History Commons^™

Roger Mcdonough: Nj State Librarian And Master Politician, Robin Brown

Publications and Research

Roger McDonough became New Jersey State Librarian in 1947, the first professional librarian to fill that role and at the head of a newly amalgamated agency. He was a consummate politician. During his tenure he not only managed to get a new State Library built next to the State Capitol, but he worked hard to upgrade library services in New Jersey, to create networks of library cooperation, and to bring state aid up to par. He was a gifted lobbyist, and spent a significant amount of time working with the ALA Washington office to get national programs of library aid …

Educational Attainment In The United States And Six Major Metropolitan Areas, 1990-2010: A Quantitative Study By Race, Ethnicity, And Sex, Lawrence Cappello

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This study examines educational attainment rates among racial/ethnic groups in the US and New York City metro area between 1990 and 2010.

Methods: Data on Latinos and other racial/ethnic groups were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa. Cases in the dataset were weighted and analyzed to produce population estimates.

Results: The data indicate that the percentage of the population with a B.A. or higher in the U.S. has steadily increased across all races and ethnicities for both sexes. This trend was apparent in …

Heroic Depiction Vs. Modern Slaughtering -The Great War In The Middle East As A Semi-Modern War, Frank Jacob, Riccardo Altieri

Publications and Research

The paper discusses the reception of the Middle East during the First World War comparing different areas of campaigns and battles in the region.

The Mcgowan Trilogy (Plays), Seamus O'Scanlain

Publications and Research

The McGowan Trilogy is a psychological journey of violence, sorrow and love lost. Set in 1980s Ireland after the Brighton Bombing which targeted Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet it follows the exploits of Victor M. McGowan - a new breed of IRA enforcer - in love with puns, guns and the pogo. The Trilogy won awards for Best Actress, Best Director and Best Production in 2014 and played for 20 nights in New York. In 2015 it played in the UK at the Kino-Teatr, An Taibhdhearc, The Town hall Westport and The Town Hall Galway.

Gurkha Soldiers As An Intercultural Moment On The European Battlefields Of The Great War, Frank Jacob

Publications and Research

The article analyzes the role of the Gurkhas during the First World War to explain the intercultural contacts as they were created by the multi-ethnicity of the troops that were recruited for the Great War throughout the British Empire.

The Russo-Japanese War And The Decline Of The Russian Image, Frank Jacob

Publications and Research

The article analyzes the consequences of the Russo-Japanese War with regard to the military reception of Russia in Europe, especially Germany.

When The World Stood Aside – The Allied Reaction To Jan Karski’S Report From Hell, Frank Jacob

Publications and Research

The article analyses the Allied reactions in the United Kingdom and the United States after having received Jan Karski's report about the situation of the Jews in Poland.

Missionaries Or Crusaders? - The Self-Reception Of The Spanish Conquistadors In The 16th And 17th Century, Frank Jacob, Riccardo Altieri

Publications and Research

The article analyzes the self-image of the conquistadors during the European invasion of South and Latin America in the age of expansion.

Gender, Money, And The Charity Organization Society: 1900-1919, Sarah H. Arnold

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project looks at the work of the Charity Organization Society of New York from 1900 until 1919. Using reports, case histories, meeting minutes, and fundraising material, it concentrates on the ways in which the performance of gender intersected with definitions of expertise and access to money in the lives of both the social workers themselves and their clients. It begins with an overview of the Charity Organization Society's evolution from a largely volunteer charity organization focused on the morality of the poor to an organization that would become key to the development of social work as a profession. Then …

Renaissance Humanism And The Ottoman 'Other' - Discourse Construction, Position And Power, Aramis Miranda-Reyes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453 had an overwhelming geopolitical impact on Western Europe which included a discursive shift that depended greatly on the ideological construction of this event by its contemporaries for its consequences. In other words, the nature of Western European discourse subsequent to the Fall of Constantinople was rooted in the psychological impact this loss of territory had in contemporary secular and church leaders as well as their functionaries, many of which were key humanist figures. Consequently, Renaissance writers who constructed the Ottomans as 'others', were also writing within a context of power relations. In this …

Revisting The Domestic Labor Debate: Toward A Critique Of Workerist Feminism, Alice Feng

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The extremely high presence of housewives in Italy during the 'miracle years,' of 1950-1963, seemingly suggested that an unprecedented number of women were unemployed after their expulsion from large-scale industry. This phenomenon inspired debate among feminists on questions such as the contribution of housewives to the reproduction of labor-power, the character of reproductive labor and the relation between the participation of women in waged labor and unwaged domestic labor. In revisiting this phenomenon, this thesis argues that, contrary to the appearance of women being unemployed, a significant number of women, along with children, were irregularly engaged in undeclared forms of …

The Three-Quarter House: A Product Of The Neoliberal City, Paulette Soltani

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Thousands of the most impoverished New Yorkers have found shelter in the unlicensed, unregulated, for-profit housing market known as the three-quarter house industry. The houses -- scattered throughout the city -- shelter individuals coming from a host of difficult circumstances: people who are formerly incarcerated, chronically homeless, and struggling with drug and alcohol dependency, unemployment, mental health conditions, and medical issues. Once there, residents are faced with rampant violations of their rights, dangerous physical housing conditions, and obstructions to recovery and reintegration. Through a historical lens, this paper argues that decades of neoliberal policies helped develop the three-quarter house industry …

Organizing Against Discrimination: The Chinese Hand Laundrymen Historical Niche And Ethnic Solidarity In America, Johnny Thach

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

From the late 1800s to early 1900s, hand laundries developed into the first Chinese historical niche in America in conjunction with Chinese laundrymen's activism, community organization, and ethnic solidarity in response to the proliferation of anti-Chinese discriminatory ordinances and laws instigated by White laundries and government officials. Using primary sources and secondary historical examples, this thesis explores the formation of the niche through the collective actions of two Chinese laundrymen organizations: the Tung Hing Tong “("同心堂")” in California, and the Chinese Hand Laundry Alliance in New York. This thesis demonstrates that not only were both organizations founded differently and for …

Imperial Priests And Martyrs: Pretexts For State Violence And Religious Change In France, 1848-1871, Benjamin Tyner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the lives and political significance of five French Catholic priests who were murdered between 1848 and 1871. Using French newspapers, printed religious texts and pamphlets, hagiographic biographies and other sources, I show the many ways in which French priests were wittingly and unwittingly used by the French Second Republic (1848-52), Second Empire (1852-70) and the Paris Commune (1871) and Third Republic (1870-1940). Archbishop of Paris Denis Auguste Affre (1848), Saint Augustin Schoeffler (1851), Archbishop of Paris Marie-Dominique-Auguste Sibour (1857), Saint Théophane Vénard (1861), and Archbishop of Paris Georges Darboy (1871) were all killed more for their relationship …

Carl Schmitt And Political Catholicism: Friend Or Foe?, Brian J. Fox

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The scholarship on controversial German constitutional lawyer and political theorist Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) has long accepted what can be called a "standard narrative" as regards his intellectual development. This narrative treats Schmitt as, on the whole, a "Catholic" intellectual and "political theologian" until the mid-1920s when he turns decidedly towards a secular decisionism. Commentators frequently point to Schmitt's non-canonical second marriage in 1926 as the biographically salient factor in dating a turn from an early association with political Catholicism to his later nationalist authoritarianism. This later approach to politics led Schmitt to promote plebiscitary dictatorship in the last years of …

Of Truths, Secrets, And Loyalties: Political Belonging And State Building In Poland After State Socialism, Saygun Gokariksel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is an ethnographic study of the accusations of 'collaboration' with the communist-era secret service in Poland's capitalist democracy. Situated in the global context of the 1989 'revolutions,' it examines the role of law in redrawing the moral and political boundaries of the new body politic and redefining the loyalties of the new citizen-subject of the neoliberalizing state. Specifically, my research concentrates on the legal process called 'lustration' (lustracja) in Poland, the state-centered purges of real or imagined secret communist agents, informers, and spies. Focusing on the contentious legal-political struggles from 2005 to 2008 and their aftermath, it explores …

Transportation And Sanitation Drivers Of Land Use/Land Cover Change: Loss Of The Jamaica Bay Wetlands, Margaret Joy Cytryn

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents an analysis (1830-2014) of the historical events of land use/land cover change in the Jamaica Bay estuary, identification of the agents of change, and a perspective on the potential drivers of transportation and sanitation in land use/land cover change.

Review Of The Book Guide To Reference In Genealogy And Biography, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Review of the book Guide to reference in genealogy and biography.

Science And Charity: Rival Catholic Visions For Humanitarian Practice At The End Of French Rule In Cameroon, Charlotte Walker-Said

Publications and Research

This paper explores the conflict between local expressions of Christian charity and new theories of scientific humanitarianism in the final years of French rule in Africa. Compassionate phenomena inspired by Catholic social organizing had transformed everyday life throughout French Cameroon’s cities and villages in the interwar and postwar years, and yet, in 1950, poverty, crime, poor public health, and social tensions remained prevalent. Seeking a more deeply transformative approach to social rehabilitation, ecclesiastical leaders in the Catholic Church in Europe and French foreign missionary societies in Africa partnered with international medical and scientific organizations in order to invigorate charity with …

Review Of The Book Polish Roots: Korzenie Polskie, 2nd Ed., John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Review of the book Polish roots: Korzenie Polskie, 2nd ed.

The Impact Of Technology On Consumerism, David Naranjo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

E-commerce is shifting the way people purchase their goods and services and affecting the relationship between technology and society. Consequently, traditional retailers, aware of the inevitable change, have developed strategies to keep up with the continuously evolving marketplace. These strategies vary from creating virtual stores (i.e., websites) and developing digital social networks to data mining and spamming.

Therefore, from a historical point of view, this thesis will analyze the impact of technology on commerce and how the creation of new virtual marketplaces had affected consumers' behavior. This thesis will explore the origins of e-commerce, the technologies that made possible its …

Before Addiction: The Medical History Of Alcoholism In Nineteenth-Century France, Lauren Saxton

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In 1849 a Swedish physician coined the term "alcoholism," but it was not until the advent of the Third Republic that French physicians began to give shape to this new disease. This work explores the medical facts physicians presented concerning alcohol consumption from the disease's inception up until the outbreak of World War I, when regulation of alcohol consumption changed dramatically. It works to uncover the links between social anxieties and medical thought, and argues that physicians created a complex relationship between alcoholism and personal responsibility over these years. This relationship privileged bourgeois styles of consumption, undermined the cultural preferences …

Narratives Of Interiority: Black Lives In The U.S. Capital, 1919 - 1942, Paula C. Austin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation constructs an urban, social and intellectual history of poor and working class African Americans in the interwar period in Washington, D.C. Although the advent of social history shifted scholarly emphasis onto the "ninety-nine percent," many scholars have framed black history as the story of either the educated, uplifted and accomplished elite, or of a culturally depressed monolithic urban mass in need of the alleviation of structural obstacles to advancement. A history of the poor and working class as individuals with both ideas and subjectivity has often been difficult simply because there are limited archival sources.

"Narratives of Interiority" …

Luti Masculinity In Iranian Modernity, 1785-1941: Marginalization And The Anxieties Of Proper Masculine Comportment, Robert Joseph Bell

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper offers a genealogy of changing conceptualizations and performances of masculinity in 19^th and early to mid-20^th century Iran, and examines in particular a unique group of masculine subjects known as the lutis. The first component of the analysis traces the historical lineage of these lutis, situating their emergence out of Persian Sufi brotherhoods, bandit clans ('ayyar), and guild-like organizations (futuwwa) from the period of the 15th to the 19th century CE. This section provides an account of the most pertinent and distinguishing rites, attitudes, and practices of the …

"Young Men Of The Stones": Gendering The First Palestinian Intifada, Karen Lauria

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The First Palestinian Intifada (1987 - 1993) began on December 9, 1987 with riots protesting the killing of a young Palestinian man by the Israeli Defense Forces. The riots quickly grew into a much larger grassroots uprising -- Intifada -- against Israeli occupation. In the following weeks and months, the Occupied Territories were engulfed in waves of protests, demonstrations, boycotts, and other acts of civil disobedience, which continued until 1993. Although Intifada protestors represented a cross-section of Palestinian society, encompassing both old and young, male and female, a single, particular masculine trope soon came to dominate-that of young male activists …

The Medicalization Of Stress: Hans Selye And The Transformation Of The Postwar Medical Marketplace, Vanessa L. Burrows

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation employs historical methodology and public health theory to examine how critical changes in the culture and political economy of biomedical research shaped Hungarian-Canadian endocrinologist Hans Selye's concept of biological stress, guiding him to develop a highly individualistic and commercially-appealing disease model that complimented major interests of the postwar medical marketplace: the state, the corporation and the consumer. In the mid-1930s Selye proposed that the human body adapted to a diverse range of stressors--including, extreme temperatures, intoxification, surgical trauma, physical exercise and complete immobilization--by releasing adrenocortical hormones to regulate bodily functions. For the next fifty years he devoted his …

Pedro De Ursúa, Francisco César Y Sir Francis Drake Tras Los Tesoros De La Nueva Granada: En Noticias Historiales De Las Conquistas De Tierra Firme En Las Indias Occidentales., Astrid Roldán

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the successful choice of exempla in Fray Pedro Simón's Noticias historiales de las conquistas de Tierra Firme en las Indias Occidentales. It focuses on the study of specific characteristics, implications, and functional methods related to this form of argument throughout three Noticias historiales: Pedro de Ursúa and Lope de Aguirre, 6ta NH, 3ra parte, Francisco César and Cacique Utibara, 2nda NH, 3ra parte, and Sir Francis Drake, 6ta NH, 3ra parte. It also explores the means by which these exempla communicate, instruct, amuse, and persuade the reader. The chronological account of Fray Pedro Simón is …

At Home In The Bronx: Children At The New York Catholic Protectory 1865-1938, Janet Butler Munch

Publications and Research

The N.Y.C.-based New York Catholic Protectory was established in 1865 as the home of destitute or truant children. This article deals with such topics as the protectory's establishment, operation and management, education and industrial training, as well as societal factors leading to its changing mission and closing in the Bronx in 1938-- after serving the needs of over 140,000 boys and girls.

York's Founding Librarian Made H[Er]Story: Remembering Gladys Jarrett, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Gladys Jarrett was the first Library faculty member hired at York College, and was one of the original three librarians when the college opened. Her career at York spanned 1967-1985, and she was very likely the first African-American woman to be a Chief Librarian in the City University of New York system.

A Librarian’S Genealogical Study To Outreach For Ethnic Populations, Sheau-Yueh J. Chao

Publications and Research

Chinese Americans searched for their identities and strove for achievement in the United States. Respect for the elders is considered as one of the outstanding virtues of Chinese culture. The importance of this trait is underscored via its record-keeping traditions and clan genealogies called Jiapu which was fostered by centuries of Confucian philosophy. Some of the history of Chinese in America can in fact be found not only in China but also internationally around the globe. In this paper, the author will share her experiences and ideas on building and enhancing family history research through understanding the major components in …