Political History Commons^™

Pinochet’S Upswing: The Demise Of A Democratic Society In Chile, Jacob Behnk

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

In the United States, we tend to view democracy as an inviolable tenet of political life. Our nation’s founding is even romanticized as a heroic fight for liberty against the wicked tyranny of the British monarchy. It is unthinkable that democracy could ever be destroyed, let alone have the citizens cheer on those who engineer its destruction—yet this is the very situation that Chile found itself regarding Augusto Pinochet, a brutal dictator who ruled the country with an iron fist from 1973 to 1990. Pinochet would be voted out of power in a 1988 plebiscite, but still managed to win …

Roots Of Justice: A History Of Race And Racism In Nebraska, Kevin Abourezk, M. Dewayne Mays, Paul Olson, Gabriel Bruguier, Preston Love Jr., Adam Fletcher Sasse, Heather Fryer, J.S. Onésimo (Ness) Sándoval, Sharon Ishii-Jordan, Emira Ibrahimpašić, Julia Reilly

Zea E-Books Collection

There is much to understand about the history of Nebraska and how the past shapes the present. This book attempts to bring into clearer focus the triumphs and trials of five broad groups whose lives have often been overlooked when the state’s history is told. The authors know some of this history of racism firsthand: Most of them have lived as people of color in Nebraska. They’ve experienced “the good, the bad and the ugly” that makes up our state story. We encourage educators, scholars and family historians to continue to dig, to document and to tell these stories. And …

Harnessing Habeas Corpus: Women's Battles Against Coercive Psychiatric Institutionalization, Andy Knopik

Digital Legal Research Lab

No abstract provided.

A Field Guide To Teaching Agency And Ethics: The West Wing And American Foreign Policy, Kayce Mobley, Sarah Fisher

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Though political science undergraduate courses reflect a rich theoretical tradition, they typically lack opportunities for students to express intangible concepts through the interpretation of creative works, a standard exercise of critical analysis. Educators can address this dearth in many ways, such as through utilization of popular culture texts. We employ the television series The West Wing to ground debates in American politics, specifically American foreign policy. Although this show has been on air since 2006, Netflix and Amazon have recently released the entire series for streaming, significantly reducing the hassle and monetary cost of using this source in the classroom. …

Sexual Surveillance: Morality Policing Of Greeks And Italians In The Early 20th Century, Isabella Ferrell

Digital Legal Research Lab

The Petitioning for Freedom Project under Dr. Jagodinsky is a database of habeas corpus use in the West. It examines legal action by marginalized individuals. This project focuses on how Greek and Italian petitioners used habeas to challenge sexual policing in a xenophobic context.

Research poster titled Sexual Surveillance: Morality Policing of Greeks and Italians in the Early 20th Century; presented via the Digital Legal Research Lab NSF REU Site, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, August 2024.

Advisors: Katrina Jagodinsky and William Thomas

The Harding Brothers And Underage Enlistment In The Age Of American Expansion, 1851–1857, Ryan Minton

Digital Legal Research Lab

The Petitioning for Freedom Project is an NSF funded database project that seeks to collect and encode carceral, institutional, and interpersonal habeas corpus petitions from county, state, and federal courts all throughout the American West.

This research project explores and analyzes the twenty-four habeas corpus petitions that were submitted between 1851 and 1857 to the Saint Louis County Law Commissioners Office to challenge the enlistment of underage recruits stationed at Jefferson Barracks.

Research poster titled The Harding Brothers and Underage Enlistment in the Age of American Expansion, 1851–1857; presented via the Digital Legal Research Lab NSF REU Site, University of …

Maternal Chains: Black Women's Legal Battles For Freedom In Pre-Emancipation America, Roshawnna Brinkley

Digital Legal Research Lab

This research examines the use of habeas corpus petitions by Black Women in antebellum America to secure freedom for themselves and their children. Given that slave status was inherited matrilineally, these legal actions had implications for generational freedom. In Dr. Jagodinsky’s Petitioning for Freedom project there are numerous cases of Black Women utilizing Habeas Corpus. This study focuses on these Women's agency in navigating a hostile legal system.

Research poster titled Maternal Chains: Black Women's Legal Battles for Freedom in Pre-Emancipation America; via the Digital Legal Research Lab NSF REU Site, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, August 2024.

Advisors: Katrina Jagodinsky and …

To Have And To Hold: Habeas Corpus And The Mobilization Of Female Petitioners, 1832–1924, Miranda Martinez

Digital Legal Research Lab

Dr. Jagodinsky’s Petitioning For Freedom (PFF) is an open-access database of habeas corpus petitions from the American West. It aims to further our understanding of the United States legal landscape in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Research poster titled To Have and To Hold: Habeas Corpus & the Mobilization of Female Petitioners, 1832–1924; presented via the Digital Legal Research Lab NSF REU Site, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, August 2024.

Advisors: Katrina Jagodinsky and William Thomas

Profiled Pickpockets: Seattle's Black Community & 1890s Habeas Mobilization, Zoë Williams

Digital Legal Research Lab

The Petitioning for Freedom project examines habeas corpus in the American West, 1812–1924 to highlight the legal mobilization of marginalized people. This study uses habeas petitions to identify Black people's response to racial profiling in Seattle.

Research poster titled Profiled Pickpockets: Seattle's Black Community & 1890s Habeas Mobilization; presented via the Digital Legal Research Lab NSF REU Site, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, August 2024.

Advisors: Katrina Jagodinsky and William Thomas

Legal Proxies And Advocates: Exploring Inter-Case Relationships In 19th- And 20th-Century Habeas Corpus, Ethan Reiter

Digital Legal Research Lab

• The Petitioning for Freedom Project (PFF) is an open access database that details the use of habeas corpus in legal proceedings in the American West from 1812 to 1924.

• A writ of habeas Corpus is a challenge by a petitioner that alleges that someone is detained unlawfully.

• In certain instances. a petitioner is petitioning on behalf of someone who is held illegally. This study examines the nature of the relationships between petitioner and bound party and how those relationships reflect historical and legal developments over time.

Research poster titled Legal Proxies and Advocates: Exploring Inter-Case Relationships in 19th- and 20th-Century …

Equal Protection Of Life, Liberty, And Labor: Habeas Corpus & The 14th Amendment, 1901–1904, Madison Mendiola

Digital Legal Research Lab

Presents and synthesizes three cases demonstrating the use of habeas corpus in the contect of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution between 1901 and 1904.

Research poster titled Equal Protection of Life, Liberty, and Labor Habeas Corpus & the 14th Amendment, 1901–1904, presented via the Digital Legal Research Lab NSF REU Site, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, August 2024.

Advisors: Katrina Jagodinsky and William Thomas

"Huddled Masses:" The Immigration Act Of 1917 In Habeas Corpus, Chikamso Chijioke

Digital Legal Research Lab

Research poster titled "Huddled Masses:" The Immigration Act of 1917 in Habeas Corpus; presented via the Digital Legal Research Lab NSF REU Site, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, August 2024.

Introduction

Dr. Jagodinsky's Petitioning for Freedom is a collection of habeas corpus petitions in the American West and examines marginalized peoples’ use of habeas to challenge detention. This project explores the role of the Immigration Act of 1917 in these cases. The Immigration Act of 1917, passed due to xenophobic tensions surrounding WWI, restricted immigration of people from Asia and the Pacific while implementing an English literacy test for those over 16 …

Decolonizing The Western Perception Of Afghan Women: A Feminist Critique, Parwana Azimi

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Abstract: Feminist theory and activism have often been reduced to singular movements from Western literature and history. Thus, the exploration of Feminist theory is often limited to Western ideology and values. In doing so, Western Feminism has primarily promoted the rights of Women living in developed countries while leaving women in developing countries or otherwise out of the discussion of women’s rights and status. Most often, women's rights struggles outside of the West are seen as colonial projects which portray Muslim women as helpless and requiring liberation from their cultures. A prominent example of this is the case of Afghan …

Make America(N Cinema) Great Again: The Rhetoric Of Nostalgia In Trump Era Cinematic Multiplicities, Courtney J. Dreyer

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation investigates the rhetoric of nostalgia in politics and popular Hollywood cinema during the Trump era. I argue that MAGA Cinema, the contemporary trend of reboots, remakes, and sequels related to properties from the late 1970s to early 1990s, both respond to and strengthen attachments to an imagined version of the 1980s. However, this illusory golden age more closely reflects the world as depicted in the cinema of the 1980s rather than the reality of American in the years of Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Through a close analysis of David Gordon Green’s Halloween Reboot series, Top Gun: Maverick, and …

Writ To Work: Habeas Corpus Challenges By Laborers And Socialists In Washington State, 1915-1919, Luke Mcdermott

Digital Legal Research Lab

No abstract provided.

From Moral Panic To Legal Injustice: Due Process Failures In Prostitution Cases (1889-1924), Ethan Dunn

Digital Legal Research Lab

No abstract provided.

J. Sterling Morton: The Founder Of Arbor Day's Political Career And Legacy, Luke Partsch

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

J. Sterling Morton was one of the founding statesmen of Nebraska. He played a large role in the Democratic Party throughout his life, being appointed Secretary of the Nebraska Territory, running as the Democratic nominee for Governor four times, and serving as Secretary of Agriculture in Grover Cleveland’s cabinet. A newspaper editor, Morton had a public role in shaping political discourse. He advocated for conservation and founded Arbor Day, a tree planting holiday that continues to this day. His legacy has come under criticism in recent years due to racist comments and political platforms, especially in his younger years. Through …

"The Best Interests Of The Child:" Parental Claims In Nebraska Child Custody Cases, 1877–1924, Esme Krohn

Digital Legal Research Lab

Research poster titled "The Best Interests of the Child:" Parental Claims in Nebraska Child Custody Cases, 1877–1924; presented via the Digital Legal Research Lab NSF REU Site, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, August 2023.

Advisor: Katrina Jagodinsky

Habeas At Home And Heart: Progressive Era Cases Of Spousal Confinement To Nebraska's Psychiatric Households, Isabelle Childs

Digital Legal Research Lab

No abstract provided.

One Among Many: Charlotte Kolmitz, Assistant U.S. Attorney In Seattle, 1918–1925, Anna Synya

Digital Legal Research Lab

One Among Many: Charlotte Kolmitz, Assistant U.S. Attorney in Seattle, 1918–1925

Research poster prepared for Digital Legal Research Lab, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Die Deutsche Nationalversammlung Und Weimar: On The Creation Of Democracy In Weimar Germany, Jason Wendling

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

This paper is a historical analysis of the creation of the Weimar Republic, as well as a political analysis of the Weimar Republic’s constitution. In reviewing both Weimar’s history as well as the constitution, I hope to inspire learners to look back to the Weimar Republic, and not focus primarily on the failures that led to the rise of the Nazi Regime, but rather celebrate the successes that the drafters of the constitution were able to achieve. I review the history of the 1918 November Revolution, the history and party programs of the three important parties of the Weimar Republic, …

A Discourse, Delivered At Plymouth, December 22, 1820. In Commemoration Of The First Settlement Of New-England (1821), Daniel Webster, Paul Royster , Ed.

Zea E-Books in American Studies

To celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Mayflower Pilgrims’ Landing at Plymouth Rock, Daniel Webster (1782–1852), former congressman and future senator and secretary of state, delivered this long discourse to the assembled members of the Pilgrim Society. Always the consummate New Englander, Webster sketched 200 years of American history, surveyed the present era, and projected grand future prospects for a nation barely 40 years old, but with deep roots in Reformed Protestant values and English constitutionalism. Underlying all was his belief that “The character of their political institutions was determined by the fundamental laws respecting property.” Webster’s stories highlight the …

Legal Strategies Used By Black Men During The Antebellum Period, A. D. Banse

Digital Legal Research Lab

AD Banse, "Legal Strategies Used by Black Men During the Antebellum Period" [Research Poster]

Digital Legal Research Lab REU Site, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2022

The Missouri Statute of 1807 existed as the primary act that somewhat ensured the freedom of those enslaved and pursuing their freedom. The act refuted laws such as the Futgitive Slave Clause of 1793 and 1850, and the Missouri Compromise, which were evidence that slaveholders held decisive political influence and could cast the Constitution in proslave terms (Baker 2012). These clauses essentially gave enslavers the right to seize enslaved people who escaped to free states deepening …

Habeas Corpus: Breaking Reservation Boundaries, Samantha Byrd

Digital Legal Research Lab

Dr. Katrina Jagodinsky’s Petitioning for Freedom examines marginalized peoples’ use of habeas corpus in the American West from 1812 to 1924. This project has uncovered Indigenous manipulation of the American legal system to counter the challenges of colonialism. Indigenous peoples used habeas to protest, and sometimes successfully mitigate boarding school experiences, forced removal, and confinement on reservations. This study aims to show how Indigenous peoples and other minorities had a complex understanding of the law and used it to their advantage.

Advisor: Katrina Jagodinsky

A Home Shielded By Laws: Freedom Suits And Enslaved Mothers, Heidi Martin

Digital Legal Research Lab

This project collects, digitizes, and makes accessible the freedom suits brought by enslaved families in the Circuit Court for the District of Columbia, Maryland state courts, and the United States Supreme Court. This project places families in the foreground of our interpretive framework of slavery and national formation.

Using TEI encoding, we focused on outcomes, relationships between individuals and the claim for freedom made. Using these data sets, I focused specefically on mothers petitioning for their children. Of the 508 cases I utilized, 131 included children and a parental figure. I set out to distinguish the additional burden mothers had …

In The Waiting: The Role Of The Slave Bastille In Antebellum D.C., Ellyzabeth Morales-Ledesma

Digital Legal Research Lab

In 1808 the Transatlantic Slave Trade ended and in turn the government created a federally protected human market. As the South's demand for human labor force increased the domestic slave trade rocketed and in turn created even more turmoil for the Black population if the United States. Slave Traders and Man-Dealers took advantage of the market and kidnapped Free Black men women and children. While waiting to be sold enslaved people would be admitted into holding cells and jails; this was the creation of slave jails and Slave Bastilles. Slave jails served as places where the horrors of a human …

Habeas Corpus As A Means For Economic Freedom In The Progressive Era, Janana Khattak

Digital Legal Research Lab

Habeas corpus protects individual freedom by allowing detained individuals proper trial. Economic liberty, or the “right to earn a living in an occupation of choice without unnecessary government interference,” is a key component of individual freedom. Following the depression of 1893, the Progressive Era ushered in a sharp increase in productivity. This was in part because of an immigration boom. While immigrants sought economic opportunities for the betterment of themselves and their families, ideologies of nativism rose.

Advisor: Katrina Jagodinsky

From The End Of Politics To Legitimate Opposition: Political Perceptions Of The 37th Congress Of The United States In The North 1860-1862, Lauren Dubas

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

This paper intends to explore the political landscape of the Union during the first two years of the Civil War, specifically how the people in the North perceived what remained of the Congress from 1860-1862. I will be using a combination of primary and secondary sources to cover the 37^th Congress of the United States, whose members were elected in 1860 and legislated until the next Congressional election in 1862. My research shows several significant stages in the political landscape during this period and uses these stages of partisan politics as the foundation for understanding how the federal government, …

“Inherently Tender And Prone To Crisis:” U.S.-Israeli Relations, 1974–1989, Sean Scanlon

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation demonstrates how the relationship between the United States and the State of Israel underwent a significant transformation during 1970s and 1980s. After more than two decades of limited American aid since Israel declared its independence in 1948, the United States under Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan dramatically increased its support for Israel in the wake of the October War of 1973. This increased level of support is most apparent in the level of U.S. military aid provided to Israel, which Israel received under extremely favorable terms. The deepening of U.S.-Israeli ties from 1973 …

The Oldest Post-Truth? The Rise Of Antisemitism In The United States And Beyond, Gerald Steinacher

Department of History: Faculty Publications

Antisemitism, the negative stereotyping and hatred of Jews, has overshadowed Western history for 2000 years. In the 20th century, antisemitism led to the Shoah, the systematic state-sponsored murder of 6 million Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies. In recent decades, antisemitism diminished significantly in the Western world, and there was hope that this plague would soon be consigned to the past. On the contrary, the past few years have witnessed a drastic increase of antisemitism in Western societies, often paired with far-right activism, racism, and xenophobia. In 2017 in Charlottesville, there were hundreds of marchers giving Nazi salutes, waving …