▼ The following study is an analysis of visual and narrative cultural discourses during the interwar years of 1920-1941. These years, specifically those of the 1930s, represent a significant transitional point in American history regarding cultural identity and social class formation. This study seeks to present one profile of how the use of media contributed to a mythic cultural identity of the United States as both classless and middle-class simultaneously. The analysis is interdisciplinary by design and purports to highlight interaction between visual and oral rhetorical strategies used to construct and support the complex myths of class as they formed during this period in American history. I begin my argument with Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal Administration's rhetorical use of two phrases which contributed extensively to the construction of a uniquely universalized image of the American citizen; the "forgotten man" and the "common man." Roosevelt's nebulous use of theses phrases, created a rhetorical characterization of the "good" American citizen, one that idealized the "average" person, but remained conspicuously WASP in representation. Due to extensive media use of Farm Security Administration photographs, the trope of the "forgotten man" became an iconic phrase used to represent far more than a group of disenfranchised individuals living in poverty. And, because FDR's rhetorical construction of the "common man" stayed loyal to WASP ideals, unemployed white-collar workers and even those from the wealthiest classes were able to claim ownership of both idealized characterizations. Both rhetorical characterizations were furthered in other government-sponsored media, such as murals done by Works Progress Administration artists, as well as into popular media such as films. As a whole, FDR's rhetoric and other media representations became important elements in the mythic construction of America as a classless/middle-class society. Advisors/Committee Members: Katherine Jellison, Raymie McKerrow.

▼ Research on organizational sensemaking has focused on the employing organization’s influences and individual difference variables, yet the perceptions and attitudes of professional employees may be related to professional affiliations outside of the employment organization. This research investigates the ways that professional affiliation is related to the individual’s schema, framing and attitudes toward the organization’s competitive environment by examining professional engineers. It is posited that through various possible processes, participation in and identification with professional organizations encourages the individual to hold tightly to certain perspectives about the environment leading to a resistance in environmental change that threatens the profession’s protected markets. The individual’s identification with the profession was found to be related to their perspectives about the industry and tendency to perceive environmental cues as a threat; however, professional perspectives professed by the professional organization did not appear to mediate this relationship. Advisors/Committee Members: Vancouver, Jeffrey B.