Department: History ![[clear]](close-x.png "Remove this limiter")
35 matches in the database.
These are records: 1 - 30.
[1] [2]
2.
Bartone, Christopher M.
Royal Pains: Wilhelm II, Edward VII, and Anglo-German Relations, 1888-1910.
Degree: MA, History, 2012, University of Akron
► The personal animosity between King Edward VII of the United Kingdom and…
(more)
▼ The personal animosity between King Edward VII of the United Kingdom and Kaiser Wilhelm II of the German Empire is an overlooked factor in the dramatic shift in relations between the two countries during the years prior to World War I. Both men grew up in the shadow of Queen Victoria, and both had difficulties fitting into their expected roles within the family hierarchy. Edward was an unplanned child, and became the black sheep of the British Royal Family; he drank heavily and chased women. Wilhelm was caught between two worlds, English and German, and struggled to be accepted by both. One result of their common dilemma, and their vastly different responses to it, was a toxic mix of quick tempers and even quicker tongues that manifested when the men came together. This strained relationship, especially Wilhelm’s perception of it, played a direct role in the realignment of European alliances and the subsequent Anglo-German naval buildup. The foreign policies of both Germany and Great Britain during this period were colored by the personal relationship between the two monarchs and their perceptions of one another. Two key events were the death of Queen Victoria and the Russo-Japanese War. Victoria’s death marked a turning point in British foreign policy, as Edward favored France, England’s traditional enemy. The Russo-Japanese War altered the naval situation in the North Sea, forcing Britain to take measures to reestablish the balance.
Advisors/Committee Members: Baranowski, Shelley.
Subjects: Armed Forces; European History; European Studies; History; International Relations; Military History; Military Studies; Modern History; Personal Relationships; Regional Studies; Russian History; World History
Keywords: World War I, Wilhelm II, Edward VII, Naval Race, Tirpitz, Bismarck, Sir John Fisher, Russo-Japanese War, Queen Victoria, Boer War
More Like This
3.
Basmaz, Özgün.
“The Rebellious Daughter of the Republic” or “The Mother of the Turks”: Reconsidering the Late Ottoman Empire and the Early Turkish Republic Through the Politics of Halide Edip Adivar.
Degree: MA, History, 2008, University of Akron
► In this study, I will analyze Halide Edip whose life spanned one…
(more)
▼ In this study, I will analyze Halide Edip whose life spanned one of the most important transformations of Turkey from an empire to a nation state. Halide Edip has been and continued to be lauded as a patriot, and the ideal “Turkish woman”; on the other hand, Halide Edip is simultaneously depicted as a traitor on the basis of Atatürk’s portrayal of her in his Nutuk. Nevertheless, Halide Edip, through her works and deeds, as a nationalist, a women’s rights activist, modernist, educator, and popular novelist, managed to problematize Ataturk’s representation of her as a traitor and resisted against being denied agency in one most important events in Turkey’s histoy. I have tried to show how, through her undeniable contribution to the Turkish nationalist movement, she was able to problematize Atatürk’s account and to decentralize the “great man” history. I emphasized Halide Edip played a critical role in shaping the cultural, ideological and political milieu of 20th century Turkey that was overwhelmingly male-dominant. I argued that her involvement in the ideological debates through her political deeds and literary writings played a critical role in determining the parameters of the perceptions, discussions, and applications of the major issues of nationalism, the “woman question,” and modernism. Rather than sharing the claim that her engagement with the “West” and the “woman question” failed to exceed the boundaries set by orientalist and patriarchal discourses, I tried to highlight Halide Edip’s ideological complexities that cannot be confined to the uncomplicated categories of secular, modernist, Islamist, feminist, or patriarchal. I observed that her writings insisted on the ideals of diversity, humanity, historical/cultural continuity and thus generated a discourse through which she negotiated within, against, and beyond the epistemological and ontological categories of the dominant discourses. In this particular study on Halide Edip, my aims were two-fold. On the first level, I used her as a site of historical analysis through whose life and works I tried to reconsider a critical period of Turkish history. Secondly, I explored Edip as a critical political figure who supported and simultaneously questioned the existing discourses and dominant political trends. Rather than reading Edip’s different stances on certain subjects as Edip’s inconsistency, I interpreted this as her complexity and originality. I regard Halide Edip’s discourse as “innovative,” “revolutionary,” and “counter-hegemonic,” which emphasized interaction, exchange, and commonality rather than hostility, exclusion or “othering.” The unbiased interpretations of Halide Edip would inspire alternative views in today’s Turkey where Kemalist ideology has turned into dogmatism, where the aspiration to enter EU has almost become an obsession, and where the discussions of women’s rights is confined to the discussions on veil.
Advisors/Committee Members: Klein, Janet.
Subjects: History
Keywords: EDİP; HALİDE EDİP; HALİDE; TURKISH; OTTOMAN; Atatürk; Kemal
More Like This
4.
Bernhardt, Abigail Lynn.
The Freedom to be Catholic: The Struggle to Control the Historical Memory of the Civil Rights Movement in Northern Ireland, 1968-1969.
Degree: MA, History, 2012, University of Akron
► This thesis explores the creation and manipulation of the historical memory of…
(more)
▼ This thesis explores the creation and manipulation of the historical memory of the Northern Ireland civil rights movement based on the memoirs of select important participants in this period of Northern Ireland's history. By examining the writings of Eamonn McCann, Gerry Adams, and Terence O'Neill, this thesis explores how these three men shaped the historical memory of the civil rights period from August 1968 to August 1969.
Advisors/Committee Members: Wainwright, A. Martin.
Subjects: European History; History; Modern History
Keywords: Northern Ireland; civil rights movement; historical memory
More Like This
5.
Billman, Kevin M.
God in History: Religion and Historical Memory in Ottonian Germany.
Degree: MA, History, 2009, University of Akron
► For Ottonian Germany and the Saxon Kings, one of the primary works…
(more)
▼ For Ottonian Germany and the Saxon Kings, one of the primary works available to modern scholars is Thietmar of Merseburg’s Chronicon, written in the early eleventh century. Thietmar was Bishop of Merseburg from 1009-1018. He wrote the Chronicon for his contemporary, King Henry II (1002-1024). The Cathedral was one of the reasons that Henry II found himself frequently in Merseburg. Thietmar’s motivations for writing the Chronicon were to convey to Henry the greatness of the Ottonian line and, accordingly, Thietmar detailed battles and the political framework of the past kings.Thietmar also felt that it was his duty as bishop to inform the new king of incidents and actions that had not found grace in the eyes of God. Recognizing that all written documents bear the influence of their authors and are thus reflective of circumstances contemporary to the author as much as they are descriptions of the past allows one to use a source, such as the Chronicon, to explore the author’s views and understandings of his society. Thietmar’s work offers great insight into how the people of the day experienced religion and their God in their daily lives and the way that they understood their circumstances. God acted through history. It was only when people failed to adhere to the earlier examples that God had to act in the present; when he acted, it was through historical forms. Furthermore, it was through God’s historical actions that people related their experiences. The concepts of memory and remembering are central to Thietmar’s work. He was mindful of his role in the greater picture to offer a record of past events. Thietmar declares that he wished to act “as the whetstone [sharpening] the iron but not itself.” (Thietmar, Chronicon, I. 14). His work is the whetstone and future readers are the iron, and he intended his readers to return to his work, to his examples, to find inspiration and guidance. There is a sense that Thietmar believed and recognized that events and people, who are not written about, will not be remembered. First, I discuss and the ways that scholars have used Thietmar. Often, this has been towards understanding the political framework of Ottonian Germany, though more recently toward an understanding of medieval society from the perspective of memory and social mentalities. I also discuss Thietmar’s thoughts and beliefs on social hierarchy in the world of the living. Following this, I discuss the dead. First, I look to the dead and recently deceased to understand their place in medieval society as well as Thietmar’s own understanding of the dead. Next, I turn to discussion of relics, both of martyrs and of saints, and also the place of martyrs and saints within Thietmar’s work, including the ways that he and his contemporaries understood relics and the holy deceased. Lastly, I discuss the three ways in which Thietmar understood and experienced God: as a protector, as a God of vengeance, and as a supreme judge both in this world and the next.
Advisors/Committee Members: Bouchard, Constance.
Subjects: European history; History; Middle Ages; Religion; Religious history; Theology
Keywords: God; history; Ottonians; Ottonian; Hagiography; Memory; Thietmar; Merseburg; Chronicle; Ordeal; Saints; Miracles; Relics; Bishops
More Like This
6.
Boysel, Nicholas A.
Bernard of Clairvaux and the Knights Templar: The New Knighthood as a Solution to Violence in Christianity.
Degree: MA, History, 2009, University of Akron
► This thesis examines the origins of the crusader ideology and how the…
(more)
▼ This thesis examines the origins of the crusader ideology and how the Knights Templar were formed from this mindset. Using writings from Bernard of Clairvaux and other religious and secular writers of the time, this thesis will examine how the crusades were originally meant to redeem Europe from its violent nature, not to extend that violence. In this way, the crusades were intended to be a military pilgrimage of penance for the men who participated, a way of channeling the evil of their violence into a godly purpose. It was this idea that Bernard latched onto when he aided in the forming of the Templar order.
Advisors/Committee Members: Bouchard, Constance.
Subjects: History; Middle Ages; Religious history
Keywords: Crusades; Bernard of Clairvaux; Knights Templar; Medieval Violence
More Like This
7.
Brown, Kathryn M.
Patriotic Support: The Girdle Pin-Up of World War II.
Degree: MA, History, 2010, University of Akron
► Government and commercial campaigns waged during World War II to encourage women…
(more)
▼ Government and commercial campaigns waged during World War II to encourage women to pursue occupations once reserved solely for men altered the public’s ideas regarding women’s capacity to serve their nation, and not only in ways directly related to industrial production. Once imagined as a threat to decency and the moral fiber of the nation, women’s sexuality became harnessed to the winning of the war and the morale of the troops through public relations campaigns that explicitly charged women with objectifying themselves for the good of the nation. One of the most prevalent visual icons of femininity serving that purpose during this period was the pin-up girl—a figure of fantasy gracing magazine gatefolds, playing cards, packaging, calendars, and advertisements of all kinds. The pin-up comprised a set of visual conventions that not only guided illustrators’ and photographers’ production of the female image; it also shaped women’s changing sense of their physical selves. The prescriptive dimension of the pin-up was best literalized in girdle marketing campaigns which urged women to reshape their bodies to align with new wartime ideals. World War Two-era girdle advertisements reveal the extent to which the pin-up as an image of femininity permeated ideas of women’s capacities as not only sexual partners but also as citizens and members of the nation.
Advisors/Committee Members: Boisseau, Tracey Jean.
Subjects: History
Keywords: pin-up, girdle, world war II, world war two, lingerie, alberto vargas, george petty, varga girl, women's history, gender
More Like This
8.
Carruthers, Jason Robert.
Dead but Sceptered Sovreigns: Johnson's Island and the American Civil War in Media and Memory.
Degree: MA, History, 2012, University of Akron
► This thesis deals directly with the spread of the Lost Cause mythos…
(more)
▼ This thesis deals directly with the spread of the Lost Cause mythos and a reconciliationist historical narrative of the Civil War throughout northwest Ohio. To this end, it utilizes media discussion and other forms of cultural discourse surrounding the Union Civil War POW Camp on Johnson's Island - including the memorialization of the cemetery of Confederate dead there - from the 1800s to the early 2000s. Ultimately, it argues that the memory of the Civil War in the areas surrounding Johnson's Island has always been contested. In the early 1900s, many Ohioans were willing to view former Confederates in a favorable light, seemingly accepting elements of the Lost Cause mythos which casts the Civil War as a heroic, brothers' war, wherein neither side was right or wrong. However, in the early 2000s, while many people seem to still accept the Lost Cause, the opposition is also much more evident and accepted than it was a century earlier.
Advisors/Committee Members: Gordon, Lesley.
Subjects: History
Keywords: Johnson's Island; Civil War Memory; Confederate Memorial; Civil War Reunion
More Like This
9.
Faeth, Michael T.
CORE AMBITION, PERIPHERAL POWER: THE SPANISH COLONIAL EMPIRE IN PRACTICE.
Degree: MA, History, 2007, University of Akron
► This essay examines the notions of social deviancy within the Spanish Empire…
(more)
▼ This essay examines the notions of social deviancy within the Spanish Empire from a trans-Atlantic perspective. Using this perspective I have found that the construction of social and cultural identities both for Spaniards and Indigenous peoples was unique due to both a merging of different ideologies and the new spatial plane in which these events took place.
Advisors/Committee Members: Levin, Michael.
Keywords: Mexico; Spain; History; Colonization; Deviancy
More Like This
10.
Flach, Kathryn L.
Mamie Till and Julia: Black Women's Journey from Real to Realistic in 1950s and 60s TV.
Degree: MA, History, 2010, University of Akron
► Lynching, or ritualized and publicized community sanctioned murder, was the single most…
(more)
▼ Lynching, or ritualized and publicized community sanctioned murder, was the single most terrifying tool Southern whites used to protect white supremacy following the end of slavery. The cultural memory of lynching and its political use and meaning changed following the 1955 murder of fourteen year old Emmett Till in Mississippi. Emmett's mother, Mamie Till Bradley, distributed photographs and video footage of her son's body at his funeral to a cross-race national audience via both newspaper press and television. Bradley's strategic intervention in popular ideas regarding black womanhood had a ripple effect in the culture beyond that of destabilizing ideas about lynching, even. Her glamorous appearance altered public sensibilities paving way for television programs featuring chic middle class African Americans in shows such as julia. Diahann Carroll's role as Julia closely paralleled the image presented by Mamie Till Bradley thirteen years prior via live television. Bradley's assertion into the public eye transformed the gender and racial discourse regarding motherhood and housewifery by visually altering what families in general, and mothers in particular, looked like.
Advisors/Committee Members: Boisseau, Tracey Jean.
Subjects: African American Studies; History; Mass Media; Modern History
Keywords: Emmett Till, lynching, television
More Like This
11.
Flint, Cameron.
“To Secure to Themselves and Their Countrymen an Agreeable and Happy Retreat.” The Continuity of Scottish Highland Mercenary Traditions and North American Outmigration.
Degree: MA, History, 2006, University of Akron
► This study considers and analyzes the motivations for Scottish outmigration to British…
(more)
▼ This study considers and analyzes the motivations for Scottish outmigration to British North America during the eighteenth century from both an economic as well as cultural perspective. This paper posits that Scots utilized the mercenary profession that had long been a part of their way of life in order to achieve economic security and a degree of cultural preservation. It will also demonstrate that Scottish Highland Loyalism during the War of American Independence was not an abnormality, as some have suggested, but rather a continuation of certain Highland clans and families' adherence to a martial code of mercenary service for land. In order to arrive at this conclusion this study examines the history of Scottish mercenary service and Highland clan political loyalties beginning in the late medieval era through the formation of Highland regiments within the British army during the eighteenth century and culminates with these regiments’ land grant based settlement of North America.
Advisors/Committee Members: Mancke, Elizabeth.
Keywords: outmigration; Scottish Highlanders; Scottish mercenaries; French and Indian War; American Revolution; Scottish-American History
More Like This
12.
Ford, Seth M.
CLOISTER and CATHEDRAL: MONKS, SECULAR CANONS, AND CONTESTING VISIONS OF PIETY IN THE CHRONICLES OF GUIBERT OF NOGENT, MORIGNY, AND TOURNAI.
Degree: MA, History, 2006, University of Akron
► This thesis investigates quarrels between monks and secular canons in twelfth-century France…
(more)
▼ This thesis investigates quarrels between monks and secular canons in twelfth-century France through the analytic lens of a shared language of piety. The three chronicles examined in this thesis illuminate two contesting visions of piety based upon this shared pious discourse.
Advisors/Committee Members: Bouchard, Constance Brittain.
Subjects: History, Medieval
Keywords: Monasticism; Monks; Secular Canons; Twelfth-Century France; Medieval Spirituality
More Like This
13.
Glicklich, Jacob A.
Gendering the Other Empire: Transnational Imperial Perceptions of Russia in the Victorian Periodical Press.
Degree: MA, History, 2009, University of Akron
► This paper examines constructions of gender pertinent to the British analysis of…
(more)
▼ This paper examines constructions of gender pertinent to the British analysis of Russia, as emerges through major periodicals across the late nineteenth century. It begins by laying out the methodology and core thematic questions to be undertaken, then proceeds in summary of some of the core insights of recent postcolonial historiography. It also suggests ways that certain tropes on race, gender and the imperial culture can apply beyond the traditional parametersof imperial metropole or colonial periphery. My work then proceeds to analysis of the British strategic situation in this era, focusing on ways in which long-term tension with rival imperial powers was crucial to the British perspective and behavior on their own empire. It makes the case that in the late nineteenth century British men perceived Russia as being of particular significance and a major strategic menace. However, my paper also describes ways in which this situation was peripheral and largely fading by the close of the century. In a final appraisal of the secondary historiography, this work examines major structures of the Victorian periodicals, their significance at their time, their importance in historical analysis, and the ways these connected to British gender and the British empire. Turning to primary sources in the form of diverse authors and periodicals, I look for indications of gender signifiers employed by British authors to frame specific perceptions and evaluations of Russian society. My work proceeds first through examination of a group of dissimilar articles sharing a general hostile stance towards Russia, then a collection that argues for Russia as a more friendly and beneficial polity. Subsequently I look at a gender dynamic in several ostensibly neutral articles, those that avoid a direct evaluative stance on Russia either way. Bringing the larger analysis and tropes together, I look at connections and implications of these sources. Finally, by way of conclusion I bring the thread of gendered perceptions of imperial rivals through to the present, arguing for the relevance of studying this process for contemporary politics as well as postcolonial analysis.
Advisors/Committee Members: Wainwright, Martin.
Subjects: Gender
Keywords: Russia; tropes; othering; imperialism; gendering
More Like This
14.
Guiler, Peter Scott.
Quaker Youth Incarcerated: Abandoned Pacifist Doctrines of the Ohio Valley Friends During World War II.
Degree: PhD, History, 2011, University of Akron
► Religious groups use strong doctrinal markers to ensure and maintain their integrity…
(more)
▼ Religious groups use strong doctrinal markers to ensure and maintain their integrity and more importantly, their identity. The Ohio Valley Friends counted themselves among the traditional pacifist denominations throughout the United States in the twentieth century. With the onset of World War II, they dutifully followed this doctrine of pacifism incarcerating their youth in their own sponsored conscientious objector camp in Coshocton, Ohio. Driven by this central tenet of pacifism, through an ageist struggle to maintain identity, the Friends lost both their identity and their youth. Within two years of the entrance of the United States into the war, a sudden shift in the Ohio Valley Friend’s collective affirmations caused them to try to abandon the camp’s sponsorship, and patriotically support the U.S. militarist goal of victory. Their monthly newsletters and actions showed no changes in their theology nor radical reordering of their allegiance to their supernatural God, but rather the embrace of this same God, co-opted into a newly founded nationalist civil religion.
Advisors/Committee Members: Hixson, Walter.
Subjects: American History; Religion; Religious History
Keywords: Pacifism; Quakers; Friends; Ohio Valley Friends; Ageism; World War II Conscientious Objector Camps; Religion, Civil Religion; Biblical Pacifism; Biblical Doctrines
More Like This
15.
Henris, John Robert.
Apples Abound: Farmers, Orchards, and the Cultural Landscapes of Agrarian Reform, 1820-1860.
Degree: PhD, History, 2009, University of Akron
► This dissertation argues that apple cultivation was invariably intertwined with, and shaped…
(more)
▼ This dissertation argues that apple cultivation was invariably intertwined with, and shaped by, the seemingly discordant threads of scientific agricultural specialization, emigration, urbanization, sectionalism, moral reform, and regional identity in New England and Ohio prior to the American Civil War. As the temperance cause gained momentum during the 1820s many farmers abandoned their cider trees and transitioned to the cultivation of grafted winter apples in New England. In turn agricultural writers used the social and moral rhetoric of antebellum reformers to compel individuals to become better apple growers, citizens, and farmers. Transitions in apple cultivation similarly created new negotiations between farmers, labor, and the land. This study offers new insight into the social and ecological boundaries of agricultural specialization and the often tempestuous interactions between progressive agriculturists and yeomen farmers as they tentatively embraced the elusive promise of scientific agriculture and market capitalism by abandoning the cider press for the cultivation of grafted winter apples like the Rhode Island Greening, Baldwin, and Roxbury Russet between 1820 and 1860.
Advisors/Committee Members: Kern, Kevin.
Subjects: History
Keywords: ORCHARDS; cider; APPLES; FARMERS; New England; APPLE TREES; agricultural
More Like This
16.
Hiner, Matthew.
Nationalization and Deregulation: The Creation of Conrail and the Demise of the ICC, 1973-1980.
Degree: PhD, History, 2006, University of Akron
► The American railroad industry reached a crossroads in the 1970s. Years of…
(more)
▼ The American railroad industry reached a crossroads in the 1970s. Years of mis-management, increasing labor and materials costs, and questionable regulatory practices pushed many railroads to the brink of bankruptcy. The economic downturn of the decade greatly affected railroads in regions where competition was stiffest, particularly in the Northeast and the Midwest. As more railroads failed, criticism of government regulation increased. This criticism became more intensive after 1971, when the government nationalized American rail passenger service through Amtrak. Further government involvement in the rail industry occurred in1973 when America’s largest freight railroad, Penn Central, came dangerously close to a complete shutdown. Concerned with the economic consequences of a shutdown, Congress created America’s first, and still only, quasi-public freight railroad, Conrail. Now that the government had a billion dollar stake in the future of the railroad industry, deregulation became a top priority for both Congress and the White House. The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) had regulated railroads since 1887, and abolishing this government bureaucracy overnight proved impossible. Although regulatory policies had not always benefitted the railroads, the ICC did bring a certain level of stability to the railroads, shippers, consumers, and other competing transportation modes. Yet a series of questionable ICC decisions during the 1970s gave the railroad industry a new ally against the ICC in the form of an increasingly anti-regulatory Congress eager to protect Conrail. Railroad deregulation came to America through two sweeping legislative milestones, the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976 and the Staggers Act of 1980. Congress took careful steps in the rail deregulation issue to protect their Conrail investment that they did not need to take in other types of transportation deregulation. As a result, railroad deregulation generally had positive effects not just on the industry, but shippers and consumers as well. Multiple studies completed since the Staggers Act have examined the impact of railroad deregulation and in general found positive results. This dissertation makes an important contribution to historical literature by linking the story of rail deregulation in America to the Congressional creation of Conrail.
Advisors/Committee Members: Wilson, Gregory.
Keywords: Railroads, Regulation; Railroads, Deregulation; Conrail; Government Policy, Transportation; Jimmy Carter; Gerald Ford; Interstate Commerce Commission
More Like This
17.
Hoefel, Brian Adam.
Trains, Steamers, and Slavers: The Antebellum Southern Commercial Conventions and American Empire.
Degree: MA, History, 2012, University of Akron
► Between 1845 and 1859, southern merchants, planters, and politicians convened fourteen commercial…
(more)
▼ Between 1845 and 1859, southern merchants, planters, and politicians convened fourteen commercial conventions, with the hopes of finding solutions to the South’s economic problems. These conventions became major social and political events for the southern elite and the attendance rolls listed hundreds of current and future representatives, senators, state legislators, and Confederate congressmen. In addition to arguments over expansion of industry in the South and greater protections for the cotton economy, the conventioneers spent a great deal of time debating Manifest Destiny. In the view of the conventions, the South had become inferior to the North in nearly every way. Men who met at the conventions feared that the South would become a junior partner in the empire the United States was destined to possess. Whigs dominated the early conventions, as they advocated for expansion of nation-building programs, internal improvements, and commercial imperialism. As the conventions shifted to Democratic control after 1854, they began to advocate more forcefully for territorial expansion. Some conventions sought more land from Mexico, while others advocated for the conquest of Cuba and Nicaragua. A number of speakers also pushed for an “open-door” policy towards Brazil, not unlike the policy pursued by northern interests towards Japan. The final set of conventions would go so far as to advocate for the reopening of the African slave trade. The African slave trade was a form of European imperialism and southern calls to reopen the trade fit within expansionists’ imperial designs. The trade also became a powerful political tool that southern radicals used to further their section’s secession from the Union. This paper examines the conventions as an outgrowth of political frustrations created by sectionalism and it uses the conventions to situate imperialism as a key part of the sectional crisis.
Advisors/Committee Members: Gordon, Lesley.
Subjects: American History; History
Keywords: Manifest Destiny, slavery, South, southern, empire, imperialism, filibusters, internal improvements, slave trade, Gadsden purchase, Pacific railroad
More Like This
18.
Johal, Kalwant S.
The Battle Over the Kent State Shootings and the Monopoly of Memorialization.
Degree: MA, History, 2009, University of Akron
► This is an examination of the political-cultural debates surrounding the Kent State…
(more)
▼ This is an examination of the political-cultural debates surrounding the Kent State shootings and how this has affected memory. Concentration is provided on the broader national and Ohio political environments from the 1950’s to the 1990’s with an emphasis on the ascendancy of conservative Republicanism and the decline of Democratic liberalism. Also documented are the polarizations of New Right and New Left and the culture wars of the nineties. The ambiguity of Kent State University (KSU) vis-à-vis conservatives, liberals and memorial construction is also explored, with an analysis of what is missing from Bruno Ast’s main memorial to the victims of May 4, 1970 on the Kent campus. The university’s uncertainty in this area and its oftentimes conservative leanings are highlighted. This work offers an observation of the co-option of national memory by conservatives and the hegemonic dissipation of KSU’s prominence in May 4th commemoration. Documents such as newspapers, letters, campus literature, internal memorandums from the 1970’s to the 1990’s are utilized along with a variety of secondary sources, to reflect and portray the battleground of memorialization, as well as events such as the gym controversy, which detail the polarity of memory.
Advisors/Committee Members: Wilson, Gregory.
Subjects: American history; History; Museums
Keywords: Kent State Shootings; Memory; Conservatism; Liberalism; Memorialization; Culture Wars
More Like This
19.
Kawczak, Steven M.
Beliefs and Approaches to Death and Dying in Late Seventeenth-Century England.
Degree: PhD, History, 2011, University of Akron
► This dissertation is about death and its relationship to religion in late…
(more)
▼ This dissertation is about death and its relationship to religion in late seventeenth-century England. The primary argument is that while beliefs about death stemmed from the Reformation tradition, divergent religious reforms of Puritanism and Arminianism did not lead to differing approaches to death. People adapted religious ideas on general terms of Protestant Christianity and not specifically aligned with varying reform movements. This study links apologetics and sermons concerning spiritual death, physical death, and remedies for each to cultural practice through the lens of wills and graves to gauge religious influence. Readers are reminded of the origins of reformed thought, which is what seventeenth-century English theologians built their ideas upon. Religious debates of the day centered on the Puritan and Arminian divide, which contained significantly different ideas of soteriology, a key aspect of a good death in the English ars moriendi. Puritans and Arminians regarded each other as political and religious enemies, yet their theology and teachings reveal the same understanding to the end of life and afterlife. Interestingly, people approached death identifying their common faith as Christians, not divided into different religious groups. Individuals heeded preachers’ advice to recognize mortality and prepare for death in advance of the deathbed. Guidance from theologians emphasized hope and expectation of a blessed death through reliance on God and His promises. This dissertation contributes to narrowing a gap in the scholarship on late seventeenth-century English history and is also a work in thanatology that assesses how humanity has dealt with death. This research especially considers wills as a primary source to evaluate how society faced mortality and Christian teachings shaped conventional thought. The evidence also reveals an increasing value placed on family. Finally, this dissertation is a reminder that assessing the personal topic of death and dying is a unique way to increase understanding of human nature as death is approached. This is a study of the humanities that deals with life’s meaning, mortality, identity and cultural change at one of the most crucial of the life cycles - death.
Advisors/Committee Members: Graham, Michael.
Subjects: European History; History; Religious History; Theology
Keywords: Death and Dying; Late Seventeenth Century England; Late Reformation History, Early Modern England, English Reformation Theology, Approaching Death
More Like This
20.
Klodt, Lindsay M.
Courtship and Marriage Rituals in Seventeenth Century England.
Degree: MA, History, 2008, University of Akron
► This thesis examines the courtships and marriage rituals found in seventeenth century…
(more)
▼ This thesis examines the courtships and marriage rituals found in seventeenth century England. Through the use of diaries and letters, this work compares the topics of arranged marriages, marriages of choice, and outside views on courtships marriages within the community. It also provides a womens history approach in its analysis of the topic.
Advisors/Committee Members: Graham, Michael.
Subjects: History
Keywords: marriage; courtship; seventeenth-century; England
More Like This
21.
Labelle, Maurice Marc Jr.
Traces of Empire: Decolonization and the United States in Lebanon, 1941-1967.
Degree: PhD, History, 2012, University of Akron
► This dissertation explores how the United States became an “imperial” power in…
(more)
▼ This dissertation explores how the United States became an “imperial” power in Lebanese imaginations after its political decolonization. As Lebanon obtained its full constitutional independence in 1946, a shift occurred in how Lebanese peoples perceived and encountered U.S. global power. Despite the United States’ anti-imperial rhetoric and support for Lebanese self-determination, many Lebanese increasingly grew disenchanted with real and imagined U.S. interferences in national and regional affairs, as well as Washington’s apparent blatant disregard for Arab human rights. In particular, U.S. public declarations in favor of Zionism and support toward the creation of Israel—a perceived product and surrogate of Western imperialism—in May 1948 led many to question U.S. motives in the Middle East, interrogate the United States’ so-called anti-imperial tradition, and equate Lebanon’s post-independence present with its colonized past. Despite being self-governing, Lebanese society imagined itself in a constant state of decolonization as traces of empire remained and jeopardized Lebanon’s sovereignty. The U.S. military intervention in the Lebanese civil war of 1958 contributed to ongoing constructions that considered Washington to be openly disregarding Lebanese public opinion and stepping into the shoes of fading imperial powers in the Middle East: Britain and France. The U.S. sale of Hawk anti-aircraft missiles to Israel in 1962 and, finally, the popular belief that the United States colluded with Israel during the third Arab-Israeli war of 1967 formalized the process in which U.S. “empire” became a reality in Lebanese mindscapes. By the war’s end, many Lebanese peoples viewed the United States as being far from exceptional as it had fully embraced an “imperial” policy and culture like others before it and stood at odds with decolonization.
Advisors/Committee Members: Hixson, Walter.
More Like This
22.
Lackney, Lisa M.
From Nostalgia to Cruelty: Changing Stories of Love, Violence, and Masculinity in Postwar Japanese Samurai Films.
Degree: MA, History, 2010, University of Akron
► Samurai films not only educated Americans about how to think of Japan,…
(more)
▼ Samurai films not only educated Americans about how to think of Japan, but also provided an opportunity for postwar Japanese to collectively process the effects of Japan's postwar subjugation and rapid but often inequitable economic development. A close examination of samurai films indicates two predominant forms between 1953 and 1970. Far from being a static genre that embraced choreographed fight scenes and larger-than-life heroes, postwar samurai films reflected the changing values of their time: samurai films of the mid-1950s called for a return to prewar values while 1960s films used cynicism and violence to critique the failures of society. Values espoused by nostalgic films popular in the decade or so after the end of the Second World War form a sharp contrast to the repudiation of those values in films of the following decade and highlight the principal tensions—both generational and demographic—that would accompany Japan’s re-emergence as an independent nation and industrial powerhouse by the 1970s.
Advisors/Committee Members: Zhao, Gang.
Subjects: Fine Arts; Gender; History
Keywords: Japan; samurai; film; cinema; popular culture; masculinity; romance; violence; Kurosawa; postwar
More Like This
23.
Lemanski, Stanley Jay.
The Rectitudine Singularum Personarum: Anglo-Saxon Landscapes in Transition.
Degree: MA, History, 2005, University of Akron
► The "Rectitudines singularum personarum" is an early eleventh-century text which describes the…
(more)
▼ The "Rectitudines singularum personarum" is an early eleventh-century text which describes the duties and privileges of the various tenants on an Anglo-Saxon estate. The thesis provides a new edition of the original Anglo-Saxon manuscript and a modern English translation of the text. The thesis also reviews the current archaeological data regarding the development of Anglo-Saxon estates, and attempts to place the estate described in the "Rectitudines" in its proper physical context. Also, the social position of the peasants described in the "Rectitudines" is examined in light of Anglo-Saxon laws and charters. The conclusio of the work is that the "Rectitudines" was written for an estate with a diversified topology: arable, pasture and woodland, and that it was written at a time when the peasants, particularly the type of peasant known as a "gebur," were becoming increasingly dependent on the lord of the estate. The "Rectitudines" was written as an attempt to harmonize the privileges of the older customs with the new demands made on the peasants.
Advisors/Committee Members: Bouchard, Constance B.
Subjects: History, Medieval
Keywords: Rectitudines singularum personarum; gebur; geneat; early medieval estates; Anglo-Saxon England; Anglo-Saxon Archaeology
More Like This
24.
Lemanski, Stanley Jay.
The Rectitudines singularum personarum: A Pre- and Post-Conquest Text.
Degree: PhD, History, 2009, University of Akron
► This dissertation examinations manorial society in the Anglo-Saxon and the Anglo-Norman periods.…
(more)
▼ This dissertation examinations manorial society in the Anglo-Saxon and the Anglo-Norman periods. The central focus of this study is a document scholars have called the Rectitudines singularum personarum (Rect.). This text provides the most detailed account of estate social-structure in the Anglo-Saxon period. Originally composed in Anglo-Saxon in the early eleventh century, in the early twelfth century it was compiled with other Anglo-Saxon legal texts, and in one of these compilations was also translated into Latin. A central thesis of the dissertation is that the Anglo-Saxon and the Latin versions of this treatise are to be regarded as two separate texts, each being produced to meet different needs and written to address different audiences. Few scholars have tried to ascertain the original purpose for which the Rect. was written. This dissertation places the Rect. within the context of changes in estate morphology during the Anglo-Saxon period, most notably the process of nucleation. It is here argued that nucleation caused significant social change, undermining the traditional and customary rights of the residents of estates. The Rect. was a treatise that held up the author’s own estate as an example of how nucleation can be implemented without undermining the customary rights of the residents. After the Conquest the residents of English estates came to be re-classified as workers dependent on their lord. This in addition to the practice of estate farming diminished the status of peasants and undermined their customary rights. In an effort to preserve pre-Conquest rights legal thinkers of the early twelfth century integrated the Rect. into the collection of texts that represented the Anglo-Saxon legal tradition, a tradition the Norman kings said they would uphold. This dissertation examines the way the Rect. was contextualized within this legal canon, and how the compilers used it as a means of integrating manorial rights into the legal discourse. The compiler of the Quadripartitus, one of the most important of these compilations, also translated the Rect. into Latin. This study examines how he used translation as a means to render the text immediately relevant to the administration of justice in rural society.
Advisors/Committee Members: Bouchard, Constance B.
Subjects: History
Keywords: Anglo-Saxon England; estates; Rectitudines singularum personarum
More Like This
25.
Manos, Peter John.
Joseph Plumb Martin and the American Imagination.
Degree: PhD, History, 2011, University of Akron
► The personal narrative of ordinary Continental Army private Joseph Plumb Martin has…
(more)
▼ The personal narrative of ordinary Continental Army private Joseph Plumb Martin has long provided corroborating evidence for battlefield accounts of the American Revolution and has never been out of print, albeit usually in abridged form, since its discovery in the mid-twentieth century. Yet, the memoir was written in 1830, fifty years after the events Martin narrated. Its romantic literary style, its populist sensibility, its racism, its empiricism, all reflect nineteenth-century values. The memoir has value in epitomizing the solidification of American nationalism and the populist rhetoric that became associated with it. Chapter one attempts to understand Martin’s rhetoric in terms of the literary influences on his writing, which include some works of the nineteenth century, but most from earlier times. Particularly evident is a modeling of behavior and outlook on the popular “Jonathan” character emerging from the works of post-Revolutionary American playwright Royall Tyler and others coupled with the romantic low-born outdoorsmen protagonists of nineteenth century rural poet Robert Bloomfield. Chapter two argues that Martin’s populism and distrust of authority which positions him in the Jacksonian era, had experiential roots in his years of service during the Revolution, particularly with regard to the relationship between the rank and file and their commanders: a contractual, negotiated environment based on competency and personal liberty. Chapter three demonstrates the racism that influenced Martin’s narrative and which stemmed from a growing antagonism between white and African-American laborers in the nineteenth century which rationalized white supremacy through the concept of competence. Chapter four discusses Martin’s and by extension the early republic’s view of the practice of medicine in context of competence and the rise of anti-intellectual empiricism in the creation of knowledge, with a focus on the medical advances of Martin’s lifetime. Chapter five presents a behavioral view of a Revolutionary War veteran who has imposed a nineteenth century populist sensibility on the meaning behind his service in the Continental Army. This is a dramatic recreation of Martin’s testimony before county officials in petition for a veteran’s pension offered in 1828. It is hoped that this work will help create an understanding of how certain anti-authoritarian individualistic ideas realized in the early nineteenth century acted upon interpretations of the meaning behind the American War of Independence and American nationalism, a meaning that has colored our understanding of the nation’s founding and has influenced ideas of what it means to be an American.
Advisors/Committee Members: Mancke, Elizabeth.
Subjects: American History
Keywords: Joseph Plumb Martin; Continental Army; American Revolution; Nationalism; One Man Play; Historical Play; Early Republic; Common Militia; Minuteman; Yorktown; Sapper; Miner; Patriot; Colonial Racism; Jacksonian Democracy; American History
More Like This
26.
McCullagh, John.
Critics of Kingship in Late Fourteenth and Early Fifteenth Century England.
Degree: MA, History, 2005, University of Akron
► This study looks at criticisms of kingship found in the chronicles of…
(more)
▼ This study looks at criticisms of kingship found in the chronicles of Adam Usk and Thomas Walsingham, which date from the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries in England. It explores the similarities between these two critiques of kingship, exploring the king's duties to society. Both authors agreed that the king did not have absolute power, but had to rule with the help and advice of the nobility. If a monarch acted in a tyrannical way then the nobility had a legitimate right to curb the monarch's power. However, the king also had responsibilities to the poor and the church. A monarch who oppressed the church or the poor would suffer divine pumishment. Both authors agreed that a monarch who failed in their duties to society would suffer accordingly.
Advisors/Committee Members: Bouchard, Constance.
Keywords: KING; Richard II; Adam; NOBILITY; Parliament; Usk
More Like This
27.
Pelanda, Brian Lee.
“For The General Diffusion Of Knowledge”: Foundations of American Copyright Ideology, 1783-1790.
Degree: MA, History, 2008, University of Akron
► This study attempts to fill a gap in the historiography on the…
(more)
▼ This study attempts to fill a gap in the historiography on the formation of American copyright law by exploring the specific historical nature of print culture in the late eighteenth-century which directly influenced copyright’s development. Those who campaigned for copyright protection espoused its broad nationalistic implications in the wake of a socially and politically disruptive revolution, and its eventual legislative design recognized a distinct tension between private interests and the public sphere as it embodied the pervasive republican values of the early national period. This examination seeks to clarify how the conceptual architecture of copyright was initially framed in the United States in order to more insightfully and constructively address the question of the continued utility of its function established by historical precedent. The first chapter of this study argues that the earliest calls for copyright legislation in the United States immediately after the Revolution were inextricably intertwined with the efforts to construct a distinctly American national identity. As the dictates of print-capitalism were quickly becoming institutionalized, prominent copyright advocates argued that copyright was necessary both to protect the indigenous American authorial class and their labors from the widespread practice of literary piracy and to encourage others to participate in the craft of authorship. They argued provocatively – and successfully – that copyright laws would indeed serve as declarations of cultural independence from Britain, and would help establish America’s cultural parity with the greatest powers in the world. Whereas colonial printmen played the most critical role in shaping American identity throughout the 1760s and 1770s by producing a deluge of literature in opposition to parliamentary imperial policies, I argue that the calls for copyright laws in the post-revolutionary period were an attempt by American intellectual writers to establish their own measure of cultural control over what was a largely unregulated printing industry. The second chapter of this study demonstrates how eighteenth-century Enlightenment ideals and republican ideology significantly influenced how contemporaries expected the explicit limitedness of copyright terms to function. Through an examination of the concurrent development of learned societies and proposals for publicly funded education systems, I argue that a significant aspect of American political culture was a passion for the “diffusion of knowledge.” As contemporaries understood printed literature to be integral in the production and consumption of knowledge, such understandings strongly influenced the expectations and design of copyright. Additionally, the prevailing ideology of republicanism established a delicate balance between personal and public interests, which ultimately expected the republican citizen to act first and foremost for the benefit of society as a whole. Hence, copyright’s explicit limitedness exhibited the tension inherent in republican ideology: it granted authors only temporary monopolistic control over the publication of their creations so that they could sustain themselves in their labors, so that when the copyright term on a work expired it entered the public domain, from which anyone could freely access, manipulate, or republish it. Explicitly limited terms were not some arbitrary legislative decision, but rather a byproduct of the contemporary fixation on diffusing knowledge through print as extensively as possible among the American populace.
Advisors/Committee Members: Mancke, Elizabeth.
Subjects: American history; American literature; American studies; Education history; History; Law
Keywords: copyright law; noah webster; joel barlow; john trumbull; copyright; intellectual property; intellectual property law; imagined communities; early american culture; american copyright law; diffusion of knowledge; republicanism; free culture
More Like This
28.
Smith, Lisa Marie.
Netta Taylor and the Divided Ohio Home Front, 1861-1865.
Degree: PhD, History, 2011, University of Akron
► Netta Taylor’s letters to her husband are a window into the experiences…
(more)
▼ Netta Taylor’s letters to her husband are a window into the experiences of women on the divided Ohio home front during the American Civil War. This dissertation will use her writings to view the experiences of women in that region and highlight the problems they faced that were unique to the majority of Northern women. Fear of Confederate raids, the reality of tensions along the Ohio border, family divisions caused by the war, and the role of the Copperheads, as well as the domestic upheaval created by the war, were all unique to these women and are all topics that have been greatly neglected in studies of women on the Northern home front. In short, this study probes the nature of that overlooked wartime experience and what it meant to the women who were left behind to try and navigate this divided home front throughout the war. The study will consider these three broad topics: financial issues, patriotism and support for the war, and family obligations.
Advisors/Committee Members: Gordon, Lesley.
Subjects: American History
Keywords: American Civil War; Ohio Home Front; women; Netta Taylor; Georgetown, Ohio
More Like This
30.
Tomecko, Mark T.
Jumping Ship: The Decline of Black Republicanism in the Era of Theodore Roosevelt, 1901—1908.
Degree: MA, History, 2012, University of Akron
► Most analysts of black voting patterns in the United States have assumed…
(more)
▼ Most analysts of black voting patterns in the United States have assumed that the first substantive abandonment of the Republican party by black voters occurred in the 1930s, when the majority of black voters embraced Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. A closer examination, however, of another Roosevelt presidency – that of Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909) – demonstrates the degree to which black voters were already growing disenchanted with the Republicans in the face of what they viewed as uneven support and contradictory messages from the highest ranking Republican in the land. Though the perception of Theodore Roosevelt’s relationship to black Americans has been dominated by his historic invitation of Booker T. Washington to dine with him at the White House in 1901, in fact even this event had assorted and complex meanings for Roosevelt’s relationship to the black community. More importantly, his dismissal of black troops following a controversial shooting in southern Texas in 1906 – an event known as the Brownsville affair – set off a firestorm of bitter protest from the black press, black intellectuals, and black voters. This paper traces Roosevelt’s evolving relationship with black Americans between the Washington dinner and the Brownsville affair. By the election of 1908, Roosevelt’s actions had altered black voters’ relationship to and expectations of the Republican party. In this paper, I show that black flight, or even its threat, was a significant factor in presidential politics long before Franklin Roosevelt successfully wooed black voters from the Republican party in the 1930s.
Advisors/Committee Members: Boisseau, Tracey Jean.
Subjects: African Americans; American History; Black History; History
Keywords: Black voting patterns; Theodore Roosevelt; Election of 1908; Brownsville affair
More Like This
[1] [2]
