Arts and Humanities Commons^™

History Strikes Back! The Portrayal Of Greek And Roman History In Hollywood Films And How It Furthers The Discussion Of History, Ethan P. Frost

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In an article published in 2009, Robert Rosenstone expressed disappointment in two films he played a role in developing the Reds (1981) and the The Good Fight (1984). He expressed regret the films did not reach his expectations as a historian. As a result, he wondered whether there was a point in historians being involved in the making of historical films.

This thesis focused on six historical films set in ancient Greece and Rome. The six films are Alexander the Great (1956), The 300 Spartans (1962), and 300 (2006) for Greek history; and The Last Days of Pompeii (1935), The …

Women Can Step Out Of The Shadows Of Time And Take Their Rightful Place Next To The Men Who Blazed A Trail Through The Wilderness., Bonnie Swenson

Research on Capitol Hill

Bonnie, attending USU’s statewide campus from her home in Orangeville, decided to pursue her bachelor’s degree after retirement and is studying English. In her coursework, Bonnie came across accounts of the Hole-in-the-Rock pioneer expedition in San Juan County in the late 1800s. Most research on this arduous trek has focused on the men of the expedition and the engineering innovations required to build a road into the side of a cliff. Bonnie’s work is unearthing previously disregarded accounts in library archives and amplifying the stories of the 100 women and girls who accompanied the expedition and contributed to its success. …

Orson Pratt And The Expansion Of The Doctrine And Covenants, Brian C. Passantino

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a faith that is distinguished by its religious texts. The nickname "Mormon," that has been applied to adherents of the faith, comes from the name of its most cherished canonical book, the Book of Mormon. Aside from the Bible and the Book of Mormon, Latter-day Saints accept two other books of scriptures – the Pearl of Great Price and the Doctrine and Covenants. These four books constitute the authorized scriptures of the faith, or as they refer to them, "the standard works."

My thesis focuses on the book entitled the Doctrine …

Racial Conflict In Early Utah: Mormon, Native American And Federal Relations, Raelyn M. Embleton

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

This website is for teachers to gain information and sources about Utah history during the early territorial period, specifically relating to conflicts between Mormon settlers, Native Americans, and federal officials. The content and site were designed with the C3 curriculum in mind, as such, at the bottom of this page you can find a downloadable Inquiry Design Model Blueprint. As you teach students this information, the compelling question to have students focus on is: “Does culture and the interaction of cultures shape the development of place?” Each event highlighted on this website is related to the other and demonstrates how …

The Difference Denominations Made: Identifying The Black Church(Es) And Black Religious Choices Of The Early Republic, Kyle T. Bulthuis

History Faculty Publications

Scholars of African-American religious history have recently debated the significance of the black church in American history. Those that have, pro and con, have often considered the black church as a singular entity, despite the fact that African Americans affiliated with a number of different religious traditions under the umbrella of the black church. This article posits that it is useful to consider denominational and theological developments within different African-American churches. Doing so acknowledges plural creations and developments of black churches, rather than a singular black church, which better accounts for the historical experience of black religion. In this piece, …

Historical Study In The U.S.: Assessing The Impact Of Tuning Within A Professional Disciplinary Society, Daniel J. Mcinerney

History Faculty Publications

The U.S.-based American Historical Association (AHA), the largest – and most influential – professional organization for historians, was the first disciplinary society in the world to lead a Tuning project, launching its work in 2012. This essay analyzes a survey distributed to historians on campuses that have taken part in the AHA Tuning project. The purpose is to understand, after six years of work on the project, what practical difference Tuning has made for historians, students, courses, curricula, and departments. Survey data indicate that, under the disciplinary society’s guidance and encouragement, historians have created meaningful learning outcomes, implemented the objectives …

The Historical And Familial Context Of Benjamin Franklin Riter, 1859-1925, Ian Keller

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

Benjamin Franklin Riter was born in Salt Lake City on 31 August 1859.1 His parents had traveled to Utah in 1847 as part of the Latter-day Saint migration.2 He worked with doctors and druggists in his youth, and grew up to be the manager of a small chain of drug stores. The Riter Brothers Drug Company was incorporated in Logan in 1891 and remained in business at least until 1918. The pharmacy operated five stores: two in Utah, at Garland and Logan, and three in Idaho, at Preston, Montpelier, and Franklin. They kept prescription records, which were pasted into four …

Nature & Nation: The Civilian Conservation Corps In Zion And Bryce Canyon National Parks, Valerie Jacobson

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

CCC experiences have been written about other camps and areas across the United States, however, an in depth look at the CCC involvement in Zion and Bryce has not been attempted. The CCC camps in Zion and Bryce created a mark on the landscape through the projects and improvements, but also left a mark on the “boys” who were in the program. The experiences and projects the young men did with the CCC altered the land in the parks in southern Utah. The changes included new or improved trail systems in the park, better roads and maintenance, soil and erosion …

Innovation In Intelligence: An Analysis Of U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence Modernization During The Occupation Of Haiti, 1915-1934, Laurence M. Nelson Iii

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Increasing modernization in military technology and methodology occurred during the beginning of the twentieth century. These changes had a direct effect on how U.S. Marines practiced military intelligence during the occupation of Haiti from 1915- 1934. The use of military intelligence had an impact on the outcome on the occupation but was not the only factor that contributed to U.S. military victories. My thesis explains that the improvement of intelligence methods used by Marines in Haiti occurred as a result of outside influence, changing circumstance in Haiti, and individual agency. Major failures had occurred that allowed resistance to grow unchecked …

The Aesthetics Of Hysteria In Feminine Melodrama; On Fang Fang's Water Under Time (2008), Li Guo

Languages, Philosophy, and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

Water under Time, the novel by the reputed Chinese fiction writer Fang Fang, appropriates and reconstructs the conventions of the hysteric narrative as an affective form of feminine history telling and writing. The novel, which accounts Hankou city’s past through the heroine’s life story, illustrates how feminine hysteria provides a gendered lens of reconstructed historical authenticity via the panorama of China’s early Republican period, the anti‐Japanese War, and the present new millennium. Transcending the official historical accounts, Fang Fang’s narrative features women’s innovative reconfiguration of contesting historical discourses about the city, the community, and the nation. This study of Water …

The African American Community In Ogden, Utah: Teaching Local History Within A National Framework, Michelle Braeden

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

Historical Background:

Beginning in 1869, the newly built Union Station in Ogden Utah became a major terminal for the transcontinental railroad. Around that same time George Pullman began recruiting emancipated slaves as employees on his luxury railroad cars. As a result a sizeable number of African Americans began working on the railroad. Many African Americans found residence in Ogden since it was a major railroad hub. As a result a small African American neighborhood that was six blocks long and two blocks wide formed in the city.[1] Businesses and organizations formed to support the emerging African American community within …

Europa's Bane Ethnic Conflict And Economics On The Czechoslovak Path From Nationalism To Communism, 1848-1948, Mathias Fuelling

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Ethnic conflict and its relationship with economics is a difficult subject to understand, both for moral and historical reasons. This thesis was written with a mind to the effects of these forces on the functioning of political systems. Through study of the Habsburg empire it was discovered that industrialization and competition over economic opportunities drove speakers of different languages to establish themselves as distinct ethnic communities who held conflict between each other as a virtue. This conflict and the creation of a nationalist narrative by communities of Czechs and Germans contributed to the breakup of the Habsburg empire. Conceptions of …

Communities Of Memory: The Utah History Fair And The Utilization Of History And Memory, Nicholas Andrew Demas

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Utah's students, grades 4-12, create projects for the Utah History Fair, Utah's National History Day affiliate program. As far as the rigors of youth academic prowess are concerned, National History Day and the Utah History Fair are amongst the top in the nation. Within the myriad of projects created by Utah's participating students is important information about what aspects of the past captures students' attention and why they choose to research their selected topics. Through a careful examination of student topics from 1981-1984 and 2009-2012, this project taps into what students comprehend about the past. Further inspection into why students …

An Interstate Runs Through It: The Construction Of Little Rock's Interstate 630 And The Fight To Stop It, Darcy Pumphrey

Darcy Pumphrey

Completion of the first mile of Interstate 630 (I-630) occurred in 1969. However, demands from organized community groups and litigation delayed completion of the full seven-and-a-half mile route until 1985. While the freeway resistance movement in Little Rock did not stop the construction of I-630 – it did gain influence over many key decisions within the planning and construction process.Through an examination of the construction of I-630, this thesis advances the basic understanding of the elements of an organized freeway revolt and serves as a guide for other communities as they navigate their own freeway planning efforts. In order to …

The Rise Of Science In Japan: 日本科学発展と原因, Mario Harper

Browse All Undergraduate research

日本の科学は第二次世界大戦から始まったと多くの人は思っている。もちろん、多くの発展は戦後に行われたのは事実。しかし、戦争以前にも「テクノロジージャパン」な考え方が非常に寿実していた。このスライドショーは日本科学発展の原因となることをいくつか見ています。

Stephen C. Rowan And The U.S. Navy: Sixty Years Of Service, Cynthia M. Zemke

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This thesis is a career biography, and chronicles the life and service of Stephen Clegg Rowan, an officer in the United States Navy, and his role in the larger picture of American naval history. The author has utilized mainly primary sources, including a journal kept by Rowan himself (transcribed from a microfilm copy of a handwritten journal, 900+ pages), and the Official Records of the United States military branches that were kept during the course of the Civil War. Rowan's wartime experiences and the contributions he made during the Second Seminole War, the Mexican War, and the Civil War form …

Just "Helling Around": Prohibition In Cache Valley, Utah, Kara Lyn Parker

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Busy dance halls, exploding bottles, back room exchanges, and car chases: the Prohibition Era was doused with excitement. In rural Cache County, Utah, in the thick of prohibition years, a thirsty customer cautiously entered the rural residence of a known illegal brewer. The seller firmly shook his client’s hand and calmly took his order. When the customer ordered some simple beer, the brewer sent his son to fetch some bottles. The son, after heading upstairs, poked his head back down, and asked his father, “Dad…do you want me to get the beer out of the crock that the cat got …

History Steps Off The Page: The Past In The Future, A Case Study Of How The Mormon Battalion Is Making History Interactive, Allyson Jones

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This thesis addresses the presentation of the Mormon Battalion's history in three interactive forms. The Battalion served in the U.S.-Mexican War between 1846 and 1847. In 2008 a group known as Battalion Trek chose to rehike the original trail as closely as possible. The three chapters of this thesis address the reenactors who planned and completed the rehike, the blog they kept as they did so, and a program which allows those interested to learn more about the trail. Analyzing what such presentations have to offer is important as history moves into the hands of the public and as the …

From "Stalinkas" To "Khrushchevkas": The Transition To Minimalism In Urban Residential Interiors In The Soviet Union From 1953 To 1964, Ksenia Choate

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

During the shift from the rule of Joseph Stalin to that of Nikita Khrushchev, people in the Soviet Union witnessed dramatic political, economic, and social changes, evident even in such private aspects of life as residential home interiors.

The major architectural style of Stalin's era, known as Stalin's Empire Style, was characterized by grandeur and rich embellishments. The buildings' interiors were similarly grandiose and ornate. By endorsing this kind of design, Stalin attempted to position himself as an heir of classical traditions, to encourage respect for his regime, and to signal his power. When Nikita Khrushchev became the country's leader …

Lee Oser. The Return Of Christian Humanism: Chesterton, Eliot, Tolkien And The Romance Of History, Alan Blackstock

English Faculty Publications

In The Return of Christian Humanism: Chesterton, Eliot, Tolkien, and the Romance of History, Lee Oser, a professor of literature at Holy Cross College, follows Chesterton's lead in taking on the heretics, decadents, and aesthetes within the postmodernist critical establishment, extolling Chesterton, Eliot, and Tolkien as defenders of reason and romance and vilifying influential late twentieth-century critics such as Harold Bloom and Helen Vendler, whose alleged attacks on the liberal humanist tradition Oser sees as having eroded not only literary scholarship but indeed the very underpinnings of democratic society. In his preface Oser asserts, "Without scruple or debate, our schools …

Growing Wild: Crested Wheatgrass And The Landscape Of Belonging, Lafe Gerald Conner

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Crested wheatgrass arrived in North America at the turn of the twentieth century through the foreign plant exploration missions sponsored by the United States Department of Agriculture. During the first two decades of the new century, scientists tested the grass at agricultural experiment stations. They determined it was useful for grazing and particularly valuable because it could grow in drought conditions with little or no care and would continue to produce high quality feed even after several years of heavy use. Beginning in the 1930s federally sponsored land utilization and agricultural adjustment programs sponsored the use of crested wheatgrass for …

Castle Valley, America, Nancy Taniguchi

All USU Press Publications

This is American history told through the stories of an atypical, for Utah, region. Castle Valley is roughly conterminous with two counties, Carbon and Emery, which together formed a rural, industrial enclave in a mostly desert environment behind the mountain range that borders Utah's principal corridor of settlement. In Castle Valley, coal mining and the railroad attracted diverse, multiethnic communities and a fair share of historic characters, from Butch Cassidy, who stole its largest payroll, to Mother Jones, who helped organize its workers against its mining companies. Among the last major segments of the state to be settled, it was …

A History And Cultural Resource Site Recordation Of Ogden Center And The Home Of Truth Cooperative Settlement, Heather M. Weymouth

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

The purpose of this project was to complete an intensive level cultural resource inventory of the historic property known as Ogden Center and the Home of Truth Cooperative Settlement (Home of Truth). The goal of an intensive level inventory is to identify, record, and determine the extent and significance of a particular historic property. In order to meet these criteria, the site and associated individual features must be thoroughly documented through description, mapping, and photography. In addition to working with the on the ground, physical characteristics of the site, documentary research must be conducted in order to provide a historic …

Rainbow Bridge: An Illustrated History, Hank Hassell

All USU Press Publications

On the morning of August 14, 1909, a small, diverse group including Professor Byron Cummings of the University of Utah, Government Land Office surveyor William Douglass, pioneer archaeologist and trader John Weatherill, and Paiute guide Nasja Begay gazed at the largest structure of its kind in the world-Rainbow Bridge. Their presence marked the official discovery of the magnificent natural bridge, which spans 275 feet and towers 291 feet above the stream bed below it. Of the discovery party, only Nasja Begay had seen the stone arch before; he was one of a probably small number of Paiutes and Navajos, the …

"Halfway Between Nobody Knows Where And Somebody's Starting Point": A History Of The West End Of Montrose County, Colorado, John A. Hardcastle

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The thesis contains interesting and relevant information concerning the impact of the mining and milling industry on communities located within a geographically, socially, politically, and economically defined area in southwestern Colorado. This area supplied a tremendous amount of radium, vanadium, and uranium in successive eras. The author focuses primarily on Uravan, and examines the town's role in the uranium procurement program during World War II. The study of Uravan also provides information on the social structure of a company-owned community. Also examined are the ways in which government policies affected these small communities, and the impacts of the mining and …

Laugh And History Laughs With You, Davis Rich Lewis

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The History Of Louisa Barnes Pratt, George Ellsworth

All USU Press Publications

In her memoir, and 1870s revision of her journal and diary, Louisa Barnes Pratt tells of childhood in Massachusetts and Canada during the War of 1812, and independent career as a teacher and seamstress in New England, and her marriage to the Boston seaman Addison Pratt.

Converting to the LDS Church, the Pratts moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, from where Brigham Young sent Addison on the first of the long missions to the Society Islands that would leave Louisa on her own. As a sole available parent, she hauled her children west to Winter Quarters, to Utah in 1848, to California, …

The Rest Is History, Davis Rich Lewis

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Legend Of The Midwife's Blessing, Rosanna West Walker

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

This legend was told by my aunt, Jessie Bradshaw. She was a descendant of Scottish people who settled Wellsville in the 1850s. Her mother, Janet Leatham, died giving birth to another child, and Jessie was reared by my maternal great-great grandmother, Jane Alexander Steele Leatham, who was a midwife. The family members were all devout Mormons.

History Of The Bookstore At Utah State University, Pamela R. Stanger

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

USAC President Joshua H. Paul was in office for only three years (1894-96) but he was instrumental in incorporating many changes in the new College. One of these was to actually publish the 1895 curriculum in catalog form listing each subject with a brief description. Another was the establishment of the College Bookstore.