of the activity of circuitriders. These itinerants traveled and proclaimed the gospel to citizens, many of whom joined the Church and became part of a religious movement which influenced the l development of culture in the United States.

The traveling minister in the Methodist Church was noted for his self-sacrificing spirit. He endured hardships in the ministry which few men of the present age can …

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 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 …

United States Opinion From Munich To The Blitzkreig, Barbara Evans

Honors Theses

In the late nineteen-thirties "isolationism" determined American attitudes toward Europe. Basically, the term, used to describe that period, refers to the beliefs which decreed that the United States should have no part in foreign quarrels.

This paper will attempt to analyze the feelings of the majority of Americans. Many men counseled non-involvement for many reasons, and extremists ranged from the Catholic priest, Father Coughlin, a man with definite pro-German sympathies, to Charles A. Lindberg, who thought that Hitler could not be beaten. Attention here will not be directed at these extremely small fringe groups, but at the "average" American, as …

The American Revolutionary Soldier, 1775-1781, Robert Edward Hanie

Master's Theses

The object of this paper is to present a survey of soldier life in the American Revolutionary Army. Although the study might be labeled "social history", the researcher believes that history is the product of all the kaleidoscopic events of the past, and that no phenomena exerts an influence of undue proportions. History is alive. History provides the continuing link between the vast "eons" of the past and the remarkable shortness of the "present."

An Analysis Of Sovereignty And Its Application To Segregation In Public Schools, Patricia Minor Murphy

Master's Theses

Division of authority between the national goverment and the state governments has been a problem since the origin of the United States and this problem is especially prominent today in so far as it concerns the public schools. In the present situation, both constitutional and emotional difficulties are concerned; for this reason, history, constitutional analysis, and recent developments in trends of thought are all essential parts of a discussion concerning the present problem of segregation in public schools.

Almost three years ago, the Supreme Court rendered its decision in the Segregation Cases, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), in which it held …

The Disfranchisement Of An American Patriot, Arthur H. Brown Jr

Honors Theses

Two years ago this coming August I was fortunate enough to acquire the manuscript around which this treatise is built. When I acquired it I was of the opijnion that it was in Jefferson's own hand-writing. However, upon investigation I have discovered that although the body of the letter greatly resembles Jefferson's hand, th esignature is not his. Therefore, the most plausible explanation is that this is a contemporary copy of a letter which Jefferson wrote. It was customary in Jefferson's day to have several scriveners whose sole duty was to copy letters. This may be such a copy. Or, …

The Growth Of "Southern" Presbyterianism In West Virginia : 1830 To 1880, Charles W. Mcnutt

Honors Theses

An essay on the growth of "Southern" Presbyterianism in West Virginia.