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Full-Text Articles in History

Their Swords, Our Plowshares: "Peaceful" Nuclear Weapons, Propaganda, And Cold War Memory Expressed In Film: 1959-1989, Michael A. St. Jacques May 2016

Their Swords, Our Plowshares: "Peaceful" Nuclear Weapons, Propaganda, And Cold War Memory Expressed In Film: 1959-1989, Michael A. St. Jacques

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

During the Cold War, both the United States and the Soviet Union developed nuclear weapons as tools of warfare and diplomacy. Immediately following the Second World War, American attitudes toward the atomic bomb were overwhelmingly positive. Once the Soviet Union developed their own atomic bomb and the United States lost the atomic monopoly, attitudes started to shift. After the first hydrogen bombs tests, public sentiment, as demonstrated in film, became markedly negative. To counter these negative attitudes and portray their nuclear weapons as peaceful tools instead of weapons of mass destruction, both the United States and the Soviet Union developed …


Stonewall On The Potomac: Gay Political Activism In Washington, Dc, 1961-1973, Peter Bonds May 2016

Stonewall On The Potomac: Gay Political Activism In Washington, Dc, 1961-1973, Peter Bonds

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

The first organized demonstration on behalf of gay rights in the United States occurred in front of the White House on April 16, 1965. Six years later, Dr. Franklin E. Kameny became the first openly gay American to run for a seat in the United States Congress when he launched his campaign to become Washington’s delegate to the House of Representatives in February 1971. The following year, Washington’s school board voted to include sexual orientation alongside gender and race as a protected category in its non-discrimination employment policy. This victory for gay Washingtonians was expanded on in 1973, when Washington’s …


Germany In Afghanistan: The German Domestic Dispute On Military Deployment Overseas, Nils Martin May 2016

Germany In Afghanistan: The German Domestic Dispute On Military Deployment Overseas, Nils Martin

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

This thesis provides a study of the deployment of the German Bundeswehr to Afghanistan and highlights the clash between two conflicting visions of German foreign policy by explaining the different policies supported or opposed by an outspoken segment of the German public and German leaders since the Second World War in regards to the use of military force. While maintaining a focus on German military deployment to Afghanistan, this thesis consists of an analysis of German parliamentary debate, editorials, public opinion polls, speeches and other sources to determine arguments used by German government leaders to try and overcome strong anti-war …


Richmond's Urban Crisis: Racial Transition During The Civil Rights Era, 1960-1977, Marvin T. Chiles May 2016

Richmond's Urban Crisis: Racial Transition During The Civil Rights Era, 1960-1977, Marvin T. Chiles

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Between 1960 and 1977, Richmond, Virginia, experienced a tremendous racial shift in its overall population. The shift from majority white to majority black brought about the city’s first black majority city council, black mayor, and majority black school district with a black superintendent. How and why this racial transition happened is the focus of this work. Richmond’s racial transition was a part of Civil Rights legislation destabilizing the sociopolitical landscape. As federal Civil Rights legislation was intended to create a post-racial America, in Richmond, blacks and whites ensured the opposite. Both races combined class interest, past racial norms, and future …


We Need A Little Christmas: The Shape And Significance Of Christmas In America, 1945-1950, Ellen D. Blackmon May 2016

We Need A Little Christmas: The Shape And Significance Of Christmas In America, 1945-1950, Ellen D. Blackmon

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

As soon as the weather turns cold, countless commercial, domestic, and cultural landscapes across the United States begin their collective metamorphosis into Christmas wonderlands. Christmas is such a force that, not surprisingly, it has received considerable scholarly attention. Numerous historians have traced the evolution of Christmas from a pre-Christian pagan winter festival to a staid Victorian domestic holiday, citing the latter period as the final stage of its development. Christmases since the Victorian Era, they argue, have not deviated significantly enough to warrant further analysis. Others have recognized the uniqueness of Christmas’s twentieth-century form but have not paid sufficient attention …


In Search Of Askia Mohammed: The Epic Of Askia Mohammed As Cultural History And Songhay Foundational Myth, Joe Wilson May 2016

In Search Of Askia Mohammed: The Epic Of Askia Mohammed As Cultural History And Songhay Foundational Myth, Joe Wilson

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

This thesis offers a detailed historical analysis of The Epic of Askia Mohammed, a foundational myth that ranks among the more well-known global tales of cultural heroes and state formation. The sudden regime change that resulted in the collapse of the Songhay Sunni dynasty and the ascent of the Songhay Askia dynasty in 1492-93 is one of the most important events in West African history. This swift rebellion reversed decades of destructive economic and religious policies. As such, the memory of these dynamic and transformative times was captured by the griots, the oral historians of the Sudan. Nouhou Malio, …


Good Union People: Enduring Bonds Between Black And White Unionists In The Civil War And Beyond, James Schruefer May 2016

Good Union People: Enduring Bonds Between Black And White Unionists In The Civil War And Beyond, James Schruefer

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

The thesis investigates the nature of the relationship between white unionists during the American Civil War and their enslaved and free black counterparts. To do this it utilizes the records of the Southern Claims Commission, which collected testimony from former unionists and their character witnesses from 1872 to 1880. For comparative purposes, it focuses on two regions economically similar and frequently contested by opposing armies: Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, and the region of central Tennessee to the southeast of Nashville. As the war began, white unionists were suddenly alienated from the larger community and faced persecution by authorities and threats of …


Fort Hunt's P.O. Box 1142, Lindsey Wood May 2016

Fort Hunt's P.O. Box 1142, Lindsey Wood

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Fort Hunt is a World War Two prisoner of war camp in Alexandria, Virginia. It housed more than 3,000 Axis prisoners and several war related programs, MIRS, MIS-Y and MIS-X. The World War Two POW experience is a missing part of the story, and Fort Hunt can help illuminate an important part of the United States’ war effort and responsibility. Fort Hunt was a secret location, and its activities included gathering and deciphering German written materials, interrogating Axis, mainly German, prisoners of war, as well as creating and distributing Escape and Evasion packages to air and ground forces in Europe. …


The Inuit Vs. The Steamboat: Human Exhibitionism And Popular Concerns About The Effects Of The Market Revolution In The Early Republic, Ryan Bachman May 2016

The Inuit Vs. The Steamboat: Human Exhibitionism And Popular Concerns About The Effects Of The Market Revolution In The Early Republic, Ryan Bachman

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

In the early nineteenth century, a new form of human exhibitionism spread through eastern American cities. While public displays featuring live human beings had existed since the colonial era, these new shows specifically focused on Native Americans. This paper examines one such show, the Inuit Exhibition of 1820-1821, as a case study of this phenomena. Primarily through the use of contemporary newspaper accounts, this project argues that shows like the Inuit Exhibition occurred within a cultural context that legitimized the practice of human exhibitionism as a genuine, post-Enlightenment method of educating citizens about the natural world. Furthermore, so-called “Indian Exhibitions” …


The Watch Tower Bible And Tract Society: How Jehovah’S Witnesses Denounced And Resisted The Nazi Regime, Elena Sorchiotti May 2016

The Watch Tower Bible And Tract Society: How Jehovah’S Witnesses Denounced And Resisted The Nazi Regime, Elena Sorchiotti

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

The present thesis aims to reveal the stance of the religious organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, towards the oppression and persecution of its members - examined in the accompanying website - perpetrated by the Nazi regime in Germany, from 1933 to 1944. Unlike the majority of Christian denominations, Jehovah’s Witnesses from all around the world took a firm stand against Hitler’s political agenda and against the actions carried out by the Nazi authorities. Through the use of diplomatic means, publication of articles, special campaigns, and letters addressed to government officials, the world headquarters of …