United States History Commons^™

A Moment Of Failure: The Debate Surrounding The Strategic Arms Limitations Talks, Grayson R. Jones

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

Following the Cuban Missile Crisis, many in the United States and the Soviet Union believed their leaders had narrowly avoided nuclear annihilation. In response to this crisis, however, American and Soviet citizens asked more questions about nuclear weapons and their spread than ever before, well into the 1970s, and toward the decade of détente, or “de-escalation” between the superpowers. The term détente first appeared in writings from 1912, as France and Germany tried unsuccessfully to ease the tension before World War I.1 However, it is more famous in its use in Cold War foreign policy. The term détente was popularized …

U.S Presidents In Africa After The Cold War: In Search Of A Reason, Socrates Mbamalu

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

Africa has often ranked low in priority when it comes to U.S. foreign relations. Often, the presence of a threat to U.S. interests in Africa sparks a redirection of U.S. leaders to Africa. The Cold War was one of such periods. This work looks at U.S. leaders after the Cold War, focusing on George W. Bush, whose policies in Africa are considered the most impactful and resource consuming. Scholars have, however, failed to put Bush’s approach to Africa in a broader historical perspective. Existing literature has analyzed Bush’s policies in Africa using programs such as the Millenium Challenge Account (MCA), …

Flood Waters Rise: Hurricanes, Disaster Response, And Race Relations In Coastal Alabama, 1906 – 2006, Danielle Leonardi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations (2019 - present)

This thesis examines the changes in social relations after natural disasters, specifically hurricanes. The Hurricane of 1906 caused massive damage to Mobile due to the limited warnings. Tensions before the hurricane were already heightened from the Atlanta Race Riot and boiled over after the storm, resulting in a double lynching. Mobile received very little federal aid after the 1906 hurricane and relief heavily on their own communities and the Alabama National Guard. Hurricane Frederic in 1979 was much different because of its position in the Civil Rights Movement. The government relief was slow due to the overwhelming amount needed, and …

George Washington Carver Club - Bowling Green, Kentucky (Sc 3720), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3720. Miscellaneous material relating to the George Washington Carver Club, Bowling Green, Kentucky, founded by Ashula P. Williams and her daughter Dolores (Williams) Moses to serve local children. Includes children’s activity plans; meeting agendas and budgets; and workshop invitations.

Petition - State Street, Bowling Green, Kentucky (Sc 3723), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3723. Petition signed by property owners and residents in the vicinity of the 100 block of State Street, Bowling Green, Kentucky, opposing the proposed rezoning of land at 130-134 State Street from a light industrial to a heavy industrial district for use as an auto body and repair shop.

County Of Warren Public Judiciary Corporation - Warren County, Kentucky (Sc 3722), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3722. Articles of incorporation and minutes of one meeting of the County of Warren Public Judiciary Corporation, a non-profit corporation acting as agent for Warren County, Kentucky, in the planning and development of new judicial and correctional facilities. Includes a letter to a Louisville, Kentucky architectural firm inviting a proposal for the project.

Moses Family Papers (Mss 763), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 763. Personal papers of the Moses family of Bowling Green, Kentucky, and of related Covington and Williams family members. Includes some materials relating to the Southern Queen Hotel, operated by the families to serve African American guests from 1945-1975.

Ladies Art Club - Bowling Green, Kentucky (Mss 762), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Collection 762. Minute books of the Ladies Art Club, an African-American women’s club in Bowling Green, Kentucky, whose objectives included social and charitable activities and annual exhibits of sewing work.

Dent, Emory Gleason, 1878-1945 (Sc 3724), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3724. Clippings, telegrams of sympathy to his widow, and funeral flower list relating to the death on 19 April 1945 of Bowling Green, Kentucky druggist, businessman and public servant Emory G. Dent.

Royal Knights - Bowling Green, Kentucky (Sc 3721), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3721. Minute book of the Royal Knights, a men’s auxiliary club for the State Street Baptist Church, Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Unity And Dissent: Exploring The United States Constitution Ratification Among The States, Luke Wyatt

Honors College Theses

The research presented here, analyzes the states in 1787 and the ratification Convention of five states: Delaware, New Jersey, Georgia, New York, and Virginia. There were three states that ratified the United States Constitution unanimously while others had great opposition by anti-federalist. The research analyze why those three states ratified the constitution unanimously while other states had great opposition for it and supported the articles of confederation.

Alexander Ramsey And The Ojibwe, Tyler Kliegl

The Purdue Historian

Alexander Ramsey had a long political career within state and national branches of the United States government. A lesser-known part of his actions in government were his interactions with the Ojibwe Native Americans. His personal actions led to the creation of multiple Ojibwe reservations, but in different Ojibwe bands, they chose to resist. Never in the same way and always at a disadvantage. The hope is to demonstrate how an individual may lead to U.S. policies involving Native Americans and how Native Americans were not passive in these decisions and found multiple routes in dealing with the United States government.

Where To Test A Nuclear Bomb, Tyler Kliegl

The Purdue Historian

The United States detonated three underground nuclear bombs on a far-off Alaskan island called Amchitka in the 1960s and 70s. The goal is to understand what the motive of the United States in selecting Amchitka over the endless potential sites to test at were. What makes a place worthy in being tested on, or unworthy in being left alone. How does the United States deal with resistance from locals and other organizations, fighting to prevent their tests.

The American West And Nozick’S Theory Of Entitlements, Kaitlyn E. Price

The Purdue Historian

Customary law emphasizing the protection of private property rights rather than the authoritative assertion of the law characterized expansion into the American West from 1848-1895. The subsequent legal systems developed in a minarchistic manner that aligned with Robert Nozick’s “theory of entitlements,” leading to the adoption of a “night-watchman state.” This theory asserts that a society built upon customary law that focuses on the protection of individual rights will undoubtedly develop a protective body to safeguard these rights in pursuit of the third principle, the “rectification of justice.” Thus, the chaotic and often disorganized way the West’s extralegal and formal …

Lost River Cave Oral History Project (Fa 1414), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1414. Recorded interviews with 16 informants regarding their memories of the nightclub operated at Bowling Green, Kentucky’s Lost River Cave.

The Grizzly, April 25, 2024, Marie Sykes, Ellie Burns, Kathy Logan, Sean Mcginley, Kate Horan, Mairead Mcdermott, Georgia Gardner, Adam Denn, Renie Christensen, Dominic Minicozzi

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

Weaving Stories Into Dance • CoSA Coming This Wednesday! • Ursinus Students Present Biology Projects in San Diego • Editor's Note • Marie Sykes: Editor-in-Chief Signing Off • Grizzly Editorial Team: Senior Goodbyes • Grizzly Editorial Team: Returning Members • Final Crossword • 2024 Spring Sports Recap: Women's Athletics • Signing Off, Go Bears!

"An American Versailles”: Cold War Diplomacy And The Branding Of The American National Image Through The Fashion Of First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, Holly Carew '24

History & Classics Student Scholarship

Holly Carew ’24, History major, Marketing and French minors
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Margaret Manchester, History and Classics

Short-Term Success: The 1988 Reagan-Gorbachev Summit, Samantha Foster

Senior Honors Theses

The 1988 summit in Moscow was the fourth, and final, summit meeting between U.S. President, Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary, Mikhail Gorbachev. The principal issues addressed during the summit included human rights and arms control. This event was the first time that President Reagan visited the Soviet Union and thus took time to explore Moscow by visiting a monastery, Red Square, Arbat Street, and students at Moscow State University. The summit would be considered a success after its close, as the INF Treaty was ratified and further progress in the area of human rights in Soviet Union had been …

"A Secessionist And French Red": The Life Of Pierre Soulé In Transatlantic Context, Caedmon P. Kollmer-Dorsey

History Honors Projects

This thesis analyzes the life of Pierre Soulé (1801-1870), a US Senator representing Louisiana and Minister to Spain who began his political life as a liberal political exile from Restoration-era France. It argues that Pierre Soulé’s fights for slavery and US expansion were in fact not as contradictory with his radically democratic liberalism as they appear to contemporary observers. The particular social, economic, cultural, and political conditions of the 19th century Atlantic World created an environment where liberals such as Soulé engaged in a transnational struggle for increasingly democratic governance which did not necessarily draw them into conflict with the …

The Author And Apartheid: Building Pro-Blackness At Bgsu Through James Baldwin And The Anti-Apartheid Movement, Noah C. Fitch

Honors Projects

The stories of anti-apartheid and James Baldwin at BGSU provides a basis for a building of pro-Blackness in the on-campus community. Through the contextualization and narrative building through a historical sociological framework, these two events show the extent of activism in the 1970s and 1980s rather than the traditional narrative that is discussed. By expanding that narrative, it also expands the narrative surrounding the history not just of BGSU, but the way universities frame their own histories. Additionally, these events take place in the era when the transition from looking at Civil Rights to Human Rights is more prevalent and …

A Cryptid For Catholics And Communists: The Asuang As An Apparatus For Socio-Political Control In The History Of The Philippines, Alexandra Eckhart

Honors Projects

This essay explores the utilization of folklore beliefs in psychological warfare through a comparative analysis of General Edward Geary Lansdale's tactics during the Hukbalahap insurgency at the beginning of the Cold War and the historical exploitation of the asuang myth by Spanish Catholic missionaries in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. While both instances involved leveraging local superstitions to influence behavior, their motivations and approaches diverged significantly. Unlike the missionaries, Lansdale's actions stemmed from a strategic imperative to combat communism rather than a sense of racial superiority or religious domination. Drawing parallels between Lansdale's methods and centuries-old patterns of oppression, this …

Fighting For The Franchise: African American Disfranchisement In Charlottesville, Virginia, Thomas R. Seabrook

Madison Historical Review

Around the turn of the twentieth century, white Southerners crossed the political aisle to disfranchise African American voters through a series of legislation at the state level. Though African Americans resisted these efforts to strip them of their citizenship rights, many historians believe that African Americans had been practically shut out of politics by 1900. Disfranchisement did not mean that African Americans stopped asserting their constitutional rights, however, as historians who trace African American organization and resistance have shown. In this article, I examine the response of African Americans in Charlottesville, Virginia, to disfranchisement and I consider the effect disfranchisement …

Is Humanitarian Aid Neutral? The American Ambulance Field Service And The American Red Cross, Laura Neis

Madison Historical Review

The United States did not outwardly join WWI until April of 1917. However, in the nearly three years in which the U.S. was neutral, they provided medical support to the suffering. This act has been dismissed as humanitarian charity work, and therefore not breaking with neutrality agreements, but it was actually a hotly contested act of foreign policy, and different propaganda campaigns were used to change the minds of American citizens.

Two different groups of medical volunteers show how humanitarian aid shapes perspectives on war. The American Ambulance Field Service drove ambulances for the French army on the front line, …

Republican Manhood And The Disabled Revolutionary War Veteran In The Early American Republic, 1789 – 1797, Virgil Clark

Madison Historical Review

In the aftermath of the American Revolutionary War, several Disabled Continental Army soldiers scattered across the burgeoning Republic were driven by desperation to write letters, pleading with General George Washington for his support. The soldiers’ decision to draft these letters stemmed from their profound frustration and disillusionment with the post-Revolution American state. The soldiers' discontent resulted from the sense of neglect they experienced after the state rejected their petitions for a Disabled Veteran’s pension. As time passed and rent went unpaid, medical bills piled up, and the threat of vagrancy loomed over these men like a malevolent specter. Unable to …

A Most Despicable Hoax: Women, Crime, And Newspapers In Depression-Era St. Louis, Nancy Stiles

Theses

This paper delves into the captivating saga of Nellie Muench, a St. Louis housewife whose life intersected with the burgeoning celebrity culture, evolving media landscape, and shifting gender dynamics of the early 20th century. Muench's involvement as a co-conspirator in the 1931 kidnapping for ransom of a wealthy doctor propelled her into the spotlight, where she navigated media manipulation to attempt to craft her own narrative. Secretly obtaining a baby and passing it off as her own child to gain jury sympathy and blackmail a rich paramour took interest in her case to sensational tabloid (and legal) heights. Drawing from …

Women And Food In World War I Era Arkansas, Emily A. Stolp

ATU Scholars Symposium

On July 1st, 1917, in the midst of The Great War, Arkansas’s Governor Charles Brough appointed Ida Frauenthal as chairwoman to the state’s new Woman’s Committee of the Council of Defense for Arkansas. The report created by the Woman's Committee allowed the committee to first: organize the results of the efforts of many civil groups and second: immortalize the women’s wartime efforts. Women’s war efforts in this era naturally focused on the home front. The need to conserve food, a national and local concern, occupied much of women’s wartime efforts. Fear mongering and propaganda used to push the food conservation …

Silent Cycles: Unveiling 19th-Century Perspectives On Menstruation, Women's Agency, And Societal Transformations, Anna Bennethum

Campus Research Month

In the 19th century, menstruation was a topic often vieled in silence and misinformation. Nonetheless, it is pivotal in discussions on women's agency and societal shifts. This paper explores 19th-century medical perceptions, the dissemination of reproductive knowledge through women's publications, and a case study of Adventist health publications. Through primary source analysis, this paper reveals how access to medical knowledge empowered women, especially in pursuing higher education. Additionally, examination of Adventist health publications showcases alternative remedies to menstrual disorders, granting women control over their reproductive health. This study illuminates the intersection of menstruation, women's agency, and societal change, emphasizing the …

The Grizzly, April 18, 2024, Marie Sykes, Nicolas Ungurean, Andrew J. Perez, Ellie Burns, Kathy Logan, Kate Horan, Sidney Belleroche, Renee Washart, James Rapp

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

Tensions High at Congressional Town Hall • Tree Planting Ceremony to Honor Damiano Rotolo • Ursinus Hosting "Out of Darkness" Walk • Phi Kap's LLS Fundraiser • Expert Tips on Graduate School Planning: What You Need to Know • First Year Review on First-Year Housing • Every REP Matters • ReLAXing is Not an Option

“Alas Poor Ireland!”: British Prejudice, “The Irish Precedent, ” And The Origins Of The American Revolution, David Arthur Salzillo, Jr.

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

Of all the claims in the Declaration of Independence, its surety about the existence of an intentional British “design to reduce” the colonists “under absolute Despotism” is perhaps the most questionable one to modern ears. Contemporary historians have largely dismissed such language, and the accompanying concerns about an alleged British plot to “enslave” its Atlantic possessions. However, this paper argues that such a view fails to properly consider the role of “the Irish precedent” of English imperial exploitation in sparking American resistance and rebellion. Namely, through a careful study of what American colonists read and wrote about in the …

A Republic Of Pawprints: The Rise And Reign Of The Alaskan Sled Dog, 1870-1970, Christopher David Adkins

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation charts the career of the Alaskan sled dog: how it was used as an engine of development, how it became a symbol for early American Alaska, and how it fell victim to obsolescence as newer and faster means of conveyance became available. The figure of the sled dog in the Arctic is complex. Because it was closer to the wolf in phenotype both it, and Alaska, were buffeted by the same White settler expectations and Darwinian chauvinism which afflicted its Indigenous peoples. This would intensify during the baptisms by fire of the gold rushes. Dog abuse – overwork, …