History Commons^™

Florida's Vanishing Heritage: Climate Risk And Adaptation At Florida Heritage Sites, Levi Watson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

This thesis examines history and preservation at coastal cultural heritage sites threatened by climate change and explores climate adaptation strategies at two sites on Florida's Atlantic coast. Current climate change models indicate the planet may see as much as 1.1 meters, or four feet, of global average sea level rise by the year 2100, requiring site managers to intervene by using adaptation techniques to improve resilience and guard against the loss of cultural heritage monuments. Understanding the history and importance of these sites to the surrounding communities and their numerous stakeholders is the first step to ensuring these sites remain …

The Bishop And The Poet: Theodulf Of Orléans And The Carolingian World, Cole Taylor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

This thesis centers on Theodulf of Orléans and the themes of love and food throughout his episcopal statutes and poetry. These two themes are connected to the larger Carolingian landscape, in which Theodulf interacts with society, culture, and religion. In covering these two themes, a more nuanced picture of Carolingian religion and society emerges, at least from the way Theodulf viewed the world around him. In considering these two themes, I further encourage the process of intertextual analysis as formulated by Rosamond McKitterick and M. A. Claussen. Furthermore, I argue that the general reforms of the Carolingian empire penetrated a …

Ideological Relationships With The Cult Of Isis From Ptolemaic Alexandria To Imperial Rome, Sabrina N. Gutierrez

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Through the incorporation of primary source material and prior scholarship this study looks at the Serapeums, Isiac temples and coinage of Hellenistic Alexandria and Imperial Rome. This study seeks to provide, through close analysis and comparison, a more precise picture of the Isaic ideology of the Greco-Roman governing powers of Egypt. I focus on the capital cities of Alexandria and Rome to analyze the message of Isis to their respective inhabitants. Coinage and popular iconography (such as Isis Pelagia) are incorporated into the overall understanding of Isiac uses as coinage serves as a form of ancient propaganda. The amalgamation of …

War On The Bay: Determining The Existence Of Watershed Moments Within The Shipyards In Tampa, Florida During World War Ii, Connor E. Farley

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

With the Great Depression on one side and prosperity on the other, historians of World War II have debated its effects on American society and have asked if it represented a watershed moment. While the war clearly disrupted American life and opened new opportunities for many, its role as a transformative event remains contested. This examination of the Tampa shipyards utilizes the theoretical and methodological lenses of social history to facilitate an analysis based on a chronological approach. This analysis centers on the situation in Tampa before, during, and after World War II, and in doing so it assesses the …

Erasing The Past For Marketability: The Effects Of Selling National Myth In Ybor City's Public Historical Narrative, Janine A. Galindo

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

Ybor City is a historical neighborhood in Tampa, Florida, and a tourist attraction known for its immigrant roots and once-thriving cigar industry. This thesis places Ybor City into the context of the burgeoning heritage tourism market, examining how cities financially reliant on tourism often sanitize their public historical narrative. I identify the main actors involved in Ybor City's marketing and preservation by investigating contemporary newspaper articles and multiple National Park Service documents, thereby uncovering the motivations and decisions that led to Ybor's cultural image of a bustling, relatively peaceful early 20th-century "Latin" community. To correlate Ybor's aestheticized public image with …

The Stench Of Miasma And The Fragrance Of Daffodils: Reconstructing Historical Scentscapes In Mesopotamia, Samantha N. Levy

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

My thesis interrogates the role that the sense of smell plays in the experience of place, arguing that scent has been virtually ignored in public history contexts. The thesis will review the foundational scholarship on the history of the senses and relate the findings of interdisciplinary research that demonstrates how the senses alter one's understanding of the environment and even the formation of memories. This work is relevant to the field of public history since smell can be used to captivate the public in a memorable—and potentially more authentic—engagement with the Mesopotamian past. To address gaps in the present scholarship, …

The Viking Age As A Themed Experience: Representing Hitorical Narrative Through Research Based Design, Edward D. Macpherson

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

I intend to design an interactive educational experience that teaches guests about the culture, society, and beliefs of Scandinavian peoples during the Viking age. The concepts are illustrated through a dynamic narrative designed to be experienced through exploration of a themed environment. Immersion into the narrative is intended to instill a sense of active participation with the culture itself. This interaction is intended to inspire guests to further investigate the culture and history outside the limits of the experience. These qualities, unique to an immersive environmental themed experience, capture the lasting attention of an audience such as other mediums may …

Inclusion And Interpretation: Examining Difficult History Topics At Eighteenth-Century Historic Sites In Southeastern Pennsylvania, Cassidy Michonski

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

This thesis explores four distinct eighteenth-century historic sites in southeastern Pennsylvania and how they interpret difficult history topics. Difficult history, the parts of our nation's past that may be uncomfortable to discuss and learn about, should be included in historic site narratives to ensure that all people who lived at these sites are represented. Telling the stories of enslaved people, Indigenous groups, women, and members of the LGBTQ+ community often means addressing difficult topics. Four sites—Elfreth's Alley, Stenton, the Daniel Boone Homestead, and the 1719 Museum—were examined for this study. A review of their staff training and institutional investment in …

Spilling The Tea: A Comparative Analysis Of Development In Ex-British Colonies, Niamh L. Harrop

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The British Empire was the largest empire the world has ever seen, and as such, has significantly impacted many of the countries it formerly held as colonies. Imposing a Western style of governance would change the political operations of a nation and would fundamentally shift power dynamics within the country. Through a review of the existing literature on the subject, this thesis examines the effects that British imperial rule had on four different countries in both their social and economic development in the post-colonial era. Overall, the results indicate that Britain failed to set their colonies up for long-term development …

Odin, Lord Of The Dead: Religious Legitimization For Social And Political Change In Late Iron Age And Early Medieval Scandinavia, Ty Karnitz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Recently, scholars of pre-Christian religions in Scandinavia have argued against a unified pantheon with Odin at its head. Instead, scholars have argued that religious beliefs in pre-Christian Scandinavia should be understood as a body of interrelated beliefs that varied by region, social class, and environmental setting. Significant cults within pre-Christian Scandinavia include those of Thor, Freyr, Odin, and a cult of the dead. Acknowledging that various religious beliefs coexisted leads to the question of how they interacted with each other. The cult of Odin has often been considered a cult of royalty and elites. Scholars have argued that Odin's various …

Sacrificing Sisters: Nurses' Psychological Trauma From The First World War, 1914-1918, Kayla Campana

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

This thesis examines psychological war trauma nurses experienced during the First World War. Psychological war trauma, or shell shock, as it was commonly known during the war, has largely been identified as a male affliction. In this thesis, I demonstrate that women too, suffered trauma and we can better understand nurses' trauma by applying some of the same analytical techniques that scholars have previously used to examine male combatant trauma. Moreover, I analyze the ways in which contemporary actors, including medical professionals and the public, imagined female trauma, specifically the way nurses' psychological trauma could be understood and articulated. Additionally, …

White Rage, Black Agency: Violence And Its Impact On Reconstruction Era Florida, Zachary Barnes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

The Reconstruction era in Florida is often misunderstood. Historians generally focus on the Civil War and the post-Reconstruction era to emphasize how the South has changed, but the Reconstruction era remains in shadow. To rectify this gap, this research provides more information about the Reconstruction era in Florida, specifically the impact of violence. To achieve this, I primarily used the testimonies gathered from the Joint Select Committee's investigation of violence during the Reconstruction era and the testimonies given to the Federal Government after the 1876 Presidential Election. The testimonies in these documents allow me to demonstrate how conservative whites used …

The Pardon Paradigm: The Presidential Pardons Of Donald J. Trump, Hlynur Saemundsson

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The presidential pardon power is an oft-overlooked political institution that seems to be perceived as being innocuous and irrelevant to larger political concerns. This research examines the pardons issued by President Donald J. Trump in an effort to evaluate whether they align with constitutional expectations regarding the use of this unrestricted presidential power. Dr. Jeffrey Crouch, a leading scholar on the subject, has demonstrated that the pardon power was intended to be used as a disinterested act of grace or an act in the public interest. A close survey of President Trump’s use of this power shows that many of …

To The Moon And Back: The Impact Of Moon Rocks On The Historical Legacy Of Nasa's Apollo Program, Emily Strickland

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Most would say that the pinnacle of the Space Race was when the United States landed on the Moon. Besides the countless videos and images, what is the proof that the U.S. was there? Moon rocks are tangible evidence that the U.S. was on the Moon. Once the moon rocks came to Earth, they were studied, distributed, and displayed. The goal of this research is to examine the displays and narratives of the Apollo lunar samples. Understanding where and how the rocks ended up in their earthly homes around the country allows for analysis of the historical and cultural impacts …

National Identity And Civil War Memory In The American South: How History, Ideology, And Media Inform The Culture Wars Of The Late Twentieth Century, John Lancaster

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

On Veterans Day weekend, 1994, the remains of a Confederate soldier named Lewis Powell were reinterred in a cemetery in Geneva, Florida and given military honors. This thesis begins by historicizing Powell's burial ceremony to the final decades of the twentieth century to argue for new ways of viewing and understanding how Americans engaged with Civil War memory and legacy at a time of particularly felt social and cultural change. The 'culture wars' of the 1980s and 1990s describe the many battles and debates fought over issues as wide-ranging as race, politics, gender, sexuality, religion, and education, and were often …

Workers, Mothers, And Françaises: The French Communist Party And Women In The Interwar Period (1920 - 1939), Elizabeth Klements

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

A survey of the first two decades of the French Communist Party's propaganda reveals a wide range of female imagery, from the androgynous, Soviet-style militant of the 1920s to the fashionable, feminine figure of the 1930s. Earlier scholars noting this discrepancy argued that the Party first adopted the Soviet "new woman," based on the Marxist principle of absolute gender equality but rejected it just over a decade later in order to broaden their appeal to the French masses. These studies, however, were restricted by the limited access to the French Communist Party's interwar-era archives. Using recently-digitized Party meeting records, reports, …

The Loyalty Of The Lords Of Albret: An Investigation Of The Gascon Rolls At The Outset Of The Hundred Years War, Jason Delaney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

This thesis will examine the juxtaposition of the duchy of Gascony's importance to the Plantagenet Crown with the difficulties administering the region and protecting it from French interference during the late-thirteenth and early-fourteenth centuries, resulting in the necessity of securing the loyalty of Gascon nobles for assistance. The lords of Albret were powerful allies under Edward I (1272-1307), and their defection to the French under his son, Edward II (1307-1327), put Plantagenet Gascony in a vulnerable position when the Hundred Years War began in 1337. Resecuring the loyalty of Albret – and other powerful Gascon lords – was crucial for …

"Clothes Make Men": Clothing And The Embodiment Of Gender In Virginia, 1750-1775, Rhiannon O'Neil

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

This study explores how late colonial Virginians used clothing to control, enforce, and negotiate gender. Gender, both as a system of power and as a category of social identity, became linked with the material forms of clothing that Virginians wore in their everyday lives. The identification of clothing with the body enabled Virginians to actively make choices about how to perform themselves to the wider culture of observation and perception present in the colony. Dress was ubiquitous, but its meanings were variable, changing, and unstable. In eighteenth-century Virginia, Anglo-descended colonists imported ideals from Britain, which then produced Chesapeake-specific gender relationships, …

Difficult History Education Via Design-Based Research: Teaching Historical Empathy Using Lucie Aubrac And The French Resistance As A Case Study, Sahar Eissa

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Technology-enhanced learning environments (TELEs) are educational tools that enable students to acquire knowledge, improving the quality of their educational experience. Educators face many challenges when teaching difficult histories about French resisters in World War II, such as Lucie Aubrac. Resisters' histories include deep emotions, choices, and hard decisions. There is a need for a new approach for teaching these topics and designing innovative digital tools to encourage educators and students to explore them. The current study designs and evaluates a TELE to teach difficult history via a historical empathy approach that engages students with difficult histories and provides them with …

Deportation, Genocide, And Memorial Politics: Remembrance And Memory In Postwar France, 1943-2015, Rachel Williams

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

This thesis examines how the remembrance of deportation from France during the Second World War impacted the creation of two memorials in Paris in the postwar years. The two memorials, located just over 500 meters apart in the center of Paris and inaugurated within seven years of one another, physically embody each of these narratives. The Tomb of the Unknown Jewish Martyr, created by the Contemporary Jewish Documentation Center (CDJC) in 1956, represents the narrative of Jewish persecution and genocide throughout Europe during the Second World War. Expanded in 2005, the Tomb is now known as the Shoah Memorial and …

Vergissmeinnicht: An Inderdisciplinary Study Of Holocaust Trauma Literature, Medical Experimentation Discourse, And Narratives Of Denial, Tiffany Sidders

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The use of Holocaust literature within education starts with Anne Frank and ends with Elie Wiesel's Night; however, the need for a more comprehensive understanding of the Holocaust starts with utilizing the literature to discuss the horrific events. The theories of trauma and affect are relatively new to Holocaust literature studies, which brings a lack of sources to the overall subject. Although there is a lack of sources, understanding trauma, denial, and affect relies on analyzing the written language. This thesis's significance is to detail the importance of Holocaust literature within education and to comprehend the effects denial has …

The Fall Of Sir Thomas Wolsey: The Contingent Circumstances And Events That Led To His Demise, Jeremy M. Rodriguez

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This thesis attempts to describe the contingent events that led to the downfall of Lord High Chancellor Thomas Wolsey in England. Using the British History Online website and Hall's Chronicles, I read all the letters and papers under Henry VIII between the years of 1527 and 1529. While the popular belief is that it was from Wolsey's incapability to get the annulment Henry VIII wanted from his first wife, there are other arguments that attempt to steer away from that popular viewpoint. While I do follow the popular belief, in my research I found that the common belief of the …

Camp Lejeune Digital Community Archive Project: An Analysis Of Digital Public History Efforts To Achieve Social Justice For The Camp Lejeune Drinking Water Contamination 1999-2017, Michael Partain

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

This digital thesis seeks to evaluate the impact of the digitization of analog record archives in environmental justice activities for the Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune Community. The details of the Camp Lejeune contaminated drinking water issue are firmly rooted in the analog era of record keeping and were all but forgotten by the affected community when the base was listed as a National Priority site in 1989. However, government public health activities at the Agency of Toxic Substances and Disease Registry in the late 1990s and early 2000s resulted in the digitization of records from the military and the …

Northerners' Perspectives On American Emancipation And The End Of Russian Serfdom, Mariana S. Kellis

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This thesis explores the various perspectives that Northern Americans had on Russian serfdom and its emancipation. This era was significant to both Russia and the United States because each country experienced tremendous reforms including the abolitions of their unfree labor institutions. Generally, Northern Americans viewed serfdom as a milder form of forced labor and suspected that it would be eradicated soon. Abolitionists used rumors of Russian emancipation to advocate for the end of American slavery. Diminishing the realities of serfdom in the American media was a way for abolitionists to condemn the brutality of American slavery by comparison. After the …

Catherine The Great And Her Empire In British And American Newspapers, Arlen B. Cordero

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This paper explores portrayals of Catherinian Russia in British and American periodicals during her reign, between 1762 and 1796. Catherine II had an incredibly eventful reign as she enacted important domestic reforms, engaged in two major wars with the Ottoman Empire, executed three partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and created the League of Armed Neutrality, among other accomplishments. Britain and America equally experienced momentous change during this period, most notably with the American War for Independence. This paper examines how British and American periodicals reacted to the significant events of Catherine's reign using published materials such as news reports, opinion …

Australian And New Zealand Army Corps (Anzacs) In World War One: The Making Of National Identity And Erasure Of Women And People Of Color, Simran Pawar

Honors Undergraduate Theses

My work seeks to understand the origins of national identity as it pertains to the Anzacs of Australia and New Zealand, their service at the Battle of Gallipoli, and its use in the establishment of a white, male creation myth in both nations following the end of World War One. I furthermore plan to examine how this Anzac myth excluded and even erased the place of marginalized communities in the birth of Australia and New Zealand as modern nations. In other words, my thesis explores both the insiders and the outsiders of the Anzac myth. My cutting-edge research aims to …

The Uniqueness Of A Kingdom: The Frontier Kingdom Of Norman Sicily In Comparative Perspective, Onyx De La Osa

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

The frontier was once described as lands on the periphery of a culture. I argue that frontier spaces are a third space where hybridity can occur. Several of these areas existed in the medieval world with many centering around the Mediterranean and its surrounding lands. The Norman kingdom of Sicily is one such place. Utilizing three chronicles of the time, while looking through the lens of the frontier, something not done by other modern historical texts, a distinctiveness begins to become apparent. The geographic location, the island's past, and the eventual conquest by the Normans provide a base for hybridity …

Pestilence And Poverty: The Great Influenza Pandemic And Underdevelopment In The New South, 1918-1919, Andrew Kishuni

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This study examines the "Spanish" influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 in the U.S. South, using case-studies of Jacksonville, Savannah, New Orleans, and Nashville to sculpt a "Southern flu" more identical to the Global South and the developing world than the rest of the U.S. I examine poverty and political and economic paralysis in the years between the end of Reconstruction and 1918, and the poor results of political indifference on public health and disease control. I also analyze the social and institutional racism against persons of color that defined high infectious disease mortality in Southern cities.

I argue that Southerners faced …

Control, Consumption, And Connections: The Women Of Eighteenth-Century Colchester, Virginia, And Their Participation In The Atlantic World Of Goods, 1760-1761, Bryce Forgue

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

This study examines the economic agency and participation of sixty-five women in Colchester, Fairfax County, Virginia throughout the years of 1760-1761 based on ledgers from a general store where they purchased goods on credit. To expand the view of women of different social standings in the colonial south, this study builds a more complicated picture of eighteenth-century women's scope of economic participation. "Control, Consumption, and Connections" explores how women could acquire credit, how they used that credit to make informed consumer purchases, and how they used the extensive social networks they lived in to earn and consume. By studying their …

The Memory Remains: Why The Migration Period And The Fall Of Rome Continue To Be Mischaracterized As A Barbarian Invasion, Walter Napier

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

The Fall of Rome (or more specifically the Western Roman Empire) remains a hotly debated subject in the history of Late Antiquity. The Battle of Adrianople can be argued to be the beginning of Rome's end, but the cause of the battle lay more with Rome's imperial mismanagement than any deliberate attempt at war from the barbarians. Rome turned against those who would have defended the empire, and for many centuries had done just that. Despite being forced into an antagonistic relationship with Rome, their reputation as the cause of Rome's calamity has remained to the present day. This thesis …