Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2024, History

Between 1896 and 1938 Cleveland developed into one of the nation's leading Industrial centers. Cleveland's population of 262,353, which ranked tenth in the nation in 1890, increased to 900,249 by 1930 and reflected this industrial growth. Tom L. Johnson, mayor of the city from 1901 to 1909, often considered the greatest American mayor of the period, built a municipal government that attempted to deal with the urban conditions manifested by this industrial growth. At the same time, Cleveland's business and civil leaders argued that the physical city needed to project an image of modernity and progress that matched the industrial and economic production that had transformed the way of life for the residents of the nation's “sixth city.” Clevelanders had begun to realize that their city, with its growing population and accumulation of wealth due to it industrial prominence, was capable of emulating and rivaling some of great cities of Europe. This elite vision, when realized (first in the Group Plan of government buildings, and later with the Cleveland Union Terminal) often discarded and pushed to the periphery the poor (working classes) and “immoral” who lived, worked, and shopped in the spaces that were demolished and reconstructed in the creation of an imagined community of progress and modernity.

Committee: Kevin Kern (Advisor); David Cohen (Committee Member); Kenneth Bindas (Committee Member); Martha Santos (Committee Member); Stephen Harp (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; History; Urban Planning

MA, Kent State University, 2023, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History

This thesis argues that, in the changing modern landscape of news work in Progressive Era which challenged the individual autonomy of White, middle-class reporters working for growing news businesses, journalists laid claim to a specific professional identity on the grounds that, through their commitment to clean journalism, they possessed the unique ability and moral obligation to protect their local community from the corruptive influence of sensationalism. Clean journalism, an urban reform movement firmly grounded in progressive ideology, united American journalists through a common set of specific ethical standards while remaining flexible enough to give reporters the ethical leeway to apply clean principles to the specific local problems they faced in their own cities. Therefore, this thesis uses a particular city, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as a case study to examine the local contours professional discourse of journalism, as White, middle-class journalists attempted to negotiate the tension between their ethical duty to protect the public from sensationalism and their position as reporters answering to Pittsburgh's rich and powerful, a position which, while inherently compromising, granted them the very platform through which they could make meaningful change in their city and nation.

Committee: Elaine Frantz (Advisor); Elizabeth Smith-Pryor (Committee Member); Kenneth Bindas (Committee Member) Subjects: History; Journalism

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, History

This dissertation focuses on the development of the Lost Cause mythology in North Carolina between the 1880s to the 1920s. The Lost Cause is a racist and inaccurate view of the Civil War years promoted by Neo-Confederate Southerners. This dissertation argues that the Lost Cause developed primarily through the efforts of Neo-Confederate organizations like the United Daughters of the Confederacy. These individuals built a compound-public space that united grassroots movements with official governmental figures to promote the Lost Cause mythology. The formation of this compound-public space and its impact on the Lost Cause provided the necessary cultural support for the development of a Democratic-backed white supremacist campaign in North Carolina in 1898 conducted to reduce the political power of Republicans and African Americans, and to re-establish Democratic hegemony. This dissertation explores the ways in which Neo-Confederates constructed the compound-public space including: the role of politics, gender, religion, education, the media, and Confederate monuments with the express goal of increasing the political power of the Democratic Party.

Committee: Joan Cashin (Advisor); John Brooke (Advisor); Stephanie Shaw (Committee Member); Paula Baker (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; Black History; Education History; Gender; Gender Studies; History; Journalism; Mass Media; Modern History; Religion; Religious History; Teacher Education; Womens Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2021, History

Emergency hospitals were established as a solution to the problem of high rates of injury and acute illness in American cities during the Progressive Era. These hospitals were important sites of healthcare for patients who otherwise lacked access to health care, but their unique specialization also brought more affluent patients through their doors, and helped to establish hospitals as the default destination for injured persons, rather than homes or jail cells as had been the case before. Emergency hospitals were often beloved community institutions, and widely regarded as necessary and beneficial, though their public perception was shaped by stigmatized as well as sympathetic attitudes towards their patients. Nevertheless, these specialized institutions were ultimately unsustainable and either closed, or expanded into general hospitals.

Committee: Jonathan Sadowsky Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Alan Rocke Ph.D. (Committee Member); John Grabowski Ph.D. (Committee Member); Katharine Van Tassel J.D., M.P.H., B.S.N. (Committee Member) Subjects: Health; Health Care; History; Medicine; Occupational Health; Occupational Safety; Public Health

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2020, History

This thesis is a case study in a Social Gospel approach to nature, human health and environmental politics. Human health and non-human nature were mutually constitutive in Washington Gladden's vision of health. In sermons from 1869 to 1910, Gladden argued that human health was closely connected to the health of societies and cities, for the simple fact that humanity was a part of nature. The local, urban aspects of Gladden's Social Gospel vision of health were an important connective tissue to understand his broader moral and economic arguments. Gladden's distinct notions of social morality and social harmony are best understood at the intersection of religious histories of the Social Gospel, urban environmental histories and public health histories. Gladden emphasized social morality through scientific public health and the conservation movement. His vision of social health was an ideal of social harmony supported by professionals who understood that human beings were capable of ordering God's creation so that humanity could live healthy lives in healthy places around the world.

Committee: Steven Conn (Committee Chair); Amanda McVety (Committee Member); Marguerite Shaffer (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; History; Religious History

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2020, Arts and Sciences: History

Child welfare programs in the United States have their foundation in the religious traditions brought to the country up through the late nineteenth century by immigrants from many European nations. These programs were sometimes managed within the auspices of organized religious institutions but were also found among the ad hoc efforts of religiously-motivated individuals. This study analyzes how the religious traditions of Catholicism, Judaism, and Protestantism established and maintained institutions of all sizes along the lines of faith-based dogma and their relationship to American cultural influences in the Midwest cities of Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh during the period of 1880-1930. These influences included: the close ties between (or constructive indifference exhibited by) the secular and sectarian stakeholders involved in child-welfare efforts, the daily needs of children of immigrants orphaned by parental disease, death, or desertion, and the rising influence of social welfare professionals and proponents of the foster care system.

Committee: Mark Raider Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Yaakov Ariel Ph.D. MA (2) BA (Committee Member); Maura O'Connor Ph.D. (Committee Member); David Stradling Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: American History

Master of Arts in History, Cleveland State University, 2020, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

Prior to Tom L. Johnson's election to mayor of Cleveland in 1901, the city's tax system was rife with inequality. Johnson sought to correct these inequalities by democratizing Cleveland's tax system. To accomplish this aim, he established a new department in City Hall, called the “tax school,” which was designed to educate Clevelanders about the existing tax system's failures as well as Johnson's proposed solutions. The tax school worked to improve the tax assessment process by implementing a scientific approach, improving transparency, and soliciting citizen input. Johnson's efforts, however, met with resistance from an entrenched business elite that employed the state legislature and courts to destroy Johnson's tax school. Through political campaigns of misinformation, usurpation of the primary process, and stuffing key tax institutions with friendly partisans, these business elites conspired to control the tax machinery of Cuyahoga County. This study of Johnson's efforts to democratically reform Cleveland's tax system reveals how the city's business elite colluded to destroy the tax school and to retain the levers of tax power. In providing the canonical account of Cleveland's tax school, I situate the history of the tax school within a multi-party negotiation governed by unequal power relationships between business elites and the rest of society. The wealthiest Clevelanders possessed the greatest access to the tax system, and they used that access to rig the system in their favor.

Committee: J. Mark Souther (Advisor); Thomas J. Humphrey (Committee Member); Stephanie D. Hinnershitz (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; History

Doctor of Philosophy in Urban Studies and Public Affairs, Cleveland State University, 2019, Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs

In The Administrative State, Dwight Waldo challenges the discipline of Public Administration to remember the purpose of or meaning behind the discipline. In response to Waldo's question “efficiency for what?”, this dissertation interprets the motivating values of the calls for reform to the process of governance at the turn of the twentieth century in Chicago. The research uses a narrative analysis of archived and published texts of Progressive reformers from the City of Chicago. Philip Selznick's concept of the process of institutionalization, or to infuse with value, merged with Anthony Giddens's concept of contextuality guides the interpretation of the actions of the reformers. The concept of institution as a process that infuses a social structure with values at a specific time in a specific place allows for an interpretation of the motivating values of reformers within a physical environment or community. The motivating values of reformers reflect the meaning of the calls for reforms in Chicago.

Committee: William Bowen PhD (Committee Chair); Robert Gleeson PhD (Committee Member); Jennifer Alexander PhD (Committee Member); Camilla Stivers PhD (Advisor) Subjects: Public Administration

Master of Arts, Case Western Reserve University, 2019, History

Founded in 1919, Merrick House has served the residents of Cleveland's Tremont neighborhood continuously for one hundred years. Despite the longevity of this settlement house, there has been no substantial scholarly works published on its history. This thesis focuses on contextualizing the founding of Merrick House and its operation over roughly forty years in the same neighborhood within the national settlement movement of the early twentieth century. It also explores the significance of Catholicism within the institution and its close association with the Christ Child Society of Greater Cleveland through the examination of manuscript collections held by the Western Reserve Historical Society as well as a variety of published sources.

Committee: John Grabowski PhD (Advisor); John Grabowski PhD (Committee Chair); John Flores PhD (Committee Member); Renee Sentilles PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Educational Studies

Enriching teacher-student relationships is timely considering the increase in school violence, the changing demographics in schools, and the fact that educational aims focused on high-stakes testing often ignore relationships. When applying philosophy to teacher-student relationships, we must ask both whose voices are missing from our current conversation and how we can apply their insights to improve education. While philosophers such as John Dewey, Paulo Freire, and Nel Noddings have all contributed to that conversation, William James's philosophy and pedagogy provide a unique perspective on teacher-student relationships that is largely absent within the field of philosophy of education. In this dissertation, I explore the relationship between the philosophy of James, his personality, and the productive relationships he had with students. I suggest that there is a link between his pragmatism, pluralism, and psychology, and the way he interacted with students. His philosophy can be evaluated from its actual effects in the world and by how it changes us as individuals. I suggest that the cash value, or impact in real life, of James's philosophy in the context of education, plays out in particular forms of relationships of openness, experimentation, curiosity about others, spontaneity, and communication.

Committee: Bryan Warnick (Advisor); Jackie Blount (Committee Member); Antoinette Errante (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Education History; Education Philosophy

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2019, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Architecture

This dissertation delves into representative Federal architecture and urban design examples from the late nineteenth-early twentieth century, in territories acquired by the United States of America during the 1898 Spanish-American War (Cuba, Puerto Rico, The Philippines, among others). It also studies similar architectural and urban design examples from other U.S. possessions from the Progressive Era, such as the former Panama Canal Zone, and occupied territories, such as the Dominican Republic. Within this context, this dissertation defines such edifices as backdrops for an exceptionalist, expansionist spectacle. Explicitly, it describes them as material evidence of socio-political, historical, and commercial meddling of the United States in the internal affairs of the Americas and elsewhere. The dissertation also highlights the relevance of the command of the seas via the monopoly of the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea; a significant condition that sets up grounds for this kind of spectacle.

Committee: Jeffrey Tilman Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Edson Roy Cabalfin Ph.D. (Committee Member); Patrick Snadon Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Architecture

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2018, English

From 1901-1938, the ecumenical Central Committee on the United Study of Foreign Missions (CCUSFM) published a series of annual textbooks intended for American Protestant women, members of local branches of women's foreign missionary societies, to study and teach each other. The United Study texts constructed a version of women's rights rhetoric that I refer to as modern missionary feminism. They positioned their readers as heirs to the history of Christianity, participants in contemporary political and social movements, and sisters to “heathen” women around the world who needed their help. In these ways, the United Study series created interrelated exigencies for American women, who were told that because of their privileged status as educated, modern, Western women, they were required to help other women and that the way to do so was through their support of Christian evangelism. To CCUSFM members and the authors they commissioned, the conversion of the world to Christianity, the spread of women's rights, and modernization through Western cultural imperialism were inseparable. In particular, they believed that modern Christian women needed to act on behalf of missions in order to bring about the ideal, unified, egalitarian, and peaceful Christian utopia of the future. The contradictions inherent in their rhetoric (which utilized opposing ideas such as conservative/progressive, professional/familial, international/local, and unity/diversity) went largely uninterrogated; rather than viewing such binaries as either/or, their rhetorical positioning of modern missionary feminists allowed them to embrace multiple sides of various debates, revealing new ways in which rhetorical scholars can consider women's and religious rhetorics.

Committee: Nan Johnson (Advisor); James Fredal (Committee Member); H. Lewis Ulman (Committee Member) Subjects: Composition; Religious History; Rhetoric; Womens Studies

MA, Kent State University, 2016, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History

Staudacher, Nicholas A., M.A. May 2016 History THEODORE ROOSEVELT'S CONSTRUCTION OF THE “PUBLIC INTEREST”: RHETORIC, IDEOLOGY, AND PRESIDENTIAL INTERVENTION, 1901-1906 (96pp.) Thesis Advisor: Clarence E. Wunderlin The current historiography of Roosevelt's political ideology splits into two competing interpretations, with some viewing him as a conservative, pushing for reform in order to stabilize the social order and stave off socialist uprisings, while other consider him to be a liberal statist, championing the expansion of federal power in order to better the condition of the average American citizen. This analysis concludes that rather than a liberal statist or conservative, Roosevelt was instead more a progressive statist, prioritizing the needs of the public above individual private or corporate interest, especially when the public and private interests directly conflicted. Between 1901 and 1906, Roosevelt used his position as president to intervene in the economy to control corporate power in the “public interest.” To do so, he constructed both “the Executive Branch” and “the public” differently in each of the three different approaches which he employed (prosecutor of a railway trust to further the general welfare of the nation; agent of the public arbitrating the coal industry's labor dispute; advocate for regulatory legislation to protect American consumers) that roughly corresponded to the three basic categories of law—judge-made law, administrative decisions, and statutory law. This project, being a conceptual history, builds upon both traditions, but will also go a step further by transcending the debate and focus on Roosevelt's rhetoric in relation to the three previously mentioned categories of law. The mainstay of this project's methodology is rhetorical analysis, working with concepts established by British political theorist Michael Freeden's Ideologies and Political Theory: A Conceptual Approach. Utilizing an approach th (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Clarence Wunderlin Dr. (Advisor) Subjects: History; Public Policy

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2016, Musicology

An emblem of youth and vitality at the turn of the 20th century, the New Woman existed simultaneously as both living woman and fictional icon. Her detractors and advocates skirmished with each other in editorials and magazine features, and their arguments created disparity between a character portrayed at one moment as aggressive and calculating, and at another as charming and educated. Popular sheet music of this period provides an untapped resource to demonstrate the interweaving of the fictional New Woman with the documented experiences and interests of female consumers. This dissertation sheds light on Tin Pan Alley's role in tying the New Woman's youth and freedom to the act of consumption. Through a nexus of sight, sound, and theatricality, this music offers a fresh way to explore intersections between public debates and the stereotypes adopted in the advertising and entertainment industries. Investigation into music as a key component of the New Woman has been neglected in favor of research into other media forms. I seek to remedy this lacuna by demonstrating Tin Pan Alley's role in defining the New Woman as an unruly figure shaped through sound, whether in lyrics that assigned disruptive sounds to female subjects, sheet music covers that depicted the soundscapes of the New Woman, or auditory qualities shaped by musical notation and performance. The New Woman persona crossed class divides from socialite to shop girl, and encompassed hot-button issues regarding appropriate female activity. Songwriters strove to create products that would appeal to both sides of the New Woman debates. My analysis demonstrates how songwriters turned to vaudeville's ethnic stereotypes and class humor to appeal not only to those who approved of what the New Woman represented, but also to those who viewed her as a threat to American society. To that end, I investigate New Woman girl “types” including the Working Girl, College Girl, Athletic Girl, and Technology Girl. Intended (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Daniel Goldmark Ph.D. (Advisor) Subjects: American Studies; Music

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), University of Dayton, 2014, Theology

The dissertation explores the life and work of John J. Wynne, S.J. (1859-1948). Widely recongized as an editor, educator and historian, Wynne was among the foremost Catholic intellectuals of the early twentieth century. In addition to serving as founding editor of the Catholic Encyclopedia (1907) and the Jesuit periodical America (1909), Wynne was vice-postulator for the canonization causes of the first American saints, the Jesuit Martyrs of North America, and for St. Kateri Tekakwitha. He was also a founding member of a number of important early twentieth century professional organizations, including the American Catholic Historical Association, the National Catholic Education Association, the American Federation of Catholic Societies, and the National Catholic Welfare Council's Bureau of Education. The dissertation explores Wynne's contribution to the American Catholic intellectual tradition. In particular, it explores the ways in which Wynne used the Catholic Encyclopedia and America to negotiate American Catholic identity during the Progressive Era. Using a lens of theological inculturation, the dissertation argues that Wynne presented an alternate version of social reform rooted in a distinctly neo-Scholastic vision of society, a vision that enabled him to champion Catholic participation in American culture, critique the culture for its weaknesses, and successfully avoid the theological controversies of Americanism and Modernism. The dissertation concludes that Wynne's legacy, which was animated by intellectual concerns characteristic of the Society of Jesus, was part of a much broader flowering of early twentieth century American Catholic intellectual thought that made him a key forerunner to the mid-century Catholic Revival.

Committee: William Portier Ph.D. (Advisor); Michael Carter Ph.D. (Committee Member); Anthony Smith Ph.D. (Committee Member); Sandra Yocum Ph.D. (Committee Member); Patrick Carey Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Theology

Master of Liberal Studies, University of Toledo, 2014, Liberal Studies

The eugenics movement targeted people who were blind and visually impaired as part of "the unfit" members of society who needed to be prevented from passing on their blindness to successive generations. In the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, eugenicists, blindness professionals, and even other blind people believed that the best way to eliminate blindness was through the restriction of marriages between blind people. Ophthalmologist Lucien Howe repeatedly attempted to secure legislation barring blind people from marrying. Blindness professionals, especially educators, stressed the importance of the separation of the sexes in residential schools for the blind as the way in which to prevent blind marriages and intermarriages, and thus to prevent future generations of blind people. Blind people's assessment of their own marriageability was complex and sometimes contradictory. While some shirked contemporary views, most others accepted and promoted the eugenic idea that hereditary blindness should not be passed to the next generation. Many historians have previously overlooked the unique and rich history of blind people in the United States. This research hopes to illuminate an important aspect of that history.

Committee: Kim Nielsen (Committee Chair); Liat Ben-Moshe (Committee Member); Diane Britton (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; Education History; Gender Studies; History; Personal Relationships; Special Education

MCP, University of Cincinnati, 2005, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning : Community Planning

Greenhills, located near Cincinnati, Ohio, was one of three communities in the Greenbelt Towns Program communities built by the Resettlement Administration from 1935 to 1938. Rexford Guy Tugwell was the founder and Administrator of the program. Frederick Bigger, as the head planner, lead a team of planners which developed the new town. The planners were influenced by three planning theories: Ebenezer Howard's Garden City, Clarence Stein's Radburn, and Clarence Perry's Neighborhood Unit Idea. This study examines how these three theories were used by Tracy Augur, Frederick Bigger, Justin Hartzog, John Nolen, and Clarence Stein in the planning of Greenhills. Using historical methodology, the role of the planners is documented and explored. Greenhills is placed within the context of suburbanization, precursor model communities, and the Progressive Movement.

Committee: David Edelman (Advisor) Subjects: Urban and Regional Planning

Master of Liberal Studies, University of Toledo, 2010, Liberal Studies

Civic and Citizenship are terms that can and need to be defined to understand their evolution and meaning for Americans today. In particular, this is necessary for understanding the rights and duties that come from being a member in society. We can take this as our response to our membership in American society. The initial vision of what rights and duties the common citizen were allocated was a paternalistic, “limit the harm they can do” in spite of themselves approach. This was largely based on the influence of classical western attitudes, economic self interests and Revolutionary War era popular democracies. The white male elites of the Constitutional Convention allocated to the common people the rights to simply be passive and support their selected local elites. While there were some marginal changes to these civic rights for the lower classes through the late 1700s and the 1800s, it was not until the excesses of the Gilded Age (1870s-1890s) that major changes would be made to these rights and role. The Progressive Era of the late 1890s through 1920 saw a mass movement towards reform that was wildly uneven, contradictory, uncoordinated and thoroughly racist. While many concessions were made to the Progressive reformers, there were distinct limits and reactionary repression on more radical Anarchists and Socialists. Yet in spite of the unevenness and limitations, the common white American citizen undeniably emerged from the era with significant gains in new abilities to influence the decisions that influenced their lives. Today, there are new forms of disenfranchisement and much apathy and justified cynicism towards our civic affairs. But there are many examples and models of what can and must be done to hold onto and revitalize these hard won powers.

Committee: Lawrence Anderson PhD (Committee Chair); Peter Linebaugh PhD (Other); Carol Nelson-Burns PhD (Other) Subjects: History; Philosophy; Political Science

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2010, History

This study explores the White Slave Traffic Act of 1910, commonly known as the Mann Act, a federal law that outlawed taking woman or girl over state lines for the purposes of prostitution, debauchery, or “any other immoral purpose.” It traces the international origins of the anti-white slavery movement; looks at the anti-slavery origins and rhetoric of the anti-white slavery movement; and contextualizes the American anti-white slavery movement in a broader context of American colonial and racial politics. It then examines the Immigration Bureau's experiments and investigations into white slavery, conceived by the bureau as foreign prostitution, to show how the Immigration Bureau agitated for greater border controls throughout the United States. At the center of this dissertation is the Bureau of Investigation's enforcement of the White Slave Trafficking Act. Throughout the 1910s bureau agents struggled with how to enforce the statute: was it a law intended to protect young women from nonwhite men or police young women who in the changing sexual culture were increasingly experimenting with sexuality? In the course of the decade, the bureau experimented with ways to expand its reach while trying to contain prostitutes by tracking prostitutes who crossed state lines. When in 1917 the Supreme Court granted a broad reading to the Mann Act, upholding the “any other immoral purpose” clause of the law to cover cases of interstate romantic trysts, the bureau expanded the types of cases it pursued. With the U.S.'s entry into the World War, promiscuity posed a threat to the health and American soldiers who suffered from high rates of venereal disease. As a result, wartime America saw a criminalization of promiscuity that encouraged the harsh policing of young women under the martial rationale of protecting America's fighting force. Cases during the interwar period show the way the bureau upheld male patriarchal and white racial privileges in cases that dealt with both interper (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Susan Hartmann PhD (Advisor); Kevin Boyle PhD (Committee Member); Paula Baker PhD (Committee Member); Anthony Mughan PhD (Other) Subjects: African Americans; American History; American Studies; Black History; Criminology; Gender; History; Womens Studies

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2008, History

In the early twentieth century, William Monroe Trotter used his newspaper to wage an unrelenting crusade against Booker T. Washington and the doctrine of accommodation. Most historians and scholars have focused on integration versus segregation as the foundation of Trotter's animus toward Washington. This paper examines the religious dimension of the conflict between Trotter and Washington. Their antagonistic relationship developed in the context of their competing views of Christianity in American society. Trotter's insurgency was connected to the first dissenting voices against submission in the black church. This militant religion toppled Washington political machine. After the collapse of Tuskegee, Trotter directed the political forces of militant Christianity toward assailing Jim Crow and the white church.

Committee: Allan Winkler PhD (Advisor) Subjects: African Americans