History Commons^™

From ‘Baggage’ To Not ‘Non-Persons’: Levy V. Louisiana And The Struggle For Equal Rights For ‘Illegitimate’ Children, Sherrie Anne Bakelar

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study focuses on "illegitimate" children, who are more visible
than other children within the historical record because of the many laws
related to their existence. By examining this group of children, it is
possible to improve upon the framework that shapes our understanding
of childhood and provide a starting point for future studies that will
continue to illuminate children's history. Although illegitimacy laws are
as ancient as Western civilization, the key moment for the United States'
laws related to nonmarital children came in the spring of 1968 and the
pivotal decision of Levy v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 68 (1968). …

Must Pay Now, David C. Perkins

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

These poems attempt to stand amidst the towering shadows of Enlightenment. One of these pillars involves the newfound land from a collective western European vantage and these lands are called the Americas. This space is where these poems are located. They suckle at the monolithic breasts of Enlightened Romance as did Romulus and Remus to the She-Wolf. The poems in their own originality engage with writers such as Jonathan Edwards, Alice Notley, Susan Howe, Frank O’Hara, William Carlos Williams, Walt Whitman, Christina Rossetti, William Blake, and John Cage. If there ever was such a thread in tradition, these people might …

The Gendering Of Nevada Politics: The Era Ratification Campaign, 1973-1981, Caryll Batt Dziedziak

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation examines Nevada‟s Equal Rights Amendment ratification campaign spanning from 1973 through 1981. Using legislative records, newspapers, archival records, oral histories and interviews; this work traces the creation of two distinct political cultures that arose in Nevada during this period. Women from both sides of this debate sought to make themselves heard in the political deliberations over this proposed amendment; thus finding new agency with which to express their political views. As ERA activists led a grassroots campaign for equality under the law, conservative women mobilized existing church networks to effect a massive counter attack. In the end, while …

Building Dupont: Capitalism, Manufactures, And Place In Early America, 1800-1820, Christopher Manning

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Though there is a rich literature dealing with the DuPont Company, the historiography remains dedicated to studies of the family’s life, corporate methods, working-class culture, and technological know-how. Rarely do studies engage the company’s wider economic position or regional influence in early America. This study analyzes the way early American culture guided and influenced DuPont’s growth and success. It also examines the company’s efforts to promote manufactures, create markets, and shape its surrounding landscape. As in other parts of the world, the development of industrial capitalism, and the wider acceptance of domestic manufacturers and large-scale industry in the United States …

Multiform Segregation In The Context Of The Urban Crises In Las Vegas And Los Angeles, 1930 - 1980, Colin M. Fitzgerald

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Multiform segregation in the context of the urban crises was a complex socio-historical phenomenon. The primary focus of this study addresses racial segregation in at least three basic societal areas: housing, employment, and education. Through the spatial separation of multiple ethnoracial groups such as African Americans and Mexican Americans, multiform segregation precipitated the urban crises. In the 50-year period this study covers, Las Vegas and Los Angeles sustained a two-tiered class system according to the prevailing racial attitudes of each city's business elite. As a resort city, Las Vegas could not endure ethnoracial tensions while Los Angeles' industrial base provided …

Is There Evidence For The Observation And Use Of Astronomy At The Harris Site In The Mimbres Valley?, Denise Ruzicka

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis is an archaeoastronomical study of a Late Pithouse Period (A.D. 550-1000) Mimbres-Mogollon site in the American Southwest. It specifically examines whether there is an association between architecture and astronomy at the Harris Site in the upper Mimbres Valley in southwestern New Mexico. The hypothesis for the study is that Mimbres pithouse groups observed astronomical phenomena and used such phenomena to guide the construction of their structures and establish a calendar. The methods used in this investigation include evaluating whether the site placement, the orientation and alignment of structures/houses, and the presence of cultural features on surrounding ridge tops …

Saints In Sin City: Religion And Community Building In Twentieth Century Las Vegas, Matthew R. Davis

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Due to an absence of social and religious tradition, Las Vegas provided the perfect setting for Jewish and Mormon faiths to create communities closely linked to their own spiritual doctrine. This thesis traces the evolution of these groups from the turn of the twentieth-century to the present, focusing on issues such as education, geographic location, and business acumen as avenues for personal and spiritual growth. This thesis also considers the relatively small number of religious studies conducted in the American West, and serves as a possible example for future study by using an urban religious framework to synthesize the dearth …

Shakespeare Adapting Chaucer: “Myn Auctour Shal I Folwen, If I Konne”, Scott A. Hollifield

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Geoffrey Chaucer's distinctively English spins on such genres as dream vision, fabliau and Breton lai, as well as his liberal citation of authorities in Troilus and Criseyde, offered early modern English poets the license to mingle sources and authorities within their work, rather than bend their writing to fit the format. Few authors took such productive advantage of Chaucerian permissiveness as William Shakespeare, whose narrative poems defer to Chaucer's distinctively English authority with a regularity comparable to his uses of Homer, Ovid, Virgil and Plutarch. This free-associative approach to auctoritee, the whetstone of the poet-playwright's dramatic imagination, suggests that …

The Culture Of Revolution: Revolutionary Transformation In Iran, Autoosa Elizabeth Kojoori-Saatchi

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The current challenges to the authority of the Islamic Republic and mass demonstrations in opposition to the presidential elections of 2009 in Iran, have raised the specter of another revolution in the country. In the 20th century, the country underwent two major revolutions: the Constitutional revolution during the first decade of the century and the Islamic revolution in the late 1970s. In this thesis, I will examine why revolutions occur in Iran with greater frequency than other societies. By relying on a historiography and contemporary empirical evidence, I will explore the cultural underpinnings of the Iranian revolutionary worldview embedded in …

Stereotype Threat’S Effect On Women’S Achievement In Chemistry: The Interaction Of Achievement Goal Orientation For Women In Science Majors, Janice M. Conway-Klaassen

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

"Stereotype threat is being at risk of confirming, as a self-characteristic, a negative stereotype about one's group" (C. M. Steele & Aronson, 1995, p. 797). A stereotype threat effect then is described as the detrimental impact on a person's performance or achievement measurements when they are placed in a stereotype threat environment.

For women, the negative stereotype that exists in our culture states that women are typically not as capable as men in mathematics or science subjects. This study specifically explored the potential impact of stereotype threat on women who have chosen a science-based college major. They were tested in …

Fire On The Mountain: Growth And Conflict In Colorado Ski Country, Michael W. Childers

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation examines the environmental, economic, and cultural conflicts over the private development of ski resorts in Colorado's National Forests between 1910 and 2000. Downhill skiing emerged as an increasingly popular winter activity during the first half of the twentieth century, particularly in western state such as Colorado. A part of the a larger outdoor recreational boom throughout the United States' during the interwar years, downhill skiing challenged the Forest Service's ability to meeting the public's growing appetite for year-round recreational opportunities. These challenges increased following World War II as the nation's growing population and affluence drew millions to their …

Preserving The Past And Planning The Future In Pasadena, Riverside And San Bernardino, Charles Conway Palmer

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study examines how three Southern California cities—Pasadena, Riverside and San Bernardino—used the processes of urban renewal and historic preservation as development strategies for their downtown business districts. The ways in which these processes were employed has both reflected and shaped the cities‘ evolving definitions of community. These ideas of community were both inclusive and exclusive, favoring certain ethnicities and cultural practices over others to advance a particular civic image. The case studies are representative of cities in the region that are ―other than Los Angeles; those founded in the nineteenth-century after the Spanish and Mexican periods, but prior to …

Weapons Labs And City Growth: Livermore And Albuquerque, 1945-1975, Layne Rochelle Karafantis

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis traces the transformation of two cities in the American West: Albuquerque, a medium-sized metropolitan area in the generally low-population state of New Mexico, and Livermore, California, a relatively small town on the fringe of the massive San Francisco Bay Area metropolis. The federal government built nuclear weapons labs in both places after World War II, and as a result, they encountered phenomenal growth. This is not surprising, as authors such as Peter Hall and Ann Markusen have argued that federal installations in the postwar years affected the economies of many western cities. However, this thesis asserts that rural …

Atomic Governance: Militarism, Secrecy, And Science In Post-War America, 1945-1958, Mary D. Wammack

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This history of America's post-World War II atomic program examines the institutional impulses that drove its evolution from 1945 through the 1958 moratorium on atmospheric weapons testing. Based on archival research and methodologies borrowed from sociologists and legal theorists, it focuses on the motivations of and decisions made by military officers, program managers and affiliates in the private sector, their relationships, and the alliances they formed with congressmen. This analysis identifies a two-stage process of self-interested decision-making through which the armed forces, seeking to mitigate postwar loss of funding and influence, gained de facto control of the atomic program that …

Solace In St. Louis: A Case Study In Heroic Cultural Nostalgia, Amanda J. Pinney

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis examines the response of American popular culture to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. By utilizing the September 17, 2001 pre-game ceremony, held at Busch Stadium as a case study example, larger generalizations are made about the role popular culture played in the days following the tragedy. In order to analyze this example, I have developed heroic cultural nostalgia, a framework that combines elements of myth, nostalgia and national identity. Heroic cultural nostalgia provides an explanation of how popular culture plays a role in crisis response. The framework highlights the role of individuals with heroic characteristics in …

Transforming Space Into Place: Development, Rock Climbing, And Interpretation In Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, 1960-2010, Megan Sharp Weatherly

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Though Americans tend to view wilderness as separate from nature, environmental historians have argued that wilderness is a cultural construct more than a quantifiable geographic category. Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area (NCA), a 195,000-acre tract located west of Las Vegas, Nevada, is one such cultural construction. Since 1960, this BLM-managed parcel has served as a local and regional expression of broader, national trends in outdoor recreation, interpretation, and development and thereby forced visitors to engage (often unknowingly) in a cultural dialogue about consumerism, technology, and identity. With information from newspapers, archival collections, oral histories, and government documents, this thesis …