Public History Commons^™

The First Juneteenth: Black Churches, Reconstruction Politics, And The Houston Origins Of June 19 Celebrations, W. Caleb Mcdaniel

Journal of Texas History

While Galveston is rightly renowned as the birthplace of Juneteenth, this article argues that Houston played an equally foundational role in the origins of the holiday as the site of the first recorded public celebration of June 19 as an anniversary of freedom. Drawing on new research in a rare newspaper, it examines the circumstances that led Black Houstonians to celebrate June 19, 1866, identifying the leaders and locations of the Houston event for the first time. Finally, it connects the first Juneteenth to two related histories: the establishment of independent Black churches in Texas after slavery and the politics …

Front Matter Volume 2 No. 2, Editors Note

Zamani: A Journal of African Historical Studies

This is yet another issue of the Zamani journal which takes on varied debates and discussions of historical importance through the contributions to the issue. As we embark on volume three of the new journal’s series, this volume carries six articles, varied in scope but interesting in terms of contribution and relevance to historical synthesis. As editors, we hope that the articles contained here will be of interest to a wider audience of not only historians but also of allied disciplines, practitioners and the general readership. As we publish this volume, we also note the advantage of expanding the scope …

Crises In The Nigerian Defence Sector In The Post-Civil War Period, Hussaini Jibrin

Zamani: A Journal of African Historical Studies

History has it that post-war period in any country in the world appeared to be with many challenges of re-planning the defence system. It involves the reconstruction of pre-war institutions that are destroyed during the war for onward growth and development. Contrary to this tradition, this article explores that, in 1970 while Nigerians were celebrating about the end of the Nigerian civil war, fresh crises emerged in the country’s defence sector. Thus, General Yakubu Gowon’s government redirected its focus on addressing the crises. The crises are numerous, however, this article dwells on four only. These are demobilization exercise in the …

Performance Of Buffer Zones In Tanzania: A Case Of Maswa Game Reserve, 1950s-2010s, James Benedict Kuboja

Zamani: A Journal of African Historical Studies

National parks as core protected areas are universally regarded as the most important wildlife conservancies as they are protecting pristine nature or untouched wilderness. For this reason, global conservationists, with the assistance of colonial governments, introduced buffer zones in a bid to protect important protected areas from poaching and habitat destruction. Despite the promulgation of these buffer zones from the 1950s, scholars have not exhaustively evaluated their effectiveness in the conservation of wildlife resources within core protected areas and wildlife ecosystems at large. Using the case of Maswa Game Reserve in the Serengeti Mara Ecosystem, this article argues that internal …

Historicising Nyerere’S Presidency In The Nyakyusa Mythical Narratives, Ignas Fedeo

Zamani: A Journal of African Historical Studies

Julius K Nyerere, the founding President of Tanzania, held office from 1962 to 1985. Much has been written about Nyerere's presidency, with the literature generally falling into two categories: strong advocacy for his decisions, actions, and ideas, and pointed criticism against him. Using narrative and new historicism theories, this article examines the recreation of the history of Nyerere’s presidency in local narratives, specifically Nyakyusa myths. The myths were collected using the oral history interviews from Kyela and Busokelo districts in Tanzania. The Nyakyusa believe that Nyerere was endowed with immense mystical powers, some of which embedded in his stick and …

Śaṅkha-Dvīpa And The Swahili Littoral: Reconstructing India–East Africa Contacts Before The Common Era, Narendra Vijayasimha

Zamani: A Journal of African Historical Studies

This article is the first focused attempt to explore India–East Africa relationships in the Bronze Age and early Iron Age, approximately two to three millennia before the Common Era (3000–300 BCE) from a puranic perspective. While extensive scholarship exists on medieval and later Indo–African exchanges, the pre-Common Era period has remained underexplored. Drawing on Purāṇic cosmographies, Greco-Roman geographical accounts, African archaeology, and Indian Ocean trade studies, this research reconstructs possible networks of contact facilitated by monsoon navigation and long-distance exchange. Methodologically, the article integrates textual exegesis, comparative cosmography, and archaeological correlation. The findings suggest that Indian conceptions of Śaṅkha-dvīpa reflect …

Labour Migrancy And Ethnic Stereotypes: Experiences From Mufindi Tea Plantation, Ca. 1920s To 2000s, Hezron R. Kangalawe

Zamani: A Journal of African Historical Studies

While tea plantations brought good fortunes to some parts of Southern Highlands in Tanzania such as Mufindi and Rungwe during the British mandate, its production sites became centres of ethnic contestations in relation to work discipline. The colonial and post-colonial enterprises labelled some ethnic groups as “reliable labourers” and others “unreliable”. This article, uses the tea plantations in Mufindi district, Iringa, to debate the labour question and ethnic identity in tea plantations between 1920s and 2000s. It argues that tea plantations were practical point of colonial stereotyping whose architects were anthropologists. Interviews in Mufindi tea plantations and factories, archival and …

Collaboration In The Spread Of Missionary Christianity In Africa: The Case Of The Apostolic Church Of Nigeria, Caleb Abiodun Adeleye, Oluwasegun Peter Aluko

Zamani: A Journal of African Historical Studies

This article explores the significance of collaboration in the spread of missionary Christianity in Africa through a historical study of The Apostolic Church of Nigeria (TACN). It examines how the partnership between British missionaries and Nigerian leaders produced a hybrid mission model that combined Western ecclesiastical structure with African spirituality. Drawing on historical records, church documents, and existing scholarship, the article adopts a narrative–analytical method to trace how figures such as Pastors George Perfect, Idris J Vaughan and DO Odubanjo negotiated issues of theology, finance and cultural identity. The study finds that collaboration initially fostered institutional growth and doctrinal development …

Conga Santiaguera: A Century Of Innovation And Competition, Nick Herman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Santiago de Cuba is home to the island’s biggest, oldest, and most famous carnival.  Any local resident will confirm that “sin conga no hay carnaval (without conga there is no carnival).” In Santiago, conga refers to a vibrant street procession, the music that drives it, and the ensemble that makes the music.  Conga Santiaguera: A Century of Innovation and Competition presents a musical history of the conga from roughly 1910 to 2010.  This project, https://cuny.manifoldapp.org/projects/conga employs an eBook, musical analysis, oral histories, and audiovisual media to show how the conga has been constantly reinvigorated by innovation, competition, and Afro-Diasporic …

The History Of Lagrange College, Robert S. Steen

Documents

This digital teaser of The History of La Grange College includes the Table of Contents, Introduction, Acknowledgements, Forward, and About the Author pages.

All Rights are Reserved by Robert S. Steen, author.

Queer Ballroom In 1980s-90s New York City: Connections To Joy And Education, Maya A. Gary

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This master's thesis project delivers a concise history of the development of Queer Ballroom in the 1980s–1990s in Harlem, New York City, primarily focusing on low-income Black and Latino queer individuals and how they created spaces of belonging and joy during the HIV/AIDS crisis. This work illustrates how ballroom culture functioned as both a space of refuge and a network for mutual aid, outreach, and advocacy. In addition to the historical analysis, this project includes a free-to-use educational website and lesson plans aligned with the Virginia Standards of Learning for grades 6 and 11. This work demonstrates the importance of …

Taxidermy And Technology: A History Of Climate Change Exhibitions At American Museums Of Natural History, Laura Haushalter, Amy Woodson-Boulton

Honors Thesis

My research is on the history of temporary and permanent climate change exhibitions at natural history museums in the United States. My primary research question is: How have natural history museums responded to human-caused environmental destruction through their exhibitions, and what, if anything, are natural history museums doing now to address our current environmental crisis? My research begins with a historiography of natural museums and examines how early 20th-century museums responded to a sense of environmental crisis and widespread threats of species extinction. In the early 20th century, museums shifted from Victorian-era glass cases to modern and artistic dioramas that …

The Dwellings Of Ybor City Project: Using Archival Recovery And Mapping To Examine Historical Erasure, Stephanie M. Mackin

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

This article examines how digital archives and spatial humanities can address historical erasure. It focuses on reconstructing the lost residential landscapes of Ybor City, a culturally significant Tampa, Florida, neighborhood. The area was transformed by mid-twentieth-century slum clearance and urban renewal. The Dwellings of Ybor City project uses archival theory, participatory ethics, and GIS-based storytelling to geolocate and reinterpret a Depression-era album called "Photographs Showing Dwellings in the Ybor Slum Area." By pairing digitized historical photographs with contemporary rephotography and mapping them to their original sites, the project restores visibility to homes and neighborhoods largely erased from both the physical …

An Alignment Of Absences: The Medicalization Of Death And Its Implications On Archaeological Methodology, Makayla J. Bowman

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

Absence describes something that is "expected, wanted, or looked for [but] is not present or does not exist," (Merriam-Webster Dictionary 2026). The archaeological discipline interacts with absence in many profound ways, largely in its study of the past dead. This paper focuses on the ways in which the medicalization of death has influenced, limited, and misaligned archaeological methodology, and how the result of those methodologies produces archaeological analysis that is absent of or misrepresents our understanding of life, personhood, and our position within a greater, interconnected biosphere. Thus, I present an anthropological critique of the ways in which death and …

What Bombs Cannot Occupy: Memory, Heritage, And War In Ukraine, Dalton D. Conden

The Penguin Review

Air-raid sirens have become part of the daily soundscape in Ukrainian cities. They interrupt meals, classes, conversations, and sleep. When they blare, people gather what they can and move quickly sometimes to shelters, sometimes to basements, sometimes nowhere at all. Families lock their doors without knowing whether they will ever turn the key again. Children carry backpacks filled with whatever seemed important in the moment: a photograph, a stuffed animal, a book pulled hastily from a shelf. Around them, buildings that once anchored everyday life—churches, museums, historic neighborhoods— have been damaged or destroyed.

Massey Construction Award $444,977 Contract For Addition To Florence State's Collier Library, Florence Times

Documents

Addition to Collier Library, 1961

Local History Is Preserved By College, Florence Times

Documents

Preserving local history within Collier Library and The Susan K. Vaugh Museum at FSC, 1959

Library Addition Underway, Florence Times

Documents

Construction is underway for new addition to Collier Library, 1961

Worth Noting, Daily Corinthian

Documents

The Friends of Libraries U.S.A. designated Collier Library as a Literary Landmark for the works of T.S. Stribling, who won a Pulitzer Price for The Store (1932). Stribling was a graduate of the university.

Erected In 1939: $100,000 Library Is Serving Fsc Students, Florence Times

Documents

Collier Library serves the students and faculty of FSC very well

Where Do Policy Demanders Come From? Protestants And Party Formation In The Antebellum Period, John W. Compton

Political Science Faculty Articles and Research

The early 1830s were years of intense religious fervor, when well-organized moral reform movements seemed destined to remake the political landscape. Curiously, however, the party system that emerged from this period was premised on the exclusion of moral issues from party politics. How did the early Jacksonian Democrats and Whigs manage to construct an essentially amoral party system during a decade marked by large-scale moral reform movements? And why did the resulting system unravel in the mid-1850s? Answering these questions requires shifting the focus from party activists and elected officials to organized religion. Specifically, I show that the nation's largest …

The Sensationalizing Of Presidential Assassinations In Mass Media Throughout American History, Lindsay E. Smith

Undergraduate Theses

This project explores how mass media has shaped the public response to presidential assassinations across American history. By examining the deaths of Abraham Lincoln (1865), James A. Garfield (1881), William McKinley (1901), and John F. Kennedy (1963), we can trace how evolving media technologies – such as newspapers, yellow journalism, radio broadcasts, and live television coverage – have sensationalized violence, politicized tragedy, and transformed periods of national mourning into mass spectacles. The thesis analyzes reporting methods, narrative framing, and the news industry to show how each has influenced emotional response, political landscapes, and eventual presidential legacy. Ultimately, we find that …

Memorial Amphitheater, No Author

Documents

Short news article about the Memorial Amphitheater

The Amphitheater Plays A Major Role At The College, Sara Spain

Documents

A feature from the editor of The Flor-Ala in 1956 about the Amphitheater

Proposed Memorial For Soldier-Students Of State Normal School, Mrs. Susan J. Price

Documents

A sketch and proposal for a memorial for soldier-students at State Normal School

Florence Gets Special Stage, Montgomery Alabama Journal And The Times

Documents

Memorial to Men Enlisted in World War Added to State Teachers College, 1930s

New Marker Unveiled To Honor Una, Jeff Mcintyre

Documents

A new marker was unveiled to honor the University of North Alabama as being the only college football team in history to win three consecutive national championships- The TimesDaily 

There's 'No Place Like Home' For Una Lions, Jeff Hodges

Documents

News article in The Florence Times-Tri-Cities Daily on the impact Flowers Hall has for the UNA Lions and their at home win ratio.

Hall Of Fame- Hal Self (Induction Class Of 1990), University Of North Alabama

Documents

Hal Self-- Hall of Fame Class induction of 1990. The Flowers Hall Annex, now known as the UNA Athletics Offices, was renamed in honor of Self (Self Field House)

Director Of Physical Education, Diorama 1949

Documents

Hubert A. Flowers was Director of Physical Education. Flowers Hall was named after him.