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ETD Abstract Container

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Evolving Our Heroes: An Analysis of Founders and "Founding Fathers" in American History Dissertations

Stawicki, John M
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1565873518599891

Abstract Details

2019, Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, History.
This thesis studies scholarly memory of the American founders and “Founding Fathers” via inclusion in American dissertations. Using eighty-one semi-randomly and diversely selected founders as case subjects to examine and trace how individual, group, and collective founder interest evolved over time, this thesis uniquely analyzes 20th and 21st Century Revolutionary American scholarship on the founders by dividing it five distinct periods, with the most recent period coinciding with “founders chic.” Using data analysis and topic modeling, this thesis engages three primary historiographic questions: What founders are most prevalent in Revolutionary scholarship? Are social, cultural, and “from below” histories increasing? And if said histories are increasing, are the “New Founders,” individuals only recently considered vital to the era, posited by these histories outnumbering the Top Seven Founders (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Paine) in founder scholarship? The thesis concludes that the Top Seven Founders have always dominated founder dissertation scholarship, that social, cultural, and “from below” histories are increasing, and that social categorical and “New Founder” histories are steadily increasing as Top Seven Founder studies are slowly decreasing, trends that may shift the Revolutionary America field away from the Top Seven Founders in future years, but is not yet significantly doing so.
Andrew Schocket, Dr. (Advisor)
Ruth Herndon, Dr. (Committee Member)
Scott Martin, Dr. (Committee Member)
206 p.
American History; History
Founding Fathers; Founders; Memory; American Revolution; Revolutionary America; New Founders; Top Seven; George Washington; Thomas Jefferson; Dissertation; Topic Model; Founders Chic; From Below

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Stawicki, J. M. (2019). Evolving Our Heroes: An Analysis of Founders and "Founding Fathers" in American History Dissertations [Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1565873518599891

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Stawicki, John. Evolving Our Heroes: An Analysis of Founders and "Founding Fathers" in American History Dissertations. 2019. Bowling Green State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1565873518599891.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Stawicki, John. "Evolving Our Heroes: An Analysis of Founders and "Founding Fathers" in American History Dissertations." Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1565873518599891

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

bgsu1565873518599891
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This open access ETD is published by Bowling Green State University and OhioLINK.