United States History Commons^™

Why Does It Have To Be So Loud? A Social History Of The Electric Guitar, Thomas Dunne

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis , I will examine the history of the electric guitar from it's earliest incarnations in the twentieth century up to the present day. I will argue that more than any other instrument, the electric guitar has achieved a special place in American society, and indeed has become an iconic symbol of American culture. I will further argue that the greatest electric guitarists playing in the genre of rock 'n' roll also achieved special place in American society that their peers playing in other genres did not attain. These rock guitarists were not just considered great musicians; they …

“Don’T Buy Where You Can’T Work:” Protest And Riot In Harlem, 1932 -1935, Christie Anderson

Theses and Dissertations

In the 1930’s, Harlem joined together to participate in a “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” campaign, to gain agency in their community. Store owners and legal decisions would block these efforts. This work explores the failure of this movement’s impact on the Riot of 1935.

The Narrative Of Revolution: Socialism And The Masses 1911-1917, Stephen K. Walkiewicz

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis seeks to situate The Masses magazine (1911-1917) within a specific discursive tradition of revolution, revealing a narrative pattern that is linked with discourse that began to emerge during and after the French Revolution. As the term “socialism” begins to resonate again within popular American political discourse (and as a potentially viable course of action rather than a curse for damnable offense), it is worthwhile to trace its significance within American history to better understand its aesthetic dimensions, its radical difference, and its way of devising problems and answers. In short, this thesis poses the question: what ideological structures …

James Buchanan And Ideals Of Manhood In The Election Of 1856, Ryan Lockwood

Theses and Dissertations

James Buchanan was the only lifelong bachelor to be elected President of the United States. While not seen as disqualifying in and of itself, his single status was often commented upon. Analysis of the campaign literature reveals competing ideals of manhood in the lead up to the Civil War.

Immigration In The 1990s And The Imagery Of Bruce Springsteen’S The Ghost Of Tom Joad, Sarah Heavren

History & Classics Student Scholarship

Immigration is a heavily discussed political issue today, but it has roots in preceding decades as well as in American migration patterns. In the 1990s, Bruce Springsteen released his album The Ghost of Tom Joad to comment on the contemporary immigration issues by connecting the plight of the modern immigrants to the struggles of the Depression-era migrants. The album balances direct references to Mexican immigrants and U.S. Border Patrol officers with the ghosts of the past, particularly John Steinbeck’s character Tom Joad. To provide context to support the connection that Springsteen drew between current immigration issues and the westward migration …

The Grizzly, May 2, 2019, Courtney A. Duchene, Skylar Haas, Sam Isola, Johnny Myers, Shelsea Deravil, William Wehrs, Jen Joseph, David Mendelsohn, Tom Cardozo

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

Hollywood Actor Visits Ursinus • UCDC Brings Dynamic Performances to COSA • Ursinus Student Makes History by Being First Student to be Accepted in Major Program • COSA Features Play About Racism on Campus • "Calling All Textures" Event Brings the Community Together • Sophomore AJ Belville Wins Scholarship to Study in Scotland for a Year • Opinions: We Must not Ignore China's Cultural Purging; Disney's Newest "Dumbo" Fails to Soar • Football Team Preparing for Fall Season with Spring Workouts • The "Fine, We'll do This Later" Award: Kayla Quinn • Bears' Playoff Push Falls Short

The Evolution Of Slavery-Built Higher Education And Racial Supremacy In American Universities, Olivia A. Ricketts

Young Historians Conference

This paper discusses the connections between American universities and the institution of slavery. It examines four universities connections that were funded in different eras of United States history, including Harvard and Yale in the Colonial Era, University of Chicago in the Antebellum Era, and the University of Oregon in Post-Reconstruction Era, as well as what they are currently doing in the form of reparations. The thesis of the paper is that through the history of the United States, the level of association between slavery and universities decreases, due to the rise of abolitionist ideals.

The United States' Relationship With The Insanity Defense Before And After United States V. Hinckley, Natalie R. Peterman

Young Historians Conference

The United States legal system has had a fluctuating relationship with the insanity defense for decades, and the trial of United States v. Hinckley was a critical milestone for this development. Before John Hinckley, Jr. attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981 and the jury of his trial found him not guilty, American society generally supported the insanity defense, but both the public and the government were outraged after Hinckley’s verdict. This outrage and the subsequent political backlash against the insanity defense were motivated by progress in the area of mental illness treatment in the United States. In the …

The Radical Impact Of Madame Delphine Lalaurie On Slavery And The Image Of African Americans, 1831-1840, Sophie A. Rehlaender

Young Historians Conference

The paper covers the history of Madame LaLaurie, and the public reaction of New Orleans in response to her slave abuse. The paper reviews the social climate between New Orleans Americans and the French Creole society, in which LaLaurie was included in. The rivalry between the two groups influenced the widespread hatred for LaLaurie. The paper addresses the extremity of her abuse of her slaves, and the psychological theories that could have allowed for her behavior. The public reaction to the crimes is considered as well, whereas the New Orleanians developed mob mentality in an attack on LaLaurie's house. The …

The Role Of Activism During The Aids Epidemic, Olivia Eaton

Young Historians Conference

The paper examines the role of activism within the AIDS epidemic in the United States and the factors that influenced the various protests. It focuses on the activism that had a major impact on the epidemic and the search for a cure with a concentration on the activist group, ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power). The thesis is that because the activists mostly came from oppressed backgrounds of being LGBT or people of color, they were not afraid of their reputation with the public and thus went to great lengths to expose the corruption in the system and within …

What Comes After: The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, Charles S. Borah

Young Historians Conference

This paper looks at the Exxon Valdez oil spill and the response that followed, including the cleanup efforts, litigation against ExxonMobil and the captain of the Exxon Valdez, Joseph Hazelwood. Also evaluated is the governmental response to the spill, both at the state level in Governor Steve Cowper’s reaction to the spill and the laws passed and hearings held in the federal government. The paper’s thesis is that though there was judicial and legislative action taken as a result of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, it was too narrow in scope to prevent future oil spills from happening and only …

Revitalization In Philadelphia, 1940-1970: Rebuilding A City But Straining Race Relations, Abigail E. Millender

Young Historians Conference

This paper examines government and privately sponsored revitalization projects in inner city and Center City Philadelphia from 1940-1970. These projects—including the construction of rail lines connecting Center City to the suburbs, changes to the National Housing Act, and the revitalization of Society Hill—were meant to bring investment back into the city after the economy had declined from de-industrialization. These projects successfully rebuilt the inner city’s economy, however, they ultimately hurt African-American and minority populations and encouraged segregation. The revitalization of Center City over other parts of inner city and the perpetuation of subprime loans displaced many African Americans, lowered home …

"A Critic Friendly To Mccarthy": How William F. Buckley, Jr. Brought Senator Joseph R. Mccarthy Into The American Conservative Movement Between 1951 And 1959, Samuel Bennett

Kaplan Senior Essay Prize for Use of Library Special Collections

William F. Buckley, Jr. has been revered among American conservatives, and even some scholars of the field, for fathering what would come to be known as movement conservatism through his National Review. Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, a Republican from Wisconsin, has not been so fondly remembered; he was best known for his paranoid style of politics and eventual censure in the Senate. While Buckley and McCarthy’s worlds clearly overlapped in the fervent anticommunist conservatism of the 1950s, few historians have recognized the extent to which McCarthy was a part of Buckley’s conservative movement, if it is to be acknowledged …

Law Library Blog (May 2019): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Amjambo Africa! (May 2019), Kathreen Harrison

Amjambo Africa!

In This Issue...

Cultivating Community .........Page 8

Community Dialogue...........Page 15

Stewart, Robert Lee, 1873-1963 (Sc 3415), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3415. Letters, 30 May 1956 and 15 May 1957, to Mary Ellen Richards, Franklin, Kentucky, from Lee Stewart, Morehead, Kentucky. He encloses poems and song lyrics relating to Kentucky history, and comments on the Rowan County, Kentucky centennial celebrations. He also encloses his newspaper article about a Fayette County, Kentucky judge, legislator and poet.

Selling Childhood: How The Middle Class Used Children In The Anti-Tuberculosis Movement (1930s-1940s), Hannah Fisher

Senior Theses

During the anti-tuberculosis movement of the 1930s and 1940s, children were chosen as focal points, with their roles shaped by society’s changing view of childhood, the emergence of the middle class, and the socioeconomic and political climate. Children were used by middle-class reformers as conduits through which to disseminate information and enact controls on the working class. Health education in schools had two main goals: (1) for educated children to become educated adults, and (2) for educated children to transform the behaviors of adults around them. Although researchers have studied middle-class interventions into children’s health, few have analyzed the role …

Cox, Hal Z., 1883-1952 (Sc 3414), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3414. Poem, “Old Kentucky,” written by Hodgenville, Kentucky native Hal Z. Cox in commemoration of the sesquicentennial of Kentucky statehood. Includes a 2011 newspaper article about Cox.

From Spacewar! To Twitch.Tv: The Influence Of Competition In Video Games And The Rise Of Esports, Robert Boyle

Senior Theses

Since their inception in the 1950s, video games have come a long way; with that advancement came more popularity, a growing demand, and an evolving culture. The first person shooter (FPS) video game genre and the competitive scene that was born out of it is an ideal case study to analyze this change over time. To understand how video games became so popular, one must examine their history: specifically, their development, impacts the games have had on society, and economic trajectories. Similar to traditional professional sports, video games experienced a cultural shift around their lucrative profit margins and unfolding professionalization …

Balance, Inject, React: How High School U.S. History Teachers Adapt Under National Curriculum Standards, Andriana Stenros

Senior Theses

History teachers across the United States are constantly shaping the minds of their students, yet the historical content they teach is based on broad, national standards. Since the establishment of the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) in 1994, a dynamic process of adaptation to standards has been credited to high school history teachers across the nation. Each teacher has a unique relationship with their class, which generate signature teaching objectives and prompt teachers to reexamine and adapt what parts of curriculum they choose to share with their students. Expectations, context, and experience all play into the relationship between …

Comales And Colonialism: An Analysis Of Cuisine And Ceramics On A 17th-Century New Mexican Estancia, Adam C. Brinkman

Graduate Masters Theses

The archaeological site of LA 20,000 is an early colonial Spanish estancia, or ranch, in New Mexico that was occupied between A.D. 1630 to 1680. Spanish estancias became the homes and work spaces for people with a wide range of cultural backgrounds. In this thesis, the author analyses the ceramics and ground stone assemblage of LA 20,000 to understand the daily practice of cuisine on this rural frontier. Cuisine has important symbolic components related to an individual’s identity. Through the practice of cuisine, inhabitants consumed foods that fit conceptions of acceptability, enacted preparation and cooking methods that were taught intergenerationally, …

The Farmers’ Federation: Regional Racial Mythologies As Agricultural Capital, Jama Mcmurtery Grove

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In 1927, the Farmers’ Federation agricultural cooperative in Western North Carolina launched an organization to solicit funds from wealthy donors. The money raised through philanthropic campaigns enabled the cooperative to fund large-scale agricultural projects, which helped members navigate the dramatic agricultural transformations of the early twentieth century. Although the cooperative advocated a progressive program of business-minded, scientific farming, its leadership modified programs to reflect farmer members’ limited resources and the realities of mountain production. As a result, the co-op provided a crucial bridge between white farmers and new methods of agricultural production that reached deep into peoples’ familial and productive …

Young Americans For Freedom And The Anti-War Movement: Pro-War Encounters With The New Left At The Height Of The Vietnam War, Ethan Swift

Kaplan Senior Essay Prize for Use of Library Special Collections

While a vast amount of contemporary scholarship has been dedicated to student activism during the late 1960s and early 1970s, very little of it has focused on those who supported the war in Vietnam. The few authors who have written on the topic tend to present pro-war activists as a mild-mannered force that used conventional and congenial tactics to advocate for victory in southeast Asia. This paper will upend this characterization by examining how members of the conservative organization Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) saw themselves as a besieged minority at American universities and responded to the radicalism of the …

The Fighting Blue Ridgers: Combined Arms Capabilities Of The Us Army's 80th Infantry Division In World War Ii, 1944-1945, Brannon Price

Master's Theses

This study of the Second World War examines the tactics employed by the 80th Infantry Division of the United States Army in the European Theater of Operations in 1944 and 1945. Early historiography portrays American units as brave but less sophisticated than their German adversaries. However, recent scholarship praises American combat capabilities. Drawing largely upon official Army records and firsthand accounts from American soldiers, this thesis argues that the 80th Infantry Division developed into a highly effective fighting force in the European Theater when it properly employed the concept of combined arms (the coordination of infantry, artillery, and armor) on …

Two Sides Of A Democratic Coin: President Johnson's International Approach To The Civil Rights Movement, Kayla Marie Robinson

Senior Theses

The Declaration of Independence famously states, “We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal.” These words quintessentially set the course for the American ideal of democracy; yet, debate as to who was and was not included in this ‘equality’ has clouded this American ideal. This debate sparked international concerns at the end of World War II; specifically the Soviet Union, which questioned the validity of democracy in the United States. As the United States entered the Cold War against the Soviet Union, both ideologically and physically across the globe, the Civil Rights Movement gained …

Bailey's "Race And Redemption In Puritan New England" (Critical Book Review), Jill D. Botticelli

The Christian Librarian

No abstract provided.

Soldaten Des Westens: An Analysis Of The Wartime Experiences Of Three German-American Regiments From The St. Louis-Bellville Region, John Sarvela

Master's Theses

During the Civil War, Germans from the Greater St. Louis region enthusiastically volunteered for service in the Union Army and filled the companies of three regiments examined here: the 30^th and 43^rd Illinois and 12^th Missouri Volunteer Infantry Regiments. This thesis argues that German-American soldiers serving in these regiments joined the army to save the Union and end slavery. Once mustered into service, they experienced less nativism within the Union Army of the Tennessee than Germans in the Union Army of the Potomac. In contrast to the predominantly German 43^rd Illinois and 12^th Missouri, the …

The State And The Spirits: Voodoo And Religious Repression In Jim Crow New Orleans, Kendra Cole

Honors Theses

Voodoo transitioned from a religion that caused its practitioners to be criminalized and apprehended by the state to a lure used to entice visitors to the Crescent City. This thesis attemtps to show how the public perception of Voodoo shifted in the late nineteenth-century from a hidden threat to a public novelty. I explain this shift through analyzing New Orleans guidebooks, newspapers, and court cases at the turn of the twentieth-century. This thesis fills the gap in the scholarship pertaining to the twentieth-century. I achieve this by drawing upon more extensive literature on the oppression of African-derived religions in other …

The Sigh Of Triple Consciousness: Blacks Who Blurred The Color Line In Films From The 1930s Through The 1950s, Audrey Phillips

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis will identify an over looked subset of racial identity as seen through film narratives from the 1930’s through the 1950’s pre-Civil Rights era. The subcategory of racial identity is the necessity of passing for Black people then identified as Negro. The primary film narratives include Veiled Aristocrats (1932), Lost Boundaries (1949), Pinky (1949) and Imitation of Life (1934). These images will deploy the troupe of passing as a racialized historical image. These films depict the pain and anguish Passers endured while escaping their racial identity. Through these stories we identify, sympathize and understand the needs of Black …

"A War Within A War": Policing Gender And Race In New York City During World War Ii, Emily Brooks

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

During World War II, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia and Police Commissioner Lewis Valentine launched aggressive policing campaigns in New York City against crimes of “vice” or “immorality” that they believed threatened the order of the wartime city. The municipal leaders argued that racialized and gendered threats posed by prostitutes, juvenile delinquents, gamblers, and disorderly persons weakened the nation’s ability to mobilize healthy troops and to compete in a postwar world. While the war disrupted racial and gender hierarchies in the increasingly interracial city, Valentine and La Guardia connected America’s global security to policing at home. This dissertation follows patrolmen, policewomen, …