History Commons^™

Immigration, Small Business And Assimilation: Three Stories Of Small-Time Capitalism On The Lower East Side, Marcus Hillman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Small businesses in New York City have often been a catalyst to assimilation for individual immigrants, their families and their communities. For this capstone project, I have recorded conversations with three small-time entrepreneurs on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and created a narrative audio piece that explores some of the important and study-worthy characteristics of New York City including economic opportunities in the city, immigration, assimilation and the ways that New Yorkers share space, just to name a few. These themes are threads that ran through all three of the conversations that I had and are crucial elements of …

Reverse The Curse: Colonialist Legacies Of The Magic Poem, Karen E. Lepri

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation investigates the conceptual relationships between poetry, magic, and race and their effects on both intellectual and creative practices from modernism through the post-war era. In doing so, this study works cross-disciplinarily, tracing early anthropological and sociological characterizations of primitive religion in connection to early-to-mid-twentieth-century literary study and writing. In working across disciplines at this particularly fungible moment in the history of the academy, this dissertation attempts to understand how the concurrent colonial global context effects the production and organization of knowledge just prior to and during modernism. It ultimately seeks to de-colonize literary thinking about poetry by performing …

You Are Here: Mapping The World System Of Mohsin Hamid’S Fiction, Terrie Akers

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Mohsin Hamid’s novels—Exit West, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, and Moth Smoke—offer fecund ground for thinking through globalization and the changing world system. Bruce Robbins articulates a working definition of the “worldly” or global novel as one that “encourage[s] us to look at superstructures, or infrastructures, or the structuring force of the world capitalist system." Following on Robbins’s argument, Leerom Medovoi has written that Hamid’s work belongs to a body of literature that “is not so much of or by, but for Americans”—which he terms “world-system literature,” a literary application …

Morris High School: A Biography, Naomi Sharlin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Morris High School was conceived and built in the Bronx with a lofty mission: to provide a comprehensive, world-class secondary education to the children of immigrant and working-class families, and in so doing to elevate the American public education system and America itself. Such a weighty mission for an institution would result, one could expect, in painstaking record keeping, the lionization of great leaders, consistent investment in the building, and attention given to problems encountered or created over the years. And yet, the life of Morris High School remains elusive. Key figures in its story are lost to obscurity like …

Performing Desire In Times Square: Sailors, Hustlers And Masculinity, Kel R. Karpinski

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

From WWII to the early 1970s, New York City as a port town created a liminal space extending from the piers in the Brooklyn Navy Yard all the way to Times Square in Midtown Manhattan. In Times Square, through interactions on the street, in bars and in hotel rooms, desire and masculinity become a performance between and for men. The queerness of these performances lies in the fact that they fall outside of the norms of society both as same-sex encounters and because sex work is viewed as “deviant.” Further, these interactions eschew traditional labels and limits of desire and …

Rituals Of Remaindered Life In The Films Of Kidlat Tahimik, Alison R. Boldero

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Kidlat Tahimik, who achieved international renown during the Marcos regime for his film Perfumed Nightmare (Mababangong Bangungot, 1976), is relatively unknown outside of international film circles. Considered a pioneer of Third Cinema in the Philippines, a radical film movement from Latin America that has since inspired similar movements globally, Tahimik challenged cultural hegemony in a postcolonial, post-World War II Philippines through the production of imperfect films. This paper looks to three of Tahimik's films - Perfumed Nightmare, Turumba (1983), and Why is Yellow the Middle of the Rainbow? (Bakit Dilaw Ang Kulay ng Bahaghari, 1994) …

Brrap Brrap Pew Pew: Representations Of Abortion In Adult Animated Television Comedy, Erika A. Byrnison

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis documents and analyzes representation of abortion in American adult animated comedy, charging that it is under-examined and significant because representation on television in other genres has traditionally been absent or misleading. It covers theories on how pop culture communicates social norms, and posits that greater truthful representation of abortion in popular culture may be effective in reducing prevalent abortion stigma in the U.S. amongst the young by normalizing and more accurately representing the procedure. It reviews why our culture should be concerned about reducing abortion stigma in the U.S. It also identifies the “taboo ratings paradox,” wherein television …

Stevens, Robert Livingston (1787-1856), John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Robert Livingston Stevens was an inventor and engineer in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Japanese American Internment, 1942-1946 (Book Chapter), Ann Matsuuchi

Publications and Research

This book chapter ("Japanese American Internment, 1942-1946") appears in 25 Events that Shaped Asian American History: An Encyclopedia of the American Mosaic. Edited by Lan Dong. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC/CLIO, 2019. Pages 191-202. ISBN: 9781440860881 Copyright © 2019 by ABC--CLIO, LLC All rights reserved. Posted in 2022 as per contract, “with proper credit to the original publication of the Entry in the Project, including reproducing the exact copyright notice as it appears in the Project, to deposit a copy of the Entry in a noncommercial data repository maintained by an institution of which you are a member, after an embargo …

Electric Guitar, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Hollow-body guitars could not be heard over other instruments in swing bands, so pick-ups were added to the guitars, which often resulted in feedback and distortion. This led to the development of solid-body electric guitars which needed amplification in order to be heard.

Mills Brothers (1924-1981), John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

The Mills Brothers were the first African American group musical group to enjoy popularity with white audiences, and had a career that lasted over fifty years.

Latimer, Lewis Howard (1848-1928), John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Lewis Howard Latimer was an inventor, engineer, draftsman, and patent expert who helped to make the electric light more widespread and affordable.

Public Workers, William A. Herbert

Publications and Research

This chapter on New York City public sector labor history appeared in a book edited by Joshua B. Freeman that was a companion to the exhibition City of Workers, City of Struggle: How Labor Movements Changed New York. The exhibition was organized by and presented at the Museum of the City of New York.

What Do Unions Want? When New York State’S Public Employee Unions Turned Down The Right To Strike, Marc Kagan

Publications and Research

In a 1977 package of proposed revisions of New York State’s “Taylor Law,” which governs public employee labor-management relations and prohibits work stoppages, unions were offered the right to strike, while managers would have gained the right to unilaterally change contract terms at expiration. In effect, this deal would have made state labor relations more similar to bargaining in private industry. Offered an expanded ability to strike, the municipal unions instead opted for defensive stability.

San Millán De La Cogolla Y La Celebración Pública Del Idioma: Memorialización Prospectiva De La Lengua En La Transición Española, José Del Valle

Publications and Research

Este artículo tiene por objeto contribuir al cuestionamiento de las políticas consensuales que presidieron el periodo transicional en España empleando para ello un ángulo de análisis glotopolítico. Para ello, toma como caso de estudio el metalenguaje desplegado en las celebraciones y efemérides transicionales relacionadas con las famosas glosas custodiadas en San Millán de la Cogolla. Este revela su apropiación nacionalista por parte de distintos poderes académicos, políticos e institucionales.

"Excellent Propaganda" Zbigniew Brzezinski's Narrative For The Soviet Invasion Of Afghanistan, Matt Mulhern

Dissertations and Theses

My focus is Cold War, and my thesis is about Zbigniew Brzezinski's larger geopolitical vision and objectivesforthePersian Gulf region, including how he used the Afghan war to pursue those objectives, and how important his willful misunderstanding of Soviet intentions in Afghanistan was to the legacy of America’s involvement in that nation’s affairs.

Black Women As Activist Intellectuals: Ella Baker And Mae Mallory Combat Northern Jim Crow In New York City's Public Schools During The 1950s, Kristopher B. Burrell

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

In Spite Of You, We Live On: A Commemorative Painting, Goldie Gross

Publications and Research

This painting is the product of a Yiddish language independent study with Professor Debra Caplan. It depicts a war portrait of Hitler with a stumbling stone inscribed with the words "אויף צו להכעיס דיר לעבן מיר נאך" (in spite of you, we live on) in the center of his face. It is accompanied by an explanation of the painting.

Inequality In Education, Judith R. Kafka

Publications and Research

This chapter reviews research on the history of inequality in education. Across the globe and since the advent of formal schooling, children from wealthier families have had access to more education, and more costly education, than their less affluent peers. More physically and intellectually advantaged children have also, on average, had greater educational opportunities than their less fortunate peers. Yet within this general historic truth lies considerable variation in terms of how, to what extent, and by what political justification educational inequalities have existed and persisted. Historians have sought to explain variations in inequality in education across time and place …

Housing Along The Brooklyn Waterfront: A Story Of Shipping, Industry, And Immigrants, Kurt C. Schlichting

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Introduction: Connecting Histories: Jews And Their Others In Early Modern Europe, Francesca Bregoli

Publications and Research

Introduction to edited volume Connecting Histories: Jews and Their Others in Early Modern Europe (ed. by Francesca Bregoli and David B. Ruderman)

His 34 History And Contemporary Issues In Science And Technology, William Dejong-Lambert

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Reimagining Essex Street Market, Madeleine M. Crenshaw

Capstones

Reimagining Essex Street Market is a multimedia story highlighting a historic 78-year-old market on the Lower East Side that is moving to a massive mixed-used development. Using, GIFS, text, social video and photo, this project illustrates the historical and cultural significance of the market that has been a staple to the neighborhood and the immigrant communities of the Lower East Side for decades.

https://medium.com/@madeleinecrenshaw/reimagining-essex-street-market-6ebcbb704b25

Lords From The Desert, Caroline Mercado

Capstones

Lords from the Desert

This work explores a reality that is little talked about: how the most prestigious pre-Columbian art exhibits in the United States hide a murky origin. From looting of temples to illicit art trafficking, to smuggling and collectors’ affairs, the pieces gain value in proportion to the social prestige of their owner. Along the way, the most important is lost: research that provides context and allows us to know history. The First World wins a seductive, but simplistic story. The Third World, from which all these cultures emerge, loses patrimony and possibilities of understanding themselves. A pair …

Revival, Anya Van Wagtendonk

Capstones

My hometown, Great Barrington, MA, has one famous former resident: NAACP co-founder W.E.B. Du Bois. For generations, his legacy in the predominantly white town was hardly acknowledged. People actively protested the landmarking of his birth site in the 1960s. When I was a kid, plans to name a new middle school after him were scrapped after the uproar grew too loud. Even in this supposedly liberal enclave in western Massachusetts, people continued to object to his membership in the Communist Party. As former NAACP president Cornell Brooks said recently, this would be like Princeton, N.J., ignoring that Einstein had ever …

Historical Effects Of Electronic Interfaces, G James Mitchell

Publications and Research

Electronic interfaces are a primary tool for most professional and personal communication currently happening. Electronics, like the human mind, are limited by the understanding of executing will, or commands. This can be characterized as “interface limitations” of digital technology. Identifying this bottleneck in technological development has been critical in historical changes to both hardware and software technology. Recent medical research examines a novel user interface to reduce task load. I hypothesize, interface developments that take cues from nonverbal human communication enhance and sustain the significance of those technologies in society. By examining pivotal moments of historical technology we can identify …

The Conquest Of Latin America: Ambivalent Encounters And Historical Memory, Daisy V. Domínguez

Open Educational Resources

This syllabus explores the period known as the Conquest of Latin America, beginning with a look at the Reconquista - the period when Christian Spanish and Portuguese kingdoms took present day Spain back from the Moors who had controlled the Iberian Peninsula for over 700 years - and continuing with a deeper exploration of the colonization of the Caribbean, Mexico, and the Andes. The course examines historical memory surrounding this period: how it has been commemorated in public spaces and via popular culture, outside academia. This epoch was brought about by a fascinating mix of encounters between a number of …

American Education Through Films And Documentaries, Carol Huang

Open Educational Resources

A social foundation of education

The Anarchist Classroom: A Test Of Libertarian Education And Human Nature At The Modern School In New York And New Jersey, 1911-1953, Eric G. Anderson

Student Theses

A study of anarchist education at the beginning of the twentieth century questions common perceptions of anarchists as solely bomb-throwing radicals and reveals that they cared deeply about children and the future of humankind. Inspired by the martyrdom of Francisco Ferrer, Spanish anarchist and founder of anarchist schools in Barcelona, anarchists worldwide applied their radical principles to the creation of “Modern Schools.” In these schools, anarchists attempted to blend Enlightenment ideals of freedom with politically revolutionary goals. The Modern School movement reached its zenith in the decade following Ferrer’s 1909 execution by the Spanish government for sedition, but declined by …

Jerome Lefkowitz: A Pragmatic Intellect And Major Figure In Taylor Law Historytaylor Law History, William A. Herbert

Publications and Research

This article examines the professional career of Jerome Lefkowitz, a central figure in the history of the Taylor Law, New York's public sector collective bargaining statute. Mr. Lefkowitz helped draft the Taylor Law, and served as the first Deputy Chairperson of the New York State Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) from 1967 until 1986, and the agency's fifth Chairperson from 2007 until 2015. PERB is the state agency responsible for administering the provisions of the Taylor Law. Between his two tenures at PERB, Mr. Lefkowitz was Deputy Counsel for the Civil Service Employees Association, Local 1000, AFL-CIO. The article examines …