United States History Commons^™

"Black Colorism And White Racism: Discourse On The Politics Of White Supremacy, Black Equality, And Racial Identity, 1915-1930", Hannah Paige Mcdonald

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The following study unravels how Garveyite black nationalists, black integrationists, and Virginian white supremacists understood the race problem and its solution between 1915 and 1930. The racial identity and experiences of these three distinct groups, each informed how they understood the race problem and its solution. The divergent notions about the source of and solution to the race problem coalesced with colorism, sowing seeds of intraracial and interracial conflict and cooperation between the Garveyite black nationalists, black integrationists, and Virginian white supremacists as they navigated how to redress white supremacy and black equality. According to black integrationists and Garveyite black …

"A Pressure Not To Be Resisted Or Evaded": Military Occupation, Reform, And The Incorporation Of Northern Montana, 1879-1916, Hayden Nelson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis explores Fort Assinniboine’s role as an extension of the federal government’s military arm in the Northern Plains. It argues that the military occupation of northern Montana served to incorporate the northern borderland region and peoples into the American mainstream as a part of the national reconstruction processes following the Civil War into the twentieth century. In a period of half a century, north-central Montana transformed from a Native American common hunting ground lacking any major white settlement to a rapidly developing agricultural region. Fort Assinniboine played a central role in this transformation, hastening the economic collapse of the …

Handing Down The Heritage: Preserving Irish Diasporic Identities In The Festival City Of Montana, Margaret Mary Walsh

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Butte, Montana is a tough, historic industrial town in western Montana known for its mining, its Irish, and strangely, its festivals. The city boasts countless parades and community events each year for a variety of holidays as well as for showcases of traditions and ethnic pride. Three celebrations in particular, St. Patrick’s Day, Fourth of July, and An Rí Rá, attract visitors from all over the country – and world – who seek to experience the enthusiasm and splendor of these celebrations. So, what can these popular celebrations in Montana’s Festival City, Butte, reveal about the Irish community living there? …

How The West Was Fun: Constructing The Western Tourism Experience In The Yellowstone Wylie Camps, 1880-1916, Jennifer E. Simpson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Generative Leadership And The Life Of Aurelia Erskine Brazeal, A Trailblazing African American Female Foreign Service Officer, Atim Eneida George

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

There is a gap in the literature on generativity and the leadership philosophy and praxis of African American Female Foreign Service Officers (AAFFSOs). I addressed this deficit, in part, by engaging an individual of exceptional merit and distinction—Aurelia Erskine Brazeal—as an exemplar of AAFFSOs. Using qualitative research methods of portraiture and oral history, supplemented by collage, mind mapping and word clouds, this study examined Brazeal’s formative years in the segregated South and the extraordinary steps her parents took to protect her from the toxic effects of racism and legal segregation. In addition, I explored the development of Brazeal’s interest in …

Murder,Mayhem,Manson, Jack Shoplock

Capstone Showcase

Charles Manson was one of the most horrifying, yet alluring figures to emerge in recent history, in part due to his crimes and their nature, and his strange behavior displayed during his famous trials in the early 1970s. Born in a small town in 1934 Charlie took to criminality from a young age, being institutionalized for over half his life before he was finally released in 1967 during the heyday of the summer of love in San Francisco. Once back on his feet, he began a quest for musical superstardom, gathering a harem of unstable, broken and misused runaway teens …

A Treacherous Transformation: 1968 And The Collapse Of The Liberal Consensus, Michael J. Costigan

Capstone Showcase

1968 was a year of upheaval in America--especially in politics. The year featured a presidential election between Richard Nixon (R), Hubert Humphrey (D), and third-party candidate George Wallace. This election was one of the closest in American history. It marks a significant transition, coming four years after a Democratic landslide, and four years before Richard Nixon's landslide re-election. The 1968 election uniquely captures four important trends in U.S. Politics. The American public had grown increasingly dissatisfied with President Johnson and the war in Vietnam, illustrated by Eugene McCarthy’s campaign. The South, a longtime bastion of Democratic support, accelerated its transition …

Listen To Liston: Examining The Systemic Erasure Of Black Women In The Historiography Of Jazz, Victoria E. Smith

Theses and Dissertations

"First you are a jazz musician, then you are black, then you are a female. I mean it goes down the line like that. We're like the bottom of the heap." - Melba Liston (pg 2) The historiography of jazz has consciously and unconsciously excluded women. This exclusion is exacerbated when one examines the intersection of race and jazz for black women. This essay argues that due to overwhelming societal expectations, gendered language, and physical threats of sexual assault and violence, black women had to create alternatives spheres of affirmation and musical expression because jazz culture stymied their access to …

One Man And One Wife? The Legal History Of Marriage In The Culture And Courts Of America, Tyler Speer

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

For my honors thesis I will be writing on the legality and shifting attitudes of marriage throughout United States history. This thesis will explore three Supreme Court cases: Davis v. Beason (1890), Loving v. Virginia (1967), and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), which explores polygamous, interracial, and homosexual marriages respectively. The full name of my thesis is "One Man and One Wife? The Legal History of Marriage in the Culture and Courts of America." The thesis will be upwards of fourty pages in length and will examine marriage from both historical and legal lenses and will be conducted through the History …

"An Environmental Sleight Of Hand:" Trash, Activism, And Urban Finance In Detroit, 1970-1990, Chelsea Denault

Dissertations

This dissertation explores the political, economic, and environmental choices that led city officials in Detroit to build the world's largest waste incinerator. in the 1970s, Detroit officials €“ led by Mayor Coleman Young €“ confronted the difficult financial realities of the urban crisis alongside the rise of a new environmental issue €“ the garbage crisis. a single solution to these dual crises seemed to present itself in €œresource recovery,€ the burning of municipal waste in an incinerator to produce steam and electricity. in the context of the energy crises of the 1970s, the logic of resource recovery was compelling to …

A Girl's Song: Recounting Women And The Nantucket Whaling Industry, 1750-1890, Natalie Mitchell

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

In this honors research project, I intend to explore the effect of the whaling industry on women who lived in the community on the island of Nantucket, as well as how they affected the industry. The period I will focus on is the end of the 18^th century through the middle of the 19^th century, because this was the height of the whaling industry in the United States and during the majority of this time span Nantucket was home to the most active American whaling port, making it advantageous to examine the island’s community for my research. This …

0074: Letters Received By The Office Of The Adjutant General [Microfilm], 1876-1896, Marshall University Special Collections

Guides to Manuscript Collections

These sixteen microfilm reels contain correspondence relating to military operations in the Departments of the Platte and Dakota against the Sioux tribes ("Sioux War Papers"), 1876-96. Letters are organized by date of receipt and include materials received between 1876 and 1896.

0859: Mr. And Mrs. Paul R. Cooley Sr. Civil Rights Era Newspaper Collection, Marshall University Special Collections

Guides to Manuscript Collections

This collection contains six newspapers from West Virginia, Virginia, and New York documenting historic events that occurred during the Civil Rights Movement, specifically during the March on Washington on August 29, 1963 and the events that occurred after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968.

Crisis: Journalism, Democracy, And The Downfall Of The White House Press Secretary, 1990 To The Present, Grayson Raffensperger

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

No abstract provided.

The Sounds Of Being "Un-American": Embodied Cultural Trauma Within Japanese American Musical Worlds, Kyle Przybylski

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

WWII saw the forced removal of around 120,000 Japanese Americans to concentration camps across the United States. Despite being incarcerated in often unforgiving social, political, and physical environments, many incarcerees developed means of continuing Japanese cultural traditions and music. Since that time, former incarcerees have largely avoided detailed discussion of their experiences of imprisonment, and as such, there is little information to determine what kind of impact incarceration had on their individual and collective musical worlds.

This thesis explores transgenerational cultural trauma using the incarceree experiences of the Granada Relocation Center (a National Historic Landmark) in southern Colorado. The cultural …

Robert Cowley: Living Free During Slavery In Eighteenth-Century Richmond, Virginia, Ana F. Edwards

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the life of Robert Cowley, a formerly enslaved man living free during slavery in eighteenth-century Richmond, Virginia. The first chapter examines Cowley’s enslaved life through the records of others. The data collectors and historians of early America did not intend to capture the truth of Black people’s American experiences, except as defined their enslavement--people in service to the wealth-building capacity of the nation. Yet the lives of Black people who lived in proximity to prominent whites can be glimpsed in a variety of records and writings from account books to deeds, from private letters to newspaper advertisements. …

"Review Of Stephen Huggins America's Use Of Terror: From Colonial Times To The A-Bomb," 2020. Journal Of Interdisciplinary History 51(2): 328--29., Zachary C. Shirkey

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

An Oceanographic Perspective On Early Human Migrations To The Americas, Thomas C. Royer, Bruce Finney

OES Faculty Publications

Early migrants to the Americas were likely seaworthy. Many archaeologists now agree that the first humans who traveled to the Americas more than 15,000 years before present (yr BP) used a coastal North Pacific route. Their initial migration was from northeastern Asia to Beringia where they settled for thousands to more than ten thousand years. Oceanographic conditions during the Last Glacial Maximum (18,000-24,000 yr BP) would have enhanced their boat journeys along the route from Beringia to the Pacific Northwest because the influx of freshwater that drives the opposing Alaska Coastal Current was small, global sea level was at least …

Dreams Of Industrial Utopias: Leading Manufacturers Of The Deep South And Their Mill Towns During The Civil War Era, Francis Michael Curran

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Broadly speaking, this dissertation explores the intersection of industrialization and social reform in the nineteenth-century American South. It focuses on leading manufacturers of the Deep South and their mill towns during the Civil War era. More precisely, it investigates the relationship between these industrialists, their mill towns, and social reform efforts of the period. In the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s, William Gregg, Daniel Pratt, and Barrington King created and managed some of the largest and most financially successful manufacturing establishments in the entire South. These men, however, were more than simply industrialists. They were also idealistic and steadfast social reformers …

The Civil War In Indian Territory, 1861-1865, Zachery Cowsert

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation explores the American Civil War in Indian Territory, with a particular focus on the experiences of the Five Tribes—Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole. Throughout the dissertation, I offer three overarching arguments. First, the Civil War in Indian Territory was truly an Indian civil war, shaped by Native American politics and culture. Second, the Civil War constituted a forgotten but immensely destructive moment in Native history, the second great trauma endured by the Five Tribes in the 19^th century following westward removal. Third, the Civil War marked the violent crescendo of older Southeastern issues of removal and …

“They Are Like Children”: Father Wilbur And Paternalism At Fort Simcoe, 1860-1890, Cassandra Crisman

All Master's Theses

The Treaty of 1855 between Indigenous groups in the middle of the Washington territory and the United States government consolidated fourteen tribes under the Yakama Nation. The combination of Governor Isaac Stevens proclaiming their land open for settlement and nearby gold miners assaulting Yakama women led to the ensuing Yakama War, leading the US Army to build Fort Simcoe. Reverend James H. Wilbur was hired in 1860 by the Office of Indian Affairs to establish the Yakima Indian Agency at Fort Simcoe, following the war. Wilbur also opened one of the first on-reservation boarding schools for Native American children, where …

Southern Electoral Strategy: The Strategic Integration Of Religious Values Into The Republican Party Platform, Levi Walker Rattliff

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

There has been substantial literature concerning the effect the Republican southern strategy had on the Southern voting realignment following the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. This literature has singularly focused on the role of race issues as a wedge disrupting the Southern Democratic majority. During the early stages of this process race did play an integral role, but closer to modernity, the emergence of religious issues serves as a better causal mechanism that has been largely overlooked. Meaning that as racial issues became less salient and palatable in nationwide presidential elections, the Republican Party strategically incorporated social issues …

“That New Africa Is Ready To Fight Its Own Battles": Kwame Nkrumah, The United States, And The Quest For A Modern Ghana, 1957-1966, Godwin Gyimah

Masters Theses

This project examines the United States-Ghana relationship and how the relationship transformed Ghana, 1957-1966. African leaders such as Dr. Kwame Nkrumah had declared: "That new Africa is ready to fight its own battles and show that after all, the black man is capable of managing his affairs." Despite the non-alignment philosophy, Ghana was not neutral regarding the West and East blocs rivalry. The thesis argues that it was through the United States' government and private firms' contributions that Ghana was able to achieve the mark of a modern nation through industrialization, universal education, and the expansion of international trade economy. …

Fixing America's Founding, Maeve Glass

Faculty Scholarship

The forty-fifth presidency of the United States has sent lawyers reaching once more for the Founders’ dictionaries and legal treatises. In courtrooms, law schools, and media outlets across the country, the original meanings of the words etched into the U.S. Constitution in 1787 have become the staging ground for debates ranging from the power of a president to trademark his name in China to the rights of a legal permanent resident facing deportation. And yet, in this age when big data promises to solve potential challenges of interpretation and judges have for the most part agreed that original meaning should …