History Commons^™

From Sidebets To Sideshow: The Influence Of Gambling On The Development Of Professional Wrestling In America, 1870-1911, Lee Casebolt

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

While boxing and baseball have been common subjects of historical study, other sports of the nineteenth century have been comparatively neglected by historians. Professional wrestling, in particular, has received very little attention as a sport, as opposed to its twentieth century “sports entertainment” incarnation. What attention it has received has most commonly been through the lens of social history, focusing on wrestling as theater or its psychosexual overtones. Missing from its history is any consideration of the economic factors which influence the evolution of any professional endeavor. This paper explores the relationship between a wrestler’s payment and performance. Specifically, it …

Countering-Insurgency : A Comparative Analysis Of Campaigns In Malaya (1948-1960), Kenya (1952-1960) And Rhodesia (1964-1980), William J. Bailey

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

History has lessons for the present; could this be the case for modern counterinsurgency operations in countries resembling Iraq and Afghanistan? This research set out to study three historical counter-insurgencies campaigns in, Malaya (1947-1960), Kenya (1952- 1960) and Rhodesia (1964-1980), with a view to establishing whether or not the Colonial authorities had a substantial advantage over modern forces when combating insurgencies. If this was the case, are these advantages transferable to aid forces involved in modern counterinsurgencies?

The research questions focussed on how important the role of the Colonial Forces was to the eventual outcome, examining the principal factors that …

Ronald Stevenson, Composer-Pianist : An Exegetical Critique From A Pianistic Perspective, Mark Gasser

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This exegetical critique makes a conceptual summation of Ronald Stevenson’s life’s work for the piano and his contributions as a composer‐pianist. Chapters one and two provide a profile of Stevenson as a pianist, examining the aesthetic and musical concerns that defined his long career, as well as precedents and antecedents of his pianism. Of particular interest are the ways that Stevenson coalesces aspects of the ‘grand manner’ and his obsession with a pianistic bel canto style. Chapter three examines Stevenson’s remarkable output in terms of piano transcriptions. His conceptualization of this as ‘capturing the essence’ of the original composer is …

"The Most Deadly Spot On The Face Of The Earth": The United States And Antimodern Images Of "Darkest Africa" 1880-1910, Melinda Stump

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries in the United States, images of Africa and Africans were prevalent throughout society. Africans were described as primitive or child-like and were contrasted with the so-called high civilization of middle-class Anglo-Saxons. This thesis will look at these images and attempt to complicate the current historiography on United States images of Africa. Furthering Jackson Lears’s theories of antimodernism in Progressive Era United States, I argue that the images produced of Africa and Africans were attempts at regeneration and intense experiences. Due to the huge progress made due to the Industrial Revolution and the urbanization …

From Saeter To Sod: Single Women Homesteaders Of Norwegian Descent Farming Their Land In Dakota Territory, 1862-1929, Sara Marie Skindelien

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

On May 20, 1862 Congress signed into effect the Homestead Act which provided 160 acres of surveyed government land to any citizen over the age of twenty-one and who was a head of household. One of the most historical aspects of this act was that it allowed single women the opportunity to own land. Not only were native-born women taking advantage of such a lucrative offer, but the women of Norway saw just the opening they needed to venture out on their own. They joined thousands of their countrymen across the Atlantic to find a bit of land where they …

Playing By New Rules: Board Games And America's Cold War Culture, 1945-1965, Matthew John Sprengeler

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This thesis examines the domestic culture of the United States during the first two decades of the Cold War, using popular games as an interpretive tool to expand our understanding of the changes that took place. Four board games which were popular during the 1950s – Scrabble, chess, Clue, and Risk – explain some of the anxieties and evolutions in mass culture. Scrabble illustrated the nation's growing respect for expertise and, along with game theory, the hope for intellectual solutions to the country's problems. Chess, often seen as a symbol of the Cold War, served as a proxy battlefield for …

Refugees And Resistance: International Activism For Grassroots Democracy And Human Rights In New York, Miami, And Haiti, 1957 To 1994, Carl Lindskoog

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores the evolution of political activism among Haitians in the United States from the formation of Haitian New York in the late 1950s to the return of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to Haiti in 1994. It traces the efforts of Haitian activists to build bridges connecting New York and Miami to the grassroots organizations in Haiti, finding a considerable degree of success in their efforts to construct a transnational movement that had a substantial impact both in Haiti and in the United States. Shedding additional light on the interconnected history of Haiti and the United States, this dissertation …

The Game They All Played: Chicago Baseball, 1876-1906, Patrick Mallory

Dissertations

This study examines the development of baseball in Chicago from 1876-1906, analyzing the growth of the top-flight professional organizations, the development of amateur and semiprofessional baseball, youth teams, high school and college nines, the rise of African-American baseball, the birth of both the National and American Leagues, and the zenith of the city's control and devotion to baseball, the 1906 World Series. The sport attracted players and fans from the growing immigrant population, laborers from factories, white-collar employees of the downtown business district, and African-Americans.

This dissertation brings together the multiple layers of baseball in Chicago and explores the deep …

Reaping The "Colored Harvest": The Catholic Mission In The American South, Megan Stout Sibbel

Dissertations

A central paradox marks the story of the Roman Catholic mission in the American South. On one hand, the Church committed itself to providing access to quality education in underserved southern black communities. The establishment of southern Catholic schools for African American children supported the nation's traditional emphasis on education as a prerequisite for economic, social, and political advancement. Insofar as Catholic schools and sisters in the Jim Crow South offered opportunity in communities that otherwise lacked access to education, they demonstrated some of the best qualities traditionally associated with the United States of America.

On the other hand, Catholic …

The Mother Of Chaos And Night: Kant's Metaphilosophical Attack On Indifferentism, Matthew Allen Kelsey

Dissertations

Kant positions the Critical philosophy as a response to the crisis of metaphysics - a crisis that is still with us. But his diagnosis of that crisis in terms of a struggle between dogmatism, skepticism, and indifferentism is given short shrift in the secondary literature, despite its promise to help us understand Kant's claim that transcendental philosophy represents a radical alternative to these philosophical modi vivendi. After a consideration of Kant's remarks on what philosophy is in general, I argue that all four of these mutually-exclusive ways of philosophizing are best understood as metaphilosophical stances: ways of conceiving of the …

Juneau County, Wisconsin Bygdebok: A Genealogy Of The Norwegian Settlers, 1850-1950, Lawrence W. Onsager

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Case For A Custer Battalion Survivor: Private Gustave Korn's Story, Albert Winkler

Faculty Publications

Almost all of these claims of men having survived Custer’s Massacre at the Battle of the Little Bighorn have proven to be false, Gustave Korn’s case has merit. He was with Company I of Custer’s Battalion when it was attacked and later overwhelmed by the Indians. Korn claimed that his horse was wounded, became unmanageable, and carried him away from the Custer’s Battalion before it was wiped out. The circumstantial evidence supports his claim, and many of the other men in the Seventh Cavalry believed him. Korn was also famous because he cared for Comanche, the horse that was badly …

Joseph F. Smith And The First World War: Eventual Support And Latter-Day Saint Chaplains, Kenneth L. Alford Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

A discussion of the calling of three Latter-day Saint (Mormon) U.S. Army chaplains who served during World War I and support for the war from President Joseph F. Smith, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The Politics Of Special Collections And Museum Exhibits: A Civil War Or The War Of Northern Aggression?, Christopher J. Anderson

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This essay examines the political nature of curating special collections and museum exhibits. Exhibits are designed to draw attention to historical or contemporary issues in order for viewers to reflect on the past and to ask questions in the present. The contents of an exhibit also echo the educational backgrounds, interests, and biases of both curator and curatorial team. As a result exhibits are framed ideologically, sociologically, and even theologically in order to give voice to the voiceless and to champion certain positions from history. This essay investigates the contested nature of exhibits by highlighting their basic and complicated spectrums …

The Armendárizes: A Transnational Family In New Mexico And Mexico, Samuel E. Sisneros

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Although the Armendáriz surname is uncommon in New Mexico today, the Armendáriz family was important in New Mexico during the early to mid-1800s, with key political, diplomatic, and social links to Texas; California; Washington, D.C.; and Mexico. The lives of the Armendárizes attest to the long and constant movement of people, trade, and politics along El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro (the Royal Road of the Interior) and to theformation of a binational region. From Santa Fe, New Mexico, to the El Paso/Ciudad Juárez border and Chihuahua City to Mexico City, the Armendáriz family legacy demonstrates that New Mexico has …