Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2023, History (Arts and Sciences)

My research explores the emotional resonance of the Kashmir dispute in South Asian politics. I trace the roots of this dispute back to the era of British imperialism when Kashmir was ruled by an Indian maharaja as part of the princely state of Jammu & Kashmir. Even in those days, Kashmir enjoyed a reputation for beauty and grandeur, which perhaps explains why the princely state to which the region belonged was so often abbreviated as simply “Kashmir.” In premodern times, the region was a favorite vacation spot of the Mughal emperors, who enjoyed the cool mountain air and spectacular views of Kashmir's environment. When the British intervened directly in Kashmir from 1885-1925, partly in response to the devastating 1877-80 famine in Kashmir, they opened the region to a broad range of tourists. Like the Mughal emperors of yore, these tourists sought in Kashmir an escape from the heat of the lowland regions of India. British colonial policy toward Kashmir during these four decades of direct intervention was designed to accommodate the needs of primarily Western tourists. Today, Kashmir's physical allure remains as potent as ever, despite the region's all-too-frequent descent into political violence. My research explores how Kashmir evolved into a region whose landscapes and air, but not its inhabitants, came to matter to more powerful outsiders. This dynamic, which we still see today, developed during the British colonial era.

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2015, American Culture Studies

This paper explores the untold history of the Black community of Portsmouth and Scioto County, Ohio. It provides a brief overview of the national and state level political and cultural context in which this story is told. This project is limited in both scope and in resources, and as such, while some information about Scioto County's early history in relation to Black citizens is included for context, this research is focused mainly on the struggle for integration of the Portsmouth City School system in 1885, and the larger political and cultural context in which these events took place. This story not only highlights the struggles that members of the Black community in the area have faced, but also demonstrates the abundance of Black history in Scioto County, and the causes of the erasure of this history. The folklore of the county itself, like the Floodwall Mural project's artistic summary, omits the rich Black history of the county. This paper argues the historical importance of the Black community to this particular place, a cultural and racial crossroads in the nineteenth century, and being a larger conversation about the role of Black citizens in Scioto County history. Additionally, this paper purposes to situate Portsmouth in the broader social and political culture of the nineteenth century.

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Toledo, 2014, History

Electricity has been defined by American society as a modern and clean form of energy since it came into practical use at the end of the nineteenth century, yet no comprehensive study exists which examines the roots of these definitions. This dissertation considers the social meanings of electricity as an energy technology that became adopted between the mid-nineteenth and early decades of the twentieth centuries. Arguing that both technical and cultural factors played a role, this study shows how electricity became an abstracted form of energy in the mind of Americans. As technological advancements allowed for an increasing physical distance between power generation and power consumption, the commodity of electricity became consciously detached from the steam and coal that produced it. This factor, along with cultural factors led the public to define electricity as mysterious, utopian, and an alternative to proximal fire-based energy sources. With its adoption occurring simultaneously with Progressivism and consumerism, electricity use was encouraged and seen as a integral part of improvement and modernity which led Americans to culturally construct electricity as unlimited and environmentally inconsequential.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2007, History

This dissertation explores roots of the current urban crisis in the United States. Most scholarly explanations associate the problem, particularly of high levels of African-American poverty, with deindustrialization, which has stripped cities of the factory jobs that once sustained working-class communities. My account deviates from the standard tale of black male unemployment by focusing on shifting patterns of African-American women's labor—both paid and unpaid. Using Baltimore as a case study, it argues that public rather than industrial-sector employment served as the foundation of Baltimore's post-World War II African-American middle and working classes. Women outpaced men in winning government jobs. Concentrated in social welfare agencies, they used their new influence over public policy to improve the city's delivery of public services. Black women's efforts to build an infrastructure for sustainable community development put them at odds in municipal policy-making battles with city officials and business leaders intent upon revitalizing Baltimore through investment in a tourism industry. The social services workers scored some important victories, helping to alleviate poverty by shifting to the government some of the responsibility for health, child, and elder care women earlier provided in the private sphere. The conservative ascendancy of the 1970s and 1980s, reversed many of the gains African-American public-sector workers had won. Intent upon resuscitating the United States' status in the global economy, American presidents, influenced by conservative economists and their elite backers, made macroeconomic and urban policy decisions that justified extensive public-sector retrenchment and cuts or changes to social programs. Public-sector workers and their unions, most notably the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), fought with limited success to prevent the transformation of American public policy. Neoliberal policies ero (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, History

This dissertation uncovers how, why, and where the modern pet dog originated. The average dog's transition from a working animal to a nonworking companion in the nineteenth-century United Kingdom constituted the dog's most radical alteration of purpose since their initial domestication prior to the establishment of agricultural civilization. This dissertation contends that the modern family dog originated during the long-nineteenth century (1780-1920) primarily in Victorian Britain—the initial nation altered by the interlocking forces of industrialization and urbanization. These processes provided the necessary cultural and material preconditions to reconceptualize this traditional working animal as a nonworking companion. These phenomena also provided the necessary infrastructure to manufacture commodities—from biscuits to soap—that became necessary to maintain dogs. Family dogs altered domestic and urban environments, individual and collective habits, local and global economic markets, and traditional human and canine behaviors. British pet culture surged beyond national boundaries to become the global norm governing appropriate human-dog interaction. Fundamental English practices—such as leash laws—remain normal today alongside British breeds that garner worldwide favor. Despite their integral presence in modern Western culture, however, there remains no holistic—nor interdisciplinary—narrative explaining how the typical dog transformed from a working animal to a nonworking companion. In this sense, this project rectifies this pronounced historiographical absence and knowledge gap for the broader dog-owning public. Answering this question necessitates adopting an interdisciplinary perspective entangling humans and nonhumans since Britons were not solely responsible for creating pet dogs. Rather, dogs actively shaped this process. Understanding dogs in their own right—their cognitive, sensory, and physical capabilities—hinges on including insights from animal s (open full item for complete abstract)

MFA, Kent State University, 2023, College of the Arts / School of Art

The transactional interplay between “Blackness” and “whiteness” is a dysfunctional melody that sets the tone for America's inner workings. This is particularly true for those who fit the description of a Magical Body. A Magical Body as defined by sociologist; Tressie Mcmillian Cottom are "bodies that society does not mind holding up to take the shots for other people. Magical bodies are bodies that have negative things done to them so other people can be conformable. Magical bodies are seen as self-generating, and as not requiring any investment from the state or from other people.” It is in the mundane that the members of my family represented in this body of work are consistently confronted with the reality of what it means to be a Magical Body. More importantly, it is in the mundane that my family has continued to live, love, and celebrate our existence. The body of work titled Magical bodies is an exploration of the lack of representation of Black people figures in art historical canon. This work focuses on making space for Black figures to counter act the notion of erasure in the canon.

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2018, History

The following dissertation presents a narrative overview of Afghan immigration to the United States. It focuses on the manner in which political turmoil in Afghanistan influenced relations between the U.S. Afghan community and Afghanistan from 1890 to 2016. It also tests whether this relationship conforms to some of the most prominent scholarly models and theorizations of diasporas. In this study, the term “relations” encompasses individuals' interactions and associations with Afghanistan's society and government. This study finds a long history of diasporic relations between the United States and Afghanistan during this time-period. Historical events such as the British exit from South Asia in 1947, the 1978 coup in Afghanistan, and 2001 U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan have had profound effects on the U.S. Afghan community, influencing the feasibility of travel to Afghanistan, the nature of diasporic relations, and U.S policy toward Afghan immigration. As a result, U.S. Afghan diasporic relations can be broken into generalizable eras between these critical historical events. Furthermore, the era's politics influenced how the U.S. public perceived Afghans' presence in the United States. This dissertation also examines how immigrants and ethnic communities such as Afghans in the United States have pursued activities they believed advanced the interests of both their country of origin and adopted country.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2011, History

In the decades around 1900, Wilhelmine Germany embarked on a quest for world power status. This endeavor included the acquisition of overseas colonies and a naval arms race with Great Britain, but it also encompassed a broader effort to achieve global presence and economic might through a rapidly expanding merchant fleet. Accordingly, many Germans began to view the maritime community as an extension of the nation and its empire on and over the seas. This study argues that, between the advent of German expansion in 1884 and the outbreak of world war in 1914, a variety of German groups reconceived merchant mariners as emblems of the nation at home, on the oceans, and overseas. Consequently, state authorities, liberal intellectuals, social reform organizations, Protestants, and nautical professionals deployed middle-class constructions of masculinity in their attempts to reform civilian sailors' portside leisure and shipboard labor for the nation. A broader “crisis of masculinity” around 1900 informed this focus on mariners' bodies, sexualities, comportment, and character. Reform groups portrayed their efforts to mold model seamen as essential to the success of German overseas expansion and Weltpolitik. They created highly-gendered programs designed to channel mariners' transnational mobility into steady flows of national power, capital, and culture around the world. This investigation situates its analysis primary and secondary literature in a transnational framework. It follows merchant mariners on a journey across the Atlantic, where most German shipping was engaged, focusing on the ports of Hamburg, Bremen, New York, and Buenos Aires. This structure allows me to consider the tensions between sailors' urban leisure practices, both at home and overseas, and reformers' attempts to anchor these men in marriage, family, Volk, and Heimat. It also allows me to consider how masculinity and Weltpolitik shaped conflicts between traditional notions of skill, training, and co (open full item for complete abstract)

MA, Kent State University, 2022, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History

The goal of this thesis is to understand shifts in United States history curriculum over time by examining the Advanced Placement US History curriculum. Despite large changes in historical scholarship between 1958 and 2015, the American historical narrative represented in AP US History only changed gradually. This thesis uses yearly AP US History Course Guides from 1958 to 2015 and oral histories of committee members in charge of test development to illuminate the structural limitations that preserve the status quo in American history. The narrative presented through the Course Guides is evaluated through the metrics of type of history (political, social/cultural, economic, religious), gender, and race. The story of the narrative of United States history over these years is one of minor revisions in a field that needs major transformation. By improving our understanding of curriculum construction, not only will historical scholarship integrate more effectively into classrooms, but the American historical narrative will change from a focus on political players to a focus on all types of people who form and shape America.

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 0, History

Scholars have long prized Mercy Otis Warren as a subject of historical study because of her extensive correspondence, which shows how elite women expressed their support of the American Revolution. In this thesis, I show that her letters reveal something more fundamental than her patriotic impulse – they show her fear of losing her elite position. I demonstrate this by applying the insights of the history of emotions to the letters Mercy Otis Warren wrote between 1769 and 1780. In these letters, Mercy Otis Warren expressed the emotions of “spirit” and “sentiment” towards her family members, her community of Plymouth, and the Revolutionary cause sweeping over New England. But she expressed herself most passionately about her family's elite status and cultural power. Her letters reveal that Mercy was a product of her time, her class, and her family. In today's terms, we would call her “entitled.” Methodologically, this thesis draws on insights from social history, gender history, and the history of emotions. I place Mercy's correspondence (roughly sixty letters written and received in the period under study) into the context of her relationships with family, friends, and community. She was passionate in her letters because she and her correspondents were facing the destruction of their privileged lives. I argue that understanding Mercy Otis Warren's emotions is critical to understanding her determination to maintain her elite status (chapter 2), her unquestioning acceptance of the gender expectations of a woman in her position (chapter 3), her firm support of the Revolutionary cause (chapter 4), and her attempts to shape the nation's memory of the Revolution afterwards (chapter 5). Historians have implicitly argued that Mercy challenged the gender expectations of her day, but I find that she did not. She simply followed the lead of her male kin, who were extremely well educated and politically powerful.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2021, History

As the human population surges today toward 8 billion, the struggle to ensure necessary food, water, and public health has never been more intense. My dissertation unveils the interlinked origins of British and American environmentalism from 1900 to 1975, which developed as a debate between advocates of “natural” versus “artificial” solutions to the question of nutrition and health. My project explores the “green” or organic movement that resisted intensive, chemical-based farming practices, fluoridation and chlorination of public water, pasteurization of milk products, artificial baby formula, and other processed or manufactured foods. My work answers the question of why women make up approximately 75% of the participants in the environmental movement today. It traces the origins of “green” behavior and “green identities” to these early debates over the utility of scientifically “modern” food and health mandates versus natural and traditional practices. I argue that gender and family structures were fundamental to these early debates as proponents of both “natural” and “artificial” sides focused on children's health as their primary litmus test to legitimize success in food and health practices. In doing so, both the organic movement and the technocratic movement levied an enormous level of anxiety on mothers as the primary household consumers and caregivers to make the right decisions for their children's health and future. My dissertation is the first to analyze these gender and family dimensions and to demonstrate the transnational connection and mutual influences between the US and UK. It also reminds us that the environmental movement began decades before Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and was not initially divided politically between left and right (as it came to be after the 1970s) but rather developed from the argument over whether “natural” or “artificial” approaches would produce the healthiest food and water for families.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, History

My dissertation examines the role of women doctors in the creation and extension of development initiatives in India from 1919-1970. I argue that women doctors became crucial to debates around development, progress, and modernity in twentieth century India. From the nineteenth century, British rule in India was justified by a rhetoric of Europeans bringing social and economic progress to the colony. These goals for the progress of the nation continued into the twentieth century, accompanied by increasing centralization of power, knowledge, and developmental initiatives. My work adds to the scholarship on state power in developing nations like India by focusing on the role of everyday practitioners who were instrumental in the implementation of initiatives aimed at national progress. By centering the activities of women doctors, my dissertation reveals the daily negotiations which underlay the implementation of policies aimed at national progress, as access to healthcare for all Indians was seen as an important indicator of modernity. In this way, my work also brings to light the gendered nature of these daily negotiations in public healthcare, and implementation of state policy more broadly. Based on the assumption that Indian women (fettered by purdah restrictions) would refuse to consult male doctors, women were singled out as having the most difficulty in accessing healthcare. The state concluded that the only solution was to increase the number of women doctors. As improving the health and quality of life of a massive population became inextricably linked with reducing the vast numbers of people, women doctors were tasked with disseminating information about birth control to women and encouraging them to use contraception. Using a combination of archival research and oral history data, my project examines the processes of bureaucratization involved in the expansion of the development-driven state in India.

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2018, History

This thesis considers the origins of the embourgeoisement of the mid-nineteenth-century German aristocracy through the lens of the summer 1855 travel diary of twenty-year-old Landedelfraulein (country noble maiden) Marie von Bonin, the oldest daughter of Maria Keller and landowner and politician Gustav von Bonin. Scholars of German history have often contended that the influence of middle-class values on German nobles originated with print culture and socio-political movements. While this thesis neither contradicts, nor focuses on these claims, it examines the ways that the lived experiences of everyday people also gave birth to middle-class values. Focusing on the themes of Heimat (home), travel and education, and romantic courtship, this thesis concludes that Marie's bourgeois views were not revolutionary; rather, they exemplified the influence of middle-class values on the mid-nineteenth century German aristocracy.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2015, Dance Studies

The Real Theatro de Sao Carlos de Lisboa employed Italian choreographers from its inauguration in 1793 to the middle of the nineteenth century. Many libretti for the ballets produced for the S. Carlos Theater have survived and are now housed in the National Library of Portugal. This dissertation focuses on the narratives of the libretti in this collection, and their importance as documentation of ballets of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, from the inauguration of the S. Carlos Theater in 1793 to 1850. This period of dance history, which has not received much attention by dance scholars, links the earlier baroque dance era of the eighteenth century with the style of ballet of the 1830s to the 1850s. Portugal had been associated with Italian art and artists since the beginning of the eighteenth century. This artistic relationship continued through the final decades of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century. The majority of the choreographers working in Lisbon were Italian, and the works they created for the S. Carlos Theater followed the Italian style of ballet d'action. Libretti are documented accounts of choreography of this period and contain important information regarding the style of the ballets produced in Lisbon. The narratives of the ballets in these libretti reveal the style of works produced in Lisbon from the late eighteenth to the middle of the nineteenth centuries: the ballet d action that relied on the use of pantomime and gestures to tell stories. The importance of pantomime in ballets of the period covered in this investigation becomes evident in the analysis of several scenarios of ballets produced in Lisbon. This salient characteristic of ballets of the period emerges through the plot developments of the ballets d action produced in Portugal.

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2009, Antioch New England: Environmental Studies

Though this work is a fuel and energy history of Kansas City from 1820 to 1920, it also provides a tool to describe and analyze fuel and energy transitions. The four parts follow the rise and fall of wood, coal and oil as their use grows to a peak and, in the case of wood, declines. The founding and growth of Kansas City as an “instant city” that grew from zero population to over three hundred twenty thousand in a hundred years embodies the increased use of fuels and energy in an urban setting and serves as a case study. This work differentiates between these two elements throughout the one-hundred-year-history to offer a clarification in terminology and theory. The narrative begins in the Wood age, continues to the peak of the Coal Age and introduces the Oil Age as it was to 1920.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2023, History (Arts and Sciences)

After the Vietnam War, the US Army pivoted from counter-insurgency in Southeast Asia towards the renewed possibility of war with the USSR in Central Germany. This shift in perspective coincided with dramatic shifts in Army policy, most importantly the transition from conscription to the All-Volunteer Force, as well as the introduction of new battlefield technologies which transformed the battlespace. This dissertation analyzes the complicated military relationship between the US Army and an important European ally. It argues that during this period of intense reform, the US Army and the West German Bundeswehr used both new and preexisting institutions to engage in a period of intense, sympathetic, and mutually inspired reforms which developed significant new concepts in land warfare. This is significant because this period of cooperation helped to reaffirm a special relationship between the US and West Germany, which transformed to become the most significant within NATO and Western Europe. The focus of this dissertation is on the mechanics of the transatlantic exchange and how this shaped both forces through the last decades of the Cold War.

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2023, History

This dissertation examines the development of encyclopedic authority in historical study from Diderot to software bot. This dissertation focuses on the evolution of encyclopedic authority from Greek scholar to Diderot, and to software bot. It draws upon a wealth of centuries-old publications in digital archives, records of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), original interviews from influential historians, assessment guides of the American Historical Association (AHA), and previously unpublished memos from the AHA Research Division to analyze the observations of historians about encyclopedias, the changing nature of their professional assessments over time, and the emergence of the geographical based encyclopedia of history as an infrastructure for spatial thinking in the digital age. From one perspective, the encyclopedia format has showed remarkable adaptation to changing technologies, as evidenced by the proliferation of digital encyclopedias, which in 2021 were consulted by millions of knowledge seekers daily through their computers, phones, and other smart devices. From another perspective, historical scholars have considered the encyclopedia format as something as an outlier since the creation of the AHA, as evidenced by the history of their professional assessments, and have generally resisted encyclopedia writing and editing as a qualification for faculty tenure. iv I argue that lack of consensus within the academic community over what constitutes quality in the digital age has stifled the production of vetted, scholarly work, in urban encyclopedias to the detriment of the profession, given that Wikipedia is one of the most visited websites in the world and generates popular authority through billions of viewers annually. Public authority has increasingly forced urban encyclopedias to compete with the volume and speed of Wikipedia content updates, which requires no original thought from its contributo (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Toledo, 2022, Curriculum and Instruction

This qualitative case study examined the implementation of a four-week instructional unit on the Civil Rights Movement taught through a human rights lens and emphasizing written discourse in the classroom. The study was conducted in a large, urban high school in the Midwest near the end of the 2022 spring semester. The instructional unit, a critical case, was taught as part of the curriculum of an American History class required for sophomores but including some juniors and seniors. Data from 32 students who met the attendance and assignment submission requirements of the study were included. The framework for the case study was the intersection of theories of history instruction, human rights education, and discourse. Data collected included student created classwork and artifacts, teacher-researcher participant observations, and curricular and instructional materials. The research questions addressed the ways students independently and collaboratively reflected on history and human rights, the ways students engaged in analysis and critical thinking, and the ways in which they reflected on their experiences through their written discourse. Data analysis showed that students often made meaningful connections between history, human rights, and current events through written discourse, but that there were specific concepts with which they struggled such as the human rights concept of correlative duties. Additionally, students engaged in collaborative discourse that gave them the opportunity to practice human rights discourse. Students' most personal connections were made in activities and discussions in which they engaged in critical thinking and analysis. The connections made by students included comparisons between events of the Civil Rights Movement and current issues such as police brutality and the Black Lives Matter Movement. Students also demonstrated the ability to effectively reflect on their personal and classroom experiences. These findings illustrated the (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts (MA), Wright State University, 2022, History

Existing scholarly literature on U.S. military bases in foreign nations does not adequately take films depicting such installations into account. This master's thesis is a corrective for this oversight. Recognizing the utility of foreign films featuring American military bases or troop presences, this thesis examines them in light of scholarly work on these installations. Of particular importance in this analysis are the periodization of U.S. basing favored by Robert Kaplan and the categorization of varieties of antibase protest favored by Kent Calder. Using these two writers as an analytical framework, as well as histories of U.S. basing and military occupations, it is possible to view these films as primary sources for these occupations. While depictions of Americans as individuals vary across films, generally U.S. occupations are viewed negatively by the non-American filmmakers examined. Local authorities of host nations are equally criticized for complicity in the crimes committed by the occupiers.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2022, History

This dissertation examines the careers of African American members of Congress from the election of Oscar DePriest, the first African American elected in the 20th Century in 1928, through the early years of the Congressional Black Caucus in 1973. It examines the interactions with and contributions of Black members of Congress to the broader Civil Rights and Black Power movements during this period and their relationship with electoral politics. It shows how Black members both played fundamental roles in passing major pieces of Civil Rights legislation during this period and how without their work and input these laws would have been weaker. Simultaneously, it shows how the demands and realities of electoral politics constrained the scope of Black members' legislative efforts, but also how these members actively took steps to advance partisan political goals at the expense of activists because they believed that their work was the best and sometimes only legitimate form of Black activism. Building upon scholarship in both history and Political Science, it contributes to our understanding of the scope of Black political power in the United States prior to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the impact it had. Simultaneously, it compliments the literature on the Civil Rights and Black Power eras that focus on grassroots movements as the main agents of change by showing how the connections between many Black activists and Black Congressmen helped passed landmark legislation like the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but also how Black members came to distance themselves from those activists as they failed to monopolize Black political action around themselves to the detriment of both their own political agenda and that of activists.