United States History Commons^™

A House Of Cards: Free Banking In Antebellum Chicago, Miles J. Holtzman

Business and Economics Summer Fellows

The Chicago free banking market of the antebellum period has more than once aroused the interest of historians and economists alike. Implemented in the state of Illinois in 1851, free banking was a common, though not universal occurrence in the United States at the time. The city of Chicago’s experience with free banking was anything but common, however. Within the first 18 months after the Illinois legislature enacted the Illinois Free Banking Law, 9 free banks had begun operation in Chicago and between them had an aggregate note issue of over $800,000. But by 1860, Chicago was home to but …

Valentines (Sc 3134), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3134. Handmade and colored valentine “from Eunice” to an unnamed recipient, featuring a drawing of a young girl with lettered greeting, “My heart I lay at your feet, O be my Valentine sweet.”

A Not-So-Distant Mirror: Bringing The Revolution To Life Through Interpretation, Jonathan G. Danchik

The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History

I have not been able to escape Freeman Tilden’s grasp over the course of my three summers with the National Park Service. His writings and ideas seem to be everywhere, not out of pure coincidence, but because of the fact that nobody has eloquently and concisely gotten at the heart of what historical interpretation is quite like he has. In Interpreting Our Heritage, a book so ubiquitous that it might as well be hailed as the interpreter’s holy scripture, Tilden asserts that “the chief aim of interpretation is not instruction, but provocation.” This isn’t meaningless fluff; rather, it’s an important …

Historical Society Has Tools To Dig Deep, John M. Rudy

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

"On last Wednesday night, Lincoln's Birthday," the Star and Sentinel reported in 1908, "a colored lodge of Elks was instituted in Xavier Hall this place with 45 members." The Improved Benevolent Protective Order of Elks of the World was originally formed as an African-American fraternal organization in the 1890s after a white elks lodge in Philadelphia denied local black men membership. By 1908, the organization was quickly working its way through Pennsylvania. And now Gettysburg had "Colored Elks," working as a social safety net for the black community of the Third Ward. They provided aid to the sick and the …

Cochran Family Letters (Sc 3135), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3135. Two letters of John B. Cochran, 22 August 1855 and 1 June 1856, written from his family farm, Locust Grove, in Spencer County, Kentucky to his wife (and cousin) Magdalen M. Cochran. He refers to a celebration of his election as state representative, and teases her about letter-writing; the second letter consoles her on her father’s death. Includes a letter, 27 August 1856, from Magdalen to John, written from her family home, Loch Willow, in Augusta County, Virginia, regarding her health and planned return home. The letters mention several individuals by first …

Music And Race In The American West, William Steven Schneider

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis explores the complexities of race relations in the nineteenth century American West. The groups considered here are African Americans, Anglo Americans, Chinese, Mexican Americans, and Native Americans. In recent decades historians of the West have begun to tell the narratives of racial minorities. This study adopts the aims of these scholars through a new lens--music. Ultimately, this thesis argues that historians can use music, both individual songs and broader conceptions about music, to understand the complex and contradictory race relations of the nineteenth century west.

Proceeding thematically, the first chapter explores the ways Anglo Americans used music to …

Oral History: John Bartosiewicz

Zycie w Ameryce: A Collection of Polish-American Oral Histories

This conversation is an oral history interview with a former member of Worcester’s Polish-American community. The interview touches on a variety of aspects of life in the community, from school and parish life, to Polishness and the significance of language, and the effects of suburbanization.

Interview keywords: St. Mary’s, church / parish, all Polish, PNI, women’s guild, basketball, immigrant, Polishness, language, John Paul II, I-290, suburbs.

Bloody Bay: Grassroots Policeways, Community Control, And Power In San Francisco And Its Hinterlands, 1846-1915, Darren A. Raspa

History ETDs

“Bloody Bay: Grassroots Policeways, Community Control, and Power in San Francisco and its Hinterlands, 1846–1915” follows the history of San Francisco’s spectrum of formal and informal policing from the American takeover of California in 1846 during the U.S.–Mexico War to Police Commissioner Jesse B. Cook’s nationwide law enforcement advisory team tour in 1912 and San Francisco’s debut as the Jewel of a new American Pacific world during the Panama Pacific International Exposition in 1915. These six decades functioned as a unique period wherein a culture of popular justice and grassroots community peacekeeping were fostered. This policing environment was forged in …

Oral History: Richard Lewandowski

Zycie w Ameryce: A Collection of Polish-American Oral Histories

This conversation is an oral history interview with a former member of Worcester’s Polish-American community. The interview discusses much about the Polish-American experience, from the Polish diaspora, the effects of I-290 and discrimination on the community in Worcester, as well as the effect of global events such as the rise of Solidarity on the Worcester parish.

Interview keywords: St. Mary’s, English, displaced people, I-290, Polish-American parish, Solidarity, Polishness, John Paul II, discrimination, education, Church

James Schaap Tells Stories From The Past, Sarah Vander Plaats

The Voice

No abstract provided.

Deweese, Elizabeth Ann (Phelps), 1842-1915 (Sc 3132), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3132. Weaving drafts (4 originals; 1 photocopy) on long strips of paper, several of which have been stitched together, created by Elizabeth Ann Deweese of Butler County, Kentucky.

Beninger, John, 1850-1922 (Sc 3133), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3133. Notebook containing original and copied poetry by John Beninger, a native of Ohio County, Kentucky. Beninger resided in Versailles, Kentucky, for a number of years, and several of the poems refer to people or places in that community. Beninger often mentions the source of his poem’s inspiration and the date he penned it. Mr. Beninger is buried in the McCord Cemetery in Ohio County, Kentucky.

Oral History: ​Carol Fredette

Zycie w Ameryce: A Collection of Polish-American Oral Histories

This conversation is an oral history interview with a former teacher at the Polish-American high school in Worcester, Saint Mary’s. The interviewee is not Polish, but of Lebanese descent, so provides the point of view of someone who came from outside the community yet still became a part of it. The interview touches on the rising importance of the English language, the Church’s centrality, ethnic parishes, school life, and high school basketball.

Interview keywords: English, ethnic parish, church, nun, club, basketball

"Not Your Mother's Pta": Women's Political Activism In Twentieth-Century America, Jennifer Lynn Mcpherson

History ETDs

Not Your Mother’s PTA: Women’s Political Activism in Twentieth-Century America provides the first in-depth study of women’s political activism in the National PTA and its local PTA units. It closely examines how women integrated themselves and their ideas on women’s and children’s welfare reform into government from the 1890s through the 1970s. This project explores the resources, strategies, and methods used by PTA women working for women and children’s interests at the local and national level, primarily in public schools and government agencies. Not Your Mother’s PTA challenges the subtext of the PTA mother/housewife and shows how women used the …

Same-Sex Marriage - Law And Legislation (Sc 3131), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3131. Letters to Brian Coutts, Bowling Green, Kentucky, from Congressman Ron Lewis (R-KY) and Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY), outlining their support of the Marriage Protection Act, a bill to amend the U.S. Constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and woman. The bill failed to pass in either the House or Senate.

Oral History: Anonymous 1

Zycie w Ameryce: A Collection of Polish-American Oral Histories

This conversation is an oral history interview with a longtime member of Worcester’s Polish-American community. The interview discusses aspects of community life, the neighborhood’s ethnic composition, as well as the effect of I-290 on the neighborhood.

Interview keywords: festivals, non-Polish, White Eagle Club, PNA, PNI, Booster’s, crime, expressway, Polish language

Gerwig, Frank Todd, 1897-1962 (Sc 3128), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and typescript (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3128. Letter, 24 February 1918, of Frank T. Gerwig to Hal Kritschgau, Scottdale, Pennsylvania. While training at Fort Thomas, Kentucky, Gerwig writes on YMCA letterhead of military routines, a quarantine due to measles, meeting other soldiers from Pittsburgh, and his eagerness to serve overseas as an ambulance driver.

Messer, George, 1833-1863 (Sc 3129), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and transcription (click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3129. Letter, 26 March 1863, of George Messer to his wife Lottie in DeWitt County, Illinois. From Camp Joe Kelly (the name changed, as he notes, to Camp Hobson) near Glasgow, Kentucky, he describes camp life, including the clearing of timber and his duty in the cold and rainy weather. He also praises the hospital facilities and describes a joke played on an officer who returned to camp without a pass. Expecting the war to end soon, he also writes of matters relating to home.

Carroll, Hillary Bellerby, 1908-1999 (Mss 615), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 615. World War II letters written by Hillary B. Carroll, while serving in the U.S. Army in The Philippines and Japan, to his wife Katherine “Kate” (Whallen) Carroll, in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Also includes some information and photos related to Carroll’s family.

Booksellers And Bookselling - Louisville, Kentucky (Sc 3130), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3130. Pamphlet advertising school books and theological and other works for sale at the Missionary and Education Rooms, South Market Street, Louisville, Kentucky. Includes a purchaser’s account showing sales, prices and returns.

Oral History: Irene Rojcewicz

Zycie w Ameryce: A Collection of Polish-American Oral Histories

This conversation is an oral history interview with a longtime member of Worcester’s Polish-American community. The interview discusses aspects of life in the parish of Czestochowa, from festivals to clubs, to tensions within the diocese, as well as trips organized by the parish to travel to Poland.

Interview keywords: festivals, clubs, English, tension, Poland, John Paul II.

Oral History: Charlene Zimkiewicz

Zycie w Ameryce: A Collection of Polish-American Oral Histories

This conversation is an oral history interview with a longtime member of Worcester’s Polish-American community. This interview touches on difficulties the parish faced, tensions between different groups, school life, and the transition from an ethnic community to a public college.

Interview keywords: ethnic communities, festivals, Irish, fire, I-290, White Eagle Club, basketball, languages, college, immigrants, universal, June Show.

Historic Houses - Warren County, Kentucky (Sc 3127), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3127. Pencil sketch of the Warren County, Kentucky, home of Nathaniel and Mary Lucas, executed by an English visitor in the winter of 1883.

Vance, Edward Richard, 1833-1902 (Mss 612), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 612. Correspondence, diaries, scrapbooks, photographs and family papers of Richard Vance, a Warren County, Kentucky native and U.S. Army officer. After his Civil War service, Vance spent his career at several posts in the South and on the frontier until his retirement in 1892.

Robinson Family - Bible Records (Sc 3126), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3126. Two pages from a Bible of the Robinson family, Warren County, Kentucky, listing births, marriages and deaths.

How Hard Is It To Drain A Swamp?, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

Some humid, summer evening, go out and listen to the swamp. It chirps, it keens, it hoots, it chitters. It is both quiet and restless, serene and ominous. It is alive, full of bats’ wings, copperheads, and clouds of insects. Imagine how it will respond when it learns you plan to drain it.

That thought has some political parallels as Donald Trump finds himself at odds with the bureaucracy of the federal government in an effort to “drain the swamp” of the so-called Deep State. Thomas Jefferson did a good deal of swamp-draining after his victory over Federalist John Adams …

The Common Uncanny: Ghostlore And The Creation Of Virginia History, Alena R. Pirok

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ghost stories have a long and diverse history, they appeared in religious contexts, in secular traditions, in entertainment, and in therapy and healing. Few elements of human culture have been as dynamic as the idea that the dead return to the living world as immaterial beings. Since the late nineteenth century Virginians have used ghost stories to talk about, interpret, and understand the historical significance of place. This dissertation argues that Virginians have used ghost stories to identify and make meaning of historical sites since the turn of the last century. These historical ghost stories sought to highlight the presence …

Local History Collection, Brooklyn College Library And Academic It

Finding Aids

The Local History Collection contains documents that are related to the borough of Brooklyn, ranging from the 1600s through the 2000s. The collection is divided into two series: miscellaneous subject files and oversized files. Both series are organized alphabetically by subject, and a full list of the subjects present in this collection is provided in the Collection Outline.

2017-2018 Ursinus College Course Catalogue, Office Of The Registrar

Ursinus College Catalogues, 1869-Present

A digital copy of the 2017-2018 Ursinus College Catalog. It contains details of the curriculum, departmental requirements and courses of instruction as well as core requirements such as the Common Intellectual Experience (CIE) and Independent Learning Experience (ILE). Academic policies, special opportunities and scholarships, off-campus programs and graduation requirements are also outlined.

The Octofoil, July/August/September 2017, Ninth Infantry Division Association

The Octofoil

The Octofoil is the offical publication of the Ninth Infantry Division Association, Inc., an organization formed by the officers and men of the 9th Infantry Division in order to perpetuate the memory of fallen comrades, preserve the esprit de corps of the Division, promote peace and serve as an information bureau about the 9th Infantry Division. The Association is made up of 9th Infantry veterans from WWII and Vietnam, spouses, widows and lineal descendants.