Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Dynamics Of War: Culture, Society, Environment, And Pedagogy, Breanne Jacobsen

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

War is an ever-present feature of human civilization. Nearly all cultures and societies show accounts of human conflict. This portfolio seeks to provide both a multidimensional analysis of war and a means of instructing students to appreciate its significance as a driving force of history using three different components.

The syllabus project provides a long-term view of how the various wars and conflicts came to be and progressed in Western Civilization in the modern era.

The chapter-length paper shows the ravaging effects that war and conflict can have on a physical landscape and the environment in which the conflict takes …

Ms – 211: Earman Family Letters From Wwii, Kayla Morrow

All Finding Aids

The collection contains 389 letters, 15 V-mail , and 166 additional items addressed to members of the Earman family home. The majority of the correspondence is sent from Ernest and Randolph to their mother, Mrs. Earman. Because the Earman brothers did not see much direct combat, the bulk of their letters are updates on health and daily activities, or candid observations on the war, the Army, the weather, and women. The rest of the collection includes letters addressed to the Earman family from distant or extended family, close friends, and Ernest’s foreign and domestic girlfriends. Many of the letters are …

Korean Soil, Japanese Faces, American Empire: Repatriation And The Korean War Experiences Of Japanese Laborers And Japanese American Soldiers, Jaclyn S. Knitter

Master's Projects and Capstones

This paper compares the Korean War experiences of two ethnically Japanese groups that served the US military on the Korean Peninsula – second-generation Japanese American (Nisei) soldiers in the US Military Intelligence Service (MIS) and Japanese laborers – to demonstrate the salience of citizenship in the post-1945 Asia Pacific. In particular, this research addresses the question, “how did the politics of repatriation differentiate the experiences of Japanese Americans from those of Japanese nationals, both serving the US military during the Korean War?” This service ranged from (Nisei) American repatriation interrogators of Korean and Chinese civilians, to prisoners of war (POWs), …

Freed From Fascism: Berlin's Gallery Culture In The Aftermath Of World War Ii, Brooke Fessler

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

In post-World War II Germany, the city of Berlin was left in ruin after six years of war. A nation ripped apart both physically and at its governmental core was finally freed from Nazi fascism in 1945, and the German people were finally able to reconstruct their culture. Born out of years of strict regulation of the German art world, a new type of art was put on display. Focusing specifically on gallery culture in Berlin in the post-war years, one can see how twelve years of classically influenced Nazi art gave way to a push towards the avant-garde. The …

Book Review: The History Of A Forgotten German Camp: Nazi Ideology And Genocide In Szmalcówka, Darren J. O'Brien

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Italian Fellas In Olive Drab: Exploring The Experiences Of Italian-American Servicemen In Sicily And Italy, 1943-1945, Guido Rossi

Master's Theses

Despite constituting the largest ethnic group in the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II, the experiences of Italian-Americans have received scant attention by historians. In particular, the stories of the U.S. citizens of Italian descent or Italian-born but naturalized Americans who served in Italy, have received almost none. These soldiers, sailors, airmen, and coastguardmen who could often speak Italian, had grown up in Italian-American families and neighborhoods, and still had relatives in Italy, were asked to go fight in their country of origin. During the Allied advance, these men found themselves in close contact with a destitute Italian population …

A Nation Within A Nation: Tolerance Within The Dutch Identity, Madlyn Kaufman

Georgia College Student Research Events

When looking at a country like the Netherlands there is one characteristic that sets it apart from all other countries of Europe. The extent in which tolerance is displayed, or lack thereof, has shaped its history and people within ways that shows a unique identity. This oral presentation will take an in depth look at the kinds of tolerance being practiced within the Netherlands focusing on the Jewish population from the 17th century to World War II. The research that was conducted for this presentation is a method that incorporates at home study of the 17th Century Dutch Jews and …

The Letters Of Stewart Winfield Herman Jr. An American Pastor In Berlin, 1936-1941, Lucy A. Marks

Student Publications

This paper provides an analysis of the experiences of Stewart Herman Winfield Jr based on a collection of his letters on loan to Gettysburg College from the Gettysburg Lutheran Seminary. This paper discusses Herman’s experiences as a student in Strasburg and Gottingen, and as the pastor of the American church of Berlin from 1936 – 1941. Born in Harrisburg, Herman attended Gettysburg College, and the Gettysburg Lutheran Seminary. Herman’s letters provide both a pastoral and an American perspective on the start of WWII and Nazism in Germany. Herman traveled frequently and witnessed the changes that Berlin faced during World War …

Walt Disney's War On The Perception Of Propaganda, Hailey Thompson

History Class Publications

This paper focuses on the influence of World War I and Nazi propaganda on American propaganda during World War II. I specifically analyzed the use of propaganda through the means of film using Walt Disney cartoons. What fueled the effectiveness of propaganda in film? Why were cartoons so intense? What methods did the producers employ in the features? I also wanted to look at the influence of Nazi propaganda on its counterpart, American propaganda. The majority of the focus on propaganda centered around Frank Capra’s “Why We Fight Series.” The focus on cartoons as a means of propaganda largely faded …

The Amoy China Mission Of The Reformed Church In America, 1937-1951, Jame E. Bell

Grand Valley Journal of History

This article analyzes how successful the Reformed missionaries operating in Amoy and the surrounding region were in accomplishing their objectives of evangelism and the establishment of an indigenous Chinese Church from 1937 to 1951. Through a combination of evangelism, education, and medical work the missionaries sought to spread their faith to the lay population of Fujian province. The missionaries’ work became much more difficult in the late 1930s with the Japanese invasion, World War II, and the eventual Communist takeover. In spite of this, their efforts, in conjunction with other missions, built a dedicated Chinese Christian community that proved hardy …

The Katyn Massacre: Cover-Up, Suppression, And The Politics Of War, From An American Perspective, Joe Grundhoefer

Departmental Honors Projects

Abstract

In the spring of 1940, roughly twenty two thousand Polish officers, the cream of Poland’s intelligentsia, were executed in Katyn forest. While the Soviet Union blamed Nazi Germany for the massacre, in the past seventy years all gathered evidence including documents from the Soviet archives, point out to the Soviet Union as responsible for the killings. However, the British and American governments, who had knowledge of the Katyn Massacre, were engaged in a suppression of the truth, during the war and into the early years of the Cold War, even while they confronted the Soviet Union over Poland’s independence. …

To See In Color, Sarah Rebban

Geifman Prize in Holocaust Studies

No abstract provided.

Law And Human Suffering: A Slice Of Life In Vichy France, Vivian Grosswald Curran

Articles

This essay discusses three diaries from the Vichy era, the period of the Nazi Occupation of France: Jean Guéhenno’s Journal des années noires 1940-1944, Hélène Berr’s Journal, and Jacqueline Mesnil-Amar’s Ceux qui ne dormaient pas. Guéhenno was an educator and writer who entered the Resistance in 1940. His diary offers deep moral reflection as well as accounts of the dishonorable peace Vichy imposed and the ignoble servitude to which the new collaborationist French State and the Nazi occupier subjected France. In the final pages, as Leclerc’s army marches into Paris, with a victory he understands to be …