History Commons^™

American And German Research Universities Between The Beginning And End Of The German Reich, Mcclelland, Charles E. Mcclelland

History Faculty Publications

Departing from a sketch of the “German-American” interaction in higher education starting around the beginning of the nineteenth century, moves on to the main focus on the half-century between about 1890 and 1940, concentrating only marginally on student movements and experience but more on autochthonous institutional developments.

Review Of Comanche Jack Stilwell: Army Scout And Plainsman, By Clint E. Chambers And Paul H. Carlson, Thomas A. Britten

History Faculty Publications

The book’s primary aim is to provide a straightforward biography of Jack Stilwell (co-author Clint Chambers’s great-great-uncle) and to place his story within the context of western history during the last three decades of the nineteenth century. “Comanche Jack” left little written evidence behind for historians to peruse, but by diligently combing widely scattered army records, census rolls, court testimonies, and commentaries in newspapers and magazines, the authors succeed in providing both an interesting read and a balanced assessment of this rather remarkable individual.

India’S Plan To Identify ‘Illegal Immigrants’ Could Get Some Muslims Declared ‘Foreign’, Haimanti Roy

History Faculty Publications

The Indian government will soon ask its 870 million voting-age citizens for documentation that they are legal citizens with ancestral ties to India.

On Nov. 20, Indian Home Minister Amit Shah announced a plan to expand the National Registry of Citizens, a four-year documentation effort that recently concluded in India’s northeastern state of Assam, to the entire country. Shah claims that the effort will help identify illegal immigrants in a “nondiscriminatory” fashion.

The news was met with some dismay. After Assam finished tallying its 30.5 million people in August, about 1.9 million were declared “foreign.” Some were Bangladeshi immigrants living …

The Warrior As Priest: Edmund Herring And The "Call To The People Of Australia", Michael J. Birkner

History Faculty Publications

Prominent for his role in World War II in New Guinea, Sir Edmund Herring grew discouraged about his countrymen’s failure to sustain wartime spirit in a post-war era. In his view ‘faith and courage’ had been replaced by a national ethos of ‘gimme and get’. Charged by Prime Minister Robert Menzies with leading a national awakening, particularly as related to the threat of international communism, in 1951 Herring spearheaded a fervent ‘Call to the People of Australia’, which earned massive publicity, short-term engagement by up to a third of the population, but little long-term impact. To Herring’s frustration, a largely …

Review: 'Holy Humanitarians: American Evangelicals And Global Aid', William Vance Trollinger

History Faculty Publications

As I write, the city of Dayton is digging out from the devastating impact of fifteen tornadoes – four of which carried winds of 150-200 mph -- that struck the city and its environs on Memorial Day night. The American Red Cross (ARC) is spearheading community relief efforts, which, on the face of it, is no great surprise. But in Holy Humanitarians Heather Curtis makes clear that not only did the ARC (founded in 1881) not enjoy benevolence presumption in the first few decades of its existence, its fiercest competitor was the evangelical periodical, the Christian Herald.

In this …

Anti-Japanese Sentiment, International Diplomacy, And The Texas Alien Land Law Of 1921, Brent M. S. Campney

History Faculty Publications

The Japanese ‘invasion’ of Texas appears to be in full swing,” reported a correspondent from the lower Rio Grande Valley (hereinafter, the Valley) on January 7, 1921. The writer drew this conclusion from the arrival a day earlier of two Japanese families who had been met at the train station in the South Texas town of Harlingen by a mob who warned the immigrants not to settle on the land that they had already purchased in the vicinity. The alleged invasion continued with the arrival of B. R. Kato, “another Japanese colonist from California, [who] reached Brownsville today.” As Kato …

M. Roberts (Ed. And Trans.), Venantius Fortunatus, Poems (Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 46). Cambridge, Ma: Harvard University Press, 2017. Pp. Xx + 910. Isbn9780674974920. £19.95., Erica Buchberger

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Fundamentalism Turns 100, A Landmark For The Christian Right, William Vance Trollinger

History Faculty Publications

These days, the term “fundamentalism” is often associated with a militant form of Islam.

But the original fundamentalist movement was actually Christian. And it was born in the United States a century ago this year.

Protestant fundamentalism is still very much alive. And, as Susan Trollinger and I discuss in our 2016 book, it has fueled today’s culture war over gender, sexual orientation, science and American religious identity.

Making “The Garden City Of The South”: Beautification, Preservation, And Downtown Planning In Augusta, Georgia, J. Mark Souther

History Faculty Publications

This article illuminates how a smaller southern city engaged broader planning approaches. Civic leaders, especially women, pushed and partnered with municipal administrations to beautify Augusta, Georgia, a city with extraordinarily wide streets and a long tradition of urban horticulture. Their efforts in the 1900s to 1950s, often in concert with close by planners, led to a confluence of urban beautification, historic preservation, and downtown revitalization in the 1960s. This coordinated activity reshaped Augusta’s cityscape, exacerbated racial tensions, and enshrined principles of the City Beautiful, Garden City, and parks movements long after they receded in large cities, influencing the work of …

The Injustice Never Leaves You: Anti-Mexican Violence In Texas By Monica Munoz Martinez (Review), Brent M. S. Campney

History Faculty Publications

In The Injustice Never Leaves You, Monica Munoz Martinez provides an outstanding analysis of the racist violence that Anglos used to control ethnic Mexicans in Texas. Building on the work of other historians, including Benjamin Johnson, Nicholas Villanueva, William Carrigan, and Clive Webb, she discusses, for instance, the burning of Antonio Rodrıguez by a mob in Rocksprings in 1910 and the rampage by Anglo lynch mobs and Texas Rangers in the Lower Rio Grande Valley in 1915, a massacre that claimed the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of ethnic Mexicans.

Candid About Cinema: Gregory Nava, Manuel F. Medrano

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Review Of Valley Of The Guns: The Pleasant Valley War And The Trauma Of Violence, By Eduardo Obregón Pagán, Jamie Starling

History Faculty Publications

At first glance, the Pleasant Valley War that occurred in central Arizona from 1881 to 1892 represents an archetypal frontier conflict of that era. In this engaging book, Eduardo Obregón Pagán recovers this history from familiar western tropes and popular mythmaking with a thoroughly [End Page 245] researched study that draws theoretical inspiration from recent scholarship on the North American borderlands. In particular, the author acknowledges the influence of Ned Blackhawk’s acclaimed book Violence over the Land (Harvard University Press, 2006) for providing a framework for understanding how conflicts that appear to stem from personal feuds tie peoples and communities …

Review: 'Notre Dame Vs. The Klan: How The Fighting Irish Defied The Kkk,' By Todd Tucker, William Vance Trollinger

History Faculty Publications

Todd Tucker’s book is an easy and enjoyable read. And the author has a great story to tell, about the three days in May 1924 when Notre Dame students clashed with members of the Ku Klux Klan on the streets of South Bend. Notre Dame alumni will particularly enjoy it, as Tucker (a 1990 graduate) has written what is in effect a love letter to his alma mater, replete with details about the author’s experience as a student (as well as additional autobiographical information).

The Difference Denominations Made: Identifying The Black Church(Es) And Black Religious Choices Of The Early Republic, Kyle T. Bulthuis

History Faculty Publications

Scholars of African-American religious history have recently debated the significance of the black church in American history. Those that have, pro and con, have often considered the black church as a singular entity, despite the fact that African Americans affiliated with a number of different religious traditions under the umbrella of the black church. This article posits that it is useful to consider denominational and theological developments within different African-American churches. Doing so acknowledges plural creations and developments of black churches, rather than a singular black church, which better accounts for the historical experience of black religion. In this piece, …

Practices Of Intellectual Labor In The Republic Of Letters: Leibniz And Edward Bernard On Language And European Origins, Michael C. Carhart

History Faculty Publications

For a project on the origins and migrations of the European nations, Leibniz wanted to see a comparative lexicon purporting to derive the Germanic languages from Asiatic sources. Friends in nearby Gotha were known to have the book; its author had corresponded with Leibniz a few years earlier. But actually getting the book was more difficult than one might expect. In addition to the actual logistics and manners of scholarly communication in the late seventeenth century, this essay shows what scholars were trying to accomplish by establishing the prehistoric origins of the modern nations.

The Great War And The Digital Humanities: Creating A Project And Building A Team, Ian A. Isherwood, Amy E. Lucadamo, R.C. Miessler

History Faculty Publications

Using the framework of The First World War Letters of H.J.C. Peirs: A Digital History, this workshop will give guidance for team-building and project management, provide examples of Digital Humanities tools and methods that can be used with First World War collections, and outline pedagogical uses for digital history in the classroom.

The First World War Letters Of H.J.C. Peirs: A Digital History, Ian A. Isherwood, Amy E. Lucadamo, R.C. Miessler

History Faculty Publications

This poster provides a high-level overview of The First World War Letters of H.J.C. Peirs: A Digital History project, giving information on its creation, the collection of letters, how it has used digital mapping, and its use in the classroom.

Walter Bower’S Reception Of The Manipulus Florum (1306) In Composing The Scotichronicon (C. 1440), Chris L. Nighman

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Enshrining Racial Hierarchy Through Settler Commemoration In The American West, Cynthia Prescott

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Work And Madness: Overworked Men And Fears Of Degeneration, 1860s-1910s, Amy Milne-Smith

History Faculty Publications

The very things that provided a Victorian man’s status, his self worth, and his identity could also lead him to lose his mind. This paradox is at the heart of this essay. Men breaking down under the pressure of hard work was disruptive in a society that was dependent on that overwork. This idea preoccupied Victorians, who worried that the pace of modern life could lead to broken nerves, low spirits, nervous collapse, and even suicide. Both doctors and sufferers believed that overtaxing one’s brain could lead to a complete mental breakdown requiring institutionalization. As asylums filled up with incurable …

The Other Constitutional Convention: Border Delegates At The Mexican Constitutional Convention Of 1916-1917, Irving W. Levinson

History Faculty Publications

The article offers information on the Mexican Constitutional Convention of 1916-1917 and addresses the Mexicans living in states bordering the U.S. Topics discussed include dispossession of Mexicans by land seizure during the reign of Porfirio Diaz, attitude of convention delegates from the Border States and defeat of the army of Mexico President Porfirio Diaz in the Mexican Revolution.

"What We Need Here Is Another Crystal City": The Mexican Civil Rights Movement In South Texas, 1963, Brent M. S. Campney

History Faculty Publications

In May of 1963, a police officer in San Benito, Texas, arrested Antonio Mendoza, a Mexican American, for public drunkenness. After beating him, he placed the dazed prisoner in a jail cell. For more than seventeen hours, no one at the jail saw f it to tend to the prisoner’s wounds, provide food or water, or check on his overall well-being. By the time an official checked on him, Mendoza, overcome by fear, pain, or emotional distress—or by some combination of all three—had committed suicide. “The man was found the next morning hanging by a belt from a pipe in …

The Day The Shaman Came To Town, Manuel F. Medrano

History Faculty Publications

A personal narrative is presented in which author share his experience of visiting Don Jacinto Tzab Chac, a traditional Mayan shaman, to Rio Grande Valley in South Texas.

Review Of A Crooked River: Rustlers, Rangers, And Regulars On The Lower Rio Grande, George T. Díaz

History Faculty Publications

Michael L. Collins’s A Crooked River is a continuation of his book Texas Devils: Rangers and Regulars on the Lower Rio Grande (University of Oklahoma Press, 2010). Where his earlier book examined conflict on the lower Rio Grande from the U.S. invasion in 1846 to 1861, Crooked River considers the region from the U.S. Civil War through the end of Reconstruction. Collins provides a history of the region in the midst of upheaval and focuses particularly on “lawlessness” and violent policing (5). The book’s self-stated goal is to provide “the story Walter Prescott Webb never told” [End Page 471] (12), …

Damián Fernández, Aristocrats And Statehood In Western Iberia, 300–600 C.E. Philadelphia: University Of Pennsylvania Press. 2017. 328 Pp., Erica Buchberger

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Where Dreams May Come: Incubation Sanctuaries In The Greco-Roman World, By Gil H. Renberg. Leiden; Boston : Brill 2017 (Book Review), Megan Nutzman

History Faculty Publications

[First paragraph] Gil Renberg has done the field an incredible service with the publication of this monumental and far-reaching study. In the preface, Renberg states that one of his primary goals is to offer scholars a single resource for ancient incubation across the Near Eastern and Classical worlds (XVI). He has done precisely this with an exhaustive treatment of textual and archaeological evidence for incubation, including quotations of relevant texts in both the original language and in translation, alongside complete publication histories. [1]

Warriors In Drag: Performing Gender And Remaking Men In Prisoner Of War Theater, Yücel Yanikdağ

History Faculty Publications

This chapter examines Ottoman prison camp theaters in Egypt, from where more sources have survived. With the exception of some passing mentions in scholarship, entertainment in general, and theatre in particular in the Ottoman military is a neglected subject. Scholars of European history studying troop and prisoner of war entertainment during the two world wars have produced a noteworthy amount of material. Many have even focused specifically on soldiers’ cross-dressing or female impersonation in theater on various fronts and prisoner of war camps. Older scholarship viewed female impersonation as mere entertainment, but more recent studies have taken up gender related …

[Mis-]Managing Fisheries On The West Coast Of Ireland In The Nineteenth Century, John B. Roney

History Faculty Publications

This study focuses on the cultural heritage of artisan coastal fishing in the west of Ireland in the 19th century. The town and port of Dingle, County Kerry, offers an important case study on the progress of local development and changing British policies. While there was clearly an abundance of fish, the poverty and the lack of capital for improvements in ports, vessels, gear, education, and transportation, left the fishing industry underdeveloped until well after the 1890s. In addition, a growing rift developed between the traditional farmer-fishermen and the new middle-class capitalist companies. After several royal commissions examined the fishing …

An Economic Interpretation Of Rhode Island’S 1788 Referendum On The Constitution, Ruth Wallis Herndon, John E. Murray

History Faculty Publications

In their 1788 popular referendum, Rhode Island voters overwhelmingly rejected ratification of the Federal Constitution: 92 percent against and 8 percent for adoption. The town-by-town voter lists, correlated with tax and estate records, show that "yea" voters were significantly wealthier than “nay” voters. Available data also indicates that "yea" wealth was concentrated in personal estate rather than real estate. Both these findings support Charles Beard's original economic interpretation of the Constitution. Our detailed data provides new evidence about town-level voters, supplementing the usual data Beard’s supporters and critics have used from state ratifying conventions and the Philadelphia constitutional convention. We …

Harry Clark Bentley : A Pioneering Accountant And The Founder Of Bentley University (1877-1967), Clifford Putney

History Faculty Publications

This article tells the life story of Harry Clark Bentley, a prominent accountant and educator in Massachusetts. Bentley founded the Bentley School of Accounting and Finance in Boston in 1917, and this article chronicles the early years of that school (which evolved over time into Bentley University). After focusing on Mr. Bentley’s school (which is now in Waltham, Massachusetts), the article delves deeply into the man’s background, drawing on archival sources and personal interviews to shed light on his family, his character, and the forces that motivated him. Clifford Putney is an associate professor of history at Bentley University who …