American Studies Commons^™

Understanding The Civil War, Charles O. Boyd

Oglethorpe Journal of Undergraduate Research

This paper examines why the American Civil War took place and what the modern significance of the conflict is. The paper demonstrates that slavery was indeed the main cause of Southern secession and debunks, one by one, the arguments against that view. It also argues that modern day tributes to the Confederacy are offensive and that the Civil War should be understood as part of a long struggle in the United States for equal rights.

Contesting The Marginalization Of Female Leadership In Sports: The Struggle For Equal Opportunities In Men's Collegiate And Professional Basketball, Caitlain Tinker

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

This feminist critique interrogates the discourses and practices of gender discrimination in men's professional and collegiate sporting institutions in the United States. This study focuses on delineating and 'naming' the discriminatory ideologies that are (re)produced by dominant social and cultural institutions, revealing in the process how these practices (over)determine gender equality in the professional and collegiate sporting field. To this end, I perform a post-structuralist discourse analysis of what Louis Althusser calls the dominant 'ideological state apparatuses,' namely schools, the media and sporting institutions. I argue that these institutions coalesce to form a network of power that produces, reproduces, and …

William Beer: An Englishman's Role In Libraries, Literature And Society In New Orleans, 1891-1927, Remesia Shields

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In 1891, an Englishman named William Beer arrived in New Orleans, Louisiana, to take up the position as librarian of Tulane University's Howard Library. Beer quickly gained a reputation as a competent and knowledgeable librarian by bolstering the Louisiana collection at the Howard Library with maps, rare books and Louisiana historical documents. In 1896, Beer played a central role in the organization and opening of the first free and public library in New Orleans, the Fisk Free and Public Library. Beer befriended many well-known authors of New Orleans literature including George Washington Cable, Grace King, Mollie Moore Davis and Mary …

"Listen To The Wild Discord": Jazz In The Chicago Defender And The Louisiana Weekly, 1925-1929, Sarah A. Waits

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This essay will use the views of two African American newspaper columnists, E. Belfield Spriggins of the Louisiana Weekly and Dave Peyton of the Chicago Defender, to argue that though New Orleans and Chicago both occupied a primary place in the history of jazz, in many ways jazz was initially met with ambivalence and suspicion. The struggle between the desire to highlight black achievement in music and the effort to adhere to tenets of middle class respectability play out in their columns. Despite historiographical writings to the contrary, these issues of the influence of jazz music on society were …

As The World Turns...Gay, Not Queer: Privileging Heteronormalized Representations Of Sexuality In American Soap Operas From 1977 - Present, Brett Edward King

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

This project argues that American daytime soap operas, since the1970s, have adopted prevailing discursive ideas of queerness, re-articulated them, and introduced new discursive understandings of queerness into popular culture. Most often, these re-articulated representations reflect a heteronormalized model,owing to myriad historically-situated discourses related to human sexuality (e.g.,mental health, AIDS, and gender identity). This point is made through a broad examination of these shifting discourses, coupled with a direct analysis of salient queer characters and storylines that appeared concurrently within daytime serials. Building on Feminist and Media theory, this project includes Queer theory to frame a comprehensive historical-discursive understanding of queerness …

Paradox On The Playa: Uncovering The Contradictions Embedded In Burning Man, Shelby Anne Rothman

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

This project examines the contradictions embedded in the stated goals and organizational structure of Burning Man. Burning Man is something that is portrayed as positive in an alternative community; but in reality has its own hegemony and hierarchical bureaucracy. Through a discourse analysis and participant observation, this project shows that the ideologies of the culture are partially liberatory while most other aspects of Burning Man are hegemonic. The social contradictions of Burning Man are pointed out through employing theories of ideology, hegemony, place and space, heteronormativity, and subculture theory.

University Of Southern Maine Commencement Program, 2013, University Of Southern Maine

Commencement Programs

University of Southern maine commencement program, 2013

Saturday, May the Eleventh, Two Thousand and Thirteen At Nine O' Clock in the Morning and Two O' Clock in the Afternoon

Morning Address by U.S. Senator Susan M. Collins

Afternoon Address by Mary G. F. Bitterman

The Akron Offering: A Ladies' Literary Magazine, 1849-1850, Jon Miller

University of Akron Press Publications

FREE FULL-TEXT PDF DOWNLOAD

From 1849 to 1850, Calista Cummings edited and published Akron's first literary magazine, The Akron Offering. At the time, Akron was a booming canal town on the verge of even greater prosperity. By turns religious, comic, romantic, and political, this extraordinary collection of early midwestern creative literature expresses a wide range of sometimes contradictory opinions on both the important questions of its day and the important questions of today: historical events such as the California Gold Rush of 1849 and the 1848 revolutions in Europe are considered alongside more timeless contemplations on truth, justice, and …

Archeological Investigations For The Levi Jordan Plantation House Stabilization, Brazoria County, Texas, Jennifer K. Mcwilliams, Douglas K. Boyd, Aaron Norment

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

The Levi Jordan plantation house is one of the few antebellum plantation structures to have survived in Brazoria County. It is the only standing structure associated with the plantation, which began operating in 1848 and was occupied continually up through the 1990s. The original house, built in the early 1850s using slave labor, was a 20x60-ft two-story wooden frame structure. It was altered many times during its long occupation, often due to hurricane damage. A portion of the Levi Jordan Plantation was acquired by the State of Texas in 2002 and managed by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department until …

Noe, James Thomas Cotton, 1864-1953 (Sc 1021), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and full text scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 1021. Published copy of James Thomas Cotton Noe’s poem, “Tip Sams of Kentucky, Patriot,” with added comments by Noe. Noe was honored as a Poet Laureate of Kentucky.

Marquess, Kathleen Caroline (Perkins), 1895-1973 (Sc 1018), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 1018. Booklet (39 pages) of poems and brief prose, Moments of Gladness, Madness and Sadness, published by Kathleen Caroline Perkins Marquess, Hopkinsville, Kentucky. She records comments about many of her writings and includes letter written to Allan Trout, 1961. In letter she discusses the details of getting the booklet published.

Penn, Anna Ruth (Sc 1013), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 1013. Receipt signed by school teacher (Anna) Ruth Penn, Gracy, Kentucky, and given to M.S. Hopson, a member of the School Board of Trustees, for payment. She requested payment of $4.50 for three months’ tuition. Penn was the mother of noted author, Robert Penn Warren. Also associated data.

Murdoch, Louise Saunders, 1872-1918 - Letters To (Sc 937), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 937. Congratulatory letters, 1918, written to Louise Saunders Murdoch, Buckhorn, Kentucky, concerning her recently published book, Almetta of Gabriel’s Run.

Speed, John Orville, 1871-1970 (Sc 933), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 933. Two poems; excerpt from Who’s Who in Poetry that included one of John Orville Speed’s poems; 1970 newspaper clipping about Speed, all found in an autographed copy of his 1962 book Anecdotes and Tall Tale in Rhyme. Speed was originally from Madisonville, Hopkins County, Kentucky, and was called the “Pennyrile Poet Laureate.”

Rice, Alice Caldwell (Hegan), 1870-1942 (Sc 943), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 943. Unsigned picture postcard, postmarked Cumberland, Maryland, and addressed to Rose Mehler, Lexington, Kentucky. The writer relates that their carnival was very successful and that their production of Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch was quite a “unique feature.” Picture on postcard is of the cast and scenery of the play.

Thornton, James Bankhead, 1806-1867 (Sc 2696), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2696. Letter, 9 February 1847, of lawyer James B. Thornton, Memphis, Tennessee, to John M. Thornton, Newport, Kentucky. He asks John to deliver a circular and notice about a book he has written to a bookseller in Cincinnati, Ohio. He also provides an update on the search for an estate heir and mentions his poor health.

"In Family Way": Guarding Indigenous Women’S Children In Washington Territory, Katrina Jagodinsky

Department of History: Faculty Publications

The cases discussed here represent very few of the guardianship arrangements that characterized intergenerational and interracial households in territorial Washington, yet the patterns they illustrate correspond with other evidence that allows historians to track the distribution of Indian and mixed- race children in the Puget Sound region. Th e 1880 federal census schedules for counties bordering the Puget Sound reveals the informal guardianship of Native women’s children in ninetytwo households. Among these extralegal arrangements were forty- two households headed by white men, some single like Ed Boggess and others married to white women like Phoebe Judson, who classified the indigenous …

The John Muir Newsletter, Spring 2013, The John Muir Center

Muir Center Newsletters (1981-2015)

Page 1 transcription missing

PAGE 2 F o Andrea Wulf unding Garden Speaks e r s " AT o N P A C I F I C On February 27, prize-winning author Andrea Wulf spoke on the subject of "Founding Gardeners: How the Revolutionary Generation Created an American Eden." The talk was sponsored by Phi Beta Kappa, the University Library, and John Muir Center and attracted more than eighty faculty, staff, students, and community members, many of the latter members of Master Gardeners. Born in India of German parents on assignment to the equivalent of our own Peace Corps, Wulf …

Lg Ms 025 George Daniell Artwork Finding Aid, Susannah Clark

Search the Manuscript Collection (Finding Aids)

Description:

George Daniell, photographer and artist, lived the second half of his life in a coastal community near Bar Harbor, Maine. Originally from Yonkers, he worked as a freelance photographer in New York and Europe for most of his early career. In the 1930’s, he made his first visits to Monhegan Island and Grand Manan Island, capturing images in photographs and paintings. For many years he owned a house on Fire Island, and spent winters in Key West, and these locations also feature prominently in his work. He is best known for his photographic portraits of well-known artists and literary …

Sam Gen Ms 01 Jean Byers Sampson Papers Finding Aid, John D. Knowlton, Susannah Clark

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Description:

Jean Byers Sampson was a 1944 graduate of Smith College. Early in her post-Smith career, she conducted and wrote the 1947, “A Study of the Negro in Military Service,” which contributed to President Harry Truman’s decision to desegregate the armed forces. Sampson moved to Maine in the early 1950s with her husband, Richard Sampson, a Bates College mathematics professor, and she played a unique and critical role in the state until her death in 1996. Over the course of her life in Maine, she served as the founder of the first chapter of the NAACP in Maine, local and …

Roberts, Elizabeth Madox, 1881-1941 (Sc 959), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below" for Manuscripts Small Collection 959. Letter, 9 September 1920, written by Elizabeth Madox Roberts, Springfield, Kentucky, to "Marjorie," evidently a fellow student at the University of Chicago. Roberts mentions the Poetry Club, the problem of finding suitable housing, and comments about fellow students Janet Loxley Lewis and Maurice Lesemann.

Connecting Literature And History: Fitzgerald’S The Great Gatsby Museum Project, Adam Kotlarczyk

The Great Gatsby Unit

Despite mixed reviews at the time of its 1925 publication, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby has come to be one of the most widely taught American books and has become a popular candidate for the title of the “Great American Novel.” Uniquely intertwining social history, biography, and literature, the text challenges readers to understand the culture and history of the Jazz Age and to see its interrelationship with the lives and motivations of the characters, as well as with the author himself. This project encourages students to engage and work closely with one of the historical elements that influenced …

"The Jaws Of Proprietary Slavery": The Pennsylvania Assembly's Conflict With The Penns, 1754-1768, Steven Deyerle

Masters Theses

In late 1755, the vituperative Reverend William Smith reported to his proprietor Thomas Penn that there was "a most wicked Scheme on Foot to run things into Destruction and involve you in the ruins." The culprits were the members of the colony's unicameral legislative body, the Pennsylvania Assembly (also called the House of Representatives). The representatives held a different opinion of the conflict, believing that the proprietors were the ones scheming, in order to "erect their desired Superstructure of despotic Power, and reduce to a State of Vassalage and Slavery, some of His majesty's most faithful and loyal Subjects." The …

Victim Of A Revolution: Nicholas Cresswell's American Odyssey, 1774-1777, Matthew Exline

Masters Theses

The diary of Nicholas Cresswell, a young Englishman who traveled in America from 1774-1777, has long been an important primary source on the American Revolution. Cresswell's travels took him from the eastern seaboard (and Barbados) to Kentucky and Ohio, and from Williamsburg, Virginia to New York City. The people he met encompassed almost the entire political spectrum of the day, ranging from William Howe and Loyalist operatives such as John Connolly to grassroots patriot activists on the Committees of Public Safety and founding luminaries such as George Rogers Clark, Thomas Jefferson, and Patrick Henry. He rubbed shoulders with people from …

No One Who Reads The History Of Hayti Can Doubt The Capacity Of Colored Men: Racial Formation And Atlantic Rehabilitation In New York City's Early Black Press, 1827-1841, Charlton W. Yingling

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

From 1827 to 1841 the black newspapers Freedom’s Journal and the Colored American of New York City were venues for one of the first significant racial projects in the United States. To counter aspersions against their race, the editors of these publications renegotiated their community’s identity within the matrix of the Black Atlantic away from waning discourses of a collective African past. First, Freedom’s Journal used the Haitian Revolution to exemplify resistance, abolitionism, and autonomy. The Colored American later projected the Republic of Haiti as a model of governance, prosperity, and refinement to serve this community’s own evolving ambitions of …

A Nation In Its Prime: A Pentadic Study Of Walt Disney World's Main Street, U.S.A., Casey Guise

Masters Theses

The purpose of this paper is to consider the entrance to Walt Disney World, Main Street, U.S.A., as a rhetorical text and apply Kenneth Burke's dramatistic pentad. Background is provided on rhetorical theory and The Disney Company. Meanings are derived from messages interpreted using semiotics and symbolic interaction within the location. The significance of Main Street, U.S.A., as a replica of historic architecture and an illustration of revival architecture in creating emotive messages is discussed. Further discussion includes the implications of this study on corporations and the field of rhetorical studies in addition to suggestions for further research.

Stuart, Jesse Hilton, 1907-1984 (Sc 2686), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2686. Letter of Jesse Stuart, 16 April 1960, to Elizabeth Coombs, librarian at the Kentucky Library, Western Kentucky University (then Western Kentucky State College). He recalls his first meeting with the college’s late president, Paul L. Garrett, and praises Garrett’s personal qualities and the breadth of his reading.

Giles, Janice (Holt), 1905-1979 (Sc 988), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 988. Wills of Janice (Holt) and Henry Giles, Knifley (Adair County), Kentucky, including rights to Janice's books, royalties, papers, etc.

Caudill, Rebecca, 1899-1985 (Sc 991), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 991. Letters (2), written to Evelyn Thurman, Bowling Green, Kentucky, from Rebecca Caudill, Urbana, Illinois, discussing her and her husband’s writings and day-to-day activities and showing her friendship with Thurman, who later wrote a biography of Caudill.

Morton, David, 1886-1957 (Sc 684), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 684. Holograph poem entitled "Look With Love," by David Morton, a native of Elkton, Kentucky.