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Full-Text Articles in American Studies

The “Fatty” Arbuckle Scandal, Will Hays, And Negotiated Morality In 1920s America, Aaron T. Whitehead May 2015

The “Fatty” Arbuckle Scandal, Will Hays, And Negotiated Morality In 1920s America, Aaron T. Whitehead

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In the autumn of 1921, silent film comedian Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle was arrested for the rape and murder of a model and actress named Virginia Rappé. The ensuing scandal created a firestorm of controversy not just around Arbuckle but the entire motion picture industry. Religious and moral reformers seized upon the scandal to decry the decline of “traditional” moral values taking place throughout American society in the aftermath of World War I. The scandal created a common objective for an anti-film coalition representing diverse social and religious groups, all dedicated to bringing about change in the motion picture industry through …


Colonels, Hillbillies And Fightin’: Twentieth-Century Kentucky In The National Imagination, Anthony Harkins Apr 2015

Colonels, Hillbillies And Fightin’: Twentieth-Century Kentucky In The National Imagination, Anthony Harkins

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Miller, Carl Haskell, 1889-1964 (Sc 2587), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives Sep 2012

Miller, Carl Haskell, 1889-1964 (Sc 2587), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2587. Daily diary and journal of Carl Haskell Miller, Tompkinsville, Kentucky. A manager on the Chautauqua circuit, Miller writes in a detailed but lighthearted way of his family, his life at home and of his travels in the United States and Mexico. He also reproduces some of his personal and professional correspondence, and writes of his mother’s death in 1927.


Hal Lindsey's The Late, Great Planet Earth And The Rise Of Popular Premillennialism In The 1970s, Cortney S. Basham Aug 2012

Hal Lindsey's The Late, Great Planet Earth And The Rise Of Popular Premillennialism In The 1970s, Cortney S. Basham

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

How people think about the end of the world greatly affects how they live in the present. This thesis examines how popular American thought about “the end of the world” has been greatly affected by Hal Lindsey’s 1970 popular prophecy book The Late, Great Planet Earth. LGPE sold more copies than any other non-fiction book in the 1970s and greatly aided the mainstreaming of “end-times” ideas like the Antichrist, nuclear holocaust, the Rapture, and various other concepts connected with popular end-times thought. These ideas stem from a specific strain of late-nineteenth century Biblical interpretation known as dispensational premillennialism, which …


Nelson, James S. (Fa 161), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives Jul 2012

Nelson, James S. (Fa 161), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 161. This collection contains a master’s thesis entitled “Hillbilly Music and Early Live Radio Programming In Bowling Green and Glasgow, Kentucky: Country Music as a Local Phenomenon,” written by James Nelson in January 1994 for the department of Modern Languages and Intercultural Studies at Western Kentucky University. Also included is a cassette tape of old-time music from south central Kentucky entitled “Railroad Through the Smoky Mountains,” by Jim Bowles, as well as an obituary for Jonell F. Simunick.


Wayne County, Kentucky Project (Fa 23), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives Jan 2012

Wayne County, Kentucky Project (Fa 23), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid for Folklife Archives Project 23. Oral history interviews with various residents of Wayne County, Kentucky, conducted by Western Kentucky University folk studies students. Topics include the oil industry, folk medicine, water witching, one-room schools and banjo playing.


Hillbillies, Rednecks, Crackers And White Trash, Anthony Harkins Jan 2012

Hillbillies, Rednecks, Crackers And White Trash, Anthony Harkins

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Deatherage, Jamie (Fa 312), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives Oct 2008

Deatherage, Jamie (Fa 312), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 312. Paper: "[Ziggy]" written by Jamie Deatherage for a Western Kentucky University folk studies class.


Hillbilly: A Cultural History Of An American Icon, Anthony Harkins Jan 2005

Hillbilly: A Cultural History Of An American Icon, Anthony Harkins

History Faculty Book Gallery

In this pioneering work of cultural history, historian Anthony Harkins argues that the hillbilly-in his various guises of "briar hopper," "brush ape," "ridge runner," and "white trash"-has been viewed by mainstream Americans simultaneously as a violent degenerate who threatens the modern order and as a keeper of traditional values of family, home, and physical production, and thus symbolic of a nostalgic past free of the problems of contemporary life. "Hillbilly" signifies both rugged individualism and stubborn backwardness, strong family and kin networks but also inbreeding and bloody feuds. Spanning film, literature, and the entire expanse of American popular culture, from …


The Hillbilly In The Living Room: Television Representations Of Southern Mountaineers In Situation Comedies, 1952-1971, Anthony Harkins Oct 2001

The Hillbilly In The Living Room: Television Representations Of Southern Mountaineers In Situation Comedies, 1952-1971, Anthony Harkins

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Commies, H-Bombs And The National Security State: The Cold War In The Comics, Anthony Harkins Jan 1997

Commies, H-Bombs And The National Security State: The Cold War In The Comics, Anthony Harkins

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


The Significance Of ‘Hillbilly’ In Early Country Music, 1924-1945, Anthony Harkins Oct 1996

The Significance Of ‘Hillbilly’ In Early Country Music, 1924-1945, Anthony Harkins

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Ua35/11 Student Honors Research Bulletin, Wku Honors Program Jan 1995

Ua35/11 Student Honors Research Bulletin, Wku Honors Program

WKU Archives Records

The WKU Student Honors Research Bulletin is dedicated to scholarly involvement and student research. These papers are representative of work done by students from throughout the university.

  • Allen, Melody. Women in Control of Courtship in As You Like It, The Merchant of Venice and All's Well That Ends Well
  • Amlani, Islamshah. Electron Stimulated Desorption of Alkali Halides
  • Brillhart, Kelly. Women Without Men: Hemingway's Female Characters
  • Burton, Lori. Financial Statements with Environmental Concerns: An Exploratory Study of the Impact on the Auditor's Role and Responsibilities
  • Combs, Vicki. Dancing the Descent: Energy and Entrophy in William Carlos Williams
  • Davis, Julie. Prelude to …