Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Moving At The Speed Of Trust, Sun Ho Lee

Masters Theses

Moving at the Speed of Trust is a workbook of strategies — practices, definitions, and techniques — to nurture community-building in support of inbetweeners who live between power structures and cultures and are often left out. Inbetweeners are those individuals whose lives are in transition through recent immigration or forced translocation from Asia to America.

These strategies revolve around threads of trust: kin, giggles, vulnerability, and shared experience. With these threads, we can question power. We can preserve stories, expand the ways we connect, shift perspectives on what is “standard,” and cultivate a community rooted in understanding. To understand each …

Moving Narration: A Journey Through History, Yincheng Zhu

Masters Theses

The Central Pacific, as the first transcontinental railroad, is a remarkable achievement in the history of the United States. However, the story of what happened during its construction, including the struggles of the first generation of immigrants from China who built the tracks, and the resistance of native Americans to cede their lands, is largely forgotten. The California Zephyr, as a long-trip train that currently runs on the Central Pacific tracks, is not only a means of transportation but should also tell the history of survival and resistance embodied by the landscape it moves through and tracks it travels over. …

Liquid Border, Yingfan Jia

Masters Theses

A River is a mighty and constantly-evolving force, leaving behind an intricately designed and constantly changing system. Not just a river, the Rio Grande stretches all the way from Colorado before intersecting with the US-Mexico Border in southern Texas - a point where the powerful forces of nature now merge with a clearly-defined political boundary. The outcome of this is a unique ecological niche, which may often go unnoticed despite its distinctiveness.

Texas is famous for its farms and ranches, and the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas was once an agricultural hub. However, urbanization and the depletion of water …

“A Constant Surveillance”: The New York State Police And The Student Peace Movement, 1965-1973, Seth Kershner

Masters Theses

Historians recognize that there was an increase in political repression in the United States during the Vietnam War era. While a number of accounts portray the Federal Bureau of Investigation as the primary driver of repression for many groups and individuals during the 1960s and 1970s, particularly those on the left, historians typically overlook the role played by local and state law enforcement in political intelligence-gathering. This thesis seeks to advance the study of one aspect of this much larger topic by looking at New York State Police surveillance of the Vietnam-era student peace movement. Drawing extensively on State Police …

Blurring The Spectrum: Exploring Queer Conservatism, Austin P. Mejdrich

Masters Theses

Running parallel to the groundbreaking and historic advancement of LGBTQ rights over the past decade has been the rise in the prominence and public discourse of queer conservative thinking. From the Log Cabin Republicans to far-right nationalistic politics, queer conservatives underscore both diverging ideologies within the modern American conservative tradition and the increase of far-right politics in Western societies. This study argues that queer conservatism, while traditionally less explored in the broader context of sexuality politics, is consequential to an understanding of the LGBTQ community and queer politics. Thus, an exploration of queer conservatism as a political ideology is explored, …

The Economy Of Evangelism In The Colonial American South, Julia Carroll

Masters Theses

Eighteenth-century Methodist evangelism supported, perpetuated, and promoted slavery as requisite for a productive economy in the colonial American South. Religious thought of the First Great Awakening emerged alongside a colonial economy increasingly reliant on chattel slavery for its prosperity. The records of well-traveled celebrity minister and provocateur of the Anglican tradition, George Whitefield, suggest how Calvinist-Methodist evangelicals viewed slavery as necessary to supporting colonial ministerial efforts. Whitefield’s absorption of and immersion into American culture is revealed in his owning a plantation, portraying a willingness to sacrifice the mobility of the disfranchised for widespread consumption of evangelical thought. A side effect …

"A Babe In The Woods?": Billy Graham, Anticommunism, And Vietnam, Daniel Alexander Hays

Masters Theses

This thesis focuses on famous evangelist Billy Graham's role in the Vietnam War, both as a public supporter and private advisor. It argues that, contrary to his self-depiction, he was no "babe in the woods," no mere neophyte or bystander. Rather, America's most famous preacher was an active participant in promoting and even planning the war. Graham's evangelical theology, with his premillennialist beliefs, led to his intensely anticommunist worldview, where communism was the Antichrist. His public support buttressed the presidents prior to and during the Vietnam War and, sometimes, Graham even delved into policy recommendations for the war.

Graham's role …

An Eerie Jungle Filled With Dragonflies, Sniper Bullets And Ghosts: Changing Perceptions Of Vietnam And The Vietnamese Through The Eyes Of American Troops, Matthew M. Herrera

Masters Theses

This thesis examines the changing perceptions of Vietnam’s landscape and the Vietnamese in the eyes of American troops throughout the Vietnam War. Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Vietnamese were depicted as a people misguided by the French and in need of political mobilization by the American media and government. Following heavy investment and a rigged election in 1956, South Vietnam was painted as a beacon of democracy in Southeast Asia and an example of what American aid is capable of. As an increasing American military presence was being established in South Vietnam in the early 1960s, American …

"Fine Dignity, Picturesque Beauty, And Serious Purpose": The Reorientation Of Suffrage Media In The Twentieth Century, Emily Scarbrough

Masters Theses

Throughout the first half century of the woman's suffrage movement, the women of the movement were depicted as dastardly, masculine women who usurped the family structure with their penchant for politics. In the twentieth century, a new generation of woman's suffragists took command of their appearance in the media. Instead of controversial figures, woman's suffragists were envisioned as normal, beautiful women and mothers. Through the use of mass media, woman suffragists restructured their campaign to convince the general public that society needed women to clean up politics. In doing so, suffragists sacrificed their goals of sexual equality in favor of …

Mishoonash In Southern New England: Construction And Use Of Dugout Canoes In A Multicultural Context, Jacob M. Orcutt

Masters Theses

This thesis examines the history of New England’s dugout canoes – a history that can be traced from 8500 BCE to the twenty-first century. The historical record and archaeological evidence surrounding dugout canoes suggests that the use of dugout canoes changed significantly over time, and that their form varied considerably in different regions of New England. While historians have claimed that these varied forms represent European and colonial influences, I argue that the Eurcolonial influence on dugouts was much more visible in the way the canoes were used than in the shape the vessels took. In addition to analyzing the …

Change And Continuity: Euro-American And Native American Settlement Patterns In The St. Joseph River Valley, Allison M. Kohley

Masters Theses

In recent years there has been a particular interest in the fur trade and colonialism through identification and investigation of Fort St. Joseph. This fort was an 18th century French trading post in the St. Joseph River valley located in southwestern Michigan and northwestern Indiana. This study expands our current understanding of the change and continuity of the Euro- American and Native American settlement patterns in the valley during the periods immediately prior to, during, and after the abandonment of Fort St. Joseph through the use of geographic information systems (GIS) and statistical analyses.

For Want Of Sloops, Water Casks, And Rum: The Difficulties Of Logistics In The Canadian Theater Of The Seven Years War, Daniel Bazan

Masters Theses

The thesis examines the various difficulties with logistics the British needed to overcome in Canada during the Seven Years War and those who helped . Without the necessary supplies and provisions for frontier campaigning, Britain would have lost the war. The thesis provides primary accounts of the geography during the war, various logistical factors, and the men that helped provide the necessary materials for the successful outcome of the British offensive in Canada.

A Nation In Its Prime: A Pentadic Study Of Walt Disney World's Main Street, U.S.A., Casey Guise

Masters Theses

The purpose of this paper is to consider the entrance to Walt Disney World, Main Street, U.S.A., as a rhetorical text and apply Kenneth Burke's dramatistic pentad. Background is provided on rhetorical theory and The Disney Company. Meanings are derived from messages interpreted using semiotics and symbolic interaction within the location. The significance of Main Street, U.S.A., as a replica of historic architecture and an illustration of revival architecture in creating emotive messages is discussed. Further discussion includes the implications of this study on corporations and the field of rhetorical studies in addition to suggestions for further research.

"The Jaws Of Proprietary Slavery": The Pennsylvania Assembly's Conflict With The Penns, 1754-1768, Steven Deyerle

Masters Theses

In late 1755, the vituperative Reverend William Smith reported to his proprietor Thomas Penn that there was "a most wicked Scheme on Foot to run things into Destruction and involve you in the ruins." The culprits were the members of the colony's unicameral legislative body, the Pennsylvania Assembly (also called the House of Representatives). The representatives held a different opinion of the conflict, believing that the proprietors were the ones scheming, in order to "erect their desired Superstructure of despotic Power, and reduce to a State of Vassalage and Slavery, some of His majesty's most faithful and loyal Subjects." The …

The Ministry Of Economic Warfare: Anglo-American Relations 1939-1941, Jonathan Davis

Masters Theses

An exploration of Anglo-American relations beginning in the interwar period to American involvement in World War II. This thesis explores the actions of the Ministry of Economic Warfare and how it affected Anglo-American relations before American commitment to the allied cause. It highlights the existing economic contention that existed between Great Britain and America before the conflict and acknowledges that the Britain and American alliance that is enjoyed today was not inevitable or necessarily desired by either nation. It demonstrates through the actions of the British Ministry of Economic Warfare the paradigm shift in Great Britain concerning the preservation of …

Revolutionary Betrayal: The Fall Of King George Iii In The Experience Of Politicians, Planters, And Preachers, Benjamin J. Barlowe

Masters Theses

When describing the imperial crisis of 1763-1776 between the British government and the American colonists, historians often refer to Great Britain as a united entity unto itself, a single character in the imperial conflict. While this offers rhetorical benefits, it oversimplifies the complex constitutional relationship between the American periphery and the British center. Instead, the path to independence is a story of how Americans rejected the authority of each part of the central British government in turn. Americans drew a clear distinction between protesting the authority of the British Parliament and that of King George III himself. Rather than recalling …

Separating The Whites From The Chaff: Whiteness, Blackness, Racial Exclusion In The Midwest Agrarian Mind, Philip Mohr

Masters Theses

This thesis approaches the construction of race through the vantage of one agrarian magazine, the Prairie Farmer. It analyzes the rhetoric of the people who wrote for this magazine to distinguish changing attitudes toward whiteness and blackness in the rural and agricultural Midwest from the end of the Civil War to the Great Migration. While whiteness was equated with what the Prairie Farmer saw as the active, progressive farmer, blackness was associated with stupidity, laziness, and threat to property. From this, the thesis argues we can build a base of knowledge from which to analyze the roots of racism …

Contextualizing The Tipton-Haynes State Historic Site (40wg59): Understanding Landscape Change At An Upland South Farmstead., Daniel Whitaker Howard Brock

Masters Theses

This thesis focuses on a contextual archaeological approach to investigate the historic landscape of the Tipton-Haynes State Historic Site. Tipton-Haynes is a late eighteenth- through twentieth-century upland south farmstead located in Johnson City, TN. Home to two prominent Tennessee families and occupied until acquired by the state in the 1960s, the site has experienced many alterations to the landscape over time. The analysis presented views the landscape as material culture investigated through a multidisciplinary approach including historic research, architectural survey, geophysical survey, dendrochronology, and archaeology. To make sense of the complex nature of the Tipton-Haynes site, multiple methods were used …

States' Rights Apogee, 1760-1840, Ryan Setliff

Masters Theses

America's states' rights tradition has held much influence since the ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1788. In late 1798, in response to the Federalist administration's adoption of the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions were formally adopted by the legislatures of Virginia and Kentucky respectively. These resolutions set a lasting precedent for state interposition and nullification. As well concurrence with these doctrines can be found in the Virginia Resolves of 1790, the constitutional debates of 1787-1790, and all throughout the colonial-revolutionary period of the 1760s to 1780s. In time, the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions would gain …

Daniel Hannan, Thomas Paine, And The Rhetoric Of Outrage, Danae Brack

Masters Theses

The purpose of this rhetorical study is to examine the textual charisma of Thomas Paine's Common Sense and Daniel Hannan's speech "The Devalued Prime Minister of a Devalued Government" and how that charisma made these artifacts successful in spreading outrage surrounding the historical and political events of their respective eras. The author uses Weber's theory of charisma filtered through Rosenberg and Hirschberg's expanded theory identifying lexical charisma, or the charisma of messages. The author analyzes Paine's and Hannan's use of persuasiveness, believability, and powerfulness, translating each of these characteristics into specific cues that can be identified in the individual texts. …

Lawyers And Their Books: The Augusta County Law Library Association, 1853-1883, Gregory Harkcom Stoner

Masters Theses

During the eighteenth and nineteenth century, law books of various types contained the vital information needed by Virginia’s practicing attorneys and judges. Access to these resources, however, was generally limited to personal collections and a handful of libraries. Despite numerous calls for the creation of libraries by theVirginiagovernment, state legislators took little action of note.

This study explores the history and origins of law libraries in Virginia by focusing on the formation and evolution of the Augusta County Law Library Association, one of the first libraries organized in Virginia under state legislation enacted in 1853 that authorized the creation of …

The Problem With Nuclear Diplomacy: Jimmy Carter And Pakistan's Nuclear Program, Brittany Raymer

Masters Theses

A detailed history of Pakistan's attempt to build the atomic bomb in the 1970s and Jimmy Carter's reaction to the tense diplomatic situation.

Defined By What We Are Not: The Role Of Anti-Catholicism In The Formation Of Early American Identity, Brandi Hatfield Marchant

Masters Theses

From the colonial era through the mid-nineteenth century, anti-Catholicism colored key points of development in America's early history. Amidst the English colonial experience, the Revolution and establishment of the republic, and the educational reform efforts of the nineteenth-century, anti-Catholicism emerged as a fundamental factor in the development of America's characteristically Protestant political and religious identity. While many studies of early American anti-Catholicism focus on one region or time period, drawing connections across geographic boundaries and constructed historical periods attests to the sentiment's pervasive and enduring influence. While this sentiment varied in intensity throughout America over time, its presence profoundly shaped …

The Truth Shall Set You Free: The Bible, The Revolution, And The Debate Over Slavery In The American South, Kevin Simon

Masters Theses

Before the slavery debate pushed a divided American nation to the brink of civil war, the argument divided the family of God. By the time cannon fire erupted at Fort Sumter, Christians had already staked out positions based on sophisticated lines of argument they used to justify or condemn chattel slavery. The generation coming of age during the Civil War era witnessed a debate more intense and contentious than their ancestors had seen, but in terms of the arguments employed, it broke very little fresh ground. Contrary to the assumption that antebellum apologists in the South invented the defense of …

The Hartford Female Beneficent Society And The Hartford Orphan Asylum: A Case Study From 1810 To 1890, Katherine M. Mcnulty

Masters Theses

Dedicated to Eugene Leach, PhD

Coughlin And Cleveland, Karen G. Ketchaver

Masters Theses

Father Charles E. Coughlin was one of the most prominent, and most controversial, figures in the United States in the 1930s and in the early years of the 1940s. This Canadian-born cleric rose from the life of an ordinary parish priest to becoming one of the leading radio phenomena of his day, masterfully using the new medium to command a vast audience. Coughlin began his radio career addressing religious subjects, but he expanded into the realm of politics by the early 1930s. His views became more and more extreme, and, by the latter part of the decade, he became increasingly …

Black Power In Green And White: Integration And Black Protest In Michigan State University Football, 1947-1972, John Matthew Smith

Masters Theses

While southern college football teams remained all white until the late 1960s and early 1970s, Michigan State University head football coach Duffy Daugherty formed championship teams in 1965 and 1966 by recruiting the best southern black players. While coaches in the North recruited black athletes and played them regularly by the mid-1950s, no other coach took the risks Daugherty did to integrate his teams. Duffy Daugherty's path-breaking teams broke all the rules of integrated competition and forced southern schools to reconsider their stance on segregated college football.

The ground breaking integration of black athletes in the mid-1950s and 1960s under …

The New Frontier: The Presidential Election Campaign Of Jfk, Bryan Wuthrich

Masters Theses

This thesis is an examination of the Kennedy election campaign. It is a narrative and also a brief examination of how this campaign was put together and how the Kennedy campaign staff was formed. The main perspective that it takes is from the vantage point of the Cold War which serves as driving force behind the main issues of the campaign. It is the primary argument of this thesis that the Kennedy campaign marked a period of transition whereby America began to formulate a coherent ideological position for itself as leader of the free world and come into its own …

Assassination In Modern America: Political Participation Through A Gun Barrel?, Richard Grossenbacher

Masters Theses

Assassination has been a constant companion of the world's societies from the beginning of recorded history. Only relatively recently have social scientists begun empirical study of these acts in an effort to reveal any commonalties and possible predictive traits. Investigation of the assassination phenomenon assumed a special urgency in America as violence seemed to escalate in the 1960s, which resulted in some notable research.

The present research collected data of presidential and non-presidential assassinations and attempts that occurred from 1969 through 1992 and compared the findings with the results of earlier studies.

The data indicate that presidential assaults increased in …

"Easy Or Hard" The Mentality Of Survival: The Gi In Europe In World War Two, Brian R. Bowen

Masters Theses

An oral history compiled from recollections of fourteen combat veterans, documented by over forty hours of tape-recorded interviews, the paper recreates GIs' mentality upon entering combat. The formation of the collective mentality is examined by exploring the attitudes, motivations, and historical circumstances determining thought and actions of these reluctant, yet dedicated soldiers. The collective mentality, defined as the way of thinking allowing the majority to best cope with their predicament, answers why men fought and how they persevered once in combat. Explaining sustained combat performance the paper proves how the collective mentality gave Gls the will and ability to withstand …