United States History Commons^™

Spartanburg County School Integration Project: Rayfield Harrison Interview, Rayfield Harrison, Clayton Whisnant, Dallas Green

Oral History Interviews

Spartanburg County School Integration Project

Narrator: Rayfield Harrison (RH)

Interviewers: Dr. Clayton Whisnant (CW)

and Dallas Green (DG)

at Wofford College

June 30, 2025

Beyond The Gray Ghost: John S. Mosby And The Power Of Legend, Kevin R. Youngberg

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Civil War generals are among the most celebrated figures of their time. In the post-Civil war era, many of these officers retreated to farms, and businesses and disappeared into obscurity. This was not the case with Colonel John Singleton Mosby, who quickly transformed into a figure whose legacy from the Civil war gave him a unique place in the American imagination as the legendary Gray Ghost of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. He lived until 1916, a remarkable fifty years filling those decades with a host of accomplishments in public service both at home and abroad. His legacy is complex, …

Shaping The Fabric Of Society: Middle Class Women As Imperial Consumers Of Calico In Pre-Revolutionary America, Elsa Cassell Toland

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

Through the Calico Acts of 1700 and 1721, Britain repositioned its Atlantic colonies as distinct imperial consumers of imported calico cloth from India. The resulting expansion of the cotton textile trade had profound impacts for class and society in pre-revolutionary America, as middle class consumers used calico to express their purchasing power, refined taste, and social identity. These patterns of class expression were especially relevant for middle class women. As the primary consumers of imported calico, women directed purchases of luxury textiles for their households in order to shape their families’ identities as members of the middle class. Ultimately, as …

Korean Pioneers: The History, Identity, And Legacy Of The First Korean Americans, Evan Gravdahl

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

In examining Korean American history, the starting date for their arrival is conventionally recognized as 1903, when roughly 7,000 laborers migrated to Hawaii. This first wave consisted primarily of young men, many of whom didn’t plan to stay in the US. However, as their stays continued and other Koreans continued migrating, they began developing a unique cultural identity within the United States. This paper aims to determine the unique identities that developed during this first wave of immigration between 1903 and 1945, how they assimilated, and how they interacted with other ethnic minorities and later waves of Korean immigrants.

The …

Ronald Reagan And The Politics Of Tuition, Alyssa Dunlop

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

This paper explores how Ronald Reagan, as governor of California, justified imposing tuition at the University of California, despite a near one hundred-year tradition of tuition-free education, by connecting tuition to the student protest movement of the 1960s. This paper argues that Reagan made the case for tuition by claiming that tuition would restore law and order on college campuses. Specifically, he contended that tuition would deter rabble-rousing individuals from attending college and improve the moral character of students. Consequently, this argument proved appealing for the majority of Californians, who expressed concern about the student protests, and thus the public …

Remembering Conquest: Mexican Americans, Memory, And Citizenship, Trinidad Gonzales

Journal of Texas History

No abstract provided.

Rehab On The Range: A History Of Addiction And Incarceration In The American West, Megan Birk

Journal of Texas History

No abstract provided.

Run For Your Lives!: Gender And The Runaway Scrape, James E. Crisp

Journal of Texas History

No abstract provided.

Chuco Punk: Sonic Insurgency In El Paso, Carolina Monsivais

Journal of Texas History

No abstract provided.

Houston And The Permanence Of Segregation: An Afropessimist Approach To Urban History, Derek G. Handley

Journal of Texas History

No abstract provided.

Front Matter, Editorial Team

Journal of Texas History

No abstract provided.

The Journal Of Texas History

Journal of Texas History

Published by: The Alliance for Texas History in cooperation with the University of Texas at Arlington Vol. 1, No. 1 June 2025

Where's The Dim Sum? Art, Oral History, And The Chinese American Diaspora In Portland, Or, Rayli Dornan

University Honors Theses

This thesis examines the history, transformation, and contemporary significance of Portland's Chinatown through an oral history framework, emphasizing the voices of Chinese American artists. Beginning with a comprehensive historical overview from the mid-nineteenth-century Gold Rush migrations and railroad labor to twentieth-century exclusion, dispossession under urban renewal, and the late-twentieth-century dispersal into suburbs, the thesis traces how structural racism and policy shaped both the physical landscape and communal life of Oregon's Chinese diaspora. Through in-depth interviews with local artists, this research aims to illuminate how individual experiences of identity, belonging, and creative expression navigate the tensions between heritage and adaptation.

Drawing …

Harlem’S Avenues For Agency: An Exploration Of Black Female Agency In Angelina Weld Grimké And Zora Neale Hurston’S Short Stories, Jessica Ellen Hartenbower

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores themes of Black female agency in selected short stories by Angelina Weld Grimké and Zora Neale Hurston. Pushing back against the belief that the Harlem Renaissaince was a movement solely for male artists, Grimké and Hurston write short stories that center Black women and their experiences. Through the avenues of bodily autonomy, the using or silencing of voice, the opportunity and ability to make choices, issues of justice, retribution, and vengeance, the holding of authority, and being empowered or disempowered, I examine the female characters’ exercising of their agency to varying degrees. I also discuss how religious …

The Role Of Imagination In Archaeology: Linking Contemplation And Method At The Amache National Historic Site, Sami Zepponi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Archaeology is both a science and an interpretative process, blending material discovery with imagination to reconstruct past experiences. This research, conducted through the 2024 University of Denver Amache Field School, explores the archaeological imagination and the creative and cognitive engagement that shapes historical interpretation. Using Amache, a WWII Japanese American incarceration site, as a case study, this thesis examines how material culture, landscape modifications, and reflection inform archaeological understanding. This study explores how imagination connects tangible findings to cultural narratives by integrating community-based archaeology, place and landscape theory, and contemplative inquiry. Findings highlight imagination as essential to archaeology, enabling deeper …

Scientific Imperialism: Science, Nature, Race, And The U.S. Conquest Of California, Jared Dewight Allinson

Student Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the connections between scientific language, scientific and commercial ventures, and the impact they had on nineteenth century California. Eighteenth century intellectual movements that emerged from the Scientific Revolution, Industrial Revolution, and the Enlightenment, influenced how U.S. intellectuals perceived both nature and other peoples. By the nineteenth century, U.S. politicians began to promote the scientific exploration of the western regions of North America in order to understand how to better utilize and gain power over natural resources and access to commercial markets. Within these scientific expeditions, scientists, military officials, and artists incorporated new verbiage to not only describe …

Toward Culturally Responsive Interpretation: Native American Histories, Lifeways, And Ways Of Knowing At The High Desert Museum, Carol Fitzsimmons, Ajena Cason Rogers

Dissertations

Many public museums and historic institutions reflect settler colonial culture and are primarily non-Native led. Although these institutions are trusted, many have perpetuated cultural harm through the theft of belongings, the misrepresentation of stories and histories, and the inaccurate portrayals of cultural content. When interpreting Native American experiences, many non-Native institutions struggle to co-create culturally responsive interpretation. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to apply the four-truth framework, developed by the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to better understand how the High Desert Museum approached the interpretation of Native American content and stories and to explore how …

Unsettling Home: Traces Of An Unrepaired Settler-Colonial Past In "Redding, California," 1846-1924, Celeste Hegy

University Honors Theses

This thesis critically reads primary documents from the settler-colonial past of "Redding, California," my hometown. In this paper, I sketch out a series of moments of historical trauma which continue to cry out for repair. Through a series of episodes from the mid-nineteenth through the early-twentieth centuries, I examine how original settler thirst for land wrought a contested hegemony in principally genocidal flows of power between the settler-state and its settler inhabitants and the pre-existing local Indigenous nations and peoples. In the first chapter, I argue for an understanding of the dispossession of the northern valley as genocidal. In the …

Leiker Sabbatical 2022, James Leiker

Sabbatical Projects

Attached is the Power Point describing Jim Leiker's sabbatical project from 2022. This was a research project on the history of Kansas for a publication with University of Kansas Press.

How A Swiss Person Bought A Part Of The Russian Empire In California: Revisiting Johann August Sutter’S Purchase Of Fort Ross In 1841, David Aragai

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Today, Fort Ross is a State Historic Park along California’s Highway Number 1. It is about one hundred miles north of San Francisco on the wild, beautiful, and wind torn Sonoma Coast. Founded in 1812, Fort Ross was originally an outpost of the Russian Empire; the southernmost on the American continent and the one farthest away from the imperial capital, St. Petersburg. It was built with the intent to help feed the Alaskan colony, as well as to extract sea otters and other mammals from the surrounding waters due to their valuable fur.

Book Review: Der Lange Weg Zur Schweizerfahne/Le Long Chemin Vers Le Drapeau Suisse/The Long Way To The Swiss Flag, Rob Sherwood

Swiss American Historical Society Review

As the classic joke goes, “What is great about Switzerland? I don’t know, but their flag is a big plus.” The Swiss flag is indeed one of the most distinctive in the world. Officially, it is one of only three national flags (along with those of Vatican City and Nepal) that is not a rectangle. The Long Way to the Swiss Flag offers a comprehensive look into the history, origins, and evolution of the familiar red field with a white cross—the emblem of the Swiss Confederation. While many believe the Swiss flag is merely an extension of the flag of …

A Strand In The Web: My Amish Roots Among The Swiss Anabaptists, Duane Schlabach

Swiss American Historical Society Review

The early morning summer sun cuts through the murmuring leaves of the towering maple tree rooted deeply on the edge of the large common area in Interlaken, Switzerland. It’s 2018, and the pealing bells from the Schlosskirche [castle church] still cut through the ground fog hanging along the water’s edge, crescendo over the lakes, and reverberate off the cliff walls like it has for countless generations. The pull of ancestral voices from the misty northern shorelines of Lake Thun in Oberhofen settles deep into the marrow of my identity. I stand in my Heimatort [place of origin] the land where …

Meet The New Additions To The Sahs Editorial Board

Swiss American Historical Society Review

With an increase in article submissions and book proposals, the Editorial Board is happy to add two new members to our ranks. Jocelyn Moore and Jonah Schaller have already been very helpful proofreading and making suggestions to articles that we receive. They join Tom Marabello, Marianne Derron, Richard Hacken, Jurg Siegenthaler and Rob Sherwood as additions to the dedicated volunteer SAHS Editorial Board.

Sahs Presentation At The Swiss Society Of Boston’S Annual Meeting

Swiss American Historical Society Review

On Saturday, April 12, SAHS President Thomas Quinn Marabello was invited to speak at the Swiss Society of Boston’s annual meeting and dinner in Boston, Massachusetts. It was held at the Hampshire House in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood, a mansion built in 1911 by architect Ogden Codman, Jr., who designed several mansions in Newport, Rhode Island, including The Breakers. The five-story Georgian revival townhouse with Italian marble and Palladian windows look out onto Boston Public Garden. The first residents, Bayard and Ruth Thayer, held many salons there and it became Boston’s preeminent salon. In the 1940s, Hampshire House became a …

The Friends Of The Swiss American Historical Society Annual Outing And General Meeting In The Historic Château D’Hauteville, Canton Vaud, St. Légier, Barbara Miller

Swiss American Historical Society Review

In cooperation and with the generous help of Yvon Bordet and Pepperdine University Swiss Campus, this year’s annual outing will take place on Wednesday, September 10, 2025, starting in Ouchy Lausanne at 11:55 and then traveling to Vevey by boat. We will meet at the boat harbor in Ouchy Lausanne at 11:40 AM. To get there you take either a bus or the metro across the street from Lausanne station to go to Ouchy Olympique.

Swiss American Historical Society Annual General Meeting: October 3–4, 2025, New York City

Swiss American Historical Society Review

We are pleased to offer members a tour of the United Nations Headquarters building on the afternoon of Friday, October 3rd. The building is closed to visitors that day, but thanks to the staff at the Swiss Consulate, they have arranged a guided tour for us at 4:00 PM! If you want to do the tour, there is a question on the required registration Google Form that is linked on the next page (and it has also been sent by email to all members). The cost is $20.00 per person and we can take a maximum of 20 people on …

Proposed Changes To Discuss & Vote On At The 2025 Sahs Annual Meeting

Swiss American Historical Society Review

Members will have an opportunity to discuss and vote on the two following items at the annual general meeting in New York City on October 4, 2025. If you are unable to attend in person or virtually, and have any questions or comments, please send an email to: [email protected].

Centennial Committee Update

Swiss American Historical Society Review

The Centennial Committee met virtually on February 8th and March 22nd, and is meeting again on June 7th. We have made some decisions and continue to explore options, partners and possibilities as we plan for our big anniversary in 2027!

In The Footsteps Of Our Swiss Ancestors: Sahs Centennial Trip To Switzerland

Swiss American Historical Society Review

We have enough people interested in this trip that we are working with European Educational Travel based in Basel, Switzerland and are able to provide further information, including an itinerary. This trip is open to SAHS members and non-members, and if we have to cap numbers it will be based on a first come, first served basis.

End Matter

Swiss American Historical Society Review

No abstract provided.