History Commons^™

From "Our Poor" To "Personal Responsibility": Changing Welfare Rhetoric In Political Party Platforms Of The Carolinas And The Nation, 1950-2005, Felicity N. Ropp

Senior Theses

In this thesis, I track political rhetoric surrounding poverty and welfare from 1950-2005. I first provide thorough context on the history of welfare policy in the United States and the way these issues were framed by politicians leading up to the period my data covers. My analysis centers on 108 political party platforms from the national Republican and Democratic parties and from state parties in North and South Carolina, ranging from 1950 to 2005 (31 of which I located in archives and manually digitized for the first time ever). I explain the significance of party platforms and review the literature …

Black Deathways: An African Methodist History, 1829-1916, Christina M. Varney

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study will focus on the transformations of death practices and the shifting roles of death workers from 1829-1916. The Postbellum portion of this study will focus on African Methodist communities in the states of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee as practices and people moved West to the states of Montana, Colorado, and California. These practices experienced changes as a result of rising literacy rates, the establishment of Black churches, and from the movement of Black people within the South. More changes occurred with the creation of mutual aid societies and Black-owned funeral homes. Black funeral directors …

Forging Community In The Ouachita Foothills Of Southwest Arkansas: Duckett Township, Homesteading, Distilling And Race, Lisa C. Childs

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Community was key to successful subsistence agriculture in Arkansas, especially in the Ouachita foothills in southwest Arkansas (including Polk, Howard, Montgomery, Pike, Garland Counties) and Oklahoma (McCurtain, Pittsburgh, LeFlore Counties) until the 1940s. Nearly a quarter of Arkansas’s land remained in the federal government’s name twenty years after statehood, and even more of the land in the western Ouachita foothills. Much remains unknown about how farming communities were formed in this area from the end of the Civil War until approximately World War II. As seen in the Duckett community in northern Howard County, while family connections were important to …

The Cornbread Country: Cornbread And The Development Of Southern Identity, Ashton Doar

Senior Theses

Following the chronological development of the American South from the pre-colonial era to the present day, this thesis analyzes the importance of cornbread in relation to historical circumstances. Native Americans, British settlers, early Americans, and self-identifying Southerners all related to the land and to its food in unique ways. Narrowing the scope of this broad topic to the specific point of cornbread allows for an analysis of the continuity and change of people's circumstances and life experience, as well as the ways in which people define themselves by their food.

The Governor’S Guards: Militia, Politics, Social Networking, And Manhood In Columbia, South Carolina, 1843-1874, Justin Harwell

Theses and Dissertations

This paper reconstructs the history of the Governor’s Guards in Columbia, South Carolina from 1843 to 1874. In addition to examining the conditions that influenced the formation of the company, this paper analyzes the ages, wealth, class, and occupations of the men that served in the company before, during, and after the Civil War. Specifically for white men of Columbia’s fledgling middle and upper classes, the Governor’s Guards facilitated opportunities to network, climb the social ladder, seek political advancement, and influence the social, political, and economic landscape of Columbia.

This work also illuminates the company’s involvement in numerous local, state, …

The Congress Of Industrial Organizations: Operation Dixie And A Legacy Of Worker Activism, Trevor G. Porter

Honors Theses

Trevor George Porter: The Congress of Industrial Organizations: Operation Dixie and a Legacy of Worker Activism (Under the Direction of Dr. Jarod Roll)

The passage of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 overhauled United States labor law, and it shifted the balance of power in favor of organized labor. Seizing upon this monumental moment in history, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was founded with a mandate to “organize the unorganized”. The labor federation made its primary focus the mass production workers of America, many of whom had not previously been afforded the opportunity to join a union. This …

"The Twilight-Colored Smell Of Honeysuckle:" William Faulkner, The South, And Literature As A Site Of Memory, Emily Innes

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This thesis examines the intersection of literature and historical memory, focusing on William Faulkner’s literature and the construction of memory and identity in the 1920s-1930s American South. Understanding the basic objective of memory as using the past to consolidate a social consciousness rooted in a shared identity and future, I examine how literature contributes to and enriches this process. I argue that because memory is deeply embedded in the social frameworks of a population, and dependent on the population’s cultural, political, and social identity, it is a fundamental component of understanding cultural identity. By interpreting literature through the lens of …

Gendering Secession: Women And Politics In South Carolina, 1859- 1861, Melissa Develvis

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the writings and literature surrounding elite, white South Carolina women from 1859 and 1861 to trace their increasing political consciousnesses surrounding their state’s secession and the threat of civil war. Their diaries and letters reveal that though these women and their families were staunch supporters of South Carolina’s secession, women reacted to their new circumstances with fears and misgivings that their male counterparts would not, or could not, express. Elite women harnessed familiar and religious concepts to express political hopes and fears, creating a socially acceptable outlet through which to discuss current electoral politics previously considered improper. …

In The Shadows Of Apollo: The Space Age Legacies Of Dispossession In Hancock County, Mississippi, Stuart Simms

Theses and Dissertations--History

In the Piney Woods of Mississippi, John C. Stennis used political connections to displace small communities in a 150,000-acre space in Hancock County, Mississippi for the creation of a rocket test facility for NASA. What became the John C. Stennis Space Center created a narrative that preached of the benefits of the facility in the region while local residents from the displaced communities remember the facility in different terms.

The Southern Homefront In The United States War For Independence, Lindsay Vanderwey

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis focuses on the struggles ordinary Americans faced during the War for Independence. Drawing from memoirs, local news reports, and secondary sources, this thesis covers topics such as the broken communities, refugee crises, disease, and shortages caused by war in the American South. It will also describe the hardships endured by enslaved people during this period, with both sides fighting over a freedom that did not apply to them. This thesis will argue that that rather than being passionate idealists willing to voluntarily sacrifice for a great cause, the bulk of the American southerners were ordinary people who made …

My Land Is My Flesh Silver Bluff, The Creek Indians, And The Transformation Of Colonized Space In Early America, Bryan C. Rindfleisch

History Faculty Research and Publications

This essay explores how Native peoples like the Creek (Muscogee) Indians invested colonized spaces in early American society with their own material, commercial, political, and spiritual meanings and importance. In particular, Creek Indians from the town of Coweta transformed Silver Bluff, the plantation of the trader and merchant George Galphin, into a “white ground,” as a place connected to Creek Country by a “white path,” and as a space where Creek and British leaders congregated to conduct business and negotiate politics. For it is no coincidence that the treaties of Augusta in 1763 and 1773, peaceful resolutions agreed to by …

Sites Of Historical Amusement: Tourism And The Recontextualization Of American History, Brendan Murphy

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Through the analysis of a theatrical event staged in Brooklyn, New York, entitled Black America (1895), this thesis interrogates cultural heritage tourism of the past and present and introduces a new classification of tourist site, “site of historical amusement.” In this current political moment, one during which regional pride and latent racism are bubbling to the surface, this study advocates for the continued interrogation of how the American story is bought and sold.

Sites of historical amusement are historically themed spaces that sell a recontextualized narrative that strips complexity from history, effectively flattening the past in order to create a …

Cuarto Oscuro: Recuerdos En Blanco Y Negro, Lila Quintero Weaver, Karina Elizabeth Vázquez

Bookshelf

A visually stunning graphic memoir of an Argentinian immigrant’s experience during the civil rights movement. Cuarto oscuro: Recuerdos en blanco y negro is the long-awaited Spanish-language translation of Lila Quintero Weaver’s critically acclaimed Darkroom: A Memoir in Black and White. An arresting and moving memoir about childhood, race, ethnicity, and identity in the American South, Cuarto oscuro is animated by Weaver’s stunning illustrations. Her drawings are visually understated but striking and dramatically embolden her heartfelt storytelling. In 1961, when the author was five, she emigrated with her family from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Marion, Alabama, located in the …

Women In Labor: How Birthing Practices Reflect Society's View Of Women, Catherine Hill

Honors Senior Capstone Projects

An analysis of the shift from midwifery to doctor/hospital births in the American South, from 1900 to present.

Radioactive Dixie: A History Of Nuclear Power And Nuclear Waste In The American South, 1950-1990, Caroline Rose Peyton

Theses and Dissertations

“Radioactive Dixie: A History of Nuclear Power and Nuclear Waste in the American South, 1950-1990,” examines the political, social, cultural, economic, environmental, and technological dimensions of the nuclear industry in the American South. Today, the US South contains more nuclear reactors than any other region and much of the nation’s radioactive waste. In “Radioactive Dixie,” I argue that this regional distinction resulted from a decades-long effort by southern politicians, industry figures, and government officials to transform the American South into a nuclear-oriented region. Waving the atomic talisman, the nuclear industry served as one pivotal part in a larger project of …

“A Lonely Wandering Refugee”: Displaced Whites In The Trans-Mississippi West During The American Civil War, 1861-1868, David Paul Hopkins, Jr.

Wayne State University Dissertations

Historians have written a great deal about the American Civil War and, until recently, much of that scholarly activity has focused on military battles and the effectiveness of the Union and Confederate armies on the war’s outcome. During the past few decades, social historians have tried to dig beneath that narrative to situate the war in the eyes of American citizens and how that war affected their lives. With this, there has been a focus on the Northern and Southern homefronts, African Americans, and soldiers’ motivations to fight – all rooted in the wartime experience. In this discussion, however, there …

Southern Families, Jennifer Burkett Pittman

Articles

The emphasis on family unity that is characteristic of the southern family has its roots in the traditional values of the agrarian upper class. The English, Scottish-Irish, and African immigrants to the south, who arrived in the 1600 and 1700s, instituted the basics of southern culture, though these patterns continued to develop and progress, as they do today. The basis of the southern lifestyle was farming and rural living, which lingered well into the 20th century, at least in certain parts of the south. Even today, agrarian traditions continue to influence southern culture. Because of the influential governing classes, family …

Lost Cause Campuses: Confederate Memory And Lost Cause Rituals At The University Of Mississippi And University Of Virginia, Jeffery Hardin Hobson

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

From the 1890s to the 1940s, students at southern college campuses, like most white southerners, participated in the Lost Cause movement. But these young men and women custom fitted the imagery, rhetoric, symbols, and ideals associated with the movement to better fit their campuses. These students, then, were actively participating in their own, indigenous, personalized Lost Cause rituals.

Confederate memory, and Old South mythologies permeated student publications. The pictures and stories that littered the pages of yearbooks, newspapers, and magazines took elements from the Lost Cause and customized them to reflect their own indigenous campus culture. At the University of …

Censorship In Black And White: The Burning Cross (1947), Band Of Angels (1957) And The Politics Of Film Censorship In The American South After World War Ii, Melissa Ooten

Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Faculty Publications

In 1806, Richmond entrepreneurs built the city’s first theater, the New Theater, at the present-day juncture of Thirteenth and Broad streets. This theater was likely the first in Virginia, and Richmonders of all colors, classes, and genders attended, although a three-tiered system of seating and ticket pricing separated attendees by race and class. Wealthy white patrons paid a dollar or more to sit in boxes thoroughly separated from the rest of the audience. Their middle and working class counterparts paid two or three quarters for orchestra seating. For a quarter or less, the city’s poorest citizens, any people of color, …

The Civil War In Southwest Virginia, Darlene Richardson

Articles about Hollins and Special Collections

Ellen Adair was a sweet, somewhat silly 17-year-old and well into her second year at Hollins Institute when one day in January 1863, with the Civil War showing no sign of ending anytime soon, her father unexpectedly showed up to take her home. Ellen’s idyllic days as a Hollins student were ending, and fate held cards it had yet to show. Diary entries from the period show the impact of war on a formerly quiet part of the state.

Christ And Class: The Protestant Episcopal Church In The South, 1760-1865, Ryan Lee Fletcher

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Christ and Class: The Protestant Episcopal Church in the South, 1760-1865 Ryan Lee Fletcher This dissertation examines the emergence, practices, religious culture, expansion, and social role of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the American South from 1760 to 1865. The dissertation employs three major research methodologies by: (1) centralizing the role of social class in the Episcopal Church's history, (2) seriously considering the Episcopal Church's distinctive theology, and (3) quantifying the connections that linked the Episcopal Church to the South's economic structures. Archival research, periodicals, and published records related to the Protestant Episcopal Church provided the primary evidence used in …

The Lasting Importance Of Ephemera: What Scrapbooks, Diaries, Newspapers, And Receipts Tell Us About Life At Hollins During The Civil War., Karen Adams

Articles about Hollins and Special Collections

The University Archives and Special Collections at Hollins University contain a rich collection of documents, from academic catalogs, newspapers, and diaries to receipts, scrapbooks, and other artifacts. Together they tell a story of life at Hollins during the Civil War.

Richmond Iron: Tredegar's Role In Southern Industry During The Civil War And Reconstruction, Lisa Hilleary

History Theses & Dissertations

The American South contained few iron industries in the decades before the Civil War. Not until the Civil War did southern states produce significant quantities of vital industrial products, such as iron. Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, Virginia, was a rare exception. Under the ownership of Joseph R. Anderson, the company established a national reputation for quality products. Prior to the war, Tredegar did business with northerners and with the Federal government. During the war, Tredegar became one of the main weapons suppliers to the Confederate military. Since this iron company physically and economically survived the war, Anderson regained many …

Church Burnings, Eric S. Yellin

History Faculty Publications

On 15 September 1963 a bomb exploded in the basement of the 16^th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. The ensuing fire and death of four little girls placed the violence of white supremacy on the front pages of the nation’s newspapers. It also entered the 16^th Street Church into a long history of attacks against houses of worship in the American South. Though churches burn for any number of reasons, including accident and insurance fraud, church arson in southern culture has frequently been associated with a symbolic assault on a community’s core institution.

Political Accommodation: The Effects Of Booker T. Washington's Leadership And Legacy On Tuskegee University And The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment., Dominique Dubois Gilliard

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this re-evaluation of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, I identify the original causes that made the Study emerge, examine why the intent of this research shifted over time, reveal the manner in which the Study was conducted, expose the role the government played in the manipulation of the Experiment, and, finally, investigate the ways, as well as the reasons, for the selection of the participants involved in the Study. After exploring the Experiment itself, I investigate the lasting effects of it on the community in which it occurred and the ways in which it further affected the relationship between African …

"Our Good And Faithful Servant": James Moore Wayne And Georgia Unionism, Joel C. Mcmahon

History Dissertations

Since the Civil War, historians have tried to understand why eleven southern states seceded from the Union to form a new nation, the Confederate States of America. What compelled the South to favor disunion over union? While enduring stereotypes perpetuated by the Myth of the Lost Cause cast most southerners of the antebellum era as ardent secessionists, not all southerners favored disunion. In addition, not all states were enthusiastic about the prospects of leaving one Union only to join another. Secession and disunion have helped shape the identity of the imagined South, but many Georgians opposed secession. This dissertation examines …

Dead Reckoning (Book Review), Edward L. Ayers

History Faculty Publications

Long before she became the first female president of Harvard University in July 2007, Drew Gilpin Faust showed herself to be an inventive, energetic, and restless historian. Her first book, in 1977, focused on a subject many people had doubted was a subject, "the intellectual in the Old South." Five years later, she produced what is still the fullest — and most disturbing — portrayal of a white Southern planter, a man who sought complete mastery over the white women in his charge as well as over the enslaved people he claimed as property.

Soon after that, in a series …

Cornbread & Sushi: A Journey Through The Rural South, John E. Lane, Deno P. Trakas

College Books

"This book is a collaborative product of the Cornbread & Sushi Seminar at Wofford College 2005-2006"

The seminar was led by the faculty members John Lane and Deno Trakas. The contributors (including Wofford students, faculty, and staff, and Southern authors) are: Austin Baker, Elizabeth Bethea, Butch Clay, Hal Crowther, Ivy Farr, Tom Franklin, William Gay, Frye Gaillard, Steve Harvey, Casey Lambert, Martin Lammon, John Lane, Lewis Lovett, Trish Makres, Karen Sayler McElmurray, Larry McGehee, Jim Morgan, Mary Mungo, Mark Olencki, Wilson Peden, Jason Rains, Hallie Sessoms, Ron Rash, Dori Sanders, Bettie Sellers, George Singleton, Lee Smith, Deno Trakas, Laura Vaughn, …

[Introduction To] What Caused The Civil War? Reflections On The South And Southern History, Edward L. Ayers

Bookshelf

The Southern past has proven to be fertile ground for great works of history. Peculiarities of tragic proportions—a system of slavery flourishing in a land of freedom, secession and Civil War tearing at a federal Union, deep poverty persisting in a nation of fast-paced development—have fed the imaginations of some of our most accomplished historians.

Foremost in their ranks today is Edward L. Ayers, author of the award-winning and ongoing study of the Civil War in the heart of America, the Valley of the Shadow Project. In wide-ranging essays on the Civil War, the New South, and the twentieth-century South, …

George H. Shriver Papers, Zach S. Henderson Library Special Collections

Finding Aids

The collection consists of the professional and personal papers of Georgia Southern Professor Emeritus, George H. Shriver. Materials span from 1973 to 1997 and include correspondence, teaching materials, published articles, and manuscripts related to religion in the American South. Additional materials related to Shriver’s tennis coaching career for the Georgia Southern’s Lady Eagles Tennis team are also included.

Find this collection in the University Libraries' catalog.