History Commons^™

Domestic And Foreign Opium Regulation In Victorian England: 1830-1900, Zachary Zundel

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

By the nineteenth century, the British Empire had extended its reach all the way around the globe. They did not come to this position easily. Extending their reach required the British to fight wars with many of the major European powers, such as France, both on the mainland and in colonies around the world. China proved to be one of the most difficult areas for the British to extend into. In China the people were resistant to diseases and possessed greater technology than the other areas of the globe. Europeans wanted access to Asia for products such as spices and …

Your Country Needs You (And Also Your Resources) Britain And Her Colonies During And Shortly After Ww2, Anthony-Noel Cepe

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

No conflict has shaped the modern world more thoroughly than the Second World War. However, the retelling of this era, whether through mass media or more scholarly works such as books and journal articles, is one seen through a white, Eurocentric lens. This is strange; as the name implies, the Second World War was a truly global conflict, involving not only the major world powers at the time, but also their subjects. Great Britain was no exception; far from the popular image of it standing alone in the face of Nazi tyranny, the island nation drew vast amounts of men …

'Gave His Life For The Empire': Memory, Memorials, And Identity In The British Empire After The First World War, Bryan Mcclure

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation examines the construction of personal memorials after the First World War across the British Empire nations of the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, to understand how individuals sought to make their own memorial to remember their loved one killed in the conflict. In comparison to other studies on the construction of national or other community memorials, this dissertation explores how individuals accepted or rejected dominant discourses in creating their own memorials that spoke to how they remembered the war. It is based on a large database of more than 2,000 private memorials to individuals that …

Bloody Sunday: Death & Press, Joseph Gaffney

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project is a historical paper on Bloody Sunday, a day of violence in Dublin during the Irish War for Independence on November 21, 1920, analyzing primary and secondary sources centered on the subject to answer specific historiographical research questions. The primary objective of this research project is to understand the immediate social and political ramifications of Bloody Sunday in Ireland and England as reflected in the spread of information via the written press. The goal of the written analysis will be to answer a series of historical research questions. How were both the IRA’s killings and the subsequent reprisal …

Moral Subjects: The Girls' Friendly Society, Empire, And Modern Girlhood In Canada, C.1920s, Marshall Cosens

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In 1875, Mary Townsend founded the Girls’ Friendly Society (GFS) to reinforce in young girls the qualities of self-control, purity, and their responsibility to become dutiful mothers and wives. By the 1920s, the Society had established itself across the British Empire and promoted imperial unity through emigration, social service, and missionary work. In white, self-governing dominions like Canada, the organization played a pivotal role in shaping young girls through social purity campaigns and educating members about their imperial responsibilities. In the face of rapid social change, the GFS represented a conservative counterattack to shifting definitions of morality, femininity, and womanhood …

The Tanganyika Groundnut Scheme: A Site Of Change And Conservatism, Jane A. O'Connell

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

By focusing on the notorious Tanganyika Groundnut Scheme, this paper examines the evolution of British development policy in an East African colony throughout the pre-and post-war eras. I begin by detailing the historiography of writing on the Tanganyika Groundnut Scheme, connecting the shift in tone and focus of historians to broader trends in academia and perceptions of Africa, and then continue to provide an overview of pre-war colonial policy in Tanganyika. After laying out this framework, I highlight the profound impact of World War Two on British thought and the ways in which this translated to development policy, accounting for …

A “Medieval” Myth For A “Modern” Empire Britain Under The Shadow Of Arthur (1461–1612), Julian Gonzalez De Leon Heiblum

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation studies the use of the Arthurian myth from the fifteenth through early seventeenth centuries, as a narrative that connected a set of political principles for the unification of Britain and its imperial expansion. Joining other competing political myths in the British archipelago, the political significance of the Arthurian myth has nevertheless been overlooked. On the one hand, the myth informed the transformations of kingship in England and Wales from the crowning of Edward IV to the early years of James’ English reign. It did so specifically within the process of institutionalizing a British crown which was intertwined with …

Building An Imperial World: Ideologies Of Imperialism And The Tariff Reform Movement In Britain, 1900-1914, Kevin Jennings Luginbill

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examines the imperial rhetoric and ideologies articulated during the tariff reform controversy in Edwardian Britain. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the British statesman Joseph Chamberlain organized a new movement, dubbed tariff reform, to enact a series of commercial policies that would integrate the British and colonial economies and, he argued, lay the foundation for the development of a unified imperial federation. Chamberlain’s proposals were controversial and divisive, resulting in years of political debate over the merits of tariff reform. While the tariff reform campaign has been studied in numerous histories, its imperial dimensions have been ignored …

The Political, The Personal, And The Personified: 18th Century British Political Caricature Art And The Formation Of The British Empire’S Identity, Sarah Johns

History Honors Papers

An image is often capable of communicating a number of things to a viewer, and political caricature in the eighteenth-century British metropole is one clear example of this. Political caricature became a useful tool for the wealthy—especially white men—to engage in discussions about the power of the British Empire as it continued to expand and grow in strength in comparison to other European Empires at the time. Even so, with the coming of the American conflict, things changed. No longer could these men be sure of what a British identity entailed. A family fractured, changing gender norms, evolving concepts of …

Lesson Plan, United States History, 11th Grade, Romeo Revuelta

Spring Workshop March 2021

TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills): - Culture 25 C - US Hist B,C,D

Lesson objective(s):

1. Interpreting and analyze primary sources. 2. Describe the diversity and key industries of South Texas and Northern Mexico. 3. Evaluate similarities and differences in the frontier experience of the North American English colonies and those of Spain.

Differentiation strategies to meet diverse learner needs:

- Immersive Reader - translation/audio tool. - Brief media clip on topic. (Opening/closing of class) - Visual aids.

Caratacus, The Remembered Warrior: The Legacies Of Caratcaus In Roman Histories And The British Victorian Era, Isabella Kearney

Pomona Senior Theses

This study will explore the origins of the historical figure of Caratacus and analyze its reception in Victorian and Edwardian Britain. This work will begin by providing an overview of Caratacus’ context in the first century in Britannia. Then, looking at the reception of Caratacus, the study will chronologically analyze the portrayal of Caratacus in the ancient sources of Tacitus and Cassius Dio. As the first textual evidence of Caratacus, this will provide insights into Caratacus’ history and the origins of Caratacus’ transformation into an icon of Roman and British history. This work will then analyze the receptions of Caratacus …

British Piracy Policy In Jamaica, Aaron M. Goins

Masters Theses

The British used piracy as a tool of empire to gain a foothold the Caribbean until they had enough resources to create an empire of their own. Piracy functioned as an insurgency for the British keeping the competition in the new world below the threshold of war in Europe but still detrimental to the Spanish. The British used this chaos and the resources it brought in to build themselves while hurting the Spanish. Then, once the British desired stability over chaos they ceased use of pirates and started hunting pirates.

Social Standards Of Imposition: Respectability And The Raj Through The Eyes Of Governess Marjorie Ussher, Erin A. Nelsen

Antonian Scholars Honors Program

The British Empire possesses a long history of imposing ways of thinking, political structures, economic structures, and social standards on their territories. From 1934 to 1940, during the final years of the Raj (British sovereignty in India), this imperialism extended to standards of beauty and respectability in Hyderabad, the capital of the Hyderabad state. These standards arise in the archived letters British governess Marjorie Ussher wrote to her family during this timeframe. Through a close reading of the letters, this thesis recognizes and reflects on Ussher’s aesthetics depictions of the people, objects, and the natural landscape around her. Within this …

The State And War On Poverty: British Welfare Development And Its Legacies For Malawi, 1930s-1983, Gift Wasambo Kayira

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This dissertation documents the struggles and dilemmas that the Malawian state endured as it attempted to achieve its developmental goals from the 1930s to 1983. It contributes to histories of development by focusing on the interventions both the colonial and postcolonial states made to improve the living standards of African rural communities, the ideas which shaped state programs, and the behavior of the state which such interventions reveal. Scholars typically argue that state policy in Malawi was necessarily destructive and limited the economic progress of the local communities. The state deliberately pursued land, market, and other agricultural policies that constrained …

How To Build A Museum, Anna L. Davies

Student Symposium

Who are museums for? This question drove our research. Originally motivated by a Travel-Learning Course in Spring 2017 to Manchester, London, and Liverpool, this project seeks to explore the narratives, motivations, and cultural implications for museum exhibits. We focused particularly on art museums. Our primary inspiration was the International Museum of Slavery at the Maritime Museum (Liverpool) and the London, Sugar and Slavery exhibit at the Museum of London Docklands (London). While both historical exhibits, we wanted to examine the symbolism and motivations for creating these exhibits as a form of public history and consciousness in Britain, and apply it …

My Land Is My Flesh Silver Bluff, The Creek Indians, And The Transformation Of Colonized Space In Early America, Bryan C. Rindfleisch

History Faculty Research and Publications

This essay explores how Native peoples like the Creek (Muscogee) Indians invested colonized spaces in early American society with their own material, commercial, political, and spiritual meanings and importance. In particular, Creek Indians from the town of Coweta transformed Silver Bluff, the plantation of the trader and merchant George Galphin, into a “white ground,” as a place connected to Creek Country by a “white path,” and as a space where Creek and British leaders congregated to conduct business and negotiate politics. For it is no coincidence that the treaties of Augusta in 1763 and 1773, peaceful resolutions agreed to by …

Egyptian Pieces Of The Empire's Puzzle: Peasants, Women, And Students In British Official Documents Issued After The 1919 Revolution In Egypt, Jane Linhares

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Belonging To The Imperial Nation: Rethinking The History Of The First World War In Britain And Its Empire, Susan R. Grayzel

History Faculty Publications

In anticipation of the 100th anniversary of the First World War in 2014–18, the British government set aside funds for a range of commemorative activities. These included a number of “engagement centres” that aimed to bring together academics and local community members in addition to providing separate arts-related programming.1 The Imperial War Museum reworked its main First World War galleries, which opened with great fanfare at the centenary’s start. This denotes a kind of publicly sanctioned interest in a war that Britain had won, after all, but that popular memory had enshrined as something quite different, something that required …

Pirate Nests And The Rise Of The British Empire, 1570–1740 By Mark G. Hanna, John Donoghue

History: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Mark Hanna’s important book makes two very valuable contributions to the history of the British Atlantic. First, it recovers piracy’s vital part in colonial economic growth during the seventeenth century. Secondly, it explains piracy’s ultimate demise in the early eighteenth century by tracing the regulatory revolution that turned an assemblage of wayward Atlantic colonies into a profitable commercial empire.

"Ye Sons Of Mars": British Representations Of The Sudan Campaign In Print Culture, 1884–1899, Crystal E. Smith

Master's Theses

From 1884 to 1885 the British were first engaged with the Mahdist forces of Sudan in an effort to first rescue the inhabitants of Khartuom, and later to rescue the rescuer Charles “Chinese” Gordon. The affair played out both in Parliament and the newspapers as journalists became the cheerleaders for Empire. My thesis focuses on Britain’s 1884-1890 Sudan Campaign through print culture using political debates, journalism, literature, memoirs, and art. I show how the activism of the press and the romanticism of the larger media reinforced ideas about imperialism and the British role within the Empire at large.

Adam Smith, Settler Colonialism, And Cosmopolitan Overstretch, Onur Ulas Ince

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Adam Smith has recently been celebrated as a precocious theorist of commercialcosmopolitanism who decried the injustice of imperial conquest and extraction. This paperfocuses on Smith’s endorsement of settler colonialism in North America and argues thatSmith’s newfound cosmopolitanism is overstretched. Smith welcomed settler colonies as theembodiment of the “natural progress of opulence” and spared them from his invective againstother imperial practices like chattel slavery and trade monopolies. Smith’s embrace of settlercolonies, however, involved him in an ideological conundrum insofar as the prosperity ofoverseas settlements rested on imperial expansion and seizure of land from Native Americans.I contend that Smith muffled this disturbing …

Friend Or Foe? Martial Race Ideology And The Experience Of Highland Scottish And Irish Regiments In Mid-Victorian Conflicts, 1853-1870, Adam Spivey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines martial race ideology in the British Army during the mid-nineteenth century. A “martial race” was a group of people that the British considered to excel in the art of warfare due to biological and cultural characteristics. This thesis examines perceived “martial” natures or lack thereof of the Highland Scots and the Irish during this era. Central to this analysis are the Crimean War (1853-1856) and the Indian Mutiny of 1857 which provided opportunities for soldiers to display their “martial” qualities. The Crimean War was the first war where the daily newspapers covered every aspect of the war …

Imperial Influence On The Postcolonial Indian Army, 1945-1973, Robin James Fitch-Mccullough

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The British Indian Army, formed from the old presidency armies of the East India Company in 1895, was one of the pillars upon which Britain’s world empire rested. While much has been written on the colonial and global campaigns fought by the Indian Army as a tool of imperial power, comparatively little has been written about the transition of the army from British to Indian control after the end of the Second World War. While independence meant the transition of the force from imperial rule to that of civilian oversight by India’s new national leadership, the Dominion of India inherited …

To Whom Does The Body Of The Dead Soldier Belong?: An Examination Of British Imperial Strategy And The Making And Meaning Of World War I Memorials, Hannah M. Jeruc

Lawrence University Honors Projects

In 1915, one year into World War I, Fabian Arthur Goulstone Ware founded the Imperial War Graves Commission, the official body responsible for locating, identifying and burying the dead British and Commonwealth soldiers. By the end of the war, the British had lost about one million troops, and for the next 20 years, the Commission would work diligently to create 970 cemeteries, 600,000 graves and 18 larger memorials to commemorate the British losses on the Western Front. However, the significance of the British WWI memorialization process is about more than the Empire's architectural achievements, but rather, the story the architecture …

From Britain Of The South Seas To Maoriland: Tourism, Exhibition, And Biculturalism At The Turn Of The Century, Walter Streeter

History Theses

This paper examines the establishment of New Zealand's tourism industry and the ways that it increased the ways that Maori people were both accepted and exploited as part of New Zealand's national character

This Species Of Property: Slavery And The Properties Of Subjecthood In Anglo-American Law And Politics, 1619-1783, John N. Blanton

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This Species of Property examines the development of the law and practice of slavery in the 17^th and 18^th century Anglo-American empire through analysis of common law court decisions in England, Massachusetts, and Virginia. The dissertation argues that there was a long and vibrant debate over the legitimacy of the chattel principle – the definition of enslaved persons as a type of property – and that enslaved people and their allies pushed for the recognition of the legal humanity or subjecthood of the enslaved in colonial and metropolitan courts. This antislavery legal tradition culminated in the famous Somerset …

Lord Bute And Conservative Scottish Nationalism: British Home Rule Movements In The 1890s And 90s, Ryan Blank, Paul Kerry

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In the 1880s and 90s, the individual kingdoms and principalities that make up the United Kingdom experienced a revival of nationalistic sentiment. For the English, their national identity was tied to the Empire. The Celtic peoples re-invented nationalistic traditions, costume, and revived national languages. Building on the Romantic Movement, Celtic nationalists promoted strong national identities and legendary histories; however, the nationalism of the 1890s in Wales and Scotland was not anti-Empire even though it was anti-United Kingdom. This project will investigate Welsh and Scottish nationalism, particularly the Home Rule movements, through the lens of the writings and activities of a …

The Stress Of Her Disregard: Britannia’S Suez Fiasco In Consideration Of Anglo-American Diplomacy, Matthew Gerth

Online Theses and Dissertations

The Suez Crisis of 1956 was an unmitigated disaster for the United Kingdom. For the vast majority of historians, it marks the effective downfall of the British Empire. In reviewing the series of events preceding and throughout the crisis, it becomes evident that the reason for the failure of the Suez expedition rests not on actions taken in Cairo or Moscow, but in Washington. The efforts of Dwight Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles to stymie Anthony Eden from achieving his goals during the affair are the key factors to the ruination of British efforts towards removing Gamal Abdel Nasser from …

Embattled Communities: Voluntary Action And Identity In Australia, Canada, And New Zealand, 1914-1918, Steve Marti

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation examines voluntary mobilization during the First World War to understand why communities on the social and geographical periphery of the British Empire mobilized themselves so enthusiastically to support a distant war, fought for adistant empire. Lacking a strong state apparatus or a military-industrial complex, the governments of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand relied on voluntary contributions to sustain their war efforts. Community-based voluntary societies knitted socks, raised funds to purchase military equipment, and formed contingents of soldiers. By examining the selective mobilization of voluntary participation, this study will understand how different communities negotiated social and spatial boundaries as …

De-Centering Carl Schmitt: The Colonial State Of Exception And The Criminalization Of The Political In British India, 1905-1920, John Pincince

History: Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.