History Commons^™

The Octofoil, April/May/June 2021, Ninth Infantry Division Association

The Octofoil

The Octofoil is the offical publication of the Ninth Infantry Division Association, Inc., an organization formed by the officers and men of the 9th Infantry Division in order to perpetuate the memory of fallen comrades, preserve the esprit de corps of the Division, promote peace and serve as an information bureau about the 9th Infantry Division. The Association is made up of 9th Infantry veterans from WWII and Vietnam, spouses, widows and lineal descendants.

Fools’ Gold: Racism, Social Mobility, And Native Americans During The Gold Rush, Natasha Stange

Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History

By the mid-1850s, more than 300,000 individuals had migrated to California, as the discovery of gold tempted many to abandon their poor working and living conditions for the chance to “strike it rich” out west. Often considered the dawn of a new era with boundless opportunities and riches for anyone, the rapid, widespread transcontinental migration spurred by the Gold Rush replicated and exacerbated pre-existing societal issues—namely racism, mistreatment of Indians, and unequal economic opportunity—in the United States. Racism, maltreatment of Native Americans, and unequal economic opportunity are all problems that have plagued American society from its inception. By failing to …

Grand Valley Magazine, Vol. 20, No. 4, Spring 2021, Grand Valley State University

Grand Valley Magazine

Grand Valley Magazine is a quarterly publication about Grand Valley State University produced by University Communications since 2001.

"The Glare And Glitter Of That Fashionable Resort": Newport, Rhode Island As Ward Mcallister Found It, Emily Elizabeth Parrow

Masters Theses

As late nineteenth century New York City’s premier social arbiter, Ward McAllister was one of the most controversial and well-known figures of the Gilded Age. In the turbulent years following the Civil War, he helped codify an otherwise elusive definition of American high society in an era marked by conspicuous spending and an ever-growing gap between the rich and poor. His influence also extended beyond New York, paralleling and contributing to the physical and social transformation of Newport, Rhode Island. Once a thriving port city and participant in the Triangle Trade, Newport experienced a fifty-year period of stagnation following the …

“You Never Get It Out Of Your Bones”: The Christ-Haunted Security Of Jean Louise “Scout” Finch In Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird And Go Set A Watchman, Corley E. Humphrey

Masters Theses

Harper Lee’s novels To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman emphasize the struggle of mid-twentieth century Southern identity as Southerners searched for security, and she does so particularly in her main character, Jean Louise “Scout” Finch. Throughout the novels, Jean Louise fights to find a balance within herself as she learns to decide what to accept or reject from her Southern culture. Using New Historicism and Southern Female Gender Studies, this thesis analyzes the character development of Jean Louise “Scout” in the novels and the traits she consistently accepts—discrimination and respect, honor of family, grace—and the ones she …

La Voz Spring 2021, El Instituto: Institute Of Latina/O, Caribbean, And Latin American Studies

La Voz

In this issue:

• Conference Brings Cuba Scholars to UConn
• Performance Art in the Crossfire
• An Evening with Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
• Jesús Ramos-Kittrell Wins AAUP Teaching Innovation Award
• Alumni Contribute to State Latinx History Curriculum Initiative
• New Study: School Employees Help Farmworker Families Access Health Care

This Land Is Their Land, Char Miller

Eastern Sierra History Journal

An 1891 petition to the United States government from the Indigenous people of the Yosemite Valley in the central Sierras offers a blistering indictment of the settler-colonial expropriation of their homeland and a counter narrative to conservationists who have debated for more than a century the impact of flooding the Hetch Hetchy Valley to provide water to San Francisco.

Investigating The Prevailing Worldviews Of American Public Education: A Brief Analysis And History, Chester Walker

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis investigates whether the philosophies and worldviews underlying U.S. public education contradict or purposefully undermine Biblical Christianity. It provides readers with an understanding of the Biblical Christian worldview to enable them to analyze and contrast prominent worldviews of public education. Pragmatism and Marxism run rampant in public education today. Both strongly oppose fundamental tenets of the Biblical Christian worldview. To determine any purposeful anti-Christian agenda, the author examines the men behind the worldviews. Christianity maintains that ideas and practices in education originate from deeply-held, personal beliefs, which are passed on to students. Education is a means of discipleship to …

The Stars Kept Shining: The Wartime Diary Of Esther Mathilda Sørensen, Larisa C. Neilson

Senior Honors Theses

In fulfillment of the Liberty University Honors Department Thesis requirement, the following is a creative thesis in the form of an historical fiction novella diary, written in the first person. The story follows the life of Esther, a young Danish woman, as she navigates what it means to be a Jew in World War II era Europe. Though the characters are fictional, the story presents possible real-life experiences for a person living during this time.

The style of this novella is popular among middle and high school teachers and can be an important teaching tool as it is an engaging …

Franz Delitzsch, The Jewish Jesus, And The Pattern Of History: A Nineteenth-Century Dialogue About Christians And Jews In Germany, Shelby Frank Myers

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Representations Of Slavery At Louisiana Plantation Museums: Observations And Proposals For Change, Madeline Tinsley

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Rosenwald Practice School Conditions Assessment, Mary Bindas

Historic Preservation Final Projects

This project will result in a conditions assessment report of the historic Practice School on the campus of Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina. The conditions assessment report will analyze current building conditions and provide recommendations for the building rehabilitation. Recommendations will align with The Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties Guidelines. The Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties Guidelines are principles set forth by the United States Department of Interior. The guidelines aim to educate on appropriate methods to preserve historic architectural materials to retain defining architectural features. …

Amer 200: American History And Culture, Cuny School Of Professional Studies

Open Educational Resources

Explores race, class, and gender in American history and culture. Secondary source material by scholars of American Studies and primary source materials in a variety of genres, including music, poetry, art, and material culture, convey the ways in which American culture has been shaped by and has helped to shape ideas of race, class, and gender.

The Sultan Of Constantinople And The Caliph Of Baghdad: Military Composition And Centralized Power In The Muslim World, 749–1800, Peter Del Rosso

Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History

This paper strives to examine the beginnings of first the Abbasid armed forces beginning with the fall of the Umayyad Caliphate in 749 AD, in order to understand the main recruitment patterns, regions, ethnicities, and incentives for recruitment; a study of the initial Ottoman military will be conducted in order to showcase the differences between the two, as well as to suggest why the Ottomans enjoyed a supremacy which the Abbasids never held for an extended amount of time.

Irish Rock Music Amid A Time Of Troubles: Thin Lizzy And U2 As A Bridge During A Time Of Division, Jacey L. Thomas

Honors College Theses

The Troubles were a period of crisis and violence in Ireland in the latter half of the twentieth century. Loyalists, Unionists, Republicans, and Nationalists brutally fought against each other over the issue of whether or not Northern Ireland should remain in the United Kingdom or join the Republic of Ireland to form one united country. The conflict also resulted in ethnic and religious tensions for many Protestants and Catholics who were compelled to choose sides over this issue, owing to their ties to the deep-rooted history of animosity between the two Christian populations. As a result, the Troubles, which lasted …

L’Émergence D’Une Monarchie Française Indépendante, 1100-1314 : Le Rejet De La Suprématie Papale, Kent Mcneil

Articles & Book Chapters

The struggle between the Pope and secular rulers of Western Europe for political supremacy was a dominant theme in the medieval world. The kings of France and England in particular asserted their authority and independence, leading to the development of nation states. This form of political organization was standardized in Europe in 1648 by the Peace of Westphalia and exported to the rest of the world through colonialism. This article tells the story of the power struggle between the Pope and the kings of France, from which the kings emerged victorious, contributing to the creation of the modern world.

The Shields Family: A Dichotomy Of Race In Us Society Through Two Family Lines, Joseph C. Platt

Methods of Historical Research: Spring 2021 (Archived)

The history of the Shields families of North and South Carolina, beginning with William Bryant Shields Sr. and Moses Shields respectively, offer dichotomous responses to American racial hierarchies over the decades. Generations of race mixing within the Shields family has its roots in the sons of Irish immigrants pursuing relationships with enslaved women. The one-sided nature of the power dynamic in these relationships takes on different dimensions in the lives of the mixed-race children of William Bryant Shields Sr. and the lives of Moses’ son, Henry Wells Shields, Henry’s slave Melvinia Shields, and her children. Both family lines take efforts …

Archives Magazine, 2021, Jamie Klaum, Matthew Bandy, Jessica Licker, Rebecca Mcclaine, Gabe Olah, Laura Ramsey, Joseph Smith, Pualani Wilder

Kutztown University Archives

Issue #2, Spring 2021

"Eugenics Is Euphemism”:The American Eugenics Movement, The Cultural Law Of Progress, And Its International Connections & Consequences, Bessie Sue Blackburn

Masters Theses

While often hidden under the guise of race betterment in both a scientific and even moral sense, eugenics was a bioethical movement that captivated many at the turn of the 19th century and through the Progressive Era—which was defined by a crisis of identity in the American mind. Sir Francis Galton, the coiner of the term "eugenics," predicted that this science would first infiltrate academia, then become a practical concern, and finally enter into the conscience as a new religion. This thesis examines this prophecy through the lens of the Scopes Monkey Trial, Carrie Buck's case, and the later horrors …

Looking Beyond Binaries: How Native Activists Create Decolonized Futures, Sam Guido

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Native people in the United States and Canada have been resisting settler colonialism for as long as settlers have tried to impose it upon them. That activism has been continuous across centuries; however, sometimes that overall narrative has been lost due to the imposition of settler perspectives that constrain Native activism. Recent Native activist movements in the United States and Canada such as the anti-Keystone Pipeline protests and Idle No More received a lot of attention from both the public and the media, but there was an impulse to define these movements within binary categories like “male or female” or …

Muscogiana Vol. 32(1), Spring 2021, Mike Bunn

Muscogiana

A journal of the Muscogee Genealogical Society.

Polarization: A 21st Century Challenge To Global Democracy, Tim Biocic

Political Science Theses and Capstones

The purpose of this paper is to identify the issue of political polarization as it relates not only to American politics, but also to see how the issues in political polarization that exist in the United States are also experienced in other democracies around the world. The paper takes a look at what some of the different theories are about where polarization originates, who some of the leading scholars are in the debate over polarization, what institutional mechanisms contribute to the problem of polarization, and then finally what polarization looks like elsewhere in the world.

When it comes to the …

Aerial Terror: The Shift In American Daylight Bombing Over Europe During World War Ii, Joseph Sullivan

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

In the final two years of the Second World War, the United States abandoned daylight precision bombing for terror bombing. During the interwar years, the United States cited international norms and laws to speak out against unjust air attacks by Germany and Japan. Even during the United States’ period of neutrality, President Franklin Roosevelt criticized Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union for their tactics. But, as the war dragged on, the ferocity and persistence of the Nazis forced the United States to change their approach to strategic bombing. With fewer military industrial targets remaining and Allied casualties rising, the US …

Re-Thinking Pandemics: State, Society, And Disease In British History, 1830-1960, Meghan Walsh

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

Written during the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper began in an attempt to understand why, after 100 years since the most devasting pandemic in modern history, the world was faced with yet another, but more importantly how people responded to this new normal. In order to understand better how society today responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, we need to know the past and see what has emerged with each new pandemic. For the purpose of this thesis, I examine the cholera epidemics of 1831-1866, the 1918 influenza pandemic, and the polio epidemics of the mid-twentieth century in British history. The thesis …

Waning Imperium: Valentinian I’S Projection Of Power, Philip Piscopo

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

In my thesis, I argue that the reign of Valentinian I (364-375) was marked by two main themes. First, as the founder of a new dynasty, Valentinian was obsessed with legitimizing his reign and safeguarding it for future generations. Second, because of poor subordinates and poor communication, he was unable to adequately govern the provinces leading to instability and chaos.

I worked to add two aspects to the scholarly discussion of Valentinian’s reign. Most scholars have individually pointed out that it was important for Valentinian to cement his legitimacy and budding dynasty. I show that this was not merely an …

Reagan’S State Of Grace: J. Peter Grace And The Effort To Cut Government Expense At The Public’S Expense, Kevin Michels

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

Ronald Reagan’s ideological basis in neoliberalism and the difficulties with cutting out programs to which the citizenry had grown accustomed prompted him to change the narrative on government expenditures, focusing on the rooting out of wasteful and inefficient government agencies and programs as a means by which to lower taxes. In doing so, Reagan created a private sector survey for cost control that placed the responsibility of identifying such waste and inefficiencies under the purview of J. Peter Grace and the private sector—a group of corporate businessmen who shared Reagan’s deregulatory ideology yet were accountable to their own shareholders rather …

Bringing “Justice To Every Man’S Door”: John Jay’S Struggle To Build The Supreme Court, Sean Gray

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

In December of 1800, as his presidency concluded and he became desperate for the Federalists to maintain power, John Adams nominated John Jay for a second term as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Days later, Jay unequivocally rejected the job. “I left the bench,” he responded, “perfectly convinced that under a system so defective, it would not obtain the energy, weight, and Dignity which are essential to its affording due support to the national government, nor acquire the public confidence and respect, which, as the last resort of the justice of the nation, it should possess.” Adams then nominated …

Spymaster Of Setauket: The Impact Of Benjamin Tallmadge And The Culper Spy Ring On The American Revolution, Kyle Burgess

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

Despite the staunch support that British occupiers enjoyed in New York and Long Island amongst Anglicans, there still remained plenty of citizens whose disdain for their new overseers provided Tallmadge with a large pool to recruit agents. In Patriot super spy Benjamin Tallmadge’s home of Suffolk County, Presbyterians endured an oppressive occupation at the hands of the British Army as many became wartime refugees following the destruction of their farms. This made many of them eager participants in Tallmadge’s schemes and some would even accompany Tallmadge on his whaleboat raids. Although none of these skirmishes proved decisive in tipping the …

Warhorses Amongst War Machines: The German Army's Use Of Horses And Cavalry During World War Ii, Katherine V. Mcfarland

Senior Theses

This thesis explores the role of the horse as used by the German Army throughout the Second World War. Contrary to the propagandic image of a mechanized Germany and of the blitzkrieg, the reality of warfare at the time remained primarily dependent on the horse, as man and beast continued to engage in conflict side by side. Horses served a variety of uses within the German forces, from mounted cavalry to hauling artillery, with disasters and successes throughout the war. Employing vast numbers of horses, the Germans allocated extensive resources, and often found themselves relying on the animal when vehicles …

A Comparative Analysis Of Political Climates In Lithuania, Poland, And Ireland In The Early 1900s Related To Us Immigration And Media Culture, Annelise Silkaitis

Senior Theses

This thesis explores the process and experience of Lithuanian, Irish, and Polish immigrants during the late 1800s and early 1900s, as well as the role of media, specifically newspapers and books, in creating the representation and portrayal of these immigrant groups. These different ethnic groups left Europe for a variety of reasons, mainly economic and political, and sought a better life in the United States. Upon arrival, each group struggled with the Americanization process, learning English, building connections, and forming a new society. Although some immigrant groups formed stronger networks and communities upon arrival, each group faced poverty and discrimination. …