History Commons^™

Ailments Of The Soul: Blood Transfusions And The Treatment Of Melancholy In Seventeenth-Century England, Emily Bowlus

Theses and Dissertations

The first animal-to-human blood transfusions performed in seventeenth-century England focused on patients suffering from mental diseases such as melancholy. Many physicians diagnosed melancholy as a disease of the body, mind, and soul in which blood played a key role. Philosophy, religion, and folklore helped formulate blood as an elusive yet powerful substance with access to immaterial mind and soul in addition to the body. English physician Richard Lower conducted these first transfusions yet recorded little about his personal theories regarding how melancholy and blood affected the body, mind, and soul. The philosophies of Lower’s colleagues, Thomas Willis and Robert Boyle, …

Modernism On Trial: An Analysis Of Historic Preservation Debates In Chicago, Stephen M. Mitchell

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores preservation issues regarding modernist architecture in Chicago. As urban and public history research, the project examines the new questions brought to the forefront by recent controversies over the preservation of modernist architecture. Modernism, and an "all concrete" variant known as "Brutalism," popular in the mid-twentieth century, aimed to remove ornament and historical references common in neoclassical, neo-Gothic, Beaux Arts, and Art Deco architecture and replace them with minimal, clean, glass-and-steel buildings. Modernists who, on principle, did not believe in preservation of past forms are now in the unlikely position of making such an argument for their own …

You Are That: An Upanishadic Approach To Empathic Writing Instruction In A High School Social Science Course, Andrew Otto Davis

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation reports the results of a qualitative research project investigating an approach to composition instruction in a high school social studies course that is based on the Upanishadic concept of tat tvam asi (you are that). Research for this study was conducted while I taught a section of Non-West History to high school juniors and seniors. This dissertation addresses the issues involved in the teaching of writing in a high school social science course. Specifically it focuses on the issues involved when a teacher attempts to construct a class that engages students to read and write in ways that …

No Blood In The Water: The Legal And Gender Conspiracies Against Countess Elizabeth Bathory In Historical Context, Rachael Leigh Bledsaw

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explains and discusses the conspiracies reported against the Hungarian noblewoman, Countess Elizabeth Bathory, regarding her confinement and the arrest of her accomplices in December 1610. The conspiracies state that the Countess was unjustly targeted and charged not because she was guilty of the deaths of several dozen girls from torture, but because she represented a threat to the Hapsburg Empire due to her wealth, her political influence, and her widowhood. This thesis explores the rationality of these two conspiracies using historical context regarding the position of noblewomen in Central and Eastern Europe and the function and use of …

The White Women's Experience In Arkansas During The American Civil War, Ellen M. Lewis

Theses and Dissertations

When war came to Arkansas there were few, if any, troops left in the state. As a result the women were left to defend themselves. While economics and geographic location were responsible for the culture of the women, it was the individual fortitude that made survivors of the female population. Arkansas was very diversified and so were the women. When Union soldiers occupied the state they interacted with the women in many different ways, from pleasant social activities to barbaric terrorism. When Confederates occupied regions of the state, they also met a variety of women and had just as varied …

We Are A New Race:' Booker T. Washington's Use Of African American Spirituals In The Creation Of A New Negro Image, Douglas L. Allen

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines how Booker T. Washington used music to project a New Negro image to the American public while also instilling the qualities of this New Negro into his students. Washington hoped to uplift the African American race by challenging racial caricatures prominent in American society. Washington's New Negro was patterned after Washington's own personality and was a respectable, Christian, southern African-American. This study also shows that the New Negro was a racial uplift strategy being used well before WWI, and that there were multiple New Negro movements throughout the United States and throughout US history.

Nonfiction, Documentary And Family Narrative: An Intersection Of Representational Discourses And Creative Practices, Kristine T. Weatherston

Theses and Dissertations

Nonfiction, Documentary, and Family Narrative:
 An Intersection of Representational Discourses and Creative Practices explores the role of personal memory, family history, and inter-generational storytelling as the basis for making a nonfiction film. The film, American Boy, tells the story of my mother’s immigration to the United States after the failed Hungarian Revolution of 1956, opening a discussion of four generations of my family life in the context of historical events, exile, self re-invention, and identity formation. As a media producer and nonfiction author, I narrate my understanding of these events to my infant son, as a way of communicating …

Greek Immigration To Richmond, Virginia, And The Southern Variant Theory, Nicole Kappatos

Theses and Dissertations

Greek immigration to the United States occurred in two distinctive waves: the first wave from the 1890s-1920s and the second wave from the 1960s-1980s. This thesis explores the regional diversity of the Greek immigrant experience in the Southern United States through the case study of the Greek community in Richmond, Virginia. The first chapter introduces the history of Greek immigration to the United States, discusses major scholars of Greek American studies, and explains the Southern Variant theory. Chapter two examines the experiences of the first wave of Greek immigrants in Richmond. The third chapter incorporates oral history to explain the …

Legislating The Danville Connection, 1847-1862: Railroads And Regionalism Versus Nationalism In The Confederate States Of America, Philip Stanley

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the effect regionalism had upon North Carolina and Virginia during the 1847-1862 legislative battles over the Danville, Virginia, to Greensboro, North Carolina, railroad connection. The first chapter examines the rivalry between eastern and western North Carolina for internal improvement legislation, namely westerners’ wish to connect with Virginia and easterners’ desire to remain economically relevant. The second chapter investigates the Tidewater region of Virginia and its battle against the Southside to create a rail connection with North Carolina. The third chapter examines the legislation for the Danville Connection during the American Civil War in the Virginia, North Carolina, …

Before The Corridor Of Shame: The African American Fight For Equal Education After Jim Crow, Luci Vaden

Theses and Dissertations

"Before the Corridor of Shame: The African American Fight for Equal Education After Jim Crow" analyzes how African American public school students in South Carolina used direct action protest to demand the implementation of quality, desegregated public education in the 1970s. Students built off of the legacy of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which empowered the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) to withhold federal funds from school districts that practiced overt segregation and became the mechanism by which the federal government could force states to desegregate. As a result, most South Carolina schools desegregated by 1970 and …

The Delage-Sumter Family In The Nineteenth Century Atlantic World, Mitchell Oxford

Theses and Dissertations

Thomas Sumter Jr. (1768-1840) and Natalie Delage's (1782-1841) marriage in 1802 joined prominent families from the United States and France. Although both families enjoyed an elite status in their societies, they had sharply divergent political ideologies and commitments in a revolutionary era shaped by ideological conflict. The South Carolinian Sumter family was as steadfastly republican as the French de Lage family was royalist. Despite holding to these dichotomous ideologies, this emergent Atlantic family pursued vigorous transatlantic and transnational strategies in the effort to uphold their status, and ensure the financial and social stability of future generations. This essay examines these …

Lewd Legacies: The Challenges Of Preserving Bermuda's Queen Of The East Brothel, Megan Elizabeth Southern

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the myriad challenges to the preservation of Bermuda's Queen of the East brothel. Though Queen of the East has been widely regarded as one of the island's architectural and historical treasures, and despite Bermuda's stated commitment to the preservation of its architectural heritage, the building's fate remains uncertain. Research presented here suggests that the building's association with prostitution in public memory poses the greatest challenge to the building's preservation.

In order to understand the factors contributing to the building's present condition, this thesis probes the building's architectural fabric and history; the nature and composition of Bermuda's preservation …

Sex Radical: Victoria Woodhull And The Marriage Contract, 1870-1876, Peter Dottling Rich

Theses and Dissertations

From 1870 to1876 radical American feminist Victoria Claflin Woodhull had a dramatic public impact. At that time Woodhull was simultaneously the public face of three major social movements (woman suffrage, free love and Spiritualism), the owner of a brokerage firm, and the publisher of a radical weekly newsletter. Yet Woodhull is now largely absent from the popular narrative of nineteenth-century American history. Her radical views, charismatic personality, and unorthodox personal life resulted in demonization by a scandal-hungry popular press and persecution by the state-sanctioned, morals crusader, Anthony Comstock. Although In the past two decades a number of feminist historians and …

"Newest Born Of Nations": Southern Thought On European Nationalisms And The Creation Of The Confederacy, 1820-186, Ann L. Tucker

Theses and Dissertations

When nineteenth-century southern nationalists seceded from the Union and created a southern nation, they sought to justify their actions by situating the Confederacy as one of many aspiring nations seeking membership in the family of nations in the middle of the nineteenth century. To support their argument that the Confederacy constituted a legitimate and independent nation, southern nationalists claimed nineteenth century European nationalist movements as precedents for their own attempt at nation-building, using the southern nation's supposed similarity to, or, at times, differences from, these European aspiring nations to legitimize the Confederacy. Such claims built on a long antebellum precedent …

The Charleston "School Of Slavery": Race, Religion, And Community In The Capital Of Southern Civilization, Eric Rose

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the interracial religious communities of antebellum South Carolina to highlight patterns of racial consciousness and nation-building and demonstrate that the southern path to modernity was much closer to that of their northern contemporaries than previously recognized. The ready-made system of human classification inherent in racial slavery did not insulate southerners from the modern impulses that transfigured northern racial relations; instead, this dissertation argues that Carolinians white and black, free and slave, participated in a discourse of religious modernization that redirected the potentially destabilizing social implications of evangelicalism and progress into an idealized community structure that served the …

Fred Kabotie, Elizabeth Willis Dehuff, And The Genesis Of The Santa Fe Style, Jessica W. Welton

Theses and Dissertations

Those scholars who have overlooked the relevance of Fred Kabotie and the Santa Fe Style he developed have missed an important historical segment of early Native American painting. This dissertation underscores the convergence of diverse intellectual, artistic and cultural backgrounds, especially those of Kabotie and Elizabeth Willis DeHuff, his first art teacher, which led to the formation of the Santa Fe Style in 1918. This style was formative for Dorothy Dunn’s later Studio School at the Santa Fe Indian Boarding School.

This first generation of the Santa Fe Style of watercolor painting was empowered by highly educated men and women, …

An Interstate Runs Through It: The Construction Of Little Rock's Interstate 630 And The Fight To Stop It, Darcy Pumphrey

Theses and Dissertations

Completion of the first mile of Interstate 630 (I-630) occurred in 1969. However, demands from organized community groups and litigation delayed completion of the full seven-and-a-half mile route until 1985. While the freeway resistance movement in Little Rock did not stop the construction of I-630 - it did gain influence over many key decisions within the planning and construction process. Through an examination of the construction of I-630, this thesis advances the basic understanding of the elements of an organized freeway revolt and serves as a guide for other communities as they navigate their own freeway planning efforts. In order …

Richard Wagner's Jesus Von Nazareth, Matthew Giessel

Theses and Dissertations

In addition to his renowned musical output, Richard Wagner produced a logorrhoeic prose oeuvre, including a dramatic sketch of the last weeks of the life of Jesus Christ entitled Jesus von Nazareth. Though drafted in 1848-1849, it was published only posthumously, and has therefore been somewhat neglected in the otherwise voluminous Wagnerian literature. This thesis first examines the origins of Jesus von Nazareth amidst the climate of revolution wherein it was conceived, ascertaining its place within Wagner’s own internal development and amongst the radical thinkers who influenced it. While Ludwig Feuerbach has traditionally been seen as the most prominent of …

Dead Virginians: The Corpse And Its Uses In Early Virginia, David Roettger

Theses and Dissertations

The thesis traces the history of colonial Virginia in an attempt to uncover the origins of several peculiarities in Virginia death-ways. Elite Virginians buried at home more often than not (where they could protect the dead from animal desecration), while avoided death’s heads, reapers, and bone based tomb and mourning jewelry iconography even though such was popular throughout the British Atlantic. Research done for this thesis reveals a fear on the part of elite Virginias regarding questions of both corpse desecration and natural putrefaction. The cause of this cultural obsession lie in two facts: The blackening of the early colony’s …

The Journal Of Elizabeth Maxwell Alsop Wynne, 1862-1878, Andrew Talkov

Theses and Dissertations

The experiences of Southern women during the American Civil War are often represented through the publication of their journals, diaries, and memoirs. This project consists of the transcription and annotation of the journal of Elizabeth (“Lizzie”) Maxwell Alsop Wynne, written from March 4, 1862, through March 20, 1878. During her most intense period of writing from 1862 to 1866, Lizzie Alsop recorded the effects of the American Civil War on an extensive network of friends and family in the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia, and at her home in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Lizzie’s journal offers valuable insight into the wartime politicization …

The Development And Gentrification Of Musical Commerce In Williamsburg, Virginia, 1716-1775, Joshua R. Lehuray

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the burgeoning musical commerce industry in Williamsburg, Virginia between approximately 1716 to 1775. It especially focuses on the gentrification of this industry and the ways in which elite Virginians made use of music to establish themselves as inheritors of British culture and musical entertainment. A diversity of musical businesses appeared in Williamsburg during the eighteenth century, including instrument sellers, music and dancing teachers, and two theaters utilized by theatrical troupes, to name a few. Drawing on evidence from the Virginia Gazette, as well as journals, letters, playhouse reports, and account books, the thesis concludes that music provided …

"To Preserve, Protect, And Pass On:" Shirley Plantation As A Historic House Museum, 1894–2013, Kerry Dahm

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis provides an analysis of Shirley Plantation’s operation as a historic house museum from 1894 to the present period, and the Carter family’s dedication to keeping the estate within the family. The first chapter examines Shirley Plantation’s beginnings as a historic house museum as operated by two Carter women, Alice Carter Bransford and Marion Carter Oliver, who inherited the property in the late nineteenth century. The second chapter explores Shirley Plantation’s development as a popular historic site during the mid-twentieth century to the early part of the twenty-first century, and compares the site’s development to the interpretative changes that …

An Archaeological And Historical Search For German Ethnicity At The Janis-Ziegler Site ( 23 Sg 272 ), Lisa Marie Dretske

Theses and Dissertations

Ste. Genevieve, Missouri is a small town south of St. Louis, settled by the French and home to the Janis-Ziegler site (23SG272). However, the German Ziegler family along with other German families resided in the town beginning in the early nineteenth century. The Ziegler family used the Janis-Ziegler site as a home and a tobacco shop. Beginning in 2006, archaeological investigations went underway on the Janis-Ziegler site. The purpose of this research is to figure out to what degree the Ziegler family showed their ethnicity while living at the Janis-Ziegler house. The second purpose of the research is to figure …

Perceptions Of Educational Administration Pre-Service Training By Former Illinois Superintendents Currently Serving As University Professors, Douglas Raymond Kaufman

Theses and Dissertations

PERCEPTIONS OF EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION PRE-SERVICE TRAINING BY FORMER ILLINOIS SUPERINTENDENTS

CURRENTLY SERVING AS UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS

Douglas R. Kaufman

179 pages December 2009

The 1983 publication of A Nation at Riskwas the start of the latest chapter in the long history and development of the public school superintendent. A Nation at Riskbrought new pressure and awareness on university programs that train school administrators coupled with suggestions on how to improve their effectiveness. This study describes many of these suggested reforms and investigates their effectiveness and rate of implementation.

This qualitative study describes the experiences and perceptions of pre-service learning …

A Week Of Saddened Hope: Arkansas's Response To The Assassination Of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 4 April To 11 April, 1968, Allison Nicole Hiblong

Theses and Dissertations

The 4 April, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. The natural violence and chaos has been researched briefly thanks to Dr. King scholars and Clay Risen. The effects on Arkansas are virtually unknown. One prominent moment that is remembered was the memorial service on the Arkansas State Capitol steps with Governor Winthrop Rockefeller. Compared to parts of the nation, Arkansas was relatively calm in the aftermath of the assassination. Even though there were numerous shootings and fires set around the state there were no deaths in Arkansas, but over two dozen arrests were made. The …

Soldiers For Democracy: Karl Loewenstein, John H. Herz, Militant Democracy And The Defense Of The Democratic State, Ben Plache

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the work of two German Jewish émigré scholars, Karl Loewenstein and John H. Herz, and how they confronted the conflict between fascism and democracy throughout the 1930s and during World War II. Loewenstein, in academic publications and later through a campaign of public advocacy, urged the adoption of his theory of militant democracy for the protection of democratic institutions. Originally conceived as temporary legislation to deprive fascists of the fundamental rights they abused in order to seize power, this theory evolved into the understanding by Loewenstein that fascist and democratic states could not coexist, and that fundamental …

The Napoleonic Empire And The Making Of A Modern Public: Policing, Politics, And Parades In Nineteenth-Century Hamburg, 1806-1830, Brendan Haidinger

Theses and Dissertations

Despite the attention historians have given to the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras in Central Europe, few works have sought to understand these events' reverberations throughout the nineteenth century in a local or regional context. Taking the northern German city of Hamburg as its focal point, this study investigates the change in the urban political culture affected by eight years of Napoleonic occupation. In the process of replacing Hamburg's sprawling and archaic government with one characterized by Gallic centralization and rigor, the French introduced a new style of politics that relied on consistent, public, and martial presentations of its authority. This …

Race, Power, And White Womanhood: The Obsessions Of Tom Watson And Thomas Dixon Jr., Tara Nicole Kowasic

Theses and Dissertations

Thomas Dixon Jr. (1864 -1946) and Thomas E. Watson (1856-1922), two controversial and radical figures, are often credited with the second coming of the Ku Klux Klan. Dixon, writer of novels and plays such as The Leopard’s Spots (1902) and The Clansman (1905), and Watson, politician, prolific writer, and publisher of Watson’s Magazine and The Jeffersonian, reached the masses and saturated popular culture with their racial agenda. As each of these men had especially long careers, this thesis focuses on particular times and specific issues. With Dixon, the writing of The Clansman (1905) and production of The Birth of a …

The Struggle Toward Equality In Higher Education:The Impact Of The Morrill Acts On Race Relations In Virginia, 1872-1958, Nicholas Betts

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the impact of the 1862 and 1890 Morrill Acts on Virginia’s public higher education system. While the Morrill Acts, issued by the federal government, expanded access to higher education for all Americans, they also resulted in the entrenchment of segregation in seventeen different state public higher education systems. The segregated public higher education systems in Virginia and elsewhere led to inequality in the higher education available to African Americans students, compared with the higher education available to white students within these states. This thesis will address the disparity, brought about by unequal funding of institutions based upon …

Coal, Cotton, & Lynching: Labor And Art In Arkansas, Sarita N. Riley

Theses and Dissertations

The 1930s was a decade of change throughout America. The Great Depression affected all citizens. Joblessness spread like a plague, affecting rich and poor alike. The nation turned to federally funded work programs for its very survival. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) kept Americans working. Many projects centered on building infrastructure, but artists, writers, and historians also created culturally relevant projects to inspire and entertain the masses. The WPA spawned a movement of left leaning individuals who used art to create works protesting the ills of society. Common themes included joblessness, homelessness, and lynching in America. Joe Jones, a St. …