History Commons^™

The Reluctant Colonization Of The Falkland Islands, 1833-1851 : A Study Of British Imperialism In The Southwest Atlantic, Shannon Warnick

Master's Theses

After the Napoleonic Wars, British leaders increasingly objected to large burdensome formal annexations. Hence, when South American markets opened in the 1820s British leaders considered using nearby island bases to ward off regional rivals. Britain therefore occupied the Falkland Islands in 1833. Despite governing the world’s strongest industrial and naval power however, British leaders neglected the Falklands’ progress as a colony from 1833 to 1851. Dogmatic faith in “efficiency” and free trade in the 1840s led to modest commercial progress by largely unfettered private interests in the islands, but led to little improvement in defense or society. This study uses …

"Carry Me Back To Old Virginny" : Virginia And The Bonus March Of 1932, Steven Patrick Schultz

Master's Theses

On 6 May 1932 the Ways and Means Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives declined to pass along for a full vote in the House a bill that would have provided for immediate and complete payment of the Soldiers' Bonus, a small sum of money due in 1945 to veterans of World War I. In doing so it set in motion a chain of events that led to one of the most sordid affairs in American history, the Bonus March of 1932, when tens of thousands of World War I veterans traveled to Washington to ask their government for …

A Defense Of The 63rd New York State Volunteer Regiment Of The Irish Brigade, Patricia Vaticano

Master's Theses

During the American Civil War, New York State’s irrepressible Irish Brigade was alternately composed of a number of infantry regiments hailing both from within New York City and from within and without the state, not all of them Irish, or even predominantly so. The Brigade’s core structure, however, remained constant throughout the war years and consisted of three all-Irish volunteer regiments with names corresponding to fighting units made famous in the annuals of Ireland’s history: the 69th, the 88th, and the 63rd. The 69th, or Fighting 69th, having won praise and homage for its actions at First Bull Run, was …

Deporting "Red Emma" : The Political And Legal Battles For Citizenship, 1917-1921, Kara D. Schultz

Honors Theses

As Americans worked to construct a national creed in the early nineteenth century, xenophobia and cultural exceptionalism were in constant tension with conceptions of free speech and personal liberty. The emergence of deportation as the solution to America's "radical problem" was built upon representations of the political subversive that had little grounding in reality. The differing ideologies and organizations of the anarchist and communist movements in America were constantly being reshaped, yet ... the press and political rhetoric blurred distinctions between parties, assuming that both philosophies were elements of the same menace that sought violent overthrow of the government. Reducing …

Narses And The Birth Of Byzantine Egypt : Imperial Policy In The Age Of Justinian, Marion W. Kruse Iii

Honors Theses

Late Antiquity has long been portrayed as a period of transition between the classical and medieval worlds. Its history, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, has been forced to fit the contours of a transitional model, and no figure has been as ill-treated by this interpretive schema as the Emperor Justinian (r. 527-565 AD).

Justinian is known both as the last Roman and first Byzantine emperor; in fact he was neither. It is true that he ruled an empire which was both physically and intellectually the heir of Augustus' Rome and that he introduced wide-ranging reforms which were maintained by …

Imagining Anti-Semitism : Artistic Representations Of The Dreyfus Affair, Alexa Stemmler

Honors Theses

The industrialization and large-scale urbanization of France in the nineteenth century drove many working-class people to Paris. With new disposable income and leisure time, they flocked to the boulevards, department stores and cafes of the capital to amuse themselves or simply to wander around the city. Though 1848 was to be France's last real political revolution, Paris remained the scene of cultural and social innovations due largely to this street culture; the mob was as powerful at the tum of the century as it had been in 1789. Vanessa Schwartz writes, "The crowd and the experience of belonging to an …

Self-Righteous Beneficence : American Diplomats And Missionary Perceptions Of The Ottoman Empire, 1908-1914, Ella M. Frantantuono

Honors Theses

At first glance, President Taft's praise of the Ottoman Empire's transformation seems to reflect optimism about the state of the Turkish Empire and America's role in the world. Still, the very source of this optimism, Turkey's evolution from "retrograde" to "constitutional," reveals Taft's assumption that progress for Turkey was based on adopting the "modem policies" of what he believed to be a superior culture. Taft was not alone in thinking that the event he described, the inauguration of the second Constitutional era of the Ottoman Empire, signified a tremendous improvement in the world or in linking that change to the …

The Burning And Reconstruction Of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania 1864-1870, Gordon Boyer Lawrence

Master's Theses

Although many studies of Chambersburg's devastation during the American Civil War have been researched, all have focused on the military actions taken by both sides during the conflict. This thesis instead attempts to explore some of the effects of military actions upon the permanent civilian population.

The Introduction develops a sense of the events which transpired in the town on the fateful day of July 30, 1864, provides an overview of potential research subjects, and details sources available to complete successfully the research parameters outlined. The early development of the community is explored in Chapter 1. This data is necessary …