History Commons^™

Creating Spaces For Salmon: How Dams And Eurocentric Resource Management Techniques Destroy Salmon And Culture, Jordan L. Woolston

History Undergraduate Theses

This paper utilizes oral history interviews, treaties, governmental, international, and scientific reports, and images to examine the impact of western settlement on the ecology and Indigenous cultures of the Northwest. Central to this examination is the diagnosis of effects that Manifest Destiny ideologies and the implementation of New Deal era practices had on salmon and the cultures reliant upon them for sustenance and cultural survival. Not merely a historical overview of social movements, this paper synthesizes the stories of two rivers, the Elwha and the Columbia. It analyzes the impacts wrought by industrialization and contends that co-management of resources and …

A Glance In Their Direction: The New York City Press And Their Coverage Of African Americans During World War Ii, Michael Losasso

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

My thesis examines the New York City press’ interpretation of African Americans and the Civil Rights movement of World War II. I seek to determine in what measure the press reported on African Americans in the military and at home during the war including segregation of the Armed Forces, and the riots of 1943. Through examining the white and black media’s perception of these events I hope to elucidate how the press wrote about the topic of race during the period and if there was any change in their reporting on race due to the war. Although addressed marginally in …

Of Ghosts And Spaceships: Reclaiming Chinese National Identity Through Science Fiction, Nicholas M. Stillman

Global Honors Theses

This paper examines the extent to which Chinese science fiction literature has played a role in the reframing of Chinese national identity as one that is based in scientific and technological development. Specifically, whether the recent push during a 2007 conference in Chengdu for increased science fiction consumption has resulted in more scientific development and more positivist science fictional literature.

The paper both evaluates the current state of science fiction in China and the potential impact of its narratives through an analysis of the historical context of the role of science fiction in China compared to the more modern usage …

Labor In A Hopeless Land: The Daughters Of Charity And Hansen's Disease Patients At The Louisiana Leper Home, 1896-1926, Reagan Laiche

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The Miracle of Carville, as the late 1930’s and 1940’s have been called, is considered the pivotal point for those isolated with leprosy at the National Leprosarium in Carville, Louisiana. Scholars, researchers and folklorists alike have grappled with these decades as providing the environment in which patient reform was cultivated and eventually sown without a serious consideration of the labor and advocacy of the Sisters missioned there.

Understanding the multiple roles of the Sisters at the Louisiana Leper Home, those of home makers, care takers and patient advocates, provides the foundation for the patient reforms won during the Miracle of …

Saint Dominguan Refugees In Charleston, South Carolina, 1791-1822: Assimilation And Accommodation In A Slave Society, Margaret Wilson Gillikin

Theses and Dissertations

During the 1790s and the first decade of the nineteenth century, nearly 20,000 refugees fled the French colony of Saint Domingue for asylum in the United States. They found new homes in such American port cities as New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, and New Orleans. This dissertation explores the experiences of the white planters, gens de couleur, and slaves who sought asylum in Charleston, South Carolina, and the effect their presence had on the city’s long time residents. It might seem from first glance that finding acceptance in Charleston would be easy for them, but this was not the case. …

The Boundaries Of Youth: Labor, Maturity, And Coming Of Age In Early Nineteenth-Century New England, 1790-1850, Jane Fiegen Green

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project uses the experiences of young men and women to show how the language of maturity laid a foundation for the mythology of democratic capitalism in nineteenth-century America. Freed from the bounds of the household but left to the mercy of the emerging capitalist economy, young New Englanders struggled to reconcile the democratic ideals of work with the realities of class stratification. Expected to show their self-ownership through the performance of gender-defined employment, young men and women used their work experiences to display their maturity. Recognition as competent, mature adults required young people to find and demonstrate independence through …

Gender Influenced Social Welfare Reforms At The South Carolina Confederate Soldiers’ Home And Infirmary: An Institutional History (1908 - 1957), Brian Dolphin

Theses and Dissertations

The South Carolina Confederate Soldiers’ Home and Infirmary in Columbia opened in 1909, serving two aged and infirm veterans per county. The last former Confederate state to establish a residential facility for veterans, South Carolina became the first state to reserve positions for women on the managing board. Women on the Board exercised more power there than at any comparable institution in the South, with policy implications that featured an increasingly inclusive policy for accommodation of women as both Confederate Soldiers’ Home and Infirmary administrators and occupants. When the institution closed in 1957, it had cared for women for a …

Honors Recital Presentation, David Rutter

Honors Projects

The purpose of this project was rooted in the belief that the reception of a piece of music can be altered or enhanced when the audience is given a compelling historical or cultural background of each composition. With sometimes hundreds of years between the audience members and the composers, to deliver an emotionally stirring and relevant performance to a modern audience is an incredible feat. In the spirit of making my senior violin recital more accessible and entertaining to my own audience, I devoted my Honors project to gathering information on the philosophies, personalities, successes and tragedies of each of …

Science Fairs Before Sputnik: Adolescent Scientific Culture In Contemporary America, Sarah Michel Scripps

Theses and Dissertations

"Science Fairs before Sputnik: Adolescent Scientific Culture in Contemporary America" traces the formation and evolution of science fairs in America, focusing on the ways in which adolescents established communities of practice by engaging in these competitions. Over the course of the twentieth century, generations of American children conducted their first experiments by crafting science fair projects. The dissertation evaluates this understudied phenomenon against the backdrop of American fascinations and fears of science and evolving notions of adolescence. It argues that science fairs were central to shaping an adolescent scientific culture in the United States during the early to mid twentieth …

Building Sanity: The Rise And Fall Of Architectural Treatment At The South Carolina Lunatic Asylum, Kimberly Jean Campbell

Theses and Dissertations

Although many historians have acknowledged the importance of architecture in the treatment of the mentally ill during the nineteenth century, no historian has ever examined the rise and fall of the importance of architecture to the treatment of patients at the South Carolina Lunatic Asylum. By the late eighteenth century, physicians and laymen alike accepted the ideology of environmental determinism – that one’s environment exercised a direct influence over his or her behavior. In other words, mental illness was both caused and cured by the environment; thus, architecture played a key role in the treatment of mental illness. The South …

Into The Red: A Look Into The Reasons Why Refugees Decide To Flee, Settle Or Migrate To And From Morocco, Fadeelah E. Holivay

Master's Theses

This research paper explores some of the main reasons why refugees and asylum seekers, particularly from sub-Saharan African countries, embark on a journey and decide to settle, flee or migrate to and from Morocco. Because of this phenomenon, Morocco has seen a 96% increase of refugees migrating to the borders of Morocco each year for the past three years. Many say that this astonishing increase of migrants choosing Morocco is due to such factors as: wars breaking out regionally across central African and Middle Eastern countries causing them to flee; Morocco being a culturaly diverse francophone country whose laws and …

Divided They Fall: The Pacific Coast League’S Failed Attempt To Turn Major, Sean Beireis

History Undergraduate Theses

For over fifty years the Pacific Coast League was considered the highest level of organized baseball west of the Mississippi River. As the population of the West grew in the 1940s and 1950s the Coast League attempted to use their geographic isolation and large population base as assets in an attempt to join the American and National Leagues as a third Major League. This paper details how the Coast League members’ inability to agree on a strategy for League growth led to the collapse of the powerhouse that was the PCL.

Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five: Making The Past Present, Rebecca Hoevenaar

Honors Projects

Art has the unique ability to create new meaning from past events. As a work of literature, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five has succeeded in doing this. Vonnegut took the bombing of Dresden and make it present and relevant in the minds of young Americans during the Vietnam War. Readers made connections between the two horrific events. In our contemporary world, Slaughterhouse-Five still remains an important work of literature. Violent conflicts and horrors continue to happen as with the recent Iraq War.

Western At War: Western Michigan College During World War Ii, Patrick Hargis

Honors Theses

This research paper examines the programs and policies put into action by Western Michigan College during World War II and how the war shaped the college. This research primarily utilized primary documents generated by the college’s wartime committee, President Paul Sangren, yearbooks and other ephemera. Little research has been done in this area focused on Western Michigan College, and the little research that has been done has focused on the Navy V-12 program that existed on campus at the time. While this research includes the V-12 program, as well as the various other military programs active at the time, a …

Taking The War To The Enemy: The Story Of Major Richard Clement, Travis Ueckert

Honors Theses

From the late 1930’s to the final moments of 1941, ordinary citizens of the United States witnessed the illusion of an isolated nation shatter with the global presence of Axis Nations. The U.S. took the initiative in eliminating international threats before they reached U.S. borders, resulting in everyday men and women having to learn about war along the way with usually little to no experience. Scholars who study war and memory face the challenge to capture the entirety and significance of a veteran’s experience, even those of the family members. Though the sacrifice demanded much, memories fade or are suppressed; …

Reforming Christianity By Reforming Christians: Devotional Writings Of The Late Medieval And Reformation Era, Christopher J. Quail

History Theses

During the late medieval and Reformation era in Europe, a series of Christian devotional works were created that stressed a deeper personal relationship with Christ, rather than ritual and public devotion alone. These works span the time period from the early fifteenth century through the early seventeenth century and prepared the way for and shaped the Protestant and Roman Catholic reformations alike. The devotional works addressed here were created in the quest for reform, of both the individual and the Church. This occurred as the importance of developing a better relationship with Jesus was taking on a new urgency for …

An Examination Of The Instability And Exploitation In Congo From King Leopold Ii's Free State To The 2nd Congo War, Baldwin Beal

HIM 1990-2015

This thesis will analyze the Congo from King Leopold II's Free State to the 2nd Congo War. After a thorough investigation of the colonial period, this thesis will analyze the modern period. This thesis contends that the underdevelopment of the Congo, and its continuing warfare and poverty are the consequences of an exploitative colonial history. To be sure, King Leopold II of Belgium created the template for administering the Congo through the installation of concessionary companies that were more interested in harvesting huge profits than creating the conditions for a self-sustaining Congolese economy. Indeed, the policies implemented by King Leopold …

An Empire On The Brink Of Destruction: The Stability Of The Seleucid Empire Under Antiochus Iv (175 B.C. - 164 B.C.), Tyler Campbell

HIM 1990-2015

The Seleucid Empire expanded its territory to stretch from Thrace to India under the leadership of Antiochus III, making it one of the most expansive empires in the Hellenistic World. Antiochus III's subsequent loss at the Battle of Magnesia to Rome in 190 B.C. caused some of the satrapies of the empire to begin to rebel, and has led some historians to believe that the empire began an unrecoverable decline. In this investigation I will argue that the myth of decline in the post-Antiochus III era is invalid through analyzing the stability brought to the empire during the reign of …

Queen Isabella And The Spanish Inquisition: 1478-1505, Lori Nykanen

HIM 1990-2015

Queen Isabella (1451-1505) daughter of King John II of Castile and Queen Isabella of Portugal has been accredited for some of the most famous accomplishments of medieval Spain. Through her succession to the Castilian throne in 1479 Isabella created a secular government, which enabled her to restore the monarch's power and wealth, and gave her a wide reaching authority over her kingdom. The Queen, being a pious Catholic, reestablished Catholicism as the official religion of Castile and brought forward a tribunal to help her reinforce her desires for sincere Christian piousness and to bring retribution to those who were heretical …

Going Gothic: Spanish Unity And Blame In The Legend Of Rodrigo And Florinda, Sara A. Gottardi

Doctoral Dissertations

The Legend of Rodrigo and Florinda is used to explain the causes for the successful Muslim invasion of Spain. My dissertation discusses six medieval versions of this legend, three Muslim and three Christian. I trace variations in blame to identify the different strata of society that are described as the corrosive catalysts for the Visigoths' divine punishment. I also analyze each source's presentation of the Visigothic prior to the invasion and examine how they assess the fracture of Spain into smaller kingdoms after the invasion. Identifying the Muslim invasion as a form of divine chastisement inherently includes the idea that …

Insurgent Spectacles: Spring Awakening, Woyzeck, Mother Courage And The ‘New’ Broadway Spectacle, Noah Porter Soltau

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explores the political and ideological work done by what I call "insurgent spectacles," which comprised a historical episode of American theater occurring primarily from 2006 to 2008. The spectacles had liberatory and redemptive potential not in spite of their identity as mass culture, but indeed precisely because of it. They functioned in a contested political and ideological space within the schema of mass culture. The insurgent spectacle is so-called because it superficially resembled other bits of Broadway fluff with its glitziness, over-production, and ham-fistedness that allow the audience to be intellectually disengaged. During this episode, it persisted (often …

Bermuda’S Museum Treasures: An Application Of Collections Accessibility, Britt R. Franklin

Museum Studies Theses

Over the past twenty years, led by large cultural institutions, there has been an evolutionary shift in the way that museums connect with visitors and make their artifacts and archives accessible. As cultural institutions face greater demands from audiences, museums are adapting and embracing technological components now fundamental to growth and success. The National Museum of Bermuda is a small institution that is in a transformative stage. This paper focuses on how the National Museum of Bermuda have integrated advanced exhibit design and components in addition to how they are implementing networking tools to invite audiences to take a deeper …

Creating Neighborhood In Postwar Buffalo, New York: Transformations Of The West Side, 1950-1980, Caitlin Boyle Moriarty

Theses and Dissertations

This project reconsiders post-World War II neighborhood change by examining how various groups in Buffalo, New York conceptualized, experienced and produced the West Side as a cultural and economic artifact between 1950 and 1980. This approach offers an alternative to conceptualizing neighborhoods as bounded, natural entities and it encourages narratives that complicate the prevailing metaphor of decline in rust belt cities by illuminating other components of postwar neighborhood change than population loss and economic disinvestment. This project uses neighborhood retail as a lens through which to examine how city planners, the West Side Business Men's Club, the Federation of Italian …

The Wolf Attacks: A History Of The Russo-Chechen Conflict, Christina E. Baxter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the 1990s and early 2000s, the Chechens fought against the Russians for independence. The focus in the literature available has been on the wars and the atrocities caused by the wars. The literature then hypothesizes that the insurgency of today is just a continuation of the past. They do not focus on a major event in Chechen history: the Soviet liquidation of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1944. It is this author’s assertion that the liquidation of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR forever changed the mindset of the people because it fractured a society that was once unified. This …

The Queer And The Bodily: Explorations Of Power In Women's Visionary Writing In The Book Of Margery Kempe 2014, Jayne Emerson Stacconi

Master's Theses

The provocative Book of Margery Kempe is a seminal text in the history of female authorship. Claiming to be the first written autobiography, The Book serves as a literary representation of womanhood during the late fourteenth to the fifteenth centuries when Margery was writing, and also speaks to circulating medieval discourses of religion, pilgrimage, and sexuality. Participating in medieval women’s visionary writing as a genre, Margery’s visionary power is a tool by which she is able to emancipate herself from the limiting roles of wife and mother. Additionally, by working within the conventions of visionary writing, Margery is able to …

Caring And Cleaning "On Par": The Work Of Au Pairs & Housecleaners In The Chicagoland Area, Anna Kuroczycka Schultes

Theses and Dissertations

Immigrant domestic workers are perceived as highly exploitable and expendable employees, yet they are entangled in a very complex global exchange of services. The main purpose of this study will be to revise existing knowledge and assumptions about the female migrant service sector, especially within the field of domestic and care labor, by comparing the work of au pairs with housecleaners. Although these two forms of work appear to have many similarities on the surface, they are actually at opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of visibility and regulation. Unlike the highly regulated nature of au pair work and …

Blood Sacrifice: The Connection Between Roman Death Rituals And Christian Martyrdom, Angela Dawne Kennedy

Honors Theses

Scholars from a variety of disciplines have done some incredible work on the subject of martyrdom, but the story is far from complete, particularly in terms of how and why it was so similar to the Roman concept of public deaths. The primary sources include the surviving Christian martyrologies, Greco-Roman philosophical treatises, and Roman, Christian, and Jewish histories. Martyrdom itself was a tool of assimilation that somehow bridged the communities of the empire together. There is a huge body of information in a variety of genres that contribute to this project. But there exists a hole in the combined scholarship …

“L’Héritage” Is In The Streets: The Text, Images And Legacy Of May 1968, Justin L. Baggett

Honors Theses

The events of May 1968 in France are among the most important and influential events of the Cold War period. The posters and graffiti of the movement contain significant cultural contributions whose content and legacy are still controversial and prominent parts of French culture some 46 years later. This study examines both the visual and textual portions of both the posters and graffiti from the “mai 68” movement in Paris to discuss their relevance and their origins. This study also analyzes the legacy of the slogans from the graffiti as well as that of the visual elements of the posters. …

Mass Rape In Foča: The International Criminal Tribunal For The Former Yugoslavia Vs. Dragoljub Kunarac, Mark William Iverson

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The Bosnian war witnessed the organized expulsion of Bosnian Muslims by Serbian and Bosnian Serb military forces from 1992 until 1995. As a tactic aimed at creating mono-ethnic towns from multicultural populations, rape was perpetrated against all women, but particularly Muslim women, as part of a larger plan to terrorize populations into permanently abandoning their homes. The Muslims of Foča, a township close to the border with Montenegro, were one of the first multiethnic populations to be attacked and terrorized by Bosnian Serb and Serbian forces. Dragoljub Kunarac, Radomir Kovač, and Zoran Vuković were three Bosnian Serb soldiers, among thousands, …

Lawyers And Sawyers: Venetian Forest Law And The Conquest Of Terraferma (1350-1476), Michael S. Beaudoin

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Venice played a direct role in shaping the future of Northeastern Italy. The standing scholarship views Venetian involvement on the mainland as either an abandonment of the city’s maritime tradition or as a buffer zone against rival powers, like Milan. Venice’s western mainland empire, Terraferma, provided Venice with many commercial products that the Eastern Mediterranean did not. One mainland product, timber, was a central focus of Venetian expansion into Terraferma and has thus far been neglected by historians. This thesis argues that the Venetian Republic manipulated mainland legal traditions in order to obtain …