History Commons^™

"Many Fabulous Stories And Idle Tales": The Intersection Of Elizabethan Political Gambits And Indigenous Erasure In The Early American Republic, Daniel Ryan Lewis

Theses and Dissertations--History

Welsh Indian Theory, originating in Elizabethan England, stated that a group of Welsh explorers settled in the Americas in the late 12^th century and intermarried with the Indigenous tribes, thereby explaining “advanced cultures” ranging from the Mississippians to the Aztec Empire. This act of erasure became rooted in Kentucky and the surrounding area in the 18^th and 19^th centuries; a series of prominent individuals from Kentucky in turn contributed to a growing body of false historical narratives that denied Indigenous Americans their cultural identities and connection their ancestral lands in the United States. With a 460-year trail …

"Any Changes, Eh?": Party Defection, Party Switching, And Shifting Allegiances In Antebellum America, 1830-1860, Jacob Wood

Theses and Dissertations--History

Political party ties hardened during the Second Party System period, most noticeably in the transition from the Federalist and Democratic-Republicans to the Democratic and Whig parties. “Any Changes, Eh?” argues that politically-minded Americans still found ways to leave their political parties and support another, even in the face of social and political ostracism. As party ties grew stronger, party defection shifted from direct to indirect methods to challenge political system. Sometimes these movements were permanent conversions, other times they were a protest vote only to make a point to their home party. Party defection took a variety of forms beyond …

Orphans, White Unity, And The Charleston Orphan House, 1860-1870, Ruth Poe White

Theses and Dissertations--History

This dissertation explores the ways the Charleston Orphan House, a nineteenth-century whites-only benevolent institution, promoted white unity in South Carolina between 1860 and 1870. Just as it had during the antebellum era, the Orphan Home knit together white society by providing poor white families a source of social security, middling white families a source for cheap labor in the form of indentured service, and elite whites an opportunity to display social prominence. Yet, maintaining this delicate balance throughout the siege of Charleston and the Home’s eventual evacuation to Orangeburg, South Carolina was no easy feat. The Chairman of the Board …

Enduring The Elements: Civil War Soldiers’ Struggles Against The Weather, Cameron Boutin

Theses and Dissertations--History

This dissertation is an environmental history that studies the variety of ways that soldiers in the American Civil War experienced the pressures of weather over the course of their military service. For the troops of the U.S. and Confederacy, the weather was more than simply a passive backdrop to their time in the military, but a central preoccupation. This dissertation analyzes how weather intersected with some of the most central experiences of soldiering – tent camping and winter quarters, marching, bivouacking, manning sentry posts and field fortifications, and fighting in battles. Life in Civil War armies consisted of all of …

Hildegard Fantasy, Julianna Charnigo

Theses and Dissertations--Music

Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), a German abbess, composer, mystic, and theologian, was revered as a prophet during her lifetime. Since then, her numerous accomplishments and visionary writings have made her popular both in her native Germany and across the world. Hildegard produced numerous Latin writings, more than any other woman of the Middle Ages, and her more than seventy musical compositions fascinate musicians and listeners to this day. My doctoral thesis is a composition for SATB chorus, orchestra, and soprano solo entitled Hildegard Fantasy, based on the life and music of Hildegard of Bingen.

I have written both the …

The Kids Were Alt-Right: Radical Right Youth Activism And The Origins Of The White Power Movement, 1960-1980, Austin Zinkle

Theses and Dissertations--History

This dissertation explores the young people—primarily young men—involved and weaponized within the radical racist Right during the 1960s and 1970s in the United States. This project argues that young people were an active bedrock of support within racist and antisemitic organizations such as the American Nazi Party, the National Alliance, the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, and others, and created a unique coalition that ultimately developed into a revolutionary racist Right and eventual white power movement by the 1980s. This dissertation makes a significant intervention in scholarship on the radical Right’s development over the past sixty years and serves …

Part-Time Normals: Embodied Trans Geographies Of Homonationalism, Ivy Faye Monroe

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Self-understanding of one’s gender identity both emerges from, and rearticulates into, the ways one experiences and mediates their personal and social relationships with the geographic worlds they inhabit. Trans geographical literature has, to date, created compelling work on the social geographies of trans people in highly-gendered spaces. This thesis extends the existing literature to research how gender is both experienced and performed in the mundane structures of everyday life. Building from theories of cruel optimism and homonationalism, this research examines how the discursive and spatial epistemologies of gender identity inform attachments to structures of normativity. Through archival research of transvestite …

Tracks/Traces: The New Deal Transformation Of Lexington, Kentucky’S Landscapes Of Horseracing And Housing, Piotr Wojcik

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Lexington, Kentucky is a key node in the global thoroughbred horse industry. This archival research examines the transformation of its horseracing and housing geographies during the 1930s by comparing the redevelopment of an old urban racetrack into federal public housing with the simultaneous development of a new racing plant in the nearby countryside. It analyzes the social and economic relations underlying this shift in addition to how these relations were naturalized by the new landscapes they created. Results suggest that a local growth coalition was seeking to emerge from a financial crisis through a spatial fix that capitalized on cultural …

Colonial Contraception: American Birth Control Advocates And Their Work In Appalachia, Puerto Rico, And India; 1930-1970, Dana Johnson

Theses and Dissertations--History

By the beginning of the twentieth century, the development of better contraceptives and changing cultural attitudes led to an increased interest in contraceptive research. Although major political, legal, social, religious, and cultural obstacles remained, birth control advocates began to perform clinical trials to identify effective contraceptives and to disseminate contraceptive information. These trials began in the United States, but birth control advocates quickly introduced them into other areas. In this dissertation, I examine the research efforts of the American birth control movement through an analysis of the activities and discourse of its key advocates and promoters during the middle decades …

"Not Just Whites In Appalachia": The Black Appalachian Commission, Regional Black Power Politics, And The War On Poverty, 1965-1975, Jillean Mccommons

Theses and Dissertations--History

During the Black Power era of the late 1960s and 1970s, Black activists in Appalachia used the opening of the War on Poverty to wage a regional war against institutional and environmental racism. Through the Black Appalachian Commission, a grassroots organization created in 1969, Black activists worked to expose racism in local and federal policy as the root cause of poverty for Black Appalachians, who they argued were the poorest in the region. Their outward self-definition as Black and Appalachian was a political strategy to garner power over resources earmarked for Appalachians. The term “Black Appalachian'' was more than a …

Housewives To Heroines: Continuing Education For Women At The University Of Kentucky, 1964-1988, Allison L. Elliott

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

Beginning in the early 1960s, the movement for the continuing education for women (CEW) brought together a seemingly unlikely alliance of American activists, educators, philanthropists, and government agencies. Fueled by philanthropic funds, accelerated by the quest for “womanpower” to bolster national defense, and aligned with regional workforce needs as well as the personal goals of individual women, CEW programs pioneered new models of academic advising and student support that continue to influence higher education practitioners today. By studying the experiences of both administrators and students involved with CEW at the University of Kentucky, this study sheds light on how one …

A Holy Tug Of War: Us Christians Against The Contras (1970-1990), Mark Maxwell Brown

Theses and Dissertations--History

After the Sandinista revolution of 1979 ousted the longstanding Somoza dynasty of Nicaragua, the small Central American nation became an obsession of US foreign policy as the Reagan administration committed its efforts to deposing the leftist revolutionary government through the funding and training of the Contras, a counter-revolutionary guerrilla group. With the Cold War at a boiling point, continued control and influence over Central America became a pillar of US anticommunist agenda. Uniquely, many of the most ardent critics of the Reagan administration during this period of violent intervention were Christian missionaries. The Sandinistas were able to defeat the Somoza …

Appalachia On The Airwaves: A History Of Public And Educational Television In The Southern Mountains, Carson Benn

Theses and Dissertations--History

Through a series of historical case studies of individual states within the multi-state region of the Appalachian mountain range, as well as the region as a whole, this dissertation examines educational television (ETV) operations, both at the network level and that of individual stations. Though mostly thought of as “public television”—an educational and noncommercial alternative to mainstream broadcast media—these ETV networks offered, I argue, something more analogous to present-day understandings of distance education and the use of instructional media and technology. Station directors, philanthropic benefactors, and school administrators took different approaches to providing the service of ETV, but all were …

Building Public Health In A Rural State: Strategies For Preventing Disease In Kentucky, 1883-1914, Abigail Stephens

Theses and Dissertations--History

During the period from 1883-1914, the Kentucky State Board of Health developed strategies for preventing disease in the state by enforcing hard power measures of vaccination, quarantine, and isolation of disease suspects, and through the soft power measures of written and spoken communication. Throughout this period their efforts to prevent and contain disease were limited by inadequate funding as well as opposition from the public, local authorities, and the state legislature, demonstrating that while hard power measures can be effective in combating disease, they cannot be fully successful without support from the people they aim to protect.

"To Claim That Greatness For Themselves”: A History Of The Kentucky Horse Park, Emily Elizabeth Libecap

Theses and Dissertations--History

The Kentucky Horse Park describes itself as the world’s only equine theme park. However, the park is not entirely without historical precedent; instead, world’s fairs, amusement parks, and theme parks all form a century-long pedigree chart through which the park can trace its ancestors. The Kentucky Horse Park’s links to these predecessors deepen our understanding of how the park is a reflection of the world around it and the motivations for how and why it was built. From its inception in the late 1960s, to when it opened in 1978, through the present day, the Kentucky Horse Park was and …

“Escaped From Dixie:” Civil War Refugees And The Creation Of A Confederate Diaspora, Stefanie Greenhill

Theses and Dissertations--History

My dissertation, “‘Escaped from Dixie:’ Civil War Refugees and the Creation of a Confederate Diaspora,” examines the experiences of the half a million people who fled from the Confederacy to Union territory under duress during the U.S. Civil War—a massive, diverse movement that had a lasting impact on the nation’s reconstruction in the aftermath of the war. My research considers what prompted refugees to leave, as well as what logistics those escaping from the Confederacy and resettling elsewhere considered, especially in the absence of any formal institutions for the aid of refugees in the nineteenth century. The handful of studies …

Statelessness And Contested Sovereignty In The Middle East: The United States, Palestinian Refugees, The Muslim Brotherhood, Syrian Ethnic Minorities, And The Early Cold War, 1945 – 1954, John Perry

Theses and Dissertations--History

This dissertation examines the significance of America’s interactions with stateless actors. It argues that it was groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Palestine’s refugees, and ethnic minorities, not the U.S. and Soviet governments, nor the state governments of the region, which dictated how the Cold War unfolded in the Middle East. These groups transformed the policy decisions, strategies, and alliances of both native regimes and the superpowers. Traditionally, historians have looked at the global politics of the Cold War through the lens of state-to-state relations. How have state governments interacted with each other and how did this influence the strategies …

To “Reawaken The Conscience Of Mankind”: The International War Crimes Tribunal And Transnational Human Rights Activism During The Vietnam War, 1966-1967, Cody J. Foster

Theses and Dissertations--History

This dissertation looks at the International War Crimes Tribunal (IWCT) as a vessel for human rights’ ideas during the Vietnam War. I argue that the IWCT supported a transnational advocacy network that used the language of human rights to oppose the Vietnam War and rally support from those around the world who stood against American imperialism. On the one hand, the tribunal precedes the institutionalization of human rights in the 1970s. On the other, it is an extension of the human rights norms that emerge after World War II through the passage of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights …

Queering The Carceral Cycle: Women's Resistance To The Carceral State, Ashley Ruderman-Looff

Theses and Dissertations--Gender and Women's Studies

Building upon feminist and queer scholarship that recognizes mass incarceration and the prison-industrial complex as elements of an inherently violent carceral state, Queering the Carceral Cycle excavates and analyzes twentieth-century incidents in which women resisted the state’s criminalization and/or punishment of multiply marginalized women. I argue that the state’s response to women’s acts of resistance prompted the development of new carceral strategies and technologies that expanded the carceral state’s investment in control and punishment. Moreover, by critically embracing a Foucauldian scheme known as the “carceral cycle,” I demonstrate how the state traps multiply marginalized women in a seemingly endless recurrence …

Carceral Extractivism, Livelihood Strategies, And “Acting Right” In The U.S. South, Edward L. Bullock

Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology

Mass incarceration and its effects are well documented and carceral privatization is hotly contested on moral and economic grounds. This dissertation examines the local effects of carceral privatization in the U.S. south in historical context. Tallulah is a small, rural predominately African American town in northeastern Louisiana that endures high rates of poverty, unemployment, and low educational attainment. It also hosts four private prisons operated by LaSalle Corrections, LLC. Two primary and overlapping questions guide the research. 1) How has an history of carceral entrepreneurship and mass incarceration impacted the way persons and communities create livelihoods and imagine futures, and …

Village-Temple Consciousness In Two Jaffna Tamil Villages In Post-War Sri Lanka, Pathmanesan Sanmugeswaran

Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology

This dissertation investigates how community rebuilding is occurring in a gravely damaged, post-conflict society. Specifically, it looks at how people in two villages in Tamil, Hindu, Jaffna, Sri Lanka, are using their ‘sense of place’ and ‘place-making practices’ or what I call here their ‘village-temple consciousness’ or village consciousness, to maintain and rebuild their communities after war to make them, once again, places in which they feel a comfortable sense of belonging. This is a comparative study because Inuvil and Naguleswaram were affected differently by the Sri Lankan civil war. That is, while Inuvil, was physically damaged and socially disrupted …

Patronage Politics In Eastern Kentucky: The Turner Family Of Breathitt County, Frank Allen Fletcher Ii

Theses and Dissertations--History

From the 1930s to the 1970s, the Turner family of Breathitt County held a political and economic monopoly over their rural county in the mountains of eastern Kentucky. They were emblematic of the patronage, clientele, and kinship politics that characterized twentieth century eastern Kentucky. The family rewarded their supporters with jobs and other economic benefits in exchange for continued political support. Ervine Turner served as a state senator during the Great Depression and was later appointed circuit judge over a three-county district, his wife Marie served 38 years as superintendent of Breathitt County schools, and their children later emerged as …

“Distance Learning” In The Ninth Century?: Micro-Cluster Analysis Of The Epistolary Network Of Alcuin After 796, William James Mattingly

Theses and Dissertations--History

Scholars of eighth- and ninth-century education have assumed that intellectuals did not write works of Scriptural interpretation until that intellectual had a firm foundation in the seven liberal arts.This ensured that anyone who embarked on work of Scriptural interpretation would have the required knowledge and methods to read and interpret Scripture correctly. The potential for theological error and the transmission of those errors was too great unless the interpreter had the requisite training. This dissertation employs computistical methods, specifically the techniques of social network mapping and cluster analysis, to study closely the correspondence of Alcuin, a late-eighth- and early-ninth-century scholar …

De Alcalá De Henares A Ciudad De México: Ciudades, Universidades Y Preservación Del Patrimono Histórico, Juan Fernandez Cantero

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This dissertation explores the relationship between the city of Alcalá de Henares, Spain and Mexico City, Mexico, in terms of the colonization-decolonization processes of the latter. First, Alcalá de Henares and a few years later, Mexico City, suffered profound urban transformations that led to the construction of the so-called City of God (Civitas Dei). The City of God was a utopia: an urban, philosophical and educational model conceived during the first stages of the early modern period. By following Saint Agustine’s precepts, in his book, The City of God Against the Pagans, cardinal Francisco Ximénez de Cisneros created …

Breaking Habits: Identity And The Dissolution Of Convents In France, 1789-1808, Corinne Gressang

Theses and Dissertations--History

This dissertation uses the concept of identity to investigate the ways religious women navigated the French Revolution. Even as their religious identities were thrown into question, these women’s religious commitments remained important to them. As the French revolutionaries began to reform aspects of the ancien régime, the Catholic Church came under attack. The fate of priests, monks, and nuns came into question. Traditionally, religious women cared for orphans, the sick, and the poor, educated young girls, housed widows, rehabilitated prostitutes, and provided a respectable alternative community for aristocratic women. Despite every effort by the revolutionaries to dissolve their patterns of …

The University School: The University Of Kentucky's Role In The Laboratory School Movement Of The 20th Century, Shanna M. Patton

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

This study expands the scope of institution-level research on college and university-run laboratory schools to include the University of Kentucky’s on-campus laboratory school that operated from 1918 to 1965. Specifically, it preserves the institutional history of UK’s laboratory school, which has largely disappeared from local memory; provides a specific case study of a laboratory school in a largely unstudied state and region, namely Kentucky and the South; and contextualizes the role and trajectory UK’s laboratory school played in the larger Laboratory School Movement of the 20^th century. Because of UK’s status as a southern land grant university, this research …

“Checking Off Boxes”: Teachers Describe Civic Education In World History: A Mixed Methods Study, Carly Claire Muetterties

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

Scholars have long identified fostering democratic citizenship as a primary purpose of public schooling in the United States, meaning schools should intentionally prepare students with the knowledge and skills needed for active, informed democratic civic life. Furthermore, global interconnectedness has reshaped needed knowledge to participate in civic life. History is often identified as subject content well suited to address civic education and prepare students for citizenship. Though scholars point to a connection between world history and civic education, there is little empirical research studying how civic education informs teachers’ curriculum and instruction in world history. The purpose of this explanatory …

Narratives Afield: An Oral History Experience, J. D. Carruthers

Theses and Dissertations--History

This paper documents the comprehensive process of designing and executing a video oral history project through a case study of The Living History Oral History Project which is accessioned to the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History. Discussions of each phase of the project from concept, design, field work, archiving, and interpretation demonstrates how expanding technology increases the narrative opportunities presented by oral history research. The added feature of digital video technology creates visuality, which is an expansion on Alessandro Portelli’s concepts of orality and history telling. Since discoverability and accessibility is a traditional problem in using oral history …

Twilight Of Newhaven: The Transformation Of An Ancient Fishing Village Into A Modern Neighborhood, Asa James Swan

Theses and Dissertations--History

In 1504, King James IV of Scotland founded the village of Newhaven, three miles north of Edinburgh on the shores of the Firth of Forth. Newhaven rose to prominence as the most well-known of Scotland’s fishing villages and reached its zenith in 1928 with the launching of its last ship, the Reliance. It was the beginning of the end of the Newhavener way of life, their twilight. This is the story of decline and domicide as economic forces and the City of Edinburgh Council transformed the ancient village of Newhaven into a modern neighborhood. This small fishing community, with …

Envisioning Catholicism: Popular Practice Of A Traditional Faith In The Post-Wwii Us, Christy A. Bohl

Theses and Dissertations--History

Marian apparitions in the United States have occurred in ever-increasing numbers since World War Two, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s. These apparitions occupy a unique space in religious life, as they provide opportunities for Catholics to practice their faith outside of the Church hierarchy while still maintaining their status as faithful Catholics, often placing women in prominent positions. Although apparitions are an important part of faith for thousands of American Catholics, most Americans and Catholics are unaware of how widespread this movement is. This dissertation takes a comparative approach to examine a selection of apparition events, illuminating the pilgrimage …