Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2009, Educational Leadership

Many Americans in the nineteenth century argued for limited education for blacks –or no education at all for African Americans in the south. As a result, black churches took up the role and pushed for education as a means to liberate African Americans. The African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church stands as a good exemplar for a black denomination that explicitly expressed in their policies that they understood the connection of education to African American liberation. This study is a historical analysis of the AME Church's advocacy of African American empowerment through education from 1816 to 1893. In the AME Church's nineteenth century doctrinal statements and publications the leaders explicitly stated that education was a necessary component for black liberation. In this dissertation I argue that, although there were other organizations that pushed for African American education in the nineteenth century, the African Methodist Episcopal Church stood at the fore in advocating for education and connecting it to African American liberation. My primary question is: How did the AME Church connect their advocacy for black education to liberation for African Americans in the nineteenth century? The dissertation will explore two aspects of liberation in the nineteenth century. During the first half of the nineteenth century–from the AME Church's founding in 1816 through the end of the Civil war in 1865 –the Church worked toward a liberation that was focused on the abolition of slavery and overcoming racial oppression. In the latter half of the nineteenth century from 1865 to 1893 –with the death of Bishop Payne– the AME Church focused on a liberation that was geared toward the notions of uplift and self-agency within the black community, namely black social, economic, and political advancement. The last chapter will examine how this historical analysis has implications for transforming African American education in present times. The text will examine the black chu (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kate Rousmaniere PhD (Committee Chair); Mark Giles PhD (Committee Member); Kathleen Knight-Abowitz PhD (Committee Member); Carla Pestana PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: African Americans; African History; American History; American Literature; American Studies; Bible; Black History; Education; Education History; Educational Sociology; Educational Theory; History; Literacy; Minority and Ethnic Groups; Multicultural Education; Philosophy

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2024, History (Arts and Sciences)

This paper examines the antislavery stance of Catholic Archbishop of Cincinnati John Baptist Purcell and his brother, Father Edward Purcell, during the American Civil War. Purcell is an anomaly in that he advocated for the immediate end of slavery when most prominent Catholics did not. This study situates Purcell in state, national, Catholic, political, and social contexts, and shows how Purcell's thoughts on slavery developed in the antebellum and Civil War years. Purcell developed a distinctly Catholic antislavery position that drew from Catholic theology and experience. He received much criticism from other prominent Catholic persons and publications for his stance. This study examines the debates between Purcell and his critics and discusses their impact on the ecclesial unity of the Catholic Church in the United States.

Committee: Brian Schoen (Advisor); T. David Curp (Committee Member); Mariana Dantas (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; Clergy; Religious History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1979, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Music

Licentiate in Sacred Theology (S.T.L.), University of Dayton, 1998, International Marian Research Institute

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Committee: Johann Roten S.M. (Advisor) Subjects: Education History; Theology

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

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

This study documents patterns of description of Roman Catholic characters, beliefs, cultural attitudes, dispositions, doctrines, worship and ceremonial rites, and visual and material culture in eighteenth-century and early-nineteenth-century British prose fiction. From Daniel Defoe's Religious Courtship (1722) to Jane Austen's Mansfield Park (1814), British prose fiction wrestles with the problem of religious difference between Anglo-Protestants and a defamiliarized Catholic other. Delineating Roman Catholicism the spatial-geographical as well as timebound “constitutive outside” of Protestant Great Britain, numerous British novels portray Catholics and Catholic religion as shadows of a dark age past from which Britain itself has emerged, enlightened and whole. And yet certain features of these fictions belie a clean, easy separation and indeed problematize Anglo-Protestant identity itself. Describing in fetishistic detail Catholicism's visual and material culture, to emphasize its strangeness and outlandishness to British observers, British writers draw attention to Protestant Britain's own lack of internal religious unity and coherence, which is often symbolized by the novel's inability to render a rival Protestant religious imaginary on the page. I argue that the stark contrast between the visible and embodied evidence of Roman Catholic religion and an Anglo-Protestant religious imaginary that both contains and resists Catholic art and artifice, is a constant source of unspoken disquiet and tension in the British novel. British writers of the eighteenth-century wrestle with the question or what Britons have lost or gained in shedding the visual and material culture of Catholicism for comparatively immaterial and rational constructions of faith. In consequence, however, a Catholic religious imaginary and sacramental universe—part of England's religious heritage from the Catholic Middle Ages—is preserved in the realm of the symbolic, and becomes a challenge to b (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Linda Zionkowski (Committee Chair); Michele Clouse (Committee Member); Nicole Reynolds (Committee Member); Joseph McLaughlin (Committee Member) Subjects: British and Irish Literature; History; Literature; Religion; Religious Education; Religious History

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2017, History

During the antebellum era, black activists organized themselves into insurgent networks, with the goal of achieving political and racial equality for all black inhabitants of the United States. The Negro Convention Movement, herein referred to as the Black Convention Movement, functioned on state and national levels, as the chief black insurgent network. As radical black rights groups continue to rise in the contemporary era, it is necessary to mine the historical origins that influence these bodies, and provide contexts for understanding their social critiques. This dissertation centers on the agency of the participants, and reveals a black insurgent network seeking its own narrative of liberation through tactics and rhetorical weapons. This study follows in the footing of Dr. Howard Holman Bell, who produced bodies of work detailing the antebellum Negro conventions published in the 1950s and 1960s. Additionally, this work inserts itself into the historiography of black radicals, protest movements, and racial debates of antebellum America, arguing for a successful interpretation of black insurgent action. Class, race, gender, religion, and politics, all combine within this study as potent framing devices. Together, the elements within this effort, illustrates the Black Convention Movement as the era's premier activist organization that inadvertently pushed the American nation toward civil war, and the destruction of institutionalized slavery.

Committee: Walter Hixson Ph.D. (Advisor); Elizabeth Mancke Ph.D. (Committee Member); Zachery Williams Ph.D. (Committee Member); Kevin Kern Ph.D. (Committee Member); Daniel Coffey Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: African American Studies; African Americans; American History; Black History; Black Studies; Gender; History; Journalism; Minority and Ethnic Groups; Religion

MA, University of Cincinnati, 2009, Education : Educational Studies

Christianity has played a major role in African American lives from Africa to the North American Colonies. African Americans have had an important presence in both the Old and New Testaments of the bible. From a black woman named Keturah who was Abraham's second wife, which had six children by him, to the Queen of Sheba that had a son by Solomon and others blacks in the bible. These were the beginnings of the rise of the Black Independent Church.The independent black church became a refuge in times of trouble for the black race and a place of comfort for the despair. The church is a noble place that strove to meet the spiritual, educational and social needs of its people in times of trouble.

Committee: Leo Krzywkowski PhD (Committee Chair); Annette Hemmings PhD (Committee Member); Vanessa Allen-Brown PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: African Americans; Religion; Religious Education; Religious History

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.

Committee: Ellen Gorsevski Dr. (Committee Chair); Alberto Gonzalez Dr. (Committee Member); Catherine Cassara Dr. (Committee Member); Ellen Berry Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2024, History

One Nation Under My God studies the issue of Christian Nationalism through the institutional histories and political activism of the United Methodist Church and the Southern Baptist Convention. By looking at these histories, this work argues that Christian Nationalism is not always overt but can be subtle and quiet. The overt support for pro-America ideology from the Southern Baptists and the subtler moralism from United Methodists contrast in these ways. This study also discusses regional identity between North and South in the United States and how religious and political affiliation perpetuates regional division.

Committee: Cheryl Dong Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Michael Brooks Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; Religious History

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

This dissertation seeks to unearth the inherent complexity of relations among evangelical missionaries, their filial churches, Catholics, and secular actors in the context of Protestantism's precipitous rise in Brazil between the 1910s and 1960s. It argues that American Protestant missionaries proved to be crucial agents of cultural change who successfully imparted to their Brazilian believers facets of their anti-Communist, paternalistic, and intermittently apolitical ideologies over the course of several systems of government, including two dictatorships. Crucially, this dissertation situates missionaries as intersectional, transnational, and non-state actors within the larger framework of U.S.-Brazilian religiopolitics, cultural transfusion, and the construction of gender, economic, and racial norms. Although far from passive recipients of American evangelical ideas, Brazil's newly-converted Protestants embraced U.S. missionaries' thought to a considerable extent, thereby cementing the incisive cultural change that American missionaries had sought to foster in Brazil. In doing so, Brazilian church workers and leaders refashioned U.S. norms of evangelicalism while also increasingly advocating for the nationalization (indigenization) of evangelical denominations. Basing itself on four case studies of U.S.-founded or influenced evangelical churches, this dissertation unravels the many contradictions and complications inherent to U.S. missionary work in Brazil. These factors include Brazilian evangelicals' wavering between apoliticism and political activism, a vying for influence with the Catholic Church, the legacy of Jim Crow and its consequences to mission work in Brazil, as well as a series of intra-church disputes that ultimately resulted in the nationalization (indigenization) of each church. At the core of the evangelical experience between the 1910s and 1960s stood an identitarian quest to gain legitimacy among Brazil's secular and religious authoritie (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Peter Hahn (Committee Chair); James N. Green (Other); Jennifer Eaglin (Committee Member); Joseph Parrott (Committee Member) Subjects: Comparative; History; International Relations; Latin American History; Religious History; World History

Honors Theses, Ohio Dominican University, 2023, Honors Theses

American Catholics were once a voting block which favored the Democratic party. However, Catholics now vote nearly the same as the general population, a contradiction when compared to other Christian denominations in the United States. This essay works to explore the political, historical, and theological elements of this division which caused the Church to fracture in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Philosophically, the core political ideals of the Catholic Church and the modern United States stand in stark contrast with one another. Presently, the foundational political theory of the United States as formulated by John Locke has become warped into a sort of hyper-individualism. This hyper-individualism emphasizes a personalization of moral truths, and thus stands against the natural law theory of the Church developed from the works of St. Thomas Aquinas. This hyper-individualism would eventually seep into the American Catholic Church, and events throughout the twentieth century would work to further this permeation. Historical events such as the Americanism controversy, the Second Vatican Council, the election of John F. Kennedy, the widespread rejection of Humanae Vitae, and the political actions before and after Roe v. Wade, would work to further divide the Church. Finally, the essay concludes with an examination of various topics prevalent in American political discourse and determines how a Catholic could respond to those issues while remaining faithful to the teachings of the Church. This examination includes consideration of teachings from the Magisterium and determines the level of authority each teaching has by utilizing the concluding paragraphs of the Profession of Faith. The conclusions of this examination show that many politicians who claim to be Catholic take up positions contrary to the faith and risk placing themselves outside of full communion with the Catholic Church. Finally, this essay raises the question as to whether American Cathol (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Ronald Carstens PhD (Advisor); Matthew Ponesse PhD (Committee Member); Leo Madden S.T.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; Political Science; Religious History; Theology

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 1964, History

Committee: John F. Oglevee (Advisor) Subjects: History

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 1947, History

Committee: Bernard F. Nordmann (Advisor) Subjects: History

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2022, Journalism (Communication)

The objective of this dissertation is to offer a historical account of the anti-convict leasing efforts led by the Black club women of the National Association of Colored Women spearheaded by Mary Church Terrell, from the organization's formation in 1896 to the abolishing of convict leasing in the early 1930s. Through a qualitative historical analysis of the journalistic work of Mary Church Terrell and the NACW, this dissertation examines how Black club women subverted and leveraged their unique locus shaped by their intersectionality as well as the double burden of gender and race, to advocate for Black uplift, challenge prevailing Black stereotypes, and expose the horrors of the southern convict leasing regime, at a time when white men predominantly occupied rhetorical and political spaces. Through counter storytelling and a rejection of journalistic objectivity, the NACW refuted dominant typecast portrayals of Black womanhood—and by extension, the Black community at large—in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and exposed the racial disparities of convict leasing, long before the mainstream white press acknowledged the system's unconstitutionality.

Committee: Aimee Edmondson (Committee Chair); Vincent Jungkunz (Committee Member); Eddith Dashiell (Committee Member); Katherine Jellison (Committee Member) Subjects: African Americans; History

BS, Kent State University, 2008, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History

During the uneasy years predating the American Civil War, self-proclaimed prophets and messengers of God traveled the frontier proclaiming their interpretations of truth as revealed through Protestant Christianity. As they attempted to convert the nation, they conceived American utopias which, constructed within a sacred history of Christianity, played an important role in redefining the religion in North America. As part of the process of establishing these utopias, individuals interested in the conversion of society utilized and revised the “New Haven” theology of Yale College, from which would emerge a reconstructed concept of “sanctification” in Oberlin, Ohio. These individuals would use this theology to form the basis for their attempts to reform society, applying religious meaning to social action. In Lorain County, Ohio, we can observe these changes in religious thought and practice as numerous “religious virtuosi” carried out social action which they considered to be bound to a sacred history. In tandem with social action would come ecclesiastical conflict, tearing the New England Plan of Union asunder. This thesis is interested in how reformers' attempts to create heaven on earth would result in conflict highlighted by a series of events which would ultimately change the religious landscape of the county as it contributed to and reflected the changing face of religion in America.

Committee: David Odell-Scott PhD (Advisor); Guy E. Wells PhD (Advisor); Leonne Hudson PhD (Committee Member); Leslie Heaphy PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; History; Religious History

Master of Arts (M.A.), University of Dayton, 2014, Theological Studies

Saint Catherine of Siena wrote one of the most theologically orthodox works of mysticism, Dialogue on Divine Providence. Unlike other mystics of the later middle ages, Catherine's Dialogue provided a highly doctrinal theology written in her own vernacular language. Catherine's mystical theology demonstrates influence of several prominent schools of theological thought, most notably the moral theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Like Aquinas, Catherine emphasizes the habituation and practice of the virtues, above all the virtue of charity. Aquinas and Catherine both understood charity as directed towards the two same ends - God and neighbor for God's sake - and as manifesting itself through outward spiritual and corporeal practices. Catherine, however, wrote with a very particular audience in mind - the increasingly literate laity. As demonstrated in her own letters, Catherine understood her writing for a lay audience as spiritual instruction and therefore writing served as an act of charity for her.

Committee: Sandra Yocum Ph.D (Advisor); William Portier Ph.D (Committee Member); William Johnston Ph.D (Committee Member) Subjects: Medieval History; Medieval Literature; Regional Studies; Religious History; Spirituality; Theology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2011, Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures

This study encompasses an analysis of the language found in the first Serbian copy of The History of the Jewish War (HM.SMS.280) compared to its Russian original (HM.SMS.281). This research follows the clues in the colophon written by the Serbian scribe, the hieromonk Grigorije Vasilije, in which he states that the Serbian people could not understand the Russian words of the original manuscript. For this reason, Grigorije Vasilije states, he had to “translate” the unknown words into Serbian. Since the Serbian manuscript consists of a large number of folia, 255 of them, a sampling approach was used, whereby eight folia from six sections were extracted and analyzed. The results of the findings identify a number of lexical variations which were distinctive in Serbian and the Russian recensions at the end of the sixteenth century. Some of the lexemes found in the Serbian manuscript are attested for the first time, and as such they make an addition to our knowledge of medieval Serbian lexicography. The findings of this research show that many of the hard-to-understand words were very specific technical terms from military vocabulary—not words that a monk (or most laymen) could be expected to know. These lexemes pertain to siege warfare, military installations, court expressions, social interactions, and non-Orthodox ecclesiastical concepts. The collected data, consisting of the samples from the Russian and Serbian manuscripts, indicates that almost 80% of the lexemes which appeared be foreign or ambiguous to the Serbian scribes are either not listed in the Serbian dictionaries that were consulted, or else were not attested in the meaning found in the Russian original. The remaining 20% of the lexemes appear to be due to synonymy, avoidance of figurative language, concrete vs. specific terminology, censorship, and scribal errors. Some of them could only be explained by extra-linguistic factors, specifically by the scribes' attitude toward certain religious issues and (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Daniel Collins PhD (Advisor); Charles Gribble PhD (Committee Member); Predrag Matejic PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Slavic Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2010, Art Education

People are behaviorally and psychologically complex to a point that we cannot separate ourselves from our values, beliefs, and assumptions. In education, beliefs influence what, why, and how something is taught. This qualitative case study analyzed one art education professor who teaches at a Protestant Christian Church of Christ affiliated university. Analyzed was the art educator's belief system in connection with pedagogical practices of art teaching in the areas of art history, art criticism, and art making. This research utilized literatures from art education, teacher belief research, and Christian theology, analyzing the interconnectedness of personal and professional belief systems in shaping and influencing pedagogical practice in art education.

Committee: Sydney Walker PhD (Advisor); Arthur Efland PhD (Committee Member); Patricia Stuhr PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Art Education; Bible; Education; Religion; Theology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2006, History

This dissertation is an examination of four long-established American women's organizations that were active in the decades immediately following World War II. It is part of growing body of work that places the roots of second wave feminism in the decades prior to the 1960s. The focus of this dissertation is the non-college student, non-radical women who addressed the main social movements of the postwar era by promoting civil rights and feminism. These organized women were targeted by conservative critics who employed the anti-communist hysteria of the Cold War in a largely unsuccessful attempt to stifle liberal activism. Each organization focused on a agenda that gradually expanded to include civil rights and feminism. They are feminist precursors. Each group in this study formed prior to World War II to address one of the major aspects of American life: work, education, family, and religion. The American Nurses Association (ANA) saw itself as chiefly a labor organization. Because the vast majority of nurses were of women, the ANA discovered that it could not promote better nursing and improved working conditions without elevating the status of women workers and without addressing the issue of racism within health care. The American Association of University Women aimed to provide a place for educated women in public life. It discovered that it could not provide such a place while discriminating on the basis of race, but its support for social justice threatened the status of the organization during the Cold War. The sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha aimed to elevate the black race and believed that women were the key to doing so. It pushed for advancement for women as part of a wider strategy to advance African Americans. Church Women United formed to promote Christian values. It fought against racial and gender discrimination within the churches and society at large because such behavior did not fit ideals of Christian conduct. The history of major nationwide women's o (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Susan Hartmann (Advisor) Subjects: