This graduate thesis involves a retelling of the history of the now defunct Canton Insane Asylum, built in the early 20th century located in Canton, South Dakota. It was America’s first federal psychiatric facility dedicated exclusively for American Indians. The Canton Insane Asylum for American Indians is a touchstone whose microhistory reflects larger political and economic sentiments in both the state of South Dakota and in the United States writ large. Conceiving South Dakota, as first and foremost a white settler society erected on land forcibly wrested from American Indian people, the asylum played an important economic development role and …

Go to article

Deacon Bernard Carr Mar 2025

Deacon Bernard Carr

African American Funeral Programs

Deacon_Bernard_Carr.pdf - Funeral program for Bernard Carr

Go to article

Mrs. Della Sawyer Feb 2025

Mrs. Della Sawyer

African American Funeral Programs

Mrs_Della_Sawyer_DeathNotice.pdf - Funeral program for Mrs. Della Sawyer

Go to article

Public Memory Through Memorialization, Sophie A. O'Brien Feb 2025

Public Memory Through Memorialization, Sophie A. O'Brien

SPARK Symposium Presentations

This research project aims to contextualize the story surrounding various Nashville monuments that memorialize civil rights leaders. This project will explore the history of monuments and road names in Nashville. The history will span from the Confederacy to the civil rights movement and examine how public memory has evolved and changed with the removal of some statues and the changing of road names. It aims to show who we choose to memorialize and why, and how the civil rights leaders we choose to remember reflects public sentiment of the civil rights era.

Go to article

African American Health Disparities: Nashville’S Efforts To Bridge The Gap, Mary Y. Spence Feb 2025

African American Health Disparities: Nashville’S Efforts To Bridge The Gap, Mary Y. Spence

SPARK Symposium Presentations

African Americans experience significant health disparities, including a shorter life expectancy and high mortality rate. Systemic discrimination, limited access to quality healthcare, and socioeconomic inequalities are believed to be key contributing factors. Another key factor is a historical distrust of the healthcare system as a result of unethical biomedical experiments such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. A key figure in combating these disparities was Dr. Matthew Walker Sr., a pioneering African American physician whose contributions to medical education and healthcare access helped improve the well-being of underserved populations. Dr. Walker trained numerous Black physicians and established the Matthew Walker Comprehensive …

Go to article

The Forgotten Heroes Of Postman’S Park, John Price Feb 2025

The Forgotten Heroes Of Postman’S Park, John Price

Heroism Science

The Watts Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice in Postman’s Park contains fifty-three memorial tablets, each dedicated to an act of life-risking bravery, undertaken by an otherwise ordinary individual, largely in the course of their everyday life, and within commonplace surroundings. The memorial’s creator, G. F. Watts, was a pivotal figure in the conception and promotion of the idea of ‘everyday’ heroism in Britain. Where he led, others followed. On this basis, the Watts Memorial has come to inform our understanding of how everyday heroism as a concept was constructed. Further research has now identified eighty-four individuals who were intended for commemoration …

Go to article

Deronia Brown Jr. Feb 2025