History Commons^™

The Hidden Aspects Of A Century Of Substance Use Policymaking In Iran, Emran Razaghi, Mohammad Binazadeh, Rahimeh Negarandeh, James T. Bradford, Kaveh Khoshnood

Faculty Works

The use of substances, especially opiates, has been a longstanding and significant problem in Iran. In response, Iran has experimented with a wide range of policies including nonintervention, regulation, legalization, prohibition, and criminalization. Exploring Iran’s substance use policies suggests that the Iranian government has been more concerned with byproducts of policies such as financial revenue, promoting diplomacy, and maintaining power, rather than genuinely alleviating the substance trade and addiction. First, we explore how opium taxation was the core substance use policy before oil became the main source of government income. Second, we discuss how conflicts of power between the health …

[Foreward To] Public Workers In Service Of America: A Reader, F. W. Gooding Editor, Eric S. Yellin Editor

Bookshelf

"From white-collar executives to mail carriers, public workers meet the needs of the entire nation. Frederick W. Gooding Jr. and Eric S. Yellin edit a collection of new research on this understudied workforce. Part One begins in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth century to explore how questions of race, class, and gender shaped public workers, their workplaces, and their place in American democracy. In Part Two, essayists examine race and gender discrimination while revealing the subtle contemporary forms of marginalization that keep Black men and Black and white women underpaid and overlooked for promotion. The historic labor actions detailed …

The Ubiquitous Path To War: A British Perspective On Their Relationship With The Spanish Empire From 1734-1739, Giuseppe Gerardo Vitale

Masters Theses, 2020-current

The British Empire was still relatively in its infancy throughout the 1730s and far from the global superpower it would later become, mostly due to it being the most recent of the major European imperial powers to begin colonizing the America’s. However, their long-standing feud with the Spanish carried over across the Atlantic, and the two heavyweights were embattled in a series of diplomatic struggles in the mid to late 1730s, resulting in an outbreak of war at the tail end of the decade, known as the War of Jenkin’s Ear. While most of the historiography surrounding this period in …

Re-Mediating Nature: Environmental Entropy, Urban Parks, And The Boise River Greenbelt, Quinn Zachary Anderson

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Urban greenspaces are integral to the healthy functioning of a city. They provide heat relief, flood prevention, act as sites of community engagement and creation, and are home to charismatic flora and fauna, to name just a few of their roles. However, this importance has not translated to scholarly analysis. This thesis aims to address this shortcoming in several ways. Firstly, it introduces the typology of environmental entropy, a framework of analysis that recontextualizes greenspaces as blended landscapes, where nature and culture and human and nonhuman agency equilibrate. Using environmental entropy, the rest of the paper examines urban parks …

Locating Queer Possibilities: Lgbtq+ Folks Negotiating Community And Belonging In Idaho, 1969-2011, Rachel Taylor

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Americans—regardless of their sexual orientation or home state—generally assume that Idaho is hostile towards queer folks. Linking rurality to homophobia and bigotry, they believe queer people are safer and happier in metropolitan settings with visible queer communities. However, the lived experiences of queer Idahoans reveal that LGBTQ+ people have built communities and found belonging around the state, even outside the state’s most populous city, Boise. Whereas queer people in urban areas like San Francisco historically emphasized the ways they differed from the straight public, queer Idahoans found safety and belonging by emphasizing their similarities with straight people. Through archival research …

Witchy Politics: Witches And Witchcraft As Political Tropes From Malleus Malleficarum (1487) To Les Sorcières De La République (2016) And The Mercies (2020), Mallaury Joëlle Marie Gauthier

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

The focus of this thesis are two recent novels featuring witches: Chloé Delaume’s Les Sorcières de la République(The Witches of the Republic, 2016) and Kiran Millwood Hargrave’s The Mercies (2020). The first is a futuristic dystopia set in 2062, during the witch trial of the Sibyl of Cumae. The second is a work of historical fiction based on witch trial records and set in seventeenth-century Finnmark (Norway). Both are feminist novels, and both emphasize the political valence of the witch as a gendered figure. This figure emerged from the misogyny of early modern demonology but acquired its contemporary contours …

The Borgia Reexamined: A New Look At The Borgia Family And The Influence Of Adoptions Within The Family, Nicholas Ryan Mason

Masters Theses

The Borgia’s were a powerful family that garnered a great deal of their influence through the Catholic Church during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. The height of the Borgia was between 1492 and 1503, when Rodrigo Borgia was elected Pope Alexander VI. Throughout history they have been known for the rumors of murder, incest, greed, and corruption that have surrounded the family ever since they first came to power. An examination of the family may not only lead to a different perspective of the family but may also lead to a deeper understanding of how one's enemies may …

Historical Understanding In The U.S. Constitution, Kristopher W. Chesterman

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

How did the America’s Founding Fathers use historical knowledge to inform their actions and decisions that ultimately led to the creation of the Constitution? This dissertation begins to answer this question by providing context to the Framers’ education on both colonial and personal levels. Starting with exposure to historical content through learning Greek and Latin, this research explores the depth of historical knowledge possessed by the Founders and how they used that knowledge to explain their thoughts and ideas throughout the tumultuous years surrounding the American Revolutionary War. This aspect of the Constitution’s formation is overshadowed by the prominence of …

Decolonizing Kyiv’S Politics Of Memory: Current And Potential Implications Of Russia’S 2022 Invasion Of Ukraine On Ukrainian Monuments And Toponyms., Camilla Gironi

The Journal of International Relations, Peace Studies, and Development

History is the basis of our identity, but it sometimes represents a trap. As well explained by Keith Lowe, monuments are representative of our values, and every society deludes itself that its values will be everlasting. However, in a world changing at an unprecedented pace while we move on, urban furnishment such as monuments or streets’ names remain frozen in time. Statues and toponyms that were erected and chosen a long time ago may no longer be representative of the values we now treasure. While Russia’s aggression is still raging, a lot has been written on the potential implications of …

Beyond Words: Exploring History Through The Lens Of Literary Theory And Research, Andrea Weaver

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

The narrative of this Master's portfolio reflects on the academic journey of Andrea Weaver. The three projects showcased in this portfolio reflect her experience during the Master of Arts in English with a Specialization in English Teaching program. It includes a rhetorical Ohio Suffragist unit plan created for high school sophomores, a seminar paper critically analyzing the film Interview with the Vampire (1994), and a digital presentation of artifacts and research about literary theorist Wolfgang Iser and his work in Reader Response Theory presented on the platform Microsoft Sway. The framework of New Historicism is threaded throughout each project, linking …

Delayed Justice: How Us Actions Paved The Way For The Khmer Rouge And Prevented Justice In Cambodia, Casey Elmhirst

Voces Novae

No abstract provided.

Borderlands Research In Spanish, Mexican, And Texas Archives, Armando C. Alonzo

Rondel V. Davidson Endowed Lecture Series

Dr. Armando Alonzo will speak to UTRGV students in Dr. Jamie Starling’s HIST 6325: Seminar in Borderlands History course as well as students from HIST 3300, HIST 3333, and HIST 4399. Interested faculty are also invited to attend. Dr. Alonzo’s presentation will focus on researching the South Texas Borderlands in Spanish, Mexican, and Texas archives as well as the challenges of studying the region’s earlier Spanish colonial era and Native American history. A native of the Rio Grande Valley, Dr. Alonzo received his M.A. degree in history in 1983 from what was then the University of Texas – Pan American, …

Political Economy Of The Middle East: Historiography And The Making Of An Episteme, Jordan Rothschild

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

The Great Divergence accelerated a process of Western European states dominating the majority of the world’s geography and people economically and geopolitically. Given the stakes of this shift and its ramifications for all of the history that followed, and the significant way that the divide continues to shape our world, this phenomenon is subject to considerable debate within the historiography. This paper uses the Great Divergence as a departure point to analyze the different schools of political economic history, from the flawed sociologies of the early 20th century theorists to the World Systems Theorists and beyond. A key aspect of …

Dancers Of The Book: Yemenite, Persian, And Kurdish Jewish Dance, Quinn Bicer

Anthós

Despite the cultural significance of dance in Jewish communities around the world, research into Middle Eastern Jewish dance outside of the modern nation-state of Israel is sorely under-researched. This article aims to help rectify this by focusing on Yemenite, Persian/Iranian, and Kurdish Jewish dance and explores how these dancers have functioned and been received within the societies they have been a part of. The methods that have gone into this article are a combination of analyzing primary source recorded dances and existing secondary source research into the dance of these communities. Through these methods, this article reveals how Yemenite, Iranian, …

The Jesuit Colleges That Weren't: Conewago Latin School And Guadalupe College, Michael Rizzi

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

This article offers a brief history of two obscure and often overlooked Jesuit schools from the nineteenth century: the Conewago Latin School in Pennsylvania and Guadalupe College in Texas. Although neither school ever fully developed into a true institution of higher education, they began life similarly to other Jesuit schools of the 1800s, and under different circumstances they might have evolved, like those other schools, into true American colleges. The purpose of this historical sketch is to preserve the memory of these nearly forgotten Jesuit institutions.

Survivor Accounts Of Sexual Violence In The Holocaust And Rwandan Genocide: A Comparative History, Marisa Silva

Honors Projects

This research seeks to analyze and understand the approach and treatment of victims of sexual assaults stories and accounts using case studies of the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide. Research was conducted by collecting and reading first-hand accounts of survivors and their experiences of sexual assault, then analyzing the historical response following the events. The two case studies are synthesized and compared in this project to understand which attributes of political and social policy effected the reception of stories of victims and witnesses of rape and assault. Both genocides are affected by unique struggles in collecting witness accounts, as well …

A Tejano Story: Resisting Anti-Mexican Violence And The Texas Rangers, Jose Andres Yznaga Jr

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

A Tejano Story: Resisting Anti-Mexican Violence and The Texas Rangers Writing about Los Tejanos cannot be told without including the Texas Rangers. It only complicates the narrative when writing a screenplay for the big screen. The story cannot be told without acknowledging historical facts; the Texas Rangers came hard against the Tejanos after the battle for Texas Independence even though many Tejanos fought in that war and shared the same vision as their Euro-American counterparts of breaking their ties with the Mexican government. Just However, like lynching across this country, that history cannot be erased, nor can the exploits of …

A Most Surprising Fern: Serendipity And Browsing In Botanical Search, Douglas Tuers

Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science

This article is a case study of botanical field work in the eastern United States in the early twentieth century. These cases will be analyzed as instances of browsing and serendipity. Browsing and serendipity have a rich literature in information science and this article will draw on this literature in order to better understand serendipity in botany. This article will show how botanical localities support browsing and serendipity for the botanists who search them. This article will also show how botanical institutions and botanists interface with localities in order to further support browsing and serendipity. As a whole this article …

Before Facebook And Twitter: The Online Computing Revolution Of The 1980s, David Scott Cooper

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The 1980s was the intersection of technological, economic, and social influences. Computer technology became smaller and more affordable, yet this alone did not spark online connectivity. Businesses experienced the available computers and online capabilities dating to 1950. Academic usage increased from the early 1970s. What made the 1980s the first computer generation was a combination of technological improvements, consumerism, business advertising, video games, and two-income households. Consumers were introduced to home computing through video game consoles, and the game console market crash of 1983 allowed home computers to increase sales. Computer manufacturers changed marketing strategies to educate the population on …

Silent Voices, Stolen Imagery, And Subjected Violence: Plains Native American Women In Historiography, Bobbie J. Roshone

Great Plains Graduate Review

This paper delves into the historiography of Indigenous women’s history and experiences on the Great Plains have been recorded. The main question when approaching this subject was, “what does a review of the historiography reveal about how historians have addressed Indigenous women’s history in the Great Plains?” The overwhelming consensus was that Indigenous women’s history of the Great Plains was minimal in regard to articles, however, there was a growth of autobiographies and other historiographical works throughout the same time period. This would lead to a directed look at how individual women in Indigenous Plains history had a larger impact …

A Southern People: The Choctaw Nation From Removal Through The Civil War, Josh Phillips

History Theses and Dissertations

While scholars have begun in recent years to give more attention to the Civil War in the Trans-Mississippi region (including the Indian Territory), few have attempted to provide nuanced and comprehensive explanations for the actions of native peoples who took part in the conflict. While the pre-removal era of Choctaw history has received copious attention, the thirty years between removal and the Civil War have received only sparse examination. Historians who have written about this period have typically either gone into very little detail about why the Choctaws sided with the Confederacy or they have identified only one or two …

Educating A Denomination: Albert C. Outler And American Theological Education, 1925 - 1974, Lane Davis

Religious Studies Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation provides a critical biography of Albert C. Outler, a prominent historian and theologian in modern Methodism and analyzes three significant emphases in his work: ecumenism, theology and psychology, and Methodist doctrine. The study begins with Outler's formative education and his ministry as a Methodist pastor in Georgia. Outler's doctoral education at Yale focused his work on discovering the connections of the "common history" of all Christians. The study then considers Outler’s extensive work in three interconnected disciplines: ecumenical studies, the study of religion and psychology, and Methodist theology and doctrine. The connection between these diverse subjects lies in …

I Belong Here Too: An Oral History Of The Immigration Of Bangladeshis To New York City, Subat Matin

Masters Theses, 2020-current

I Belong Here Too is an oral history project which consists of twenty interviews of the Bangladeshi community in New York. The oral histories touch on many aspects of Bangladeshi-American life, history, memory, identity, culture, and the struggles of being an immigrant. It tries to put the interviewees experiences in a larger historical context in order to understand how the Bangladeshi community in Brooklyn, New York has grown and the challenges they faced as immigrants in a new city. The two chapters of this thesis examines the oral history processes and the difficulties of Bangladeshi immigrant women. The project is …

Żółty Dom: A Digital Archive Of A Grandmother’S Legacy, Hailey Stessman

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

Archives, as separate entities and as a practice, have been used as a means to preserve and conserve pieces of history across a range of subjects. Physical artifacts, personal photography, or important classified documents may be included within these capsules of the past. Prolific individuals have had their lives collected, organized, and stored away in such minute detail for the ease and accessibility of public use. Not only does the precise organization aid easy research, but it also lends to the art of storytelling. One can trace an individual’s legacy from their childhood to their final breath by exploring their …

U.S History: The Constant Reliance On Immigrant Labor From Asian Immigrants In The 19th And Early 20th Century To Mexican Immigrants In The Bracero Program, Moises Gonzalez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

During the late 19th and early 20th century, as the United States implemented stricter immigration laws, there was a gradual shift from Asian migrant labor to Mexican migrant Labor. The Bracero Program, which was established in 1942 at the request of U.S agribusinesses, best exemplified this development in the U.S. Throughout the duration of this guest work program, it demonstrated the discriminatory and exploitative nature of U.S agribusinesses. Yet, few studies have emphasized the thoughts of former braceros. Therefore, this proposed thesis will shed light on a more positive outlook of the Bracero Program where former braceros would persevere through …

The Silence In America’S Classrooms: The Portrayal Of Women And Gender In United States High School History Textbooks, Allie Elizabeth Morris

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the twenty-first century, the process of adopting statewide history textbooks has become a political battleground surrounding concepts of race, gender, and identity in American history. By contextualizing the current discussion surrounding content in American history textbooks, I examine the portrayal of women in secondary United States social studies textbooks from the 1960s to the 2010s. In doing so, I show how portrayals of women's history evolve in the most widely adopted high school post-Civil War American history textbooks in each decade from the 1960s through to the 2000s. By comparing the evolution of the women’s and gender historiography to …

Stalin's Collectivization: Effects Of Failure, Irina Biedenstein

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Collective farming had a major impact on Soviet History, especially when it comes to economics, loss of life, and the creation of a nation. The government, under Joseph Stalin, pushed for the idea of collective farming, with great cost to the soviet people, and eventually abandoned it as a major disappointment and a failure.

Socialist Legality On Trial: The Purge Of The Ukrainian Nkvd, 1938-1943, Reide Petty

Honors Theses

In the winter of 1938, Grigorii Iufa was put on trial in a Soviet court for the violation of socialist legality, a charge alleging that he had manipulated Soviet legal processes and undermined the rule of law during his work. Prior to his arrest, Iufa had worked in the Moldavian division of the NKVD, the Soviet Union’s state security agency. In that capacity, he had played a significant role in the Great Terror, which was a highly concentrated campaign of mass violence conducted by the Soviet Union between 1937-1938 against perceived enemies among its own citizenry. This campaign primarily consisted …

The Christmas Never Forgotten: The Societal Impact Of The Christmas Truce, Michael Facenda

History & Classics Student Scholarship

Michael Facenda ’23
Majors: History and Classics and English
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Osama Siddiqui, History and Classics

This project tells the story of the infamous “Christmas Truce” of 1914 when British, French, and German soldiers fighting in World War I briefly put down their arms and crossed enemy lines to celebrate Christmas together. In particular, the project shows how the Christmas Truce has come to be remembered and depicted in media as an example of transnational solidarity and brotherhood. Drawing on a wide range of sources, such as films, songs, and TV commercials, the project offers an original and striking …

The Buck Stops Somewhere: An Analysis Of Global Governmental Responses To Covid-19, David Roundy

Honors Projects in History and Social Sciences

This study reviews a global sample of noteworthy governmental responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. The coronavirus first discovered in 2019, officially known as SARS-CoV-2, sparked radical change in every country across the globe, but as we enter the post-pandemic era, it is clear that some nations fared better than others when it came to addressing the situation. Some countries were better prepared to handle a viral outbreak before COVID-19 even began to spread, while others were aided by swift and effective leadership to ensure national success in the face of an international dilemma. This study makes use of both qualitative …