History Commons^™

The “Forgotten Man” Of Washington: The Pershing Memorial And The Battle Over Military Memorialization, Andrew S. Walgren

Theses and Dissertations

The current debates over the transformation of Pershing Park in Washington, D.C., into a national World War I memorial have reignited century-old concerns about how to properly memorialize military figures. The park, originally conceived as a memorial to General John Pershing and the men of the American Expeditionary Force in World War I, had fallen into disrepair, and many within the federal government wanted to redevelop the park in time for the World War I Centennial in 2018. Popular commentators have pointed to National Park Service budgets cuts and the decline of “great man” memorials as the primary culprits behind …

The Color Of Memory: Reimagining The Antebellum South In Works By James Mcbride Through The Use Of Free Indirect Discourse, Janel L. Holmes

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the use of interior narrative techniques such as free indirect discourse and internal monologue in two of James McBride’s neo-slave narratives, Song Yet Sung (2008) and The Good Lord Bird (2013). Very limited critical attention has been given to these neo-slave narratives that illustrate McBrides attention to characterization and focalized narration. In these narratives McBride builds upon the revelations he explores in his bestselling memoir, The Color of Water (1996, 2006), where he learns to disassociate race and character. What he discovers about not only his mother, but also himself, inspires his re-imagination of the people who …

Antithetical Commentaries On X, Y And The Disruption Of Being, Eva Rocha

Theses and Dissertations

Through discursive essays and poetic narrative, Antithetical Commentaries on X, Y and the Disruption of Being explores the tenuous relationship between modes of measurement and the struggle for human relevance in the post-contemporary digital age. In the introductory essay, “Not the Feather, but the Bird”, I give an overview of the inherent problems of object-oriented ontology, and how it relates to aesthetics and social issues of our times. In the Developmental Overview, I detail how I developed my installation approach and techniques, particularly with regard to the three-way dynamic of the artist:work:viewer relationship and how it can encourage …

"Life Under Union Occupation: Elite Women In Richmond, April And May 1865", Amanda C. Tompkins

Theses and Dissertations

This paper crafts a narrative about how elite, white Richmond women experienced the fall and rebuilding of their city in April and May 1865. At first, the women feared the entrance of the occupying army because they believed the troops would treat them as enemies. However, the goal of the white occupiers was to restore order in the city. Even though they were initially saddened by the occupation, many women were surprised at the courtesy and respected afforded them by the Union troops. Black soldiers also made up the occupying army, and women struggled to submit to black authority. With …

Expansion And Exclusion: A Case Study Of Gentrification In Church Hill, Kathryn S. Parkhurst

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the gentrification process in Church Hill, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Richmond, Virginia. After World War II, Richmond residents knew Church Hill mostly for its crime rate and dilapidated housing. The white, middle-class flight to the suburbs left the remaining residents, mostly African American, to experience decades of disinvestment. Church Hill was considered a neighborhood to avoid for much of the late twentieth century. Yet, Church Hill is currently one of the most desired neighborhoods in Richmond, particularly for young professionals. This thesis seeks to explain the reasons why there has been such a dramatic change …

Ahead Of Their Time: Black Teachers And Their Community In The Immediate Post- Brown Years, Candace Cunningham

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores a 1956 case study in which over twenty African American teachers at one school were either dismissed or did not have their contracts renewed due to their refusal to confirm or deny their membership in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Through newspapers, magazines, oral histories, as well as the correspondence of the NAACP, White Citizens Councils, and other organizations, this study argues that African American teachers possessed a sociopolitical currency that white segregationists found threatening and were eager to stymie. This thesis further argues that the Elloree teachers’ case and the larger …

Preserving The Architectural Legacy Of Lyles, Bissett, Carlisle & Wolff, 1948-1976, Casey Lee

Theses and Dissertations

“Preserving the Architectural Legacy of Lyles, Bissett, Carlisle & Wolff, 1948-1976,” explores the architectural legacy of a mid-century modern architecture firm whose works dominate the built environment of South Carolina. This thesis advocates for the preservation of modern architecture as a whole and for the works of LBC&W more specifically. In order to do so, it looks at the history of one of the premier mid-century modern architecture firms in the Southeast and investigates how its buildings and structures came to dominate South Carolina’s landscape. It then evaluates the ten broad property types designed by the firm in order to …

Deserts Will Bloom: Atomic Agriculture And The Promise Of Radioactive Redemption, Chris Fite

Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines the rhetorical and visual strategies used in marketing atomic agriculture to the American public from the 1940s to the 1960s. The term “atomic agriculture” refers to various agricultural research programs that used radioactive materials, particularly radioisotope tracing and mutation breeding. In print and on screen, atomic boosters from government and industry offered the promise of a better world made possible by applying atomic energy to agriculture. I argue that the proponents of atomic agriculture combined futurism and nostalgia to create a techno-pastoral vision. They hearkened back to the nineteenth century while simultaneously imagining a bright postwar future. …

A Call To Every Citizen: The South Carolina State Council Of Defense And World War I, Allison Baker

Theses and Dissertations

The South Carolina State Council of Defense (SCSCD), under the auspices of the Council of National Defense (CND), worked to convince citizens to voluntarily change their daily habits in the name of the World War I home front effort. The CND developed programs designed to get people to eat less of specific foods, cut back on unnecessary spending, and to participate in war bond drives like the liberty loans. The SCSCD brought the national programs to the local level. This project also demonstrates the strained relationship between the SCSCD and its auxiliary organizations, the Woman’s Committee and the Colored Branch. …

Rediscovering Camden: The Preservation Of A Revolutionary War Battlefield, Gary Sellick

Theses and Dissertations

The Battle of Camden was the largest pitched battle fought in South Carolina during the Revolutionary War, yet until the late twentieth century the battlefield itself was largely forgotten. For over two hundred years, the ground on which so many men fought and died was used for timber, only visited by relic hunters wishing to collect a piece of its relatively hidden history. Then, beginning in 1996, local organizations around South Carolina began to recognize the value of the site. Using federal funds, but without the close assistance of national bodies, this group of local preservationists bought the site, saving …

National Register Nomination For The Waikiki Village Motel, Jane W. Campbell

Theses and Dissertations

The Waikiki Village Motel, built in 1963, embodies the Modern style of architecture that was prolific throughout the mid-century period in America. This building type constituted the majority of the development of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina during this era, but much of it has been lost to more modern development. The L-shape design and Hawaiian-style hut demonstrate the Modern form as an affordable destination for middle-class fun. The motel characterizes the boom in resort style development prevalent in the Palmetto State’s Grand Strand after the destruction by Hurricane Hazel in 1954. It also represents the idea of “Populuxe” – forward …

A Culture Of Commodification: Hemispheric And Intercolonial Migrations In The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, 1660-1807, Neal D. Polhemus

Theses and Dissertations

Beginning in the sixteenth century, as large quantities of produce were unloaded at ports throughout Northern Europe, consumer consumption of West Indies commodities drove demand for captive African labor. As a result, from 1556 to 1867, Europeans transported some 12 million West Africans to the Americas. Based on primary sources from over three countries and more than thirty archives, this study explores the structure and organization of the transatlantic slave trade to analyze the transformation of relationships and the commercial operation of the trade in West Africa, the circum-Caribbean, and more broadly the Atlantic world. This study of the transatlantic …

Colonialism Unraveling: Race, Religion, And National Belonging In Santo Domingo During The Age Of Revolutions, Charlton W. Yingling

Theses and Dissertations

Santo Domingo, the first European colony in the Americas, was the original thread at the edge of an expansively woven Spanish imperial tapestry. From 1784-1822 this hem frayed, threatening to unbind the most basic stitches that tied Caribbean colonies to Spanish imperial power. My dissertation analyzes colonial Santo Domingo's cultural, racial, political trajectories amidst influences of the Haitian and French revolutions, Spanish reaction, African Diaspora, and Latin American independence movements. A uniquely Dominican cultural politics of race and nation were born at the intersections of these social and cultural forces, unraveled colonialism, and set terms of engagement with their Haitian …

Uncle Sam’S Jungle: Recreation, Imagination, And The Caribbean National Forest, Will Garrett Mundhenke

Theses and Dissertations

The Caribbean National Forest in Puerto Rico offers a unique lens into the environmental relationship between the United States and the Caribbean. Established by the Spanish and taken under possession by the United States, the forest represents an imagined space constructed as a Caribbean paradise. As environmentally inclined travelers reached the edge of the western frontier, their interests turned South to the tropics. Tourism boosters and the U.S. Forest Service fabricated a message of a uniquely American jungle. Tourism and the rise of the Caribbean vacation from the 1930s to the 1970s transformed the rainforest from a working landscape into …

“Antagonistic Describes The Scene:” Local News Portrayals Of The New Left And The Escalation Of Protest At The University Of South Carolina, 1970, Alyssa Jordan Constad

Theses and Dissertations

Throughout the social upheaval of the 1960s, television news and dissident social movements developed a salient relationship. News coverage of campus movements and protests not only informed audiences of what protest looked like, but shaped the actions and reactions of both the protestors and those who opposed them. How national media outlets, particularly televised newscasts, affected the social movements of the 1960s on a national level has been well documented. However, media, specifically local television newscasts, also helped to shape movements on a grass roots level. Looking at local television news footage from Columbia, South Carolina, this paper will seek …

Proslavery Thinking In Antebellum South Carolina: Higher Education, Transatlantic Encounters, And The Life Of The Mind, Jamie Diane Wilson

Theses and Dissertations

Eminent antebellum intellectuals Thomas Cooper, James Henley Thornwell, William Campbell Preston, and Francis Lieber, not only shaped their sociocultural milieu as published authors, compelling speakers, and powerful politicians, but also created a greenhouse environment of proslavery instruction at South Carolina College (SCC), today the University of South Carolina. As professors and presidents of the state’s landmark institution of learning, they produced some of the South’s most radical proslavery thinkers during the forty crucial years preceding the Civil War. SCC alumni, fresh from the four professors’ hothouse, became seminal figures in fomenting secession, fighting the Civil War, and firing Southerners’ frenzy …

Political Entities: Churches And Taverns In Revolutionary Virginia, 1765-1780, Ashley Gilbert

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how churches and taverns became sites for political discussion and organizing during the Revolutionary era, 1765-1780. Taverns had long served a role in Virginians’ lives by providing places where news was exchanged and discussed, but with the political upheaval between the colonies and Great Britain many of the activities and discussions that took place there became far more politically charged. Analyzing churches and their role within the revolutionary era demonstrates that Virginia’s revolutionary leaders used an institution deeply rooted in their society to further political activism by Virginians and Virginia’s provisional government. But in several ways the …

Cajamarca Ceramic Spoons From Northern Peru: Forming A Symbolic Function, Jeanette Louise Nicewinter

Theses and Dissertations

Ten painted Cajamarca-style ceramic spoons form the foundation for an investigation of the way that these seemingly utilitarian objects were bestowed with economic and symbolic value both within and outside of the borders of the Cajamarca region, located in the north highlands of present-day Peru. Since the ceramic spoons have been recovered from sites associated with large and powerful societies and states, such as the Moche of the north coast and the Wari of the central highlands, an analysis of the form, style and imagery present on these spoons reveals how these objects transcended cultural boundaries. To assess and evaluate …

Jamaican Revolts In British Press And Politics, 1760-1865, Thomas R. Day

Theses and Dissertations

This research examines the changes over time in British Newspaper reports covering the Jamaican rebellions of 1760, 1832 and 1865. The uprisings: Tacky’s Rebellion, the Baptist War and the Morant Bay Rebellion respectively, represented three key moments in the history of race, slavery and the British Empire. Though all three rebellions have been studied, this work compares the three events as moments of crisis challenging the British public discourse on slavery, race and subjecthood as it related to the changing Atlantic Empire. British newspapers provided the most direct way in which popular readers and the growing literate public examined and …

Women At The Crossroads, Women At The Forefront, American Women In Letterpress Printing In The Nineteenth Century, Dianne L. Roman Ms

Theses and Dissertations

The significant role of the female printer in the American home-based print shops during the colonial and early republic periods has been documented in print history, socioeconomic, labor, and women studies, yet with the industrialization of the printing trade, women’s presence is thought to have disappeared. Contrary to the belief that industrialization of the print shop eradicated women’s involvement in skilled employments such as typesetting, the creation of the Women’s Cooperative Printing Union in California and the creation and chartering of the Women’s Typographical Union in New York, both in the late 1860s, clearly indicate that women continued to work …

In Search Of Granby: A Colonial Village Of South Carolina, Kathryn F. Keenan

Theses and Dissertations

Granby was a thriving village in the middle of South Carolina from 1760-1830. Most histories of the Midlands of South Carolina generally begin with the establishment of the state capital Columbia in 1786 with some mention of Native Americans and backcountry settlers before that, but do not mention Granby. The reason it has been overlooked are twofold. When Columbia was built across the Congaree River from Granby, merchants and residents moved to the new city. As Granby fell into decline, most of its buildings collapsed or were moved and Granby ceased to exist as a town. Also, most of the …

Looking For Remnants Of Rice Cultivation At Manchester State Forest Through The Use Of Lidar, Sarah Anne Moore

Theses and Dissertations

Recently, archaeological and historical preservation studies have looked into identifying and preserving the remnants of rice cultivation left on the modern landscape. This work resulted in guidelines for identifying and evaluating these remnants for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places. Further, these guidelines made a clear distinguish between two types of rice cultivation; tidal and inland rice cultivation. Still, this research focused on the identification and evaluation of rice cultivation remnant in areas of where the majority of rice cultivation place in South Carolina: along the Atlantic Coast. This study examines one parcel of land with possible rice …

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 …

Performing Conquest And Resistance In The Streets Of Eighteenth Century Potosí: Identity And Artifice In The Cityscapes Of Gaspar Miguel De Berrío And Melchor Pérez De Holguín, Agnieszka A. Ficek

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the ways in which Potosí's two most influential colonial artists represented the urban dynamics of race, class and labor in their depictions of the Andean 'City of Silver' during the eighteenth century, when silver production, profits and population were dramatically declining.

Archival Enactment, Retelling 'The Big Book': Alison Knowles, Something Else Press And Fluxus, Meghan A. Dellacrosse

Theses and Dissertations

"Archival Enactment, Retelling 'The Big Book': Alison Knowles, Something Else Press and Fluxus," positions Knowles’ Big Book (1966) as a case study of historical methodology and interdisciplinary artistic practice in the post-war period. This comprehensive analysis of Big Book, a work of art no longer extant, contextualizes its publisher, Something Else Press through Dick Higgins’ concept of “intermedia,” and important lesser-known junctures relevant to Fluxus and the group’s leader George Maciunas are illuminated. Knowles' early and lesser-known silkscreen paintings are also examined.

"Very Many More Men Than Women": A Study Of The Social Implications Of Diagnostics At The South Carolina State Hospital, Clara Elizabeth Bertagnolli

Theses and Dissertations

Treatment and understanding of mental illness has vastly changed in the past century and a half, leading many historians and psychiatrists to puzzle over the logic and motivations driving the once-abundant mental institutions known as insane asylums. Though a great deal of literature has emerged in this burgeoning historical field, few have looked at the diagnostics used by psychiatrists of the past to see what they reveal about the former system of mental health. This paper uses the South Carolina State Hospital as a case study to demonstrate how diagnostic trends can be used to understand the gender and racial …

Main Street, America: Histories Of I-95, Mark T. Evans

Theses and Dissertations

“Main Street, America: Histories of I-95” fills a historiographical gap by arguing the Interstate Highway System can only be accurately understood through the study of local histories. The existing literature tends toward national, system-wide evaluations and consequently fails to capture the complexity of the Interstate Highway’s interaction with the communities through which it passes. By focusing on the backbone of the Interstate Highway System, I-95, this dissertation demonstrates responses to Interstate Highways were dependent on the interplay of myriad local factors. Additionally, it argues that I- 95’s effect on communities was determined by local conditions. Studying individual communities along a …

Forgotten Science Of Bird Eggs: The Life Cycle Of Oology At The Smithsonian Institution, Katherine Nicole Crosby

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the influence the Smithsonian Institution had over the development of oology as a science from the mid-19th to the early 20th century. The Smithsonian promoted oology, or the study of bird eggs, through publications and collections of eggs in the mid-19th century, and the science enjoyed a brief period of proliferation and approval. In the end, however, the popularity of egg collecting as a hobby, in-fighting between oologists and ornithologists over the validity of oology as a science, and bird conservation groups opposed to collecting eggs, all conspired to halt oology’s professionalization, and ultimately led to the …

Certayn And Tru Good Nues: Early English Printing And The 1480 Siege Of Rhodes And The 1565 Great Siege Of Malta, A Comparison, Kevin Stanford

Theses and Dissertations

This paper will compare English print concerning the Siege of Rhodes in 1480 and the Siege of Malta in 1565 in order to address how the responses differed and why. Although there is abundant scholarship on the two sieges and the press, most research concentrates on each specific period rather than comparing the two. The Historians Theresa Vann and Donald Kagay for example, described how John Kaye transformed Guillaume Caoursin’s Obsidionis Rhodiae urbis descriptio through translation for an English-speaking readership and the Order’s relationship to the printing press during the period surrounding the Siege of Rhodes. Helen Vella Bonavita discussed …

Landslide: The 1984 Presidential Election, Colin J. Newton

Theses and Dissertations

The thesis provides an in depth historical observation of the events that transpired during the 1984 presidential campaign, which is significant because of its outcome, the largest electoral victory by any presidential candidate. The scope of the research is January 1984 to November 1984. The thesis provides insight into the Democratic primaries and the general election, focusing on the strategies of both campaigns. It identifies the many factors that led to Reagan’s landslide victory.

The overall purpose of the thesis is to provide a comprehensive picture of both campaigns. The story of the 1984 presidential election is told utilizing memoirs, …