History Commons^™

July 4, 1865: A Nation In Search Of Itself, Sorn A. Jessen

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The eighty-ninth anniversary of the declaration of American independence from Britain, on July 4, 1865, caught the nation at a critical time in its history. The great national crisis of civil war was over, but the nation had not yet re-united. The thesis argues that in the aftermath of the Civil War, American nationalism could not be reconstituted on neither an ethnic nor a civic model. Rather, on the eighty-ninth anniversary of Independence, the course of American Nationalism fell out along lines decreed by historical memory. The narrative construction of the past in the present constituted the only common thread …

The Ethics Of Mourning: The Role Of Material Culture And Public Politics In The 'Book Of The Duchess' And The 'Pearl' Poem, Tarren Andrews

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This project is a socio-historic analysis of two late 14^th century dream visions: Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess and the Pearl poem. Utilizing Robert Pogue Harrison’s concept of objectifying grief through ritualized communal mourning, this thesis examines the ways in which mourning literature functioned as consolatory device, and a form of public performance for the powerful patrons who commissioned the pieces. By engaging with pre-existing communities of grief, material culture, and courtly discourse these poems perform the work of mourning while simultaneously enacting modes of public performativity that stress the ethics of grieving, and suggest that, for royal patrons, …

Religion, Russo-British Diplomacy And Foreign Policy In Anna Ivanovna’S Russia (1730-1740), Kyeann Sayer

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The reign of Russian empress Anna Ivanovna (1730-1740) has been known primarily for disproportionate “German” influence, Anna’s refusing the “conditions” imposed by the supposedly backward-looking noble faction that engineered her succession, and unflattering court spectacle. Religion and foreign policy have received relatively little attention. Meanwhile, the formalization of Anglo-Russian diplomatic and trade relations during Anna’s reign has been seen as the triumph of “modern” nobility who rose as a result of the Petrine reforms. Examination of the concomitant diplomatic relations has focused on the strategies and personalities of Anna’s “German” advisers and portrays Russia as dependent. Finally, the Russo-Turkish War …

Cases Of Conscience: The Supreme Court And Conscientious Objectors To Military Service During The Post World War Ii Era, Robert S. Rutherfurd

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis examines the history of American conscientious objectors to military service during the aftermath of World War II. It describes why conscientious objectors were viewed with distrust and suspicion for their refusal to bear arms in defense of the nation and considers how groups such as the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars attempted to prevent COs from enjoying key benefits of U.S. citizenship by demanding that conscientious objectors be excluded from public employment and denied most forms of government assistance. This thesis focuses on decisions of the United States Supreme Court following World War II that …

Raising Grain In Next Year Country: Dryland Farming, Drought, And Adaptation In The Golden Triangle, Montana, Caroline M. Stephens

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Climate change has already and will likely continue to impact agriculture in the Western United States, threatening water supplies for both irrigated and rainfed agriculture (Calzadilla et al. 2010; Chambers and Pellant 2008; MacDonald et al. 2010; Pedersen et al. 2009). In the Golden Triangle, a region in north central Montana, known for its dryland grain production, the same is true. There is a need for in-depth, fine-grained, place-based, and qualitative research about the process of climate change adaptation in agriculture (Miller et al. 2013). Drought challenges farmers in the Triangle, which is semiarid and receives 10-15 inches of annual …

Archaeological Survey For The Snake Headwaters Project: 2013-2014 Survey And Evaluation Report, Justin M. Pfau

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This report presents the summary of work completed by the University of Montana in 2013 and 2014 along the Lewis and Snake Rivers of southern Yellowstone National Park. This project, known as The Snake Headwaters Project (the Snake and Lewis River Survey) is ongoing and has been initiated as part of the Wild and Scenic Rivers designation. This designation would help preserve these rivers natural setting for future visitors. This project falls under the auspices of Section 110 of the NRHP, which allocates funding for federal agencies to conduct preemptive archaeological inventories No current developments are planned in these river …

"Spitting Positively Forbidden": The Anti-Spitting Campaign, 1896-1910, Patrick J. O'Connor

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Alpine Experiments: The National Parks And The Development Of Skiing In The American West, Jeffrey T. Meyer

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In 1886, the U.S. Army mounted cavalry soldiers on skis to patrol the winter landscape of Yellowstone National Park. Prior to Yellowstone's skiing soldiers, the U.S. government had no formal relationship with skiing. In Yellowstone, the Army initiated the U.S. government's intimate and enduring relationship with skiing in the American West. When the National Park Service (NPS) took over the management of Yellowstone, the government's involvement with western skiing transferred over to the NPS. Upon its creation in 1916, the NPS inherited a national park system primarily carved from the high western mountains and embraced the promotion of recreational skiing …

We Are Against Socialized Medicine, But What Are We For?: Federal Health Reinsurance, National Health Policy, And The Eisenhower Presidency, Jordan M. Graham

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This project investigates the foundations of post-war health care in the United States by examining the first major proposal for federal involvement in health insurance, after the defeat of national health insurance in 1949. In doing so, this project aims to also illustrate Dwight Eisenhower’s presidency as one of limited liberal, or “Tory,” reform. The majority of primary sources were located at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, Kansas. Secondary sources were chosen based on the frequency with which contemporary scholarship continues to rely upon and engage with them.

In the first two chapters, the thesis examines the …

The Drunken Path: Discerning Women's Voices And Participation In The Informal Economy Of Illegal Manufacturing Of Prohibition Alcohol In The Historical And Archaeological Record, Kelli M. Casias

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis puts the Prohibition years in Anaconda and Butte, Montana, into historical, and sociocultural context to discover an engendered narrative of liquor law violators between the years 1923 and 1926 and to investigate the scope of the local informal, illegal, illicit economic systems dictating the distribution of illegal liquor during that era. The transference of the means and modes of production, as envisioned by Karl Marx, and collective social resistance serve as the theoretical frameworks for analysis and examination of three case studies. The first, Poacher Gulch is a remote mining site in western Montana, was the subject of …

A Public Revolt Against Spitting: Education And Politics In The Progressive Era, Patrick J. O'Connor

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

"Why Wait Until They Commit A Crime?": Moral Imbecility And The Problem Of Knowledge In Progressive America, 1880-1920, Chelsea D. Chamberlain

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Focusing on the forty-year period from 1880 to 1920, this thesis explores moral imbecility--the lack of a moral sense at birth--as a contested medical diagnosis that embodied many of modernizing America's greatest fears. It argues that moral imbecility played a pivotal role in facilitating the emergence of several hallmarks of modern America. The diagnosis legitimated medical experts’ far-reaching cultural authority, encouraged the rise of a surveillance society, and secured the growth of a medicalized bureaucratic state responsible for institutionalizing hundreds of thousands of people. As a potent medico-cultural threat based upon new and disputed knowledge claims, it became an important …