Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2024, Art History

In this undergraduate thesis, I discuss an alternative method of conducting contemporary art history that I have developed and implemented in two approaches over the two years. This method functions to engage with contemporary women-identifying and non-binary artists through a three-step interview process. The first two interviews took place virtually over Microsoft Teams. The first interview was approximately thirty minutes long and the second was approximately forty-five minutes long. The final interview also included a studio visit in Chicago, Illinois where each of these artists is based. These interviews/studio visits lasted between one and three hours. Through this process, I was able to draw new art historical conclusions regarding each artist's practice. The ability to draw these conclusions proves the validity of oral history as an art historical practice within our contemporary times. With the continuation of this method and methods like it, art historians in the future will be able to analyze and understand the work of these artists, and other women artists, within the correct context.

Bachelor of Arts, Ashland University, 2021, History/Political Science

Fashion plays a very important role in the lives in modern-day America, and fashion in politics is no different. Politicians use their fashion to convey a message about themselves and their campaigns. Women in American politics are left in a difficult position, as they gain a lot of extra attention and criticism regarding their attire. Problems arise when this attention on their clothing takes away from what women are trying to say. This is seen throughout history as women become more and more active in politics. If women are able to get over their criticisms, then they are able to use this extra attention to their advantage.

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2021, English (Rhetoric and Writing) PhD

The history of women's rhetorical education is diverse, combining issues of access and exclusion, and intersecting with other factors of social location and identity such as class, race, and geography. Scholars like Gere, Johnson, Logan, and VanHaitsma have all explored the various ways women have pursued education in rhetoric and writing outside of the formal space of classroom settings, through women's clubs, parlor rhetorics, letter-writing, and more. Additionally, scholars such as Costa and Kallick and works like the Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing have considered the role that habits of mind play in shaping writing education. This project has two primary goals. The first is to analyze the role of self-culture (the process of seeking out knowledge and education of one's own volition) as an element of rhetorical education for diverse women living and learning the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, through an investigation of self-culture texts and women's archival records. The second is to analyze the role of habits of mind in women's self-culture practices, and to draw connections between the historical evidence and contemporary research. I employed a feminist historiographic methodology, relying on digital archival research and textual analysis. The project outlines key elements of self-culture as an aspect of rhetorical education, focusing on texts' instructions related to speaking, reading and writing; analyzing diverse women's uptake and modification of self-culture advice; and uncovering the interconnected and multilayered importance of habits of mind. The findings of my analysis offer insight into modes of writing and rhetorical education that occurred alongside and outside of formal educational settings, showcase diverse women's uptake of those educational methods, and describe the interconnected role played by habits of mind in extracurricular learning activities. This project draws connections between the practices of self- (open full item for complete abstract)

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.

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2015, Leadership and Change

This study is a leadership biography which provides, through the lens of Black feminist thought, an alternative view and understanding of the leadership of Black women. Specifically, this analysis highlights ways in which Black women, frequently not identified by the dominant society as leaders, have and can become leaders. Lessons are drawn from the life of Anna Julia Cooper that provides new insights in leadership that heretofore were not evident. Additionally, this research offers provocative recommendations that provide a different perspective of what leadership is among Black women and how that kind of leadership can inform the canon of leadership. Cooper's voice in advocacy, education, community service, and involvement in the Black Women's Club Movement are the major themes in which evidence of her leadership is defined. This leadership biography moves beyond the western hegemonic point of view and the more traditional ways of thinking about leadership, which narrowly identify effective leaders and ways of thinking about leadership development. The findings of this study propose an alternative view of leadership that calls attention to the following critical elements: 1. Black women carry the co-identifers, gender and race, which continue to be nearly nonexistent in leadership theories, discourse, and mainstream leadership literature. 2. The positivist view, as being the only legitimate knowledge claim, must continue to be challenged. 3. There is a need to correct and update our history, making it more inclusive of all human beings. This leadership biography centers on the notion that Cooper, as a quintessential leader, remains paradoxical. For the most part, she continues to be an unknown figure to most Americans, both Black and White. Yet, remnants of Cooper's ideology and leadership are prolific. It is precisely this dissonance between Cooper the undervalued figure and Cooper the scholar/activist leader that is being analyzed in this study. Under (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2015, History

The bicentennial of the War of 1812 has reinvigorated interest in the conflict, but there are still elements of this war which remain unplumbed. Within the locality of the Great Lakes region, using diaries, journals, and letters as my main primary sources, I explore how gender dynamics established by whites prior to the War of 1812 influenced a mindset that said women were incapable of fruitful participation in warfare. In contrast to those who argue that women's participation in the War of 1812 was extraordinary, I argue that women participated by any means that they were permitted. Although this participation occasionally flew in the face of traditional gender boundaries, many women aided in war efforts through everyday means, though they ultimately received little acknowledgment because their actions were reinterpreted through a lens of domesticity. My research shows that women were a significant part of the War of 1812, despite gendered thinking which regulated them to the role of the victim.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2008, Curriculum and Instruction (Education)

This exploratory and descriptive study illuminates the lives of African American female teachers who lived in the upper Ohio River Valley between 1875 and 1915. Existing current research depicts teachers in the South and urban North during this period. This study highlights teachers from northern, small to midsized cities in order to bring them into the historical record and direct attention to their contributions to education. The focus of this historical, intrinsic, embedded, single-case case study was on the social profile, educational opportunities, teaching experiences, and support networks of Pocahontas Simmons Peyton, Susie Simmons (Jones?), Bernadine Peyton Sherman, Mary Peyton Dyson, Anna Stevens Posey, and Elizabeth Jennie Adams Carter. Three additional themes emerged from the data. They involved inconsistent community attitudes, male-defined perspectives, and multigenerational connections and successes.The case for this study was bounded by time, place, race, gender, and occupation. The units of analysis were selected from a pool of 27 names using the maximum-variation purposeful sampling method. The central research question asked how the women operated within the educational systems of the three-state area of western Pennsylvania, northern West Virginia, and southeastern Ohio. The researcher employed multiple methods of data collection in order to triangulate the data and provide rich description of the women within the context of the bounded system. The findings suggest that these women were part of a tradition of exemplary service to education. Although they were unique, these women shared characteristics with teachers in other areas of the country. With one exception, they worked in segregated schools with poor to adequate resources. Each woman had a range of educational options open to her, but not all options were available in each location. The women were skilled at using support networks and their own abilities to navigate within the educational (open full item for complete abstract)

MA, Kent State University, 2011, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History

This thesis explores the social and cultural significance of sewing and its place in the factory, the domestic arts education movement, and the home during the rise of the garment trade between 1900 and 1930 in Northeast Ohio. Long viewed in American culture as women's “natural” work, this study takes a more critical look at how sewing functioned in the lives of women during a time of great economic and social change in the context of the Progressive Era, push for suffrage, rise of mechanized industry, and influx of immigration. Through a historical investigation of women's work and systems of gendered labor, this thesis examines how expectations of femininity were translated across class and racial lines but remained embedded in sewing even as it moved out of the home, into schools, and onto the factory floor. Garment industry leaders relied on this notion of sewing as women's natural work to hire them as hand sewers and machine operators in factories, a job that drastically deskilled sewing and removed any of its traditional domestic attachments. During this same period, the domestic arts movement became a staple in girls' education and marketed sewing as a domestic skill and duty of a good wife and mother. Such lessons did not prepare young women for work in any of the sewing trades and instead encouraged knowledge of sewing as a means of honing maternal instinct and domestic capacity. Despite these opposing contexts in which sewing was performed, women remained active negotiators in the debate over how sewing would function in their lives. Dependent on racial and class situations, women often disregarded the loaded cultural expectations of sewing and found ways to use the craft as a means of social empowerment. In conclusion, sewing cannot be accepted as a commonplace past time and when examined historically, often reveals much about the construction of gender and gender expectations.

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2012, Communication Studies

This study focuses on two prominent evangelists, Ida Gage and Clara Wetherald, who served as two of the earliest women delegates to the Free Methodist General Conference and argued in defense of their ministries. Rhetorical artifacts include historical writings from both Gage and Wetherald. To illustrate the tension these women faced in gaining acceptance for their ministry, the 1890 and 1894 General Conference debates on ordaining women are analyzed to provide a broader religious and cultural understanding. Using archival research methods, the dissertation emphasizes constructing a rhetorical history narrative about the debates in the Free Methodist Church on women's place in ministry and in the home. The rhetorical concept of “passing” is used to illustrate how both Wetherald and Gage had to construct their narratives in a way that would allow them to be accepted in the male dominated profession of ministry. Additionally, the concept of silence as a rhetorical device is also used to demonstrate how both Wetherald's and Gage's ministries and impact in the denomination quickly vanished after the issue of women's ordination was defeated and both became divorcees. However, while their ministry gains suffered setbacks within the Free Methodist Church, the fact that Wetherald went on to have a thriving preaching career and Gage inspired both her children and grandchildren to start successful ministries outside of the denomination illustrates their long-lasting impact on nineteenth century ministerial culture.

BA, Kent State University, 2024, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History

This thesis project explores the history of human trafficking through credible research and the use of primary and secondary sources in an interactive, website and podcast format. The focus is limited to the twentieth century (1900s) primarily within the United States, with discussions of international legislation. The website contains multimedia and four main sections of content to emphasize the importance and relevance of digital history and interactive research.​ Human trafficking has existed in many forms throughout history as slavery, human bondage, sexual exploitation, etc. The 20th-century issue facing millions today has only been recently studied and documented, but much work remains to be done. Reviewing U.S. and international legal documentation of human trafficking through primary sources and previous definitions is helpful but not sufficient enough to properly trace the history of human trafficking and its societal impact. The historical record of human trafficking is short under its current name but stems thousands of years through its previous aliases and related crimes. The absence of appropriate definition use and clear understanding of the issue has previously contributed to a need for additional human trafficking research and study. Therefore, without definitive knowledge of its history within the twentieth century, particularly in the United States, professionals and the general public alike will face obstacles of foundational knowledge and competency when studying and combating human trafficking as a human right and social and criminal issue in the present.

PHD, Kent State University, 2024, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History

This dissertation explores African market women's activities by analyzing and emphasizing the significance of their personal networks and connections, emotions, and spatial mobilities in sustaining their businesses and the informal economy in general. I argue that the social, economic, and political systems created by market women rest on their immediate ties to the household, their relationships, and wider networks of kin, friends, or other social connections as well as their performance and experience with emotions. I evaluate how these intricate connections impact women's success or failures in the market. I argue that competition and contestations over urban market spaces that are intensified by the Zimbabwean economic crisis led to different discourses by Zimbabwean citizens to claim spaces. Market women, for example, have used their life histories to make claims to the market and perceive ownership differently than other groups within the city. By primarily using life histories to recollect and explore women's experiences within the city and rural areas, I emphasize women's agency and perceptions of Zimbabwe's history. Starting in the 1960s when women nostalgically recollect their participation in markets, to the present, I follow women's markers of history and explore why they remember the past in that way. I expand debates on women's entrepreneurship and urban informality to emphasize why market women in Zimbabwe help us comprehend how women have reshaped urban spaces, economies, and political systems. In sum, I argue that in the different phases of Zimbabwe's economic volatility, market women have meritoriously supported the informal economy while bringing happiness to the residents.

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2024, History

This dissertation offers a new look at the Age of Jackson to better understand the influences that women and gender roles had on American politics during the 1820s and 1830s. It offers a counternarrative to a historiography that has focused predominately on Whig Womanhood, which developed in opposition to Andrew Jackson's presidency. Instead, it looks at the women who were passionate supporters of Jackson to see what drew the “common woman” to the complicated figure who was once heralded as being a champion of the “common man.” Additionally, this research looks at how conforming to normative gender roles was a useful political tool. Jackson's reputation as a martial figure often came coupled with the idea that he was a protector of women, and his supporters responded to this narrative. At the same time, Jackson's opponents argued that he was dangerous to women, while also denigrating the womanhood of female figures close to him. This dissertation thus argues that women were integral to the electoral strategies of the Democrats as well as the Whigs during the Jacksonian period, which, therefore, cannot be fully understood without far greater attention to the neglected Jackson women.

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2024, History

In 1964, white members of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in Cleveland began politically organizing poor white and Black citizens around bread-and-butter issues. Within two years, SDS women made Northeast Ohio the site of SDS's most effective interracial antipoverty campaign. This dissertation argues that the Cleveland Community Project succeeded because SDS women interpreted participatory democracy in a way that allowed them to see poor white and Black single mothers' daily struggles as sites of political and collective action. SDS women were firmly committed to the idea that those who lived under public policies should have significant influence over their crafting and implementation. A natural extension of that belief was SDS women's recognition that their role was to empower, not lead, impoverished women in a movement for economic justice. The history of SDS women in Cleveland illustrates that the welfare rights movement had multi-racial dimensions that previous scholarship has overlooked. As SDS women forged an interracial movement of the poor with white and Black welfare recipients, they formed the grassroots origins of Cleveland's welfare rights movement. Many of the impoverished women who collaborated with SDS founded the National Welfare Rights Organization. Recognizing white SDS women's intellectual contributions to participatory democracy sheds light on why interracial cooperation persisted in Cleveland at a time when multi-racial coalitions in other cities crumbled under the weight of racism.

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2024, Leadership and Change

This study explored Black women's lived experiences as teachers in urban schools during the era of 21st-century education reform. It centers around the relationships between Black women teachers (micro), their working conditions in low-performing urban schools (mesa), and neoliberal education policies (macro) that affect their work. The theoretical frames were Black feminist thought and critical race theory. The research questions were as follows: first, what are the working experiences of Black women teachers of tested subjects in low-performing urban public schools and, second, how do socio-political factors affect their working conditions? The research design was qualitative and included narrative inquiry and life history. Key findings were leadership, teacher autonomy, camaraderie, and collaboration, and student behavior. The Black women of this study want better leadership, autonomy, a pathway that does not lead to principalship but out of the classroom, self-care, and wellness. The implication for social change is educational leadership that uses adaptive leadership and social justice leadership that requires leaders to have emotional intelligence, social-political awareness, and activism. Educational leadership must stop taking its cues from big corporations, politicians, and businesspeople. The practice of standardized testing as ruler of all things public education must cease because it negates the human experience. The implication for practice is to honor the experiences and voices of Black women teachers, retain current Black women teachers, and recruit new Black women teachers otherwise Black women teachers are on the verge of extinction. Innovation in public education must include new ways for students, teachers, and leaders to thrive in an ever-changing world. Future research needs to include more qualitative data from Black women teachers' working conditions and experiences through the lenses of critical race theory and Black feminist thought. This di (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2023, History

Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz's employment of references to the classical Greco-Roman tradition as well as literary devices allowed her to skillfully weave her thoughts between the lines of both her secular and religious pieces. The written works of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz served as an outlet in which the nun could express her opinions and commentary regarding the status of indigenous peoples, women's roles, and the influence of the Catholic Church. Without straying from the confines of what was deemed acceptable by the elite male authorities of the Catholic Church, Sor Juana was thus able to successfully navigate the social and religious norms of Colonial New Spain while living a paradoxical life as a woman, a nun, and a public intellectual. Chapter one provides an analysis of Sor Juana's veiled critiques regarding the treatment and status of indigenous peoples within two of her dramatic works, The Loa to the Divine Narcissus and The Divine Narcissus. It is asserted that Sor Juana's public display of sympathy for indigenous peoples during the Spanish conquest and the portrayal of indigenous religion and culture as valid beliefs indicates her support and awareness of the issue. In chapter two, the focus is shifted to women's roles and education. I contend that Sor Juana used her poetry to defend women's rights to attain an education and to partake in experiences that contradicted patriarchal expectations of gender and sexuality. The final chapter is dedicated to Sor Juana's controversy with prominent authorities of the Catholic Church and her justification of her secular writing. The study of the Respuesta and El Primero Sueno reveals Sor Juana's criticism towards the patriarchy and the overarching religious hierarchy as well as her belief that she was entitled to write and participate in both religious and secular intellectual discourse.

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

This dissertation examines the evolution and impact of Alice Roosevelt Longworth's celebrity from the 1900s to the 1940s. By using personal papers of the Roosevelt family, politicians, and journalists, along with magazines and newspapers, I delineate how Alice's persona in the press changed over time and how her fame interacted with different historical trends. Alice's emergence as a celebrity in 1901, when her father ascended to the presidency, coincided with the rise of human-interest journalism. Alice exuded unconventionality through her car-driving, gambling, and smoking, enabling her to emerge as a new model of white womanhood. As Alice became famous for transgressing gender norms, politicians, reformers, and others appropriated Alice's fame for their own causes, and the press transposed new identities upon Alice based on new contexts. Alice materialized into a diplomat embodying a feminine form of U.S. imperialism that could be transplanted beyond the United States; a famous political wife who engaged in politics; and a salon hostess immersed in the rising gossip industry. In the 1930s, Alice capitalized on her fame to become a politically conservative journalist. By historicizing the evolution of her celebrity, my project expands on previous works on Alice that focus primarily on her personal life. Moreover, I seek to contribute to the burgeoning scholarship on celebrity studies, along with women's history, studies of American imperialism, and political history. Lastly, by examining the trajectory of Alice's fame, I illuminate how celebrity culture is not insulated from other aspects of society by showcasing the intersections of celebrity, gender, and politics in American history.

PHD, Kent State University, 2023, College of Communication and Information

The objective of this historical study of Akron, Ohio's Saalfield Publishing Company during its years of operation (1900-1976) is to illuminate the role this company played within Ohio, but also within the larger United States publishing community and to investigate the role women played within this organization. Utilizing a theoretical framework that draws from Bourdieu (1984, 1993), Darnton (1982), Gramsci (1988), feminist scholars (Collins, 2000; Cott, 1987; Crenshaw, 1989, 1991; hooks, 1981), Hall (2007), Williams (1962), McRobbie (1986), Adams and Barker (1993) and Kaestle and Radway (2009), this dissertation introduces a new communication model for understanding this particular children's publishing company, but also for understanding the larger children's publishing industry which flourished during Saalfield's era. This work interrogates the power structure within and around the publishing company and within its communications sphere. Historical methods were utilized throughout this study to locate and interrogate the data, utilizing the frameworks of Startt and Sloan (2003), Cox (1996), Kerr, Loveday and Blackford (1990), and Tanselle (1971). Catalogs of the Saalfield Publishing Company, Saalfield Publishing Company products, Akron City Directories, newspapers, journals, books, websites and databases were consulted. This study provides a deeper understanding of the Saalfield Publishing Company, its products, players and position, and creates a model to interpret the relationships found within and throughout its reach. It illuminates the role of women and the marginalized within the company and the surrounding community, while developing a clearer picture of its pioneering role and commercial success in the field of children's literature from 1900-1976.

Bachelor of Arts, Wittenberg University, 2023, History

Medieval Europe was a period of development and change, none of which is more evident than through the transition of medical authority from women and magic to solely men and medicine. At the start of the Middle Ages, magic and medicine held an interwoven relationship, where women could freely practice and function as medical authorities within their communities alongside men. Their presence as healers provided them with a rare opportunity to escape from the traditional confines of the patriarchal society of the Middle Ages. However, the creation of medical universities, which excluded women from enrolling, sought to eliminate the role which magic held within the medical field. With its usefulness in through medicine relegated, an opposition towards magic begun developing and the connection between magic and witchcraft to the nature of women was solidified. Women's already vulnerable status within society added onto the perceived threat of witchcraft opened the door for direct persecution women. Medical practitioners, ecclesiastical writers, the Christian church, governing bodies, and local authorities all contributed to the curation of stereotypes surrounding witchcraft practitioners. As a result, the Inquisition and larger witch hunt movement developed, specifically targeting women. The witchcraft trials were the final deadly product of this movement and were overwhelmingly disproportionate in their indictment and execution of women.

Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2023, English

This thesis analyzes the relationship of female novelists to women's literary history through a study of the use of the woman writer character across five novels published in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. Women writer characters and the metafictional texts they produce inside these novels reflect common threads across women's literary history, providing a way to categorize these novels not only by the gender of their authors but also by their engagement with this character—and by extension with this specific vein of women's literary history. The novel, which has undergone several transformations across genres, has been accused of feminization, while also being used to categorize the work of female novelists as outside of the Anglo-American canon. Each of the five novels included in this project reflect these literary biases through metafictional texts that are similarly restricted by socially constructed boundaries of oppressive systems, including gender, race, and class.

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2023, History

Through my research, I have found records of women working as licensed embalmers or “lady assistants” to embalmers in almost every U.S. state between the 1880s to 1910s. Though more research is needed to fully understand the scope of women embalmers, I believe that a further examination of primary source documents throughout the country would show that women's work as embalmers would not have been restricted to major cities or even specific regions of the country. While researching death care and funeral work at large during this time frame, I have found evidence of women working in almost every state without ever looking for this specific information. Even territories such as Arizona had records of women working as embalmers almost a decade before officially becoming a state. I am now left with the impression that there was an even larger network of women embalmers than even I had originally anticipated. Similarly, I have found women from various racial backgrounds, religious backgrounds, and nationalities that were becoming licensed embalmers during this time. Though women of different backgrounds would have faced their own struggles and challenges, many of the articles about women speak highly of their skills and services in newspapers.