Women's History Commons^™

The Migration Of South Asians From India To Guyana: The Journey, Struggles In A New Land, Reasons For Changes Over Time And Their Cultivation Of A New Culture., Cynthia C. Harry

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Indians from different regions of India arrived in Guyana through indentureship in 1838. They were under a five-year contract and had to work on the sugar plantations for the duration of their indentureship. While they tried to persist their Indian culture, assimilation in their new environments and interaction with people of different cultures, allowed them to develop a culture unique to Indo Guyanese heritage.

This thesis focuses on the history of Indian diaspora in Guyana. It evokes the struggles they faced on the ships, and during and after indentureship. It also touches on the political and racial issues they had …

The Controlled Narrative Of “Jane Roe:” Norma Mccorvey’S Life Beyond The 1973 Trial, Eleanor G. Strickland

Honors College Theses

Norma McCorvey, Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade, 1973, wrote two memoirs twenty years after the Supreme Court trial that surrounded her third pregnancy. These memoirs (I Am Roe, 1994, and Won by Love, 1997), along with the recent documentary AKA Jane Roe (2020), provide an insight into McCorvey’s life and how she was used by politicians and civilians during and after the influential trial. McCorvey lived a complicated life and was constantly being pulled in different directions spiritually, politically, and personally. This thesis shows how McCorvey attempted to re-write the narrative of her life using …

The Queer Life Of Lorena Hickok, Samantha D. Leyerle

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores the life of Lorena Hickok, a remarkable woman whose story has been glossed over throughout history. Hickok was an accomplished journalist and writer, and her life offers a fascinating glimpse into being queer in the early twentieth century. While much has been written about Hickok’s relationship with Eleanor Roosevelt, this thesis aims to go beyond their connection to examine Hickok’s entire life and experiences in greater detail. Through analyzing her work as a writer, as well as her personal correspondence and unpublished autobiography, this thesis illuminates the quiet details of defining moments in history, including the Great …

Woman Flytrap, Brianna Jo Hobson

Student Theses and Dissertations

Woman FlyTrap is a short story zine collection that explores the topic of sexual violence through the perpetrator and victim relationship with an explicit lens. Replete with cultural and entomological themes and motifs, Woman Flytrap seeks to remind survivors that we are not alone. In our bodies or in our lives. Neither in the world. There are over a million insects to every human, proving that there is strength in numbers. All five stories in the collection present different abstracts: revenge, transformation, justice, healing, body image, self-harm, mourning, etc. There is also a playlist and a section about the author. …

The Railsplitter And The Pathfinder: The Relationship Between Abraham Lincoln And John C. Frémont, Kourtney Yantis

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

This study serves as an analysis of the connections between Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States and John Charles Frémont as a Civil War general. Lincoln’s position within history is solid, unlike that of John C. Frémont. The thesis will elevate Frémont to a higher status as a historical figure by arguing that the emancipation edict that he issued for Missouri in August of 1861 would influence Abraham Lincoln’s preliminary emancipation proclamation of September 1862, even though Lincoln repealed Frémont’s decree. In biographies of each man, their interactions are merely a small part of the stories of their …

Working For The Benefit And Advancement Of Women: Three Women's Organizations That Commemorated The American Civil War, 1880-1920, Annette F. Guild

Masters Theses, 2020-current

In the past forty years, scholars and members of the public alike have obsessed over the complex legacy of the American Civil War (1861-1865). As debates over Confederate monuments and the United States’ racial past have frequently emerged in politics, many Americans have disagreed as to how the Civil War should be remembered. In examining the evolution of Civil War memory in American society, numerous scholars have noted the important role that women’s organizations played in influencing the Civil War’s collective memory in the fifty years following the conflict. However, while scholars have noted the significance of these organizations for …

Wives, Warriors, And Womanhood: A Study Of Women’S War Roles, Megan Lee

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

Since starting the War, Diplomacy, and Society program, my interests have included a focus on the soldier’s experience in war, women’s changing roles in war, and the study of war journalism, ranging from World War II, the Cold War, to the Vietnam War. This thesis project is a culmination of these themes.

The first article examines the crucial nature of a soldier’s connection to the Home Front by analyzing a collection of letters between a soldier and his fiancé during World War II. Filled with declarations of love and occasional expressions of insecurity, these letters reveal the importance of a …

Political Economy In Lettres D'Une Péruvienne: Françoise De Graffigny As Philosophe And Reformer, Marguerite J. Van Cook

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation identifies the significant presence of political economics in Lettres d’une Péruvienne by Françoise de Graffigny, née Françoise d'Issembourg du Buisson d'Happencourt (1695 –1758), to affirm its author as a pioneer in the field. It explores Graffigny’s use of the sentimental novel as a vehicle to carry those ideas to the reading community. It reviews Graffigny’s preparation to propose novel ideas in the area of political economics and to fully participate in the then-emergent discourse with her male contemporaries. Her wide reading in the subject of Political Economy, from Voltaire to Mandeville and Montesquieu and her interactions with contemporaries …

Women’S Sexuality And The State: A Beginning Look At Virginity’S Relationship To The Law, Ariana Strieb

Senior Projects Spring 2023

This is a beginning look at the relationship the state has with women's sexuality in the United States, specifically looking at how virginity animate the way rape trials are prosecuted.

New Women In The Old Dominion: Race And Gender In Progressive-Era Virginia, Rachel Scott

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis traces the development of Black and white Southern women’s pursuit of political power between the end of the Civil War and the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. Emancipation and the downfall of the antebellum planter aristocracy upset traditional Southern gender norms and opened new doors for women of both races in the political upheaval of Reconstruction. Though both Black and white women participated in the women’s club movement and joined women’s advocacy and charity groups following the Civil War, their work was distinctive both from each other and from other regional Progressive movements. The context of …

Feminism, Femininity, And Arkansas First Ladies: Hillary Rodham Clinton And Janet Mccain Huckabee, Spencer A. Hurlbut

ATU Theses and Dissertations 2021 - Present

Through the 1970s and into the 2000s, Hillary Clinton and Janet Huckabee served as first ladies. Their husbands were elected and ran campaigns for Arkansas Governor and President of the United States. While the two men were the elected officials that constituents cast their votes for on election day, Hillary and Janet were beside the men playing a tremendous role in securing or discouraging votes. Third wave feminism ran rampant throughout these two decades and resulted in higher numbers of women in the workforce, later years of marriage, less children, and greater awareness of sexual harassment and sex discrimination. Hillary …

La Cultura Que No Cambia, Karina Arreola-Gutierrez

MFA in Visual Art

In the text of La Cultura Que No Cambia, I mention how my work has been influenced by becoming more aware of generations of altar making that occur in my family. By collecting stories and photographs of altars, I can observe and create work based on how the legacies can change through generations or stay the same. The memory of my ancestors and family traditions is strengthened. Growing up seeing discrimination towards others has influenced me to highlight my Mexican heritage of traditions, culture, and language through several different methods. Using these elements, I can create work informing audiences about …

Her World Changed: Anna Louise Strong And The 1916 Everett Massacre, Charlotte Nabors

History Theses

The 1970s saw a resurgence in the scholarship on Anna Louise Strong’s life, especially in feminist circles. In general, historians pre-1970 doubted the authenticity of Strong’s political radicalism and criticized the inconsistency in her participation. Neis’ scholarship represents the largely uncritical second-wave feminist interest in Strong’s life following her death in 1970. The scholarship on Strong’s life falls into three categories: the old guard, the feminist renaissance, and twenty-first-century perspectives. Since 2000, a more nuanced interpretation of Strong’s life incorporated elements of the old guard and feminist discussions. Anna Louise Strong’s introduction to activism began in her childhood as the …

The Forgotten Activists Of Georgia: The Black Women Of Savannah, Emily Zanieski

Honors College Theses

Historians of the Civil Rights Movement in Georgia have primarily focused on how the national movement unfolded in the city of Atlanta. More recent scholarship has highlighted the role Martin Luther King Jr. played in Albany; however, many of these analyses focus on figures within the larger movement rather than focusing on local, grassroots organizers. Additionally, their primary focus tends to be on the role of Black men, leaving behind the voices of Black women who led alongside them. Through a Long Civil Rights Movement (LCRM) approach, I argue that Black women in Savannah, Georgia played an instrumental role in …

The Ill-Treatment Of Their Countrywoman: Liberated African Women, Violence, And Power In Tortola, 1807–1834, Arianna Browne

Master's Theses

In 1807, Parliament passed an Act to abolish the slave trade, leading to the Royal Navy’s campaign of policing international waters and seizing ships suspected of illegal trading. As the Royal Navy captured slave ships as prizes of war and condemned enslaved Africans to Vice-Admiralty courts, formerly enslaved Africans became “captured negroes” or “liberated Africans,” making the subjects in the British colonies. This work, which takes a microhistorical approach to investigate the everyday experiences of liberated Africans in Tortola during the early nineteenth century, focuses on the violent conditions of liberated African women, demonstrating that abolition consisted of violent contradictions …

The Infinite Crisis: How The American Comic Book Has Been Shaped By War, Winston Andrus

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

This thesis project argues that war has been the greatest catalyst for the American comic book medium to become a socio-political change agent within western society. Comic books have become one of the most pervasive influences to global popular culture, with superheroes dominating nearly every popular art form. Yet, the academic world has often ignored the comic book medium as a niche market instead of integrated into the broader discussions on cultural production and conflict studies. This paper intends to bridge the gap between what has been classified as comic book studies and the greater academic world to demonstrate the …

The Twentieth Century Downfall Of Professional Midwifery In Britain And Its Gendered Connotation, Katherine Epstein

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Protest Music In Response To The United States’ Oppressive Political Culture: An Analysis Of Beyoncé'S "Freedom" And Janelle Monáe's "Americans", Jessica Torrey

HMC Senior Theses

This paper aims to study a popular musical artist’s responsibility towards the empowerment of marginalized communities in the United States through an analysis of the songs “Freedom” by Beyoncé and “Americans” by Janelle Monáe. These songs will be analyzed in conjunction with the political climate during the time of their fabrication and release as well as the political climates discussed in the songs themselves. This paper presents a thorough analysis of the lyrical and musical components of both songs as well as an analysis of a specific performance of both songs. These analyses will be presented in conversation with many …

Women And Violence In Revolutionary Russia, 1860-1925, Jenny R. Findsen

All Master's Theses

Russian women engaged in public violence during the late imperial and revolutionary periods in various ways and for a variety of reasons. This study examines traditional gender roles in Russia, and women’s motivations for female terrorism as well as military and police service. It establishes that women broke through patriarchal social barriers through violence, even while still embracing traditionally feminine notions of self-sacrifice for the common good. Based on primary sources such as memoirs, official policies, and newspaper articles, I argue that Russian women committed both illegal and officially sanctioned violence to achieve diverse personal, ideological, political, material, and familial …

Witch Pamphlets, Tsea M. Francisconi

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The witch hysteria that overtook Christian Europe during the Early Modern era inspired a mass paranoia over the conspiratorial belief that the Abrahamic religion’s personification of the world’s evils, also known as Satan, the Devil, demons, or Lucifer interchangeably, was attempting to rise up and cause harm to Christian communities during this time period. It was believed that in order to achieve this goal the Christian version of the Devil had been recruiting humans within Christian communities and turning these chosen humans into witches by granting them the ability to wield magical powers to spread their destruction, murder, and terror …

The Radicalism Of Rebecca Felton: Reforming Southern Masculinty And Creating And Destroying History: Butte, Montana’S Model City Program, 1968-1975, John C. Stefanek

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This professional paper is made up of two individual papers required for the M.A. degree in history. In my first paper, I discuss the radical suffragist Rebecca Felton. In 1897, Felton spoke to the Georgia Agricultural Society. Felton, a native Georgian who would later become the first female U.S. senator, gained prominence in the U.S. South as a politician, suffragist, and white supremacist. Her speech, “Woman on the Farm,” discussed the economic struggles of southern farmers. Felton’s speech also addressed a variety of controversial issues including agricultural economics on the farm, prison reform, and temperance. From the 1870s until her …

Brewing History: How Local Option And Prohibition Altered The Texas Brewing Industry, Shelby Winthrop Dewitt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The prohibition movement began decades before the Civil War but did not gain considerable support in Texas until the late nineteenth century. While local option elections and calls for statewide prohibition in Texas failed, national prohibition efforts culminated in the instatement of the Eighteenth Amendment in January 1919 and the Volstead Act in October 1919. This thesis details the prohibition issue through an analysis of eight larger, better-funded Texas breweries who used evolving social and political conditions to combat prohibition and grow their companies, laying the foundation for the Texas brewing industry. This thesis and subsequent digital exhibit provide a …

“The Speechmaking Of A Girl-Orator”: Reason, Gender, And Authority In Dorothy Hunter’S Free Trade Oratory, Erinn Elizabeth Campbell

Honors Projects

Dorothy M. Hunter (1881-1977) rose to prominence during the 1906 United Kingdom general election as a markedly “girlish” yet widely respected free trade orator. While men on the Edwardian public political platform typically built a reputation for oratorical prowess through theatrical displays of “heroic” masculinity, Hunter established her authority as a speaker through two very different (and apparently contradictory) strategies. Her performance of “charming” middle-class femininity helped demonstrate her right to speak on free trade as a “women’s question,” extending women’s traditional authority over matters of domestic consumption to include questions of political economy. Trusting in the power of education …

The Portrayal Of The Woman’S Suffrage Movement In High School History Textbooks, Michelle A. Devries

Masters Theses

The narrative of the woman’s suffrage movement in high school history textbooks varies from textbook to textbook and over time. Textbooks include different information, people, events, and interpretations of events. They employ different word choices and pictures. By using comparative analyzation of numerous popular high school textbooks, the pressure exerted by external economic, social, and political forces on the historical narrative can be seen. Studying the historical narrative in this way trains students to be discerning learners of history and equips them not only to recognize the bias in any historical narrative, but also to be able to analyze how …

Forgotten: A Study Of The Long-Term Economic Ramifications Suffered By Survivors Of Violence Against Females Sustained During State-Terror Such As Genocides, Natasha Holmark Andersen

Graduate Liberal Studies Theses and Dissertations

In an attempt to answer the question: What are the long-term economic ramifications of sexual violence against females in state terror such as genocide? This paper explores the thematic elements, conducive factors and the effects of the existence of sexual violence in state-terror genocides.

To do this, the paper first explores the elements of terrorism and apply them directly to state terror. The notion that states are immune from the blame of terrorism is acknowledged and debunked, furthering the association between terrorism and acts of state terror. Next, genocide is defined as the most atrocious act of state terror, and …

Battlefield Of Bandages: A Case Study On Sanitation Policy, Medical Reform, And Disease Prevention During The War Of Rebellion, Ashley L. Simpson

MSU Graduate Theses

The American Civil War was a devastating conflict costing over 750,000 lives and millions of dollars in the aftermath. However, the most urgent threat was not musket balls, cannons or grapeshot. Afflictions such as typhoid fever, malaria, smallpox, measles, pneumonia, and diarrhea contracted from crowded, unsanitary camp and hospital conditions were responsible for two-thirds of all Civil War casualties. In April 1861, a group of Union women met at church to organize a relief agency whose goal was to aid the thousands of Union soldiers dying from disease. Armed with enlightenment ideas about medical care and sanitation, the Women's Central …

Voice Of Silence: Women Inmates' Perspective On Sexual Violence In The Soviet Gulag, 1936-1956, Louisa Jane Fulkerson

Senior Projects Spring 2020

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

"Between Two Fires": Gender And American Socialism In The Progressive Era, Elisia Harder

Senior Theses

The Progressive Era (1890-1920) in the United States was a time of immense change in both the political and private spheres. Movements which sought to fundamentally upend the political status quo gained in popularity, including that of socialism. Socialism promised equality for workers regardless of gender, something that appealed to many American women at the time. A myriad of upper/middle-class and working-class women were thus initially drawn to the socialist movement. These women, however, would not find the salvation they were promised. Instead, they would confront the very same misogyny they experienced in mainstream political parties, as their struggle was …

‘Posed With The Greatest Care’: Photographic Representations Of Black Women Employed By The Work Progress Administration In New Orleans, 1936-1941, Kathryn A. O'Dwyer

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

For decades, scholars have debated the significance of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), emphasizing its political, economic, and artistic impact. This historiography is dominated by the accomplishments of white men. In an effort to highlight the long-neglected legions of black women who contributed to WPA projects and navigated the agency’s discriminatory practices, this paper will examine WPA operations in New Orleans where unemployment was the highest in the urban south, black women completed numerous large-scale projects, and white supremacist notions guided relief protocol. By analyzing the New Orleans WPA Photography collection, along with newspapers, government documents, and oral histories, a …

The Forgotten Comrades: Leftist Women, Palestinians, And The Jordanian Communist Party, 1936–1957, Fadi H. Kafeety

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Middle East in the 1950s was the site of major contestation for popular support and power. In Jordan, a militant anti-imperialist movement emerged with a platform centered around expelling British forces and abrogating the Anglo-Jordanian treaty. In the struggle between monarchism and republicanism, the Jordanian Communist Party and Ba’ath Party were the catalyzing anti-imperial forces in the first decade of Jordan’s nominal independence. Despite having a militant core of feminists within their ranks, women of the Jordanian Communist Party—who were instrumental in politicizing and radicalizing the first phase of the Jordanian Women’s Movement—have been systematically erased from this critical …