Political History Commons^™

Envisioning The Italian Mediterranean Fascist Policy In Steamship Publicity, 1922-1942, Maura Elise Hametz

History Faculty Publications

Depictions of the Mediterranean Sea figured prominently in steamship lines' publicity during the years of Fascist rule in Italy. These images of the sea promoted and publicized Italian foreign policy aims and aspirations as they shifted over the years from 1922 to 1942. At the same time, the images' emphasis on Italy's maritime heritage provided a rallying point for Italian national identity. Mussolini's government used Italian associations with the Mediterranean to foster a national as opposed to regional consciousness and to project abroad a vision of a culturally-unified and powerful Italy.

The Italian people long for the Mediterranean, ... the …

Cold War Games And Postwar Art, Claudia Mesch

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

During the Cold War both “superpowers” used games, particularly chess, in order to construct an ideology of complete conflict and irreconcilable division between East and West. This essay focuses on the broad cultural challenge to divisive Cold War zero-sum mentality issued by a number of artists—André Breton, Marcel Duchamp and Öyvind Fahlström, and Fluxus artists George Maciunas, George Brecht, Robert Watts, Takako Saito and Yoko Ono. These artists, in a second wave of game-focused art, returned to the concerns of surrealist art practice and to earlier cultural game theory. Even conceptual art production was impacted by the predetermined structure of …

The Sharper Image: Bringing Irish Nationalist Identity Into Focus, 1880-1923, Meghan M. Ferriter

History Theses & Dissertations

From 1880 to 1923, Irish nationalists created and sustained an independent cultural identity shaped by external and internal forces. British political cartoons reveal key external cultural perceptions of the Irish, while Irish nationalist writings endorse internal concepts of character and project political aims. Irish nationalists present an uninterrupted internal identity in pursuit of autonomy. Images published in Punch, or the London Charivari, provide external factors of identity that evolve from exaggerated threat to trivial concern while the nationalist political demands they represent escalate.

Identity is the product of complex interaction and compromise between external and internal definitions. Individuals …

Austrian Patriots And German Nationalists: Political Radicalism And Austrian Identity In Fin-De-Siècle Vienna, Scott O. Moore

History Theses & Dissertations

The political atmosphere of the last decades of the Austrian Empire is often characterized by the outbreak of radical political movements. These movements were sharply critical of the political, social, and economic developments which resulted from the state's transition into a modern, industrial society. Two of these movements, the Christian Socialist Party, led by Dr. Karl Lueger, and the Pan-German Nationalist Party, led by Georg von Schonerer, became notable for their use of anti-Semitism as a means of vocalizing these criticisms. While these two groups were contemporaries, Lueger's Christian Socialist's achieved unparalleled success, dominating Viennese politics by 1900; and Schonerer's …

Tea Trade, Consumption, And The Republican Paradox In Prerevolutionary Philadelphia, Jane T. Merritt

History Faculty Publications

Discusses the politics of the tea trade and tea consumption in late colonial Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, through the views of tea merchants and political radicals in America. The emergence of global trade had stripped tea of its luxury status, as its price continually dropped over the early 18th century. Smuggled tea from Dutch sources lowered prices further, enabling many to boycott British tea without hardship. Tea merchants decried the boycott for economic reasons while boycott leaders sought to gain the moral high ground by re-infusing tea with luxury status. Such was the status when the 1773 Tea Act placed a small …

Review Of Time For Revolution, By Antonio Negri, John Conley

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

No abstract provided.

"Those Who Can Suffer The Most": Cultural And Religious Symbols Within Irish Republican Prison Protests, Betsy L. Morgan-Cutright

History Theses & Dissertations

Hunger striking was a powerful weapon used by the Irish Republican Army throughout the twentieth century. This study will attempt to answer the question of which specific symbols were visible during the prison protests and hunger strikes in Northern Ireland from 1976 to 1981. It will also address how such symbols relate to the cult of Irish Republican martyrdom and Catholicism.

Several symbols manifested themselves during this time period. Upon examination, a pattern emerges where two overriding yet contradictory themes were used far more frequently than any other. These two themes were those of traditional Irish Republicanism and Irish Catholicism, …

Fueling And Fortifying The Foundational Machinery: Religious Necessity And Enlightened Republicanism In America's Founding, Jennifer L. Dyar

History Theses & Dissertations

The debate over the role of religion in the Revolution and Founding of America continues to rage despite years of fruitless wrangling. The obvious influence of Enlightenment thought on these events has led many historians to focus exclusively upon reason's authority, abandoning consideration of religion as a substantive force entirely and concluding it to be incompatible with Enlightenment ideology. Reason and religion, however, were neither incompatible nor mutually exclusive in the Founding. In both their revolutionary struggle for independence and their erection of a governmental framework, the Founders unquestionably utilized Enlightenment rhetoric and reason. This alone, though, was insufficient firs …

Bolshevism And The Avant-Garde: Marxist Ideology And The Aesthetics Of Soviet Film, 1923-28, Garrett H. Booker

History Theses & Dissertations

When Eisenstein's Strike burst onto the cultural scene in 1925, Soviet cinema began a creative odyssey that left to posterity a brilliant collection of films that redefined the manner in which audiences viewed them. Not only was the form of these films dynamic and innovative, but their content captured the heroic actions of a new historical subject, the revolutionary proletariat. As the Soviet State assumed control over the production of films, politics imprinted its indelible mark on the content of these films, especially as Stalin tightened his grip over all aspects of artistic life. The author of this project will …

The Catholic Church In The Nicaraguan Revolution: Interdependence And Social Movements, Eric W. Frith

History Theses & Dissertations

In July 1979, Anastasio Somoza Garcia fled Nicaragua, signaling the beginning of a true revolution, in every sense of the word. The triumph of the Nicaraguan Revolution hinged primarily on the development of a broad-based opposition coalition that included workers, peasants, the bourgeoisie and conservative upper-classes, students, and Catholic Christians. For centuries the Catholic Church in Nicaragua had maintained a mutually supportive relationship with the State. In the mid-1960s, however, a social movement began to sweep through the Church at the grassroots, causing the foundations of the Church-State relationship to shift dramatically. This social movement manifested itself in a common …

The Anaconda's Head: The U.S. Consular Service In British North America, 1861-1866, Myron Becker

History Theses & Dissertations

Although the story of how Confederates attempted to spur rebellion in the North during the Civil War has been the subject of historical research, virtually nothing has been published about the work of Northern operatives in Canada during the period 1861-1866. Extensive research in the Library of Congress, the National Archives, and the Royal Canadian Archives and Library demonstrates that a team of U.S. Consuls and detectives led by David 8. Thurston thwarted Confederate efforts to launch those insurrections. The Southern strategy was to create so much havoc that the Union would negotiate a peace that would preserve the Confederacy. …

The Virginia Conservative Party, 1965-1969, Gerald Paul Gaidmore Iii

History Theses & Dissertations

This study examines the Virginia Conservative Party of the 1960's. The party was founded in 1965 as a protest against the increasing liberalism in Virginia and national politics. Dedicated to providing voters an alternative to the two major parties, the Conservative Party participated in every major state election from 1965 to 1969. Although failing to win any statewide election, the Conservatives played a significant role in Virginia politics during the 1960's. Paradoxically, the Virginia Conservative Party contributed to the demise of the conservative Democratic Byrd Organization by refusing to support conservative Democrats. Subsequent internal disputes over the party's action in …

Henri Iv As Military Commander, Terence W. Loveridge

History Theses & Dissertations

Henri IV won the throne of France as a feat of arms in a time of great social, religious, economic and military transformation. Militarily, Henri has generally been regarded as a gallant, opportunistic and lucky cavalry commander whose remarkable sense of timing and flexible personal principles enabled him to play a major role in the ending of the Wars of Religion in France. Current debate over the "Military Revolution" of the sixteenth century and the "Revolution in Military Affairs" of the twentieth has renewed interest in both the characters and the techniques of warfare in transformation.

New approaches to military …

Wei Jingsheng And The Democracy Movement In Post-Mao China, Merle David Kellerhals Jr.

Institute for the Humanities Theses

The hypothesis tested in this thesis was whether there has been an evident evolution in the democratic thought of those engaged in China's Democracy Movement in the post-Mao era. The activists of the Democracy Movement of 1978-79, following a long-standing tradition of remonstrance, were among those substantially influenced by the events of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The activists initiated big character posters on Democracy Walls throughout China--but among the most influential was Beijing's. Wei Jingsheng, though certainly not the only voice, represented the more vocal and extreme democratic position in his wall poster The Fifth Modernization: Democracy, which first …

Southern Strategies, James R. Sweeney

History Faculty Publications

From the mid-1960's, Virginia Republicans, in tune with President Richard Nixon's active "Southern strategy," revived party fortunes in the state by capitalizing on the ongoing degeneration of Virginia Senator Harry F. Byrd, Sr.'s powerful conservative Democratic organization and the factionalization of the state Democratic Party. Republican Abner Linwood Holton, Jr., solidly carried the 1969 gubernatorial election. In the 1970 senatorial election Independent Harry Flood Byrd, Jr., defeated Republican Ray Lucian Garland and Democrat George Rawlings. Senator Byrd, Jr., had enjoyed Nixon's "benevolent neutrality," but never did join the Republican Party as the president had hoped; in office he voted with …

A Segregationist On The Civil Rights Commission, James R. Sweeney

History Faculty Publications

In 1957 President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed to the newly created Commission on Civil Rights John Stewart Battle, a former longtime Virginia General Assembly member and governor who was also a staunch segregationist. Eisenhower appointed him to represent white Southern opinion and because of his national reputation for deft political conciliation. The article reviews Battle's personal background, political career, racial philosophy, and interactions with other figures prominent in the era's civil rights politics, including Father Theodore Martin Hesburgh, Harry F. Byrd, Sr., and J. Lindsay Almond, Jr. During his service on the commission during 1957-59, Battle's segregationist views kept him …

The United State Government Versus John Harrison Surratt: A Study In Attitudes, Thomas Michael Martin

History Theses & Dissertations

The same day on which accused Abraham Lincoln murder conspirator Mary Eugenia Surratt was arrested at her Washington, D.C. boardinghouse, her son and alleged co-conspirator, John Harrison Surratt, was in a small town in northern New York. The arrest of the widow Surratt, however, marks the first of a series of points of departure between the destinies of the mother and the son. She was destined to follow a path from arrest to trial and execution by means of a military commission created by the War Department. John's circuitous route from trans-Atlantic flight to extradition, trial, and dismissal by a …

The Atlantic Conference At Argentia (9-12 August 1941) The Anglo-American Agreement On The Defeat Of Nazi Germany, John Michael Sweeney

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

The meeting at Argentina, Newfoundland, between Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt in August 1941 was the first "summit" conference of the Second World War. It set the stage for the United States' entry into the war on the side of Great Britain and produced the Atlantic Charter, the noble statement of Western war aims. This study describes how the Nazi threat to England and the Atlantic brought the two democracies together into a de facto alliance before the United States formally entered the war. Its central theme is the "strategy of provocation" whereby President Roosevelt, certain …

The Ottoman Reaction To The Annexation Of Bosnia-Herzegovina In 1908 By Austria-Hungary, Yücel Yanikdağ

History Theses & Dissertations

This thesis investigates the reaction of the Ottoman Government and people to the annexation of Bosnia- Herzegovina in 1908. The people organized a boycott of Austro-Hungarian goods and services. The Government, under the Grand Vizierate of Kamil Pasha, was able to use the boycott and the support of the other Powers to drive a hard bargain with Austria. In the end, Austria paid T£2,500,000 and offered economic concessions in return for the Ottoman recognition of the annexation. This study makes use of published German, Austrian, British, and Turkish documents as well as unpublished archival documents.

A New Day In The Old Dominion, James R. Sweeney

History Faculty Publications

The presidential campaign of 1964 became a significant turning point in Virginia politics as the 24th Amendment eliminated poll taxes, black political organizations organized voter registration drives, and suburbanites, newcomers, and recent college graduates were attracted to the Republican Party. Republican candidates had made strong showings in elections in 1962 and 1963, due in part to the policies of the Kennedy administration. Democratic Senator Harry F. Byrd, Sr., publicly opposed many of the fiscal and social policies of the Kennedy-Johnson administration, creating difficulty among Republicans in choosing someone to oppose him. His position also created a rift among pro- and …

A Historiographical Survey Of The Assassination Of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Ottie Jackson Moore Jr.

History Theses & Dissertations

This study examines the three decades of literature produced in the investigation of the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. With the publication of the Warren Commission Report in 1964, the federal government concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of President Kennedy and the wounding of Governor John Connally of Texas. Within two years several books were published which openly criticized this finding and created feelings of suspicion among the public which prevail to this day. This thesis will use a variety of primary and secondary sources to analyze the investigation of President Kennedy's death. In …

Urban Identity And Transitional Politics: The Transformation Of Political Allegiance Inside Amiens Before And After The City's 1594 Capitulation To Henry Iv, Annette S. Finley-Croswhite

History Faculty Publications

Examines the reasons for the rise and fall of the Catholic League in Amiens, France, between 1588 and 1594. The league was a powerful group of wealthy lawyers, merchants, and churchmen opposed to the king concerned over the loss of urban privileges, regional loyalties, and the presence of the king's clients within the city. In 1594 the city capitulated to Henry IV, marking the beginning of the league's decline.

The Defenders Of State Sovereignty And Individual Liberties, 1954 - 1967, David Pembroke Neff

History Theses & Dissertations

This study examines the Defenders of State Sovereignty and Individual Liberties from 1954 to 1967. By 1956, the Defenders were the most powerful segregationist organization in the state of Virginia. Dedicated to preserving segregation in Virginia, especially in regards to the state's public schools, the Defenders greatly influenced the Byrd Organization and the Virginia General Assembly on massive resistance legislation from 1954 until 1959. Some historians have suggested that the Defenders had "Complete and full control of the Political Machinery of the state" in regards to massive resistance. This thesis uses a variety of sources to provide an analytical overview …

Francis Gildart Ruffin: A Jeffersonian Agrarian In The Old South And New Virginia, 1816 - 1892, R. Allen Brahin

History Theses & Dissertations

For over forty years, Francis "Frank" Gildart Ruffin derived his livelihood from slave labor and agricultural pursuits. Like Jefferson, Ruffin believed that the nation should be based on the industry of small farmers. Once the Civil War began, he served the Confederacy on the staff of the Commissary Department. Following the war, Ruffin actively engaged in politics in the Old Dominion, though he never sought office. He became associated with the "Readjuster" party in Virginia. Its goal was to readjust or reduce the state's debt, which was to be particularly beneficial to farmers. Ruffin was an original Readjuster, but later …

Many Voices, Similar Concerns: Traditional Methods Of African-American Political Activity In Norfolk, Virginia, 1865-1875, Michael Hucles

History Faculty Publications

African-Americans in postbellum Norfolk, Virginia, as elsewhere, knew that merely gaining freedom through government action--the Confiscation Acts, Emancipation Proclamation, and Thirteenth Amendment--did not guarantee that they would be fairly treated. They therefore attempted to gain control of their lives through a vigorous affirmation of their rights. They began to record their antebellum marriages and normalize family relations, obtain an education, establish a base for economic prosperity, and participate in the political process. Through these actions they hoped to give true meaning to their freedom. Unfortunately, they were not always successful in their attempts.

J. Robert Oppenheimer And His Role In The Development Of The United States Nuclear Weapons Policy 1945-1953, Craig M. Harris

History Theses & Dissertations

J. Robert Oppenheimer played a highly visible role in the development of nuclear weapons policy for the United States. He was very influential in President Harry S. Truman's Administration after the Second World War. Following the Soviet Union's first atomic bomb blast in August 1949, Oppenheimer became out of step with those who made nuclear weapons policy. He continued to give advice on disarmament issues. In 1953, the first year of Dwight D. Eisenhower's Administration, Oppenheimer questioned the utility of the Superpower's nuclear arms build up, particularly the hydrogen bomb, while leaving the American people ignorant of the impact such …

Whispers In The Golden Silence: Harry F. Byrd, Sr., John F. Kennedy, And Virginia Democrats In The 1960 Presidential Election, James R. Sweeney

History Faculty Publications

In the election of 1960, Richard M. Nixon carried Virginia, the third consecutive victory for a Republican ticket in the strongly Democratic state. Senator Harry F. Byrd, Sr., the conservative Democratic power broker of Virginia, maintained what became known as a "golden silence," failing to endorse John F. Kennedy and privately working to ensure Nixon's victory. Byrd's stance angered many state Democrats, and by 1964 they broke the senator's power over the party, passing a resolution endorsing President Lyndon B. Johnson over Byrd's objections.

The U.S. Army And The Development Of The Rok Army: 1945-1950, Charles M. Ayers

History Theses & Dissertations

When the Korean War began in June 1950, the South Korean Army was unprepared and was unable to cope with the forces from the North. This study seeks to determine whether the decisions made by the US Army as to the building of the Republic of Korea (ROK) Army during the period from 1945 to 1950 were appropriate in regard to the political and strategic situation in the Korean peninsula. The study approaches the problem by examining us documents and other archival material concerning the Army's policies toward Korea, how these policies were developed and executed, and what effect they …

Party Politics During The Compromise Crisis: The Virginia Congressional Elections Of 1849 And 1851, Jodi Lee Bennett Koste

History Theses & Dissertations

The Second American Party System developed in Virginia from the factions contesting the presidency between 1824 and 1840. Following its formation, Virginia voters adopted party allegiances and regularly supported their party in the various local, state and national elections. These voting patterns began to change with the elections of the compromise crisis, the period between the presidential elections of 1848 and 1852, when the "politics of slavery" dominated every contest. Defense of the peculiar institution became paramount and party lines were disrupted as a result. Virginia's Whig congressional candidates, unable to present themselves as safe on the slavery question, were …

Politics Of Self-Destruction: The Virginia Republican Party Split Of 1895-1897, Michael Anthony Southwood

History Theses & Dissertations

In explaining the rise of Democratic rule in Virginia, political historians have overlooked the significance of the Republican split of 1895-1897. Drawn mainly from primary source materials, this thesis traces the rupture that divided the GOP leadership after the death of General William Mahone, one of the Commonwealth's most remarkable political figures. The controversial election of Mahone's successor (Colonel William Lamb of Norfolk) as party chairman in November 1895 sparked two years of bitter struggle, a conflict that ultimately left the state Republicans shattered as a political force. An understanding of Democratic dominance as it developed in Virginia is incomplete …