Human Geography Commons^™

Women’S Communities And Landscapes In Deadwood, South Dakota In The 1870s–1880s, Jessica Kaye Long

Department of Geography: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This research focuses on the lives, experiences, and contributions of Deadwood women from 1875 to 1889. This range represents a defining period in Deadwood’s history stretching from its inception to the arrival of the railroad. Through this research, I seek to better understand the women living in a relatively isolated city during the gold rush. While previous research has focused on the city’s most famous women and sex workers of the Badlands, the lives of average citizens have been neglected. This research does not want to ignore the impacts of famous women or sex workers. Instead, this thesis attempts to …

Commemorating The Past: Nebraska Museum Practices In Interpreting, Memorializing, And Mythologizing History, Carissa Dowden

Department of Geography: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Commemorative landscapes are spaces that have a symbolic meaning to a group of people and are often identified by a government or by a local community. These landscapes act as “symbolic conduits” to both express and legitimize interpretations of the past, though geographic interpretations are largely limited to the American South and Europe (Alderman and Dywer 2012). This research seeks to better understand landscapes of commemoration and memorialization in Nebraska, specifically how memories of the West and pioneers are constructed and represented within heritage and history institutions. Applying methods in geography, public history and digital humanities, this research considers both …

Population Sustainability In Rural Nebraska Towns, Andrew Husa

Department of Geography: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

After beginning with an introduction to rural population trends and population sustainability in rural towns, this dissertation gives an overview of population change in rural Nebraska towns between 1950 and 2010. Following a series of maps depicting the changes in rural Nebraska towns between these two censuses, six case studies are used to explore the growth of individual towns. A discussion on the characteristics of growing rural towns in Nebraska follows these case studies.

The dissertation then continues by discussing statewide rural residential decision making and place attachment based on data collected by the Nebraska Roots Migration Survey. Following a …

A Historical Geography Of Six And Eight-Man Football In Nebraska, Andrew Husa

Department of Geography: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis serves as both a historical geography of six and eight-man football in Nebraska and a discussion of their relationship to rural depopulation. After beginning with an introduction to six and eight-man football, I present an overview of the entire state, including the historical geography of six and eight-man football teams, backgrounds of schools closing and consolidating, and the new trend of cooperative sports teams. This overview is accompanied by maps at five-year intervals depicting the high schools playing six and eight-man football. Rural depopulation, which has plagued the state since the Great Depression, can be seen expressed in …

A Research Framework For The Geographic Study Of Exotic Pet Mammals In The Usa, Gabrielle C. Tegeder

Department of Geography: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Exotic animals are not well-represented in geographic studies, even in the emerging sub-field of animal geography. With the dearth of exotic animal studies, and the relevance of exotic pets in the public consciousness and in the news, a basic, introductory study such as this is necessary to begin examining the myriad ways in which exotic pets intersect with, and have influence in, both the site and situation of modern human-oriented environments.

Exotic pet attack incidents and both state and federal laws regarding the private ownership of exotic mammals as pets were examined in detail within the scope of this research. …

Exploring The Nature Of Space For Human Behavior In Ordinary Structured Environments, Molly Boeka Cannon

Department of Geography: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

What is the nature of the built environment? Built environments are the settings within which people carry out activities and emerge from the specific combining of spatial conditions with specific social content for the setting. The social content and the spatial conditions form a core-defining relationship that serves to distinguish one structured setting from another. A core-defining relationship such as this refers to the essence of the built environment. What are the implications for human behavior that emerge from conceptualizing built environments in this manner? I argue that space, through its essential relationship with the contexts of daily living (i.e. …