Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2005, English

This dissertation examines both canonized and marginalized American World War I novels within the context of socio-political debates over shifting class, gender, and race relations. The study contends that American literary representations of the Great War are shaped less by universal insights into modern society's self-destructiveness than by concerted and often highly conflicted efforts to fashion class-, gender-, and race-specific experiences of industrial warfare in ways that create, stabilize, or heighten particular group identities. In moving beyond the customary focus on ironic war representations, Embattled Homefronts endeavors to show that the representational and ideological battles fought within the diverse body of American World War I literature not only shed light on the emergence of powerful identity-political concepts such as the "New Liberal," the "New Proletariat," the "New Woman, and the "New Negro," but also speak to the reappearance of utopian, communitarian, and social protest fictions in the early 1930s. Chapter two investigates how John Dos Passos's Three Soldiers and Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms adapt elements of the protest novel so as to revalidate (neo)romantic ideas of bourgeois individualism vis-a-vis the presumed failures of the progressive movement. Chapter three scrutinizes the ways in which two Proletarian war novels-Upton Sinclair's Jimmie Higgins and William Cunningham's The Green Corn Rebellion-utilize the Bildungsroman genre in an attempt to commemorate the battles fought by and within the American laboring classes for revolutionary purposes. Chapter four investigates how Dorothy Canfield Fisher' Home Fires in France and Gertrude Atherton's The White Morning heighten and exploit war-induced notions of an "apotheosis of femaleness" by combining older motifs of female-centered communities with images of the emergent "New Woman." Lastly, taking a close look at Sarah Lee Brown Fleming's Hope's Highway and Walter F. White's T (open full item for complete abstract)

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

This study represents a historical analysis of Erie Proving Ground in LaCarne, Ohio, from its inception until the end of World War II. From its roots as a small proofing facility attached to Camp Perry, it grew to become one of the most important Ordnance facilities in the country. It was responsible for the testing and shipping of over 70% of the mobile artillery and armament used by the United States and its Allies under Lend-Lease. This work uses newly uncovered primary sources and documentation from the Ordnance Department to reveal the astounding output achieved at this location during the critical war period. Despite constant personnel attrition and a facility expansion that swelled the site from 44 buildings in 1918 to 374 structures by 1943, Erie Proving Ground proofed and shipped artillery worth an estimated two million dollars each day, delivering them to battlefields in every theatre of the war. These documents show that this output was achieved because of the complete integration of the local community, Ordnance officials, and employees into the operational objectives of Erie Proving Ground. When selective service and volunteer enlistment winnowed the pool of experienced workers, women, African Americans, and former prisoners of war were brought in to fill the employment rolls, allowing them to achieve “maximum efficiency.” The management at this site developed habits of cooperation with the local community which resulted in the creation of roads, bridges, and housing that could accommodate the needs of Erie Proving Ground and its employees. They also used targeted strategies, propaganda, and occasional falsehoods to motivate and retain this diverse workforce. This work adds to the historiography of the Homefront during World War II, the role of women, African Americans, and prisoners of war in defense work during this era, and the impact of military installations on local communities. It also uncovers the importance of a facility whose impact on (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2023, East Asian Studies

This thesis discusses the role of the gold standard in Japan's shift to militarism in the 1930s. Since its adoption in Japan in 1897, the gold standard and the price stability inherent in it had advantaged Japanese creditors and helped them finance Japan's empire in Asia. At home, however, the gold standard generated deflation and prevented the Bank of Japan from responding to economic turmoil with interest rate decreases. Japan's ill-advised return to gold in January 1930—amidst a recession—caused the nationalist and fiscally expansionist Rikken Seiyukai party to gain the upper hand in public opinion over the liberal internationalist and fiscally conservative Rikken Minseito party. This economic miscalculation was a major—perhaps the major—reason for the overwhelming loss of the liberal internationalists in the 1932 elections, setting Japan on its path to militarism. The paper begins with an outline of the history of money in Japan prior to 1897, using Japanese-language materials from the Japanese Currency Museum in Tokyo. Next, it provides a theoretical description of the gold standard and its variants and follows the history of the gold standard in Japan from its adoption in 1897 through 1932. It ends with an analysis of the interaction between the economic situation in the late 1920s and early 1930s and the shift to militarism in Japanese politics at that time.

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

This dissertation examines the rehabilitation and education of Polish Jewish children after the Holocaust. It argues that schools, summer camps, and children's homes in Poland were national and international sites for the rehabilitation of child survivors; therefore, they served as laboratories and arenas for debates regarding Polish Jewry's future. By comparing Zionist and non-Zionist institutions of child care, I illustrate how educators and caregivers engaged with competing ideologies to create normalcy in the best interests of the children. Rehabilitation was not just physical or mental; it required Jewish children to develop skills that would make them independent and good citizens. What did they study? What did they read? Did they learn Yiddish or Hebrew in school? Did they speak Polish in the classroom? The answers to these questions have broader implications regarding the reconstruction of Jewish communities in Poland after the Holocaust. While Jewish communists and Bundists in the Central Committee of Jews in Poland (Centralny Komitet Zydow w Polsce, CKZP) desperately fought to keep Jewish children in Poland, Zionist organizations saw no future for Jews in Poland. Through an analysis of correspondences, meeting minutes, educator conference programs, lesson plans, children's own writing, memoirs, and interviews gathered through multi-sited archival research, this dissertation exposes tension between organizations and traces how the educational and ideological goals of the CKZP Department of Education drastically evolved under the growing influence of Poland's communist government. Ultimately, studying education as a form of rehabilitation and nation-building enhances our understanding of the delicate nature of rebuilding Jewish life after war and genocide.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 0, History

My dissertation, “Squaring the Hexagon: Alsace, Algeria and French National Belonging, 1830-1962,” challenges the traditional boundaries between French and African history. I investigate the connections between Alsace and Algeria, two places where the French state struggled to establish sovereignty over inhabitants who spoke, lived, and worshipped in decidedly distinct ways from the rest of France. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, French politicians, government officials, and military commanders viewed their missions of making Alsace and Algeria French — and turning Alsatians and Algerians into Frenchmen — in markedly similar terms, often adapting policies from one region to the other. This entangled history of Alsace and Algeria complicates our understanding of the nature of colonies and regions, revealing the deep connections between empire-building and nation-building.

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2019, Slavic and East European Studies

Music has always played an important role during war, both societally and practically – from drums to keep the soldiers marching together, to trumpets announcing the arrival of friends or foes, to the first war where nations had the ability to electronically transmit music. Though music had long been used as propaganda, due to developments in radio broadcasting World War II was the first war in which music was easily distributed on the air to millions. Music can bring us together, it can give rise to any emotion, or it can be the vehicle for ideologies that can encourage or subdue the masses. During WWII, American and Soviet composers, singers, soldiers, and common people all wrote songs about life, love, battle, leaving or being left, and about crushing a common foe. In both countries, these songs were written by people who wished to inspire the masses with their patriotism. The use of music to convey patriotic messages reveals interesting differences between the ideologies of the USA and the USSR, but it also reveals a multitude of similarities in content and context. In my paper, I explore the history behind the songs in question, their musical attributes and how these attributes are typically interpreted, and how the American and Soviet concepts of patriotism were remarkably similar in the war to end all wars, as reflected in some of the most popular American and Soviet war songs.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2016, History

This study examines the establishment of the United States Air Force as an independent service, through the lens of General Laurence Kuter. Covering from his birth through the end of the Second World War, it yields five observations. First, Laurence “Larry” Kuter played an unappreciated role in shaping the United States Air Force and its antecedents. Second, the Air Corps Tactical School's impact on its students was likely minimal, but the school's impact on its faculty—particularly its most junior members—was almost inestimable. Third, fighter pilots dominated the senior ranks of the Air Force and its antecedents from the Interwar Period through well into the 1950s. Fourth, the Army's interwar personnel policies had disproportionately negative impacts on Air Corps development, but very positive impacts on Kuter's career. The effects of those policies, combined with the massive army air corps/army air forces expansion from 1939 through 1944, provided a greater justification for service independence than strategic bombing did. Finally, the first major war that the Air Force fought, wherein it had reasonably full control over the selection and professional development of its people, all the way up to its senior leaders, was the First Gulf War in 1991.

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2012, History

Wilsonian liberal internationalism has provided a consistent, sustaining ideological basis for U.S. foreign policy since America's entry into the First World War. Since Woodrow Wilson's day, however, the credo he originated has undergone several substantial reformulations in response to changing circumstances—reformulations that necessarily involved successive reinterpretations of those precepts that comprise the credo: the imminent threat to international order; democratic self-determination, collective security, an integrated world economic system, and American exceptionalism. Through an historical study of liberal internationalists from the American peace movement, the organizations they created, and the political leaders they sought to influence, the origins, divergent evolution, and demise of alternative Wilsonian systems can be understood. Between 1917 and 1968, internationalists in the American peace movement significantly shaped an ongoing process of formulating and reformulating Wilsonian ideals, variously cooperating with dominant policy-making elites or promoting alternative Wilsonian foreign policy prescriptions as they did so. The overall picture, then, is one of contending internationalist elites that can trace their intellectual roots back to Wilson, even as they clashed over the ultimate meaning of his legacy. Liberal internationalism originated as a response to World War I. In conjunction with internationalists from the peace movement, Wilson formulated and promoted the first iteration of Wilsonianism—and, in a number of ways, planted the seeds of future conflict over its interpretation. That conflict would arise only in the second half of the twentieth century, however, with the emergence of two subsequent reformulations of Wilson's ideals. The first of these was a progressive Rooseveltian interpretation that emerged in the years just before and during World War II. The second, a more conservative interpretation, came together in the late nineteen (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1972, Graduate School

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2006, Graduate School

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1972, Graduate School

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1929, Graduate School

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1981, Graduate School

Master of Arts (MA), Wright State University, 2023, History

From 1938 until the end of World War II, the Curtiss P-40 fighter participated in the European, North Africa, and Pacific theaters of war. An aircraft's success depends primarily upon the pilot's expertise. Without skilled pilots, technology alone cannot win a war. Technological innovation still plays a crucial role in the success of a nation's air force. Relative to technological developments, how impactful is a pilot's skill on a fighter plane's performance? My thesis structure is a deep look into each pilot's experience and how victory was achieved with a plane that most military writings say is inferior. I investigate the narrative of the aircraft from development based on a pre-war U.S. air doctrine, its exposure and adaptation against enemy aircraft, and the period when piston-driven aircraft performance reached the pinnacle of performance. My analysis shows that due to the adaptability of tactics by fighter pilots, the Curtiss P-40 met Allied needs and aided in the overall contribution to changes in aerial combat. This write-up goes on to show a pilot's expertise plays a crucial role in an aircraft's success, regardless of statistical data or the purpose for which the plane was intended. Technological innovation causes an impact on the success of a nation's air force, but without skilled pilots, technology alone cannot win a war.

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

This dissertation examines the creation of large-scale national systems and international organizations for the rehabilitation of disabled Allied ex-servicemen in the First World War. It seeks to understand: 1) the socio-cultural conditions under which rehabilitation came to be accepted as the best means to deal with the millions of working-class men disabled by war; 2) how some of the same socio-cultural conditions that allowed rehabilitation initiatives for the war disabled to flourish likewise limited the expansion of such initiatives for the benefit of civilians and the industrially disabled; and 3) how such conditions both encouraged and frustrated international community building and the reimagination of political belonging during and after the Great War. By examining cultural ephemera, military, state, and organizational records, correspondence, medical literature, and artificial limb diagrams and descriptions, I argue that the growth of rehabilitative practice in Italy, the United States, France, and Great Britain was a result of the unique confluence of: social reformism, traditional paternalist notions of care, the movement for workers' rights, wartime patriotism, class tensions, cultural ideas about manliness and disability, and the influences of nationalism and internationalism. I suggest, moreover, that the wartime patriotism and nationalism that were so critical to securing care for ex-servicemen worked against, respectively, the extension of services to disabled civilians and the imagination and constitution of a truly international society.

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2019, History (Arts and Sciences)

Since the second decade of the twenty-first century the littoral has been a zone of international tension. With the littoral the likely center of future naval engagements, it is important to remember that the issues of today are not new. Admiral Roger Keyes of the Royal Navy also had to contend with operating in contested littoral zones protected by anti-access weapons. Keyes' solution to this was the integration of the latest weapons and techniques to overcome enemy defenses. By doing so, Keyes was able to project power upon a region or protect sea lines of communication. This thesis will examine the naval career of Roger Keyes during and between the First and Second World Wars. It will discuss that, through wartime experience, Keyes was aware of the trends in naval operations which led him to modernize the Royal Navy. This thesis will also explain that, despite his foresight, the Royal Navy refused to adopt his ideas due to traditionalist strategies and budget cuts. Nevertheless, Keyes' ideas would not only be proven correct in the Second World War, but also correlate with how we perceive naval operations in the littoral today.

Bachelor of Arts, Wittenberg University, 2016, History

This essay explores how artists Louis Raemaekers and Sir David Low used political cartoons during the World Wars. Pictorial propaganda, such as political cartoons, social cartoons, caricatures, and comic art, played a significant role during war efforts and were used to sway the opinions of viewers. Pictorial propaganda was used to unify the public, to reinforce already existing negative stereotypes, to make people aware of atrocities, and to encourage other countries to form alliances and to persuade them to join the war. Dutch artist Louis Raemaekers directed hatred towards Germany and Kaiser Wilhelm II and was considered the most influential cartoonist during World War I. Raemaekers' cartoons focused on showing the atrocities the Germans committed against helpless countries and people. Themes of patriotism and America's duty to help victims became Raemaekers main focuses in his cartoons. During World War II, New Zealand artist Sir David Low was known for his cartoons of Hitler and was, according to Timothy Benson, "the most celebrated political cartoonist of the last century." Low had similar focuses to Raemaekers but drew his characters in their true likeliness, whereas Raemaekers used images of animals. Low also focused on wartime patriotism, the theme of sacrifice, and the passivity of allies during war. Pictorial cartoons and propaganda that were put out by the Allies during the World Wars varied in style, but overall similar themes of patriotism, pride, and sacrifice and had the intention of showing civilians to support the war efforts and also to turn the public opinion against the enemy by showing their flaws and barbaric actions.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1993, Graduate School

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2015, History (Arts and Sciences)

The Philippines lay in the middle of Japanese shipping lanes to the Dutch East Indies, a region that provided them with the oil necessary to keep their navy at sea. Japanese possession of the Philippines ensured them not only access to such shipping lanes, but also unrestricted communication with Tokyo. Allied command GHQ SWPA began maneuvering to sever this linkage. As this thesis will argue, there was already an effective local guerilla intelligence network in existence before the war, having been maintained by the guerrilla groups that emerged.The effectiveness of these existing channels and the guerrillas as operatives was illustrated by the speed with which information began to flow back to Australia once these networks were aligned under the Philippine Regional Section. The volume of material produced, of their own volition, while the guerillas unable to maintain reliable contact with GHQ in early 1942, as well as their maintenance of the networks through the war is evidence that the intelligence shared between Filipino guerrilla districts and GHQ was a mutually beneficial endeavor. The PRS provided the communications apparatus to link these movements, but they themselves did not control or muster the forces necessary to operate it with the islands. It was the intelligence provided by the guerillas and the Coastwatch stations they supported that provided information crucial to an American reinvasion of the Philippine Archipelago. Without the intelligence gathered by the resistance, American forces would have been operating without a precise understanding of enemy positions during battles like Leyte, making any attempt to retake the islands difficult, if not far too risky to be sold to the high command. Despite General MacArthur's selective use of guerilla reports, often favoring the discoveries of signals intelligence, at each crucial stage of operations, Filipino guerrilla reports alerted Allied forces outside the Philippines to minute changes in enemy positi (open full item for complete abstract)

BA, Oberlin College, 1963, History

Now trying to recover a short part of the past life of Oberlin, I have relied heavily upon The Oberlin Review for factual data and insight into the atmosphere of the times. By spot-checking the other town newspapers, The Oberlin Tribune and The Oberlin News with The Review, I concluded that the review is a reasonably reliable source. To help construct the skeletal chronology of events I turned two other periodicals besides The Review. These included the Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer, The Oberlin College Alumni Magazine, and The Oberlin College Bulletin. These contained such valuable information as the nature of and the enrollment in college classes, geographical distribution of students, reports of the various departments, summaries of the events at Oberlin, and the college calendar. Secondary sources such as Donald Love's Henry Churchill King of Oberlin, the often inaccurate master's thesis of Katherine Hyde, The Colleges in the World War, and Allan Bailey's Mock Conventions in Oberlin 1860-1932 offered supporting material and a few insights.