History of Gender Commons^™

Going The Distance: How The Disney Renaissance Illustrated The Social And Cultural Changes In America During The 1990s, Deborah A. Bates

Graduate Masters Theses

The cultural and social history of America in the 90s is examined in this thesis by looking at the Disney Renaissance, a period of ten films made by the Walt Disney Animation Studios (WDAS). This thesis illustrates how the animators were able to seamlessly incorporate important societal trends of the 90s into their films, portraying a changing world within their films. As they were creating a new style of the animated movie musical, they were creating works that connected to the audiences watching in new ways, by putting up a reflection of society within their films. The way that the …

Winnie's Feminism: A Tribute To Mama Dr. Winnie Madikizela-Mandela As A Radical Feminist From 1986-2018, Anna Lefatshe Moagi

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

Growing up in South Africa and having read several “tell-all” biographies by influential women have made this researcher aware of the struggles of women to be recognised and valued within their social environments. The many names that come to mind, when speaking of women’s voices that challenged their position in our society, belong to those of struggle veterans such as Adelaide Tambo, Ruth First, Lilian Ngoyi, Albertina Sisulu, Thandi Modise, Baleka Mbethe, Leymah Gbowee, Ruth Mompati, Charlotte Maxeke, Joice Majuru, Thuli Madontsela and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. Their as women leaders roles remain undervalued (Shekhawat 2015). These phenomenal influential women and many …

Regimes Of Pain: Violence, Silence, And The Reproduction Of Power In Indonesia, Andi Achdian, Erna Ermawati Chotim

Jurnal Politik

This article examines political violence in Indonesia as a continuing mode of governance that extends beyond periods of open repression. Focusing on three historical episodes—the mass violence of 1965–1966, militarised rule in Aceh during the Military Operations Zone, and the racialised violence of May 1998—it argues that violence does not disappear after formal repression ends, but is reorganised within everyday life through bodily injury, social silence, fear, and learned endurance. To explain this process, the article develops the concept of regimes of pain, defined as forms of power that produce and normalise bodily suffering in order to sustain political order. …

A History Of The Underground Comix Scene: The Seriousness Of An Unserious Genre, Harris Darcie Shugart

Master's Theses

The Underground Comix Scene of the 1960s and 1970s was born out of an age of censorship. The Comics Code Authority, a regulatory body created by the Comics Magazine Association of America in 1954, established guidelines requiring publishing houses to self-regulate following a recommendation from the United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency in 1953. Comix with an X, for their X-rated nature, represent an emerging counter-culture in the latter half of the 1960s and the 1970s, with an epicenter of San Francisco. These comix and their artists were not interested in obtaining the looming ‘Seal of Approval’ from the …

Gathering Knowledge, Sustaining Science: The Female Forager And American Mushroom Culture, 1880–1930, Madeline S. Dede-Panken

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Unearthing origins of modern mycophilia, this dissertation explores the mushroom mania which reverberated through American society at the turn of the twentieth century, empowering Anglo-American women in new ways. America’s largely forgotten first mushroom fad illuminates gendered negotiations of foraging culture and public science. Beginning in the 1880s, a remarkable cohort of women helped turn mushrooms from shunned, mysterious organisms into wholesome delicacies for culinary and intellectual enrichment. Female enthusiasts fostered a vibrant mushroom culture and nationwide network of mycophiles. Culinary applications and poisoning fears legitimized women’s presence in scientific endeavors, positioning mycology as vital female knowledge for public safety …

From Farewell To Fáilte: The Voices Of Iowa’S Irish Daughters, Katie Hermanson

History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

Irish women’s immigration to Iowa brought rich culture and lasting impacts, despite their contributions being silenced by history. Women left Ireland for economic opportunity and education abroad to support their impoverished families. Millions emigrated between 1830 and 1915, spreading across the world. The Irish women who came to the United States encountered discrimination and cultural stereotyping as they worked in domestic service, developed religious orders, taught school, owned businesses and raised families. Women bore the burden of supporting their families in Ireland by sending remittances home and communicating between countries. Their cultural identity as exiles dwelled in guilt for leaving …

Penitential Systems In The Latin West And Byzantine East, Elijah C. Dodson

Honors Theses

This thesis examines the development and organization of penitential discipline in early medieval Christianity through a comparison of the penitential tradition associated with Theodore of Canterbury in the Latin West and the canons attributed to John the Faster in the Byzantine East. The study focuses on how these texts regulated sexual sin and what their structures reveal about the institutional role of the Church in different historical contexts. The analysis is based on a comparative reading of penitential texts, supported by patristic writings and modern scholarship. By examining how specific categories of sexual misconduct are classified and disciplined, this study …

Res Historica, Volume 5, Alpha Rho Epsilon Phi Alpha Theta, Lindsay Rae Smith Privette Phd

Res Historica

The 2026 journal of historical research by Anderson University students, Res Historica.

The editorial team for this edition of Res Historica was Dr. Lindsay Rae Smith Privette, Julia Ackerman, Callyn Wright, Logan Davis, and John Hinton. Cover art by Mary Beth Lee.

Fashioning The Body Politic: Explorations Of The Political Semiotics Of Fashion In France And England During The French Revolution, Annika F. Gauthier

Scripps Senior Theses

In the midst of the French Revolution, women’s fashion underwent a complete revolution, moving from the multi-layered elaborate gowns of the ancien regime, to light, form-fitting dresses. These gowns reveal the way clothing reflects the political positions of women and the ways the French and the British used clothing to construct national identity and politics. Following research on the political symbolism and role of clothing across France and Britain, this thesis reviews fashion’s overarching connection to politics, revealing its role in the early French Revolution’s conception of women and patriotism, women’s responses to political exclusions, and rival nations’ adaptations of …

“An Extremely Dangerous Institution:” The Cultures And Controversy Of Public Social Dances In Montana, 1900-1930, Danielle Allison Brown

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This paper explores public social dances east of the Continental Divide in Montana from 1900 to 1930. Rural social dances in schoolhouses and urban dances in dance halls created two different dance cultures. The relaxed nature of rural dances preserved the traditional values of nineteenth-century social dances, which reinforced community and family ties. Urban dances reflected the modern fads of the roaring twenties and challenged traditional values with sexual suggestiveness. Progressive Era moral reformers concerned about the possibility that social dance promoted illicit sexuality participated in an anti-dance movement and pushed for regulations of social dances. The anti-dance movement in …

Crafting The Right To Vote, Breana M. Mosher

Knowledge and Creativity Expo

This paper examines how British Suffragists between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries used traditionally feminine domestic crafts as tools of political protest and communication. Excluded from formal political speech and subjected to censorship, violence, and imprisonment, women in the suffrage movement transformed textiles such as banners, posters, embroidery, and postcards into powerful tools of visual propaganda. Through close evaluation of suffrage-era material culture, this paper argues that domestic crafts enabled women to reclaim their voices and publicly expose state violence and political repression. By employing symbolism, color, and slogan-based design, suffragists created a recognizable visual identity that countered …

The Homemaker's Guide To Happiness: A Comparison Of Methods Used By Dissatisfied Mid-Twentieth Century American Housewives In Their Pursuit Of Fulfillment, Kristen Thompson

Graduate Masters Theses

In the mid-twentieth century, the United States of America had an unsung problem.The country had emerged from World War II as a superpower and the high of victory was still fresh, but under the surface the nation was desperately searching for stability to cope with the trauma of war. This search saw a cultural push back to traditional values and gender roles and a heavy focus on the nuclear family as the heart of society. As such, a great amount of pressure was placed on the shoulders of the American housewives who were at the center of the home and …

Opening The Door Of The Celluloid Closet, Melissa Hernandez

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

While watching the documentary, The Celluloid Closet, I was instantly intrigued by how queer people and cinema mixed. Going as far back to the black and white, silent films era, queer people have been used as comedic relief, but not in an appealing way. Constantly being the butt of the joke, disregard for queer people became so normalized that certain tropes started popping up in cinema. One trope that we can still see be used frequently in today’s films is the “bury your gays” trope (also known as the “dead lesbians syndrome”) where queer characters in cinema are not …

Knowing One's Place At The Table: Taste As A Means Of Othering In The American Colonies, 1700-1775, Nicholas Harp

Master's Theses or Doctor of Nursing Practice

This thesis began as an inquiry into a simple question. How did people in the American colonies talk about the food that they ate? This question led to a fascinating look into the social dynamics of the people living in eighteenth century America. Their own personal writings demonstrate how they understood their place in society through the food that they ate. Moreover, they often wrote about the way that other people ate in ways that alienated or discriminated against different ethnic groups. A look into the secondary historiography revealed that other historians had noticed this trend. However, very few addressed …

Investigating The Relationship Between Noun Classes And Plant Folk Taxonomy In Chasu Language Of Kilimanjaro Region In Tanzania, Peter Rabson Mziray

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

The current study investigates the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu (G 22). The study focuses on two objectives: the first objective is to describe the plant folk taxonomy in Chasu and the second objective is to determine the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu. Data were collected from rural villages in Same and Mwanga districts by using free listing, field interviews (jungle-walk-and-identify), and written texts containing Chasu plant names. The findings reveal that Chasu folk taxonomy reflects different ethnobotanical categories; including a unique beginner which is mmea/mimea ‘plant(s)’, and three life …

The Age Of The Sporting, Soaplocks, And Separate Spheres, Mitchell Lohr

The Ozark Historical Review

In the mid-nineteenth century in America a new market economy spurred increasing numbers of people to leave their homes in rural areas in favor of rapidly growing urban areas. This paper investigates the lives of the young men in urban settings and how they impacted American culture at large and the development of the middle-class.

In The Name Of The Mother, The Nation, And The Race: White Women, The Jim Crow South, & Moralized White Supremacist Feminism, Shayna M. Lawson

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis introduces the concept of moralized white supremacist feminism to examine the central role white women played in constructing, legitimizing, and sustaining racial hierarchies in the Jim Crow South through a network of cultural and political organizing, particularly through the United Daughters of the Confederacy and Women’s Ku Klux Klan. Far from passive observers, white women were strategic agents of segregation, leveraging ideals of purity, motherhood, and moral virtue to enforce anti-Black violence and oppression through educational, civic, legal, and symbolic institutions, as well as extra-legal practices. Drawing from archival materials, oral histories, and critical race theory, this study …

Ritual And Revolution: Rethinking Roman Women’S Influence On Religion, Katlin Smith

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This thesis challenges the long-standing portrayal of Roman women as passive figures. Focusing on the mid-to-late Roman Republic and early Empire (264 B.C.E.–180 C.E.), it argues that women were active participants in Roman society, particularly through their engagement in religious life. Drawing on the theory of “lived religion,” this study highlights how religion offered Roman women opportunity to interact with both domestic and public spheres in socially acceptable means. Religion allowed women to exercise influence, power, and autonomy otherwise denied to them in political or legal contexts. Through a combination of textual analysis and material evidence, such as inscriptions and …

Can't Women Kill?: Women, Violence, And Power In Nazi Germany, Kelly Ornelas

History Theses

This thesis examines the role of women as perpetrators of violence within the Nazi apparatus, challenging traditional narratives that depict them as passive supporters or victims of their circumstances. Through a Foucauldian analysis, it explores how ordinary German women were conditioned by Nazi propaganda, manipulated discourses, and social expectations to engage in acts of brutality, often without direct orders. Case studies, including Erna Petri and Ilse Koch illustrate how women actively participated in the mechanisms of state violence without rank or official status, raising critical questions about complicity and moral responsibility. This study interrogates the bounds of guilt, arguing that …

A Tale Of Two Women, Cassady Brown

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

“Mimicking Straights”: The Legacy Of Conservatism In Homophile Activism, 1950-60s, Brock Manasseri

History Undergraduate Honors Theses

In this thesis I explore historical misconceptions about the homophile movement that was active during the sixties and 1950s. Scholarly narratives have borrowed Gay Liberation’s perspective that narrowly defined homophiles as conservative, respectable, and tied to gendered roles. This representation only reflects the ideas of leadership, rather than the membership. Homophiles were a highly diverse group of people, both intellectually and demographically. Assumptions about their politics and practices began in straight society but did come to be repeated by their critics. In truth, homophiles included radicals and conservatives and their publications served as the stage on which to debate the …

Pedro Aceves Mfa Thesis, Pedro M. Aceves

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

My Work is about looking at Cruising through a queer decolonial lens. Using multiple mediums such as photo, glass, Augmented reality, and film, I explore these queer histories and aesthetics through not just an anthropological approach but also an artistic epistemological approach weaving together narratives of prehispanic and modern queer Latinidad.

Race, Sex Work, And Spatial Segregation In Storyville, New Orleans, Paige M. Magoto

All Theses

Storyville, New Orleans, operated as a legalized vice district from 1897 to 1917. This 38-block area facilitated sex work and prostitution “across the color line,” perpetuating and encouraging the practice of white men seeking sexual acts from Black women and women of mixed-race descent. I engage with multiple interacting subsections of historiography within this thesis project. The historiography spans Southern history from the early nineteenth century in the Old Antebellum South until the early twentieth century in the Progressive Era. The broader historiographic dimensions of labor and sexuality were also influential in curating this research project, engaging with the evolving …

The Rise And Fall Of The Contagious Diseases Acts: An Examination Of The Legislative Influences, Medical Discourse And Repeal Arguments, Elizabeth Henderson

All Theses

The Contagious Diseases Acts (CDA) were the most important legislative intervention concerning sexuality in the nineteenth century. The CDA was a public health measure passed to address the spread of venereal disease amongst the British Army and Navy, and targeted Britain's most vulnerable women – sex workers – because they were blamed for being the presumed cause and primary mode of spreading venereal disease. This resulted in the legalization of what critics of the CDA would call surgical assault, or instrumental rape, of working-class women suspected of being sex workers. Historians who study sexuality and sex work in Britain have …

From Tragedy To Triumph: Maine’S Lgbtq+ History (1984-2005), Aidan King '25

All Student Scholarship

Maine’s LGBTQ+ history may be very rich, but true acceptance was an uphill battle. For decades, queer residents of Maine fought for equal rights in the state. The Stonewall riots in 1969 in New York City were an early sign that LGBTQ+ citizens were not going to continue to let their identities be suppressed, but as the years progressed, so too did the confidence of queer people to be open about their identities, including in Maine. In 1973, at the University of Maine, the Wilde-Stein Club was established, to the deep chagrin of homophobic fundamentalist preachers whose protests against the …

'No Nose Club': The Quackish Consumption Of Pox Care In Long Eighteenth-Century England., Sasha Jones

Madison Historical Review

(World History) This article explores the rise of non-institutional syphilis care in eighteenth-century England and the growing popularity of the barbershop as a centre of pox care among middle-class men. It argues that middle-class pox sufferers sought out the barbershop as a primary location of health care because of the invasive treatments offered by physicians at institutional centers of pox care – including those offered in private offices. The social stigma that was associated with syphilis also encouraged middle-class men to seek pox treatment at the barbershop, since its location in bustling downtown entertainment districts and its reputation as a …

Freedom Lyrics, Lily Allan

The Civil Rights Movement (HIS/BLS 347) Zine Project

No abstract provided.

Res Historica, Volume 4, Lynneth Miller Renberg Phd, Alpha Rho Epsilon Phi Alpha Theta

Res Historica

The 2025 journal of historical research by Anderson University students, Res Historica.

The editorial team for this edition of Res Historica was Dr. Lynneth Miller Renberg, Samuel Sanders, and Julia Ackerman. The cover art for this volume is an open access image.

Under The Veil: Women's Head Coverings In Tudor England, Savannah Toth

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

This thesis seeks to discover and analyze the agency and meaning of the role of women’s head coverings and veils within the context of Tudor Christianity, society, and the fashion world of English culture. By observing the usage of the veil through various lenses, this thesis examines the nuance of the veil as an object and actor in Tudor society that enables yet prohibits personal choice for women. This research uses various sources such as Tudor paintings and portraits, surviving pieces of garments, and written accounts to paint a picture of the impact and significance the veil had in every …

Uncovering Maria Edgeworth’S Strategic Political Influence Through Her Unpublished Letters, Autumn G. Hall

Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at The University of Tennessee

Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849) was one of the most prolific Anglo-Irish novelists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. While Edgeworth’s novels are regularly discussed among Regency-era scholars, researchers have rarely considered her letters and correspondence, especially in relation to her role in contemporary politics. During my time on the Maria Edgeworth Letters Project team, I researched Edgeworth’s previously unpublished letters, which provided a unique view of her strategic political correspondence network. Through her writing, Edgeworth was able to voice her thoughts while also remaining publicly complacent with restrictive societal norms imposed on women. In my article, I argue that through her …