History Commons^™

Abraham Shushan: In The Shadow Of Huey Long, Brad J. Burke

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Abraham L. Shushan worked in the shadow of Huey P. Long. Long’s political machine ran on the force of his personality with political power given as a reward to those he considered loyal. Shushan was one such lieutenant who benefited from his unwavering loyalty to Long. Shushan served within the New Orleans political scene helping Long achieve his goals including building the Shushan Airport on the city’s lakefront as well as being instrumental in the construction of the seawall protecting New Orleans along the shoreline of Lake Pontchartrain. By the time he started working for Long, Shushan was already a …

The Spirit Is Willing, But The Flesh Is Weak: Contemporary Pan-Africanism And The Challenges To A United States Of Africa, Adesola Adeyemo

Master's Theses

Establishing a ‘United States of Africa’ to the average individual is deemed as a mythical idea in contemporary Africa, irrespective of the popularity of this idea several years ago. Today, the idea is idealized as overambitious – considering the balkanized state of the continent post-colonialization. Because of this, attempts made since then have favored enforcing regional integration over continental integration. Undeniably, this idea would not have come into being if it wasn’t for the concept of Pan-Africanism - which has for long guided the political and socio-economic policies created on the continent. The goal of this research is …

Inside The Virtual Ambazonia: Separatism, Hate Speech , Disinformation And Diaspora In The Cameroonian Anglophone Crisis, Sombaye Eyango Jules Roger

Master's Theses

This study examines the dynamics of the anglophone separatist claims in Cameroon, the so-called “Anglophone Crisis”. I focus on explaining why the separatist claims reemerged in 2016 after being shut down for about 20 years. It explains how the Anglophone separatist revendications have sustained over time despite the extremely centralized power of the Paul Biya government.This paper first argues that the Anglophone Crisis is more than an identity struggle between Anglophone/Francophone Cameroonians, but rather a conflict about historical and institutional grievances, political competition, and regional politics involving the neighboring state of Nigeria.

Second, it verifies the hypothesis that the sustainability …

It Could Never Last: Why British Sovereignty And Its Influence Since 1945 Resulted In Brexit, Jeffrey Brandt

Master's Theses

The EU Referendum of June 2016 marked a watershed moment for the United Kingdom, as it sought to once again reassert its sovereignty and retake its place in the world as an independent state, free from European Union infringement. The British are usually seen as the cussid ones in Europe, stubbornly holding on to their principles and traditions of sovereignty. But why is that? Carefully tracing UK history, particularly from the end of the Second World War to the present day, it becomes understandable why the result of the 2016 referendum should not be quite a surprise. Studying events in …

Consolidation: Race, Politics, And Suburbanization In The Newport News-Warwick Merger, David Le Moal

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

The Hampton Roads area of Virginia changed dramatically during the 20^th century as it transformed from rural farmland to suburban sprawl. Two cities in the region, Newport News and Warwick, employed a policy known as consolidation. While many cities throughout the United States utilized consolidation in the post-war era, the merging of Newport News and Warwick illustrates how consolidations manipulated and altered the landscape of the city. The modern city of Newport News is split between a large, prosperous, suburban area mainly populated by whites, and a small urban, declining, urban area mainly populated by blacks. The Newport News/Warwick …

From Riots To Sovereignty: United States Policy Makers Ideas, Perceptions, And Reactions To The Panamanian Struggle For Sovereignty, William Edward Humphrey

Graduate Theses

After the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty of 1903 the Panamanian people had to live in an occupied country. The U.S. took control of a ten-mile stretch of land surrounding a canal of immense importance to world trade. The U.S. policy makers ignored the pleas, complaints, and demonstrations of the Panamanian people as they struggled for sovereignty in their country. This thesis will show, through the use of primary sources from the U.S. government that U.S. policy makers refused to see the importance of sovereignty to the Panamanian people until the 1964 Panamanian Flag Riots. After that episode, U.S. policy makers dramatically shifted …

Remembering An Invasion: The Panama Intervention In America’S Political Memory, Dave Nagaji

Senior Theses

In December of 1989, the United States launched Operation Just Cause, a military invasion of the country of Panama, capturing Manuel Noriega and overthrowing his government. This research project examines how Colin Powell, Richard Cheney, James Baker, and George H.W. Bush presented Operation Just Cause in their memoirs. It attempts to determine how these senior leaders’ depictions of this invasion incorporated it into the Bush administration’s overall foreign-policy strategy. The research finds that their general approach was to present the Panama intervention as an isolated incident which had no intentional link to other major events at the time, was not …

Abraham Lincoln: Making A Man Of A Legend, Owen Martinelli

Senior Theses

Abraham Lincoln’s legacy has been in a near-constant state of flux since his death. Despite his status as one of the most notable presidents of American history, modern day historians have been unable to develop a complete understanding of Lincoln’s character. In various biographies of Lincoln throughout history, he has been portrayed in every way from a melancholic, faithless, and depressed nobody who fumbled his way into crisis after crisis, to a puritan driven by God to abolish an evil institution. Public views of Lincoln have varied dramatically from veneration to disgust, and everywhere in between. In this essay, I …

A "Real Social & Political Revolution": Nativism, Class Conflict, And Urban Reform In Portland, Maine (1840-1923), Thomas R. Macmillan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 1923, Portland, Maine voters approved passed a ballot measure that jettisoned the nearly century-old Council-Mayor plan in favor of a Council-City Manager form of governance. This dramatic alteration was supported by the Portland Chamber of Commerce and the Ku Klux Klan; it allowed the centralization of political power in the hands of an appointed City Manager and a City Council dominated by business interests. Taking this campaign as its focus, the following study incorporates nativism, class conflict, and urban reform in Portland, Maine with a focus on the period of 1840-1923. It blends ethnic, political, and urban history to …

Forging With Embers: The Life And Pre-Gubernatorial Career Of Isaac Murphy, 1799-1864, Keith Joshua Lee Todd

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The gubernatorial administration of Isaac Murphy from 1864-1868, as Arkansas began emerging from the Civil War into Reconstruction, has had a thorough, if dated, examination in Arkansas historiography. However, Murphy’s life and pre-gubernatorial career, including his early political activities—being the first treasurer of Washington County, Arkansas (1836-1838), serving three terms in the Arkansas General Assembly (two in the House, 1846-1849, and one in the Senate, 1856-1857), and the totality of his action during both sessions of Arkansas’s Secession Convention (1861)—have been largely neglected. This thesis will additionally provide a biographical interpretation of Murphy necessary to fully understand his political actions—his …

"The Whole Nation Will Move": Grassroots Organizing In Harlem And The Advent Of The Long, Hot Summers, Peter Blackmer

Doctoral Dissertations

“The Whole Nation Will Move” provides a narrative history of grassroots struggles for African American equality and empowerment in Harlem in the decade immediately preceding the era of widespread urban rebellions in the United States. Through a street-level examination of the political education and activism of grassroots organizers, the dissertation analyzes how local people developed a collective radical consciousness and organized to confront and dismantle institutional racism in New York City from 1954-1964. This work also explores how the interests and activities of poor and working-class Black and Puerto Rican residents of Harlem fueled the escalation of protest activity and …

A Voyage Into The Abyss – A Look Into The First Year Of The Jamestown Settlement, Austin Valentine, Austin Valentine Jr.

Student Scholarship & Creative Works

A brief introduction into the first year at the Jamestown settlement and the troubles the settlers faced upon arrival to the New World.

Charting Continuation: Understanding Post-Traditional Six Nations Militarism, 1814-1930, Evan Joseph Habkirk

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Until recently, military historians failed to consider First Nations military participation beyond the settlement of a particular region, including the end War of 1812 in Ontario and Quebec, and the post-Northwest Rebellion era in the Western Provinces. Current historiography of Six Nations military between the end of the War of 1812 and the First World War has also neglected the evolution of First Nations militarism and the voice of First Nations peoples, with most military histories including First Nations participation as contributions to the larger non-First Nations narrative of Canada. By charting the military participation of one First Nation community, …

An Assessment Of Parliament’S View Of The Jamestown Settlement In 1652 – 45 Years After The Initial Establishment, Austin Valentine, Austin Valentine Jr.

Student Scholarship & Creative Works

A brief opinion piece based on parliament’s view of the Jamestown colony in 1652, 45 years after the colony’s establishment in the new world. The paper is substantiated by early English documents with a present day interpretation.

The American Whig Party And Slavery, Mitchell Rocklin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explains why the American Whig Party consisted of the most anti-slavery and pro-slavery segments of American politics during the Second Party System (1834 to 1854), as well as why it broke up. I argue that slavery was a major reason for the creation and continuation of the party, particularly in the South. A common Whig political culture – economically capitalistic while also emphasizing the integrity of the “social fabric” over individualism – helped spur both northern and southern Whigs to oppose Democrats over slavery from opposite perspectives. Southern Whigs honestly and understandably saw themselves as more pro-slavery, prioritizing …

Merchant Seamen, Sailortowns, And The Shaping Of U.S. Citizenship, 1843-1945, Johnathan Thayer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation argues that merchant seamen, because of their inherent transience, diversity, and the unique nature of their work, occupied a marginal position in U.S. society, and that that marginalization produced a series of confrontations with shoreside people, communities, institutions, and the state, most specifically over the nature and definition of citizenship. This argument is developed through examination of a series of encounters and negotiations that merchant seamen provoked from the piers, back alleys, and boardinghouses of the nation’s “sailortowns” from the 1830s through World War II, including: 1) nineteenth century maritime ministry projects in the Port of New York …

Territories Of Contestation In Medellín: Destierro, Memory, The Youth, And The State, Joan C. Lopez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis is partly a study of the social and political territories that are generated by the displaced as responses to the warfare tactic of el destierro (displacement); and it is also an exploration of how the state operates at the intersection between its imagined centers and its margins. This thesis attempts to look at the state from its imagined margins and to explore how displacement, the regulation of the movement of specific bodies within and across specifically defined regions of Colombia, has been a fundamental practice for, and not against, the formation of the Colombian “state” as we see …

The Politics Of Wounds, Jonathan Nash

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

What configuration of strategies and discourses enable the white male and settler body politic to render itself as simultaneously wounded and invulnerable? I contextualize this question by reading the discursive continuities between Euro-America’s War on Terror post-9/11 and Algeria’s War for Independence. By interrogating political-philosophical responses to September 11, 2001 beside American rhetoric of a wounded nation, I argue that white nationalism, as a mode of settler colonialism, appropriates the discourses of political wounding to imagine and legitimize a narrative of white hurt and white victimhood; in effect, reproducing and hardening the borders of the nation-state. Additionally, by turning to …

Creating Herstory: Female Rebellion In Arundhati Roy’S "The God Of Small Things" And "The Ministry Of Utmost Happiness", Priyanka Tewari

Theses and Dissertations

In The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness novels, the author Arundhati Roy is not only attempting to give feminist weight to the multiplicity of locations in which gender is articulated by recasting her female characters in their quest for selfhood, she is also focusing on women and women-identified characters as agents of history, thereby contributing to an ongoing project of feminist historiography.

To Forgive Or Not To Forgive? A Reappraisal Of Vietnam War Evaders And Deserters In President Gerald Ford's Clemency Program, Courtney Carver

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In 1974, President Ford began the arduous task of healing the wounds sustained by the United States during the Vietnam War. His controversial clemency plan gave those who had either deserted the military or those who evaded the draft the chance to earn their way back into American society. President Ford was willing to face this opposition to move the country closer to resolving an issue that was tearing the nation apart. In the applications to Ford’s Presidential Clemency Board, thousands of deserters and evaders reveal their motivations, and in doing so present a large body of evidence that contradicts …

The Seventeenth Amendment: The United States Senate And The Transformation From Legislative Selection To Direct Popular Election, John Joseph Janora

History Theses

The passage of the Seventeenth Amendment helped to democratize the United States Senate and tied the legislative branch closer to the people, but it undermined the links between the state and the federal systems. Any thoughtful discussion on the Progressive Era will generally lead towards the idea of increased involvement of both the government, at all levels, in the lives of the general population, and the increased involvement of the general population in the functioning of the government at large. One seemingly obvious decision made in the early part of the 20^th century was the implementation of the Seventeenth …

Mississippi’S First Statewide Teachers’ Strike, Emily Doyne Smith

Master's Theses

This thesis argues that the Education Reform Act of 1982 (ERA) inadvertently led to Mississippi’s first statewide teachers’ strike in 1985 because of the Southeastern pay average clause recommending that the teachers’ pay should reach the average of the southeastern states, if possible. The teachers’ associations in Mississippi used this clause to lobby and promote teachers’ pay to that average. However, after two years of stagnated pay raises, the teachers’ associations led a state statewide teachers’ strike. The strike successfully raised the teachers’ salaries and moved state legislators to consider the teachers’ pay issue carefully afterwards. However, the pay raise …

A Mutual Charge: The Shared Mission Of Herbert Hoover And Harry S. Truman To Alleviate Global Hunger In A Postwar World, Brian Douglas Reese

Dissertations and Theses

Famine and destitution stemming from the Second World War had spread across the European continent and parts of Asia by mid-1945. Recognizing the need for recovery and survival in those regions, President Harry S. Truman at the recommendation of several Cabinet members, summoned ex-President Herbert Hoover for advice on how the United States should proceed in offering aid beyond the earlier efforts of the United Nations Rehabilitation and Relief Administration and other relief sources. After an absence from the White House and official government participation for many years, Hoover readily provided crucial advice on addressing famine relief in Europe and …

Separating The Sands: Karl Clark And Early Oil Sands Research In Alberta, Shane Roberts

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Karl Clark’s research on the oil sands had a huge impact on the province of Alberta. From the 1920s to the 1950s, Clark was one of few researchers who remained involved throughout the entire developmental period of the oil sands industry. Clark’s persistence and systematic experimentation led to the development of an effective hot water separation process which resulted in viable commercial development of the oil sands. Without his extensive experience and sustained involvement and passion for the project, the oil sands would not have been developed when they were. The sparse earlier historiography of the developmental period has tended …

Old Belief And The Balance Of Red And Blue: How Old Believers Managed Cultural Infringement, Joseph K. Van Den Berg

History

This paper covers the spread of the Old Believers into Western society, studying how they changed and evolved during the Cold War. The paper focuses on two communities, using them to compare the different attitudes Old Believers had towards differing host cultures. Using a litany of newspapers and the work of a few dedicated anthropologists, "Old Belief and the Balance of Red and Blue: How Old Believers Managed Cultural Infringement" shows the vast array of responses to a small group of Russian sectarians establishing themselves within Western Cultures of differing size and values.

President Jimmy Carter As An Activist?: Understanding President Carter’S Human Rights Policy In El Salvador During 1980 Through A Social Justice Lens, Vanaaisha Das Pamnani

History

During 1980, Salvadoran citizens endured increased violence, torture, and overall suppression of their basic human rights. Many prominent figures were assassinated by either right-wing death squads or leftist insurgents. Then on December 2, 1980 came the murder of four American churchwomen from the Maryknoll Order. Their purpose was to aid the poor within Latin America; El Salvador gave them the opportunity to help the Salvadoran poor in the midst of this violence. However, they were met with suspicion by security forces and, as a result were raped and killed on a dirt road. Within a week, President Jimmy Carter cut …

American Exceptionalism In Mass Incarceration, Isabell Murray

Global Honors Theses

American exceptionalism is often positively connotated; America’s exceptionalism often refers to the nation’s unique, progressive ideals of liberty during the nation’s founding, as well as the premise of a free Democratic Republic. While the United States of America has many positive and exceptional qualities, this research illustrates an unfortunate exceptional American quality: the mass incarceration of over 2.3 million people in the United States of America. This paper reviews the literature to understand the evolution of mass incarceration on the basis of three lines: the United States’ history of race, the nation’s governmental structure and the development of policy. Additionally, …

Radical Social Ecology As Deep Pragmatism: A Call To The Abolition Of Systemic Dissonance And The Minimization Of Entropic Chaos, Arielle Brender

Student Theses 2015-Present

This paper aims to shed light on the dissonance caused by the superimposition of Dominant Human Systems on Natural Systems. I highlight the synthetic nature of Dominant Human Systems as egoic and linguistic phenomenon manufactured by a mere portion of the human population, which renders them inherently oppressive unto peoples and landscapes whose wisdom were barred from the design process. In pursuing a radical pragmatic approach to mending the simultaneous oppression and destruction of the human being and the earth, I highlight the necessity of minimizing entropic chaos caused by excess energy expenditure, an essential feature of systems that aim …

The Significance Of Mongolia's Foreign Policy And Security Apparatus On A Global And Regional Scale, Bolor Lkhaajav

Master's Projects and Capstones

Mongolia, land-locked between two politically, economically, and militarily powerful nations — Russia and China — often must balance its foreign and security policies with its two neighbors and countries beyond. When discussing Mongolia’s foreign policy and security apparatus, historians and scholars look at the international relations of East Asia as a whole. This is the case not because Mongolia’s foreign policy is insignificant but because greater powers impose greater influence on smaller states. Mongolia’s partial involvement in World War II (WWII), and the Cold War introduced new challenges as well as opportunities for Mongolia to modernize its foreign policy principles …

Betraying Revolution: The Foundations Of The Japanese Communist Party, Matthew J. Crooke

Master's Projects and Capstones

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and China’s restoration of capitalism, it is easy to dismiss the relevancy of socialism today. Yet, the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) has enjoyed success at the polls and recognition as a serious opponent of the government of Abe Shinzō. The JCP however is not making a push for power. Instead, it supports liberal opposition parties, most recently throwing its weight behind the new Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP) in the October 2017 general election. A future CDP government in Japan could include the JCP as a coalition partner. Does …