Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Employee Opportunism In Two Early Modern British Trading Companies, Robert Franklin Unger

History Theses & Dissertations

The English East India Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company were the most prominent of a score or more of seventeenth and eighteenth century joint stock European trading companies whose merchants conducted their trading activities around the globe. The extraordinary distances and length of time that separated the London directorate committees of both companies from their distant employees was perhaps their greatest managerial challenge. Neither company could directly supervise their employees at their remote trading concessions, whether it was India and the East Indies for the East India Company or sub-arctic North America for the Hudson’s Bay Company.

Because of …

Richmond Iron: Tredegar's Role In Southern Industry During The Civil War And Reconstruction, Lisa Hilleary

History Theses & Dissertations

The American South contained few iron industries in the decades before the Civil War. Not until the Civil War did southern states produce significant quantities of vital industrial products, such as iron. Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, Virginia, was a rare exception. Under the ownership of Joseph R. Anderson, the company established a national reputation for quality products. Prior to the war, Tredegar did business with northerners and with the Federal government. During the war, Tredegar became one of the main weapons suppliers to the Confederate military. Since this iron company physically and economically survived the war, Anderson regained many …

Woman's Work: Female Lighthouse Keepers In The Early Republic, 1820–1859, Virginia Neal Thomas

History Theses & Dissertations

During the Early Republic between 1820 and 1859, women, on average, comprised about five percent of the principal lighthouse keepers in the United States. These women represent a unique exception to the experience of the majority of working women during the Early Republic. They received equal pay to men, and some supervised lower-paid male assistants. They filled these predominately male positions because lighthouse work had much in common with stereotypical woman's work, they were most often related to the previous keeper, and they fit within cultural ideals of gender roles. Inquiry beyond the romantic image crafted for these light keepers …

The Norfolk Hoax: Fear Social Violence And Ethnicity At The Norfolk Navy Yard During The Strike Of 1877, John Douglas Forrest

History Theses & Dissertations

This thesis examines the contributing causes why the command of the Norfolk Navy Yard feared a labor uprising or riot in the surrounding community of Portsmouth, Virginia in July 1877. Racial, class and ethnic tensions heightened to the point that on the morning of July 25, 1877, unknown agents distributed pamphlets around the city, which appealed to workers at the Navy Yard. A culture of social violence was prevalent during Norfolk and Portsmouth's post-Civil War existence. The ground-level view offered by this thesis is of the intense fear that spread across the country in 1877 as a result of severe …

Lower Chesapeake Maritime Enterprise: 1781-1812, D. Dennis Duff

History Theses & Dissertations

The American Revolutionary War, officially concluded by the Treaty of Paris of 1783, forever changed American maritime enterprise. An examination of the response of Lower Chesapeake merchants to elimination of the British monopoly on American seagoing commerce reveals that Virginia shipping activity recovered quickly after the conflict, then expanded and prospered until the War of 1812. In addition to propelling the Commonwealth's post-war economic resurgence, Virginia's prosperous foreign trading interests influenced political decisions on Constitutional ratification, establishment of Confederation period and early national commercial policies, and diplomatic initiatives to strengthen American overseas exchange.

Principal sources include customs records of the …

Economic Interdependence Along A Colonial Frontier: Capitalism And The New River Valley, 1745-1789, B. Scott Crawford

History Theses & Dissertations

Historians have generally placed the beginning of capitalism in the United States in the early- to mid-nineteenth century. This assumes that the industrialization of the New England states fostered in a modern economic environment for the country as a whole. However, evidence of modern economic principles existed on the Virginia frontier as early as the mid-eighteenth century. As frontier settlers aspired to emulate eastern society, they not only sought to recreate a lifestyle similar to the one they left behind, but also set up similar governing practices, which in turn created social stratification similar to that which existed in the …

Social And Economic Opportunity In Seventeenth-Century Charles County, Maryland, Garett William Hughes

History Theses & Dissertations

This study explores social and economic opportunity within Charles County in the context of the seventeenth-century and the founding of the Maryland colony. By illustrating the strong cross-Atlantic ties between England and the Chesapeake region, as well as the impact that a high population turnover rate and unsteady tobacco economy had upon the Maryland colony, this study first establishes the environment that those settlers who chose to immigrate to the Chesapeake inhabited. Further, by utilizing community connections, personal relations, and the legal system, the men and women of Charles County developed new methods in which to access opportunity. The source …

Tobacco And Its Role In The Life Of The Confederacy, D. T. Smith

History Theses & Dissertations

This study examines the role that tobacco played in influencing Confederate policy during the American Civil War. Surprisingly, very little research has been done on this subject; historians have virtually ignored the influence of tobacco upon Southern economic interests between 1850 and 1870.

The southern tobacco-producing states grew 439,183,561 pounds of raw tobacco in 1860. Southern manufactured tobacco was worth $21,820,535 in 1860, and along with other agricultural products, especially cotton, played an important economic, political, and diplomatic role in the life of the Confederacy. The tobacco industry represented a very strong interest group in the Upper South during the …

I.G. Farben's Petro-Chemical Plant And Concentration Camp At Auschwitz, Robert Simon Yavner

History Theses & Dissertations

This study examines the history of the petrochemical plant and concentration camp run by I.G. Farbenindustrie (the dominant German chemical company during World War II) at Auschwitz to decide upon the degree of Farben’s involvement with Hitler and the Holocaust. The study traces the construction of the plant to determine Farben's participation at Auschwitz. The main sources consulted were the transcripts of the postwar Farben trial at Nuremberg along with eyewitness accounts of members of the prosecution staff. Based on the court's verdict, one might conclude that I.G. Farben operated in a state of coercion during the war and could …

Princess Anne County: A Study In Material Wealth, Todd Grant Duncan

History Theses & Dissertations

This is a study of material culture in Princess Anne County, Virginia, from 1691 to 1823, based on court records. These documents allow the historian to determine the economic worth of a group of individuals, analyze the types of people comprising this group, categorize the types and quantities of possessions owned, and differentiate between economic groups according to possessions and currency listed. Trends of ownership for the whole period, the determination of individual occupations, and the occupational content of the people of the county at large are also discussed. Other areas focused on included the level of literacy, the role …

United States Foreign Policy And Mesopotamian Oil 1923-1928, Robert Francaviglia

History Theses & Dissertations

This thesis views the efforts of American oil interests to participate in the exploitation of Middle East oil resources in the 192Os as a point of departure in United States foreign policy. In its opposition to official involvement in the affairs of private business, the United States Government insisted that American oil companies negotiate directly with the British Government­ dominated companies which controlled the Near and Middle East. By placing the execution of its international oil policy under the control of private industry, the United States Government surrendered its capacity to conduct diplomacy with regard to a vital strategic resource. …

Britain And The Free Trade Area Negotiations Of 1956-1958, George Y. Ballentine

History Theses & Dissertations

Abstract unavailable.