PHD, Kent State University, 2015, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History

While analyses of the Sino-American relationship have increased in popularity as the connections between the two states continue to intertwine, not much research has been done on the foundations of these associations in the nineteenth century. My study provides insight into the first series of prolonged diplomatic and cultural interactions between the United States and China during the inter-Opium War period. Combining the practices of diplomatic and cultural historians, I utilize the narratives and reports of travelers, merchants, diplomats, missionaries, and print journalists to show how a broad range of Americans relied on the same interconnected rhetorical tropes of “mystery”, “opportunity”, “failure”, “threat”, and “success” to justify the expansion of American influence in China. My work illuminates how Americans used these themes in contemporary debates regarding questions of political access, economic growth, religious influence, contemporary masculinity, and territorial expansion. China could represent whatever the observer wanted, and Americans from 1843 to 1856 used that indeterminacy to the greatest extent imaginable. Americans created an entire discourse of description that could simultaneously and effectively suit the needs of individuals, organizations, and the nation as a whole by cobbling together hopes, dreams, fears, and suspicions under the guise of engagement. Americans believed that increased access after the First Opium War would serve as a panacea for the problems that had previously hindered the Sino-American relationship. But instead of presenting a solution, greater engagement with China only served to open a Pandora's box, wherein the Chinese represented everything and anything that Americans could desire or fear, and it has not only motivated, but controlled the relationship ever since. The Sino-American relationship of the mid-nineteenth century represented the first major foray of the United States into diplomatic activity in As (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2004, East Asian Languages and Literatures

This study examines adaptations of Chinese culture in medieval Japanese No theatre through analyzing a group of No plays featuring Chinese motifs, also referred to as “Chinese plays,” written between the late fourteenth and the early sixteenth centuries. It investigates how changing relations with China, reception history of Chinese motifs, as well as evolving aesthetic and cultural norms on the part of playwrights and audiences of No, shaped the making of these plays. I propose what I refer to as a Filter Model, based on my reading of treatises of No and supported by contemporary theory of intercultural theatre, to analyze the (re)interpretations and (re)construction of various images of China within specific historical and cultural contexts. I argue that this group of plays was not about representing China, but rather about manipulating the perceived images of China and catering to the cultural practices, aesthetic preferences, and sociopolitical attitudes of various audience groups in medieval Japan. It is through the different images of China constructed in these plays that the playwrights amplify certain aspects of No, such as auspiciousness, cultural identity, depictions of human emotion, and dance performances. Chapter One lays out the theoretical and historical framework for the study. I critically review current scholarship on issues of Other and Self, and on conceptions of Intercultural Theatre. I then trace the dynamics of cultural exchanges between China and Japan that had influenced the reception of Chinese motifs in No theatre. Chapter Two centers on the underlying variables in the composition of “Chinese plays.” I first assess the influential role of audience and patron of No. I then introduce my Filter Model, which illustrates the complex interplay of sociopolitical milieux, basic sources, perspectives and dramaturgies of the playwrights, in the making of “Chinese plays.” Chapters Three to Seven examine ten “Chinese plays” that, taken together, displ (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2024, History

This thesis argues for an interdisciplinary examination of the origins and subsequent appearance of the Wassermann blood test, the first test developed for detecting syphilis, in eugenics initiatives and medicolegal mandates. When this seemingly impartial medical tool intersected with preexisting social and cultural biases regarding syphilis its story became one of blood purity initiatives for the preservation and proliferation of white normativity. Reframing the Wassermann as more than a passive medical tool highlights how ostensibly impartial medical processes can produce institutional violence in masculinized spaces of control. While the Wassermann offered a source of hope for protecting against syphilitic infection, in application, the serodiagnostic tool served as a source of scientific validation when misapplied as a quantifiable method for justifying medicolegal interventions in the 20th century US. This examination traces the bioethical legacy of the Wassermann from its 1906 development in Berlin to its appearance in eugenics-based legal mandates in the US. Through an analysis of scientific publications and court records at archives across the East Coast this paper centers those who didn't benefit from the Wassermann and investigates how scientific authority derived from an imperfect diagnostic test was harnessed to reproduce and reinforce the sociocultural biases that linger today.

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2024, College-Conservatory of Music: Music (Musicology)

Pleasure gardens first came to prominence in early eighteenth-century London as venues where visitors from diverse social strata could promenade about the walks, enjoy entertainments, and see and be seen. In an issue of his Review of the State of the British Nation dated 25 June 1709, Daniel Defoe distinguishes seven social classes in England, including a group he describes as “the middle sort . . . who live the best, and consume the most . . . and with whom the general wealth of this nation is found.” Recognizing the potential to profit from the newfound wealth of the “middle sort” (and adjacent, similarly centralized socioeconomic groups), entrepreneurs marketed new leisure activities to them, including trips to London's three chief pleasure gardens: Marybone (also spelled Marylebone), Ranelagh, and Vauxhall. Although garden refreshments were notoriously overpriced, the cost of admission was relatively modest, enabling even those from the poorer classes to attend at least occasionally. At the other end of the social spectrum, the attendance of royal family members enhanced the prestige of the gardens. Music presided over the pleasure garden experience, facilitating exchanges amongst the classes and providing unprecedented opportunities for social emulation: the process whereby the “middle sort” could imitate their social superiors, and could themselves be admired and imitated. This dissertation examines the complex function(s) of music, musicians, and performance in London's three leading pleasure gardens—focusing primarily on their eighteenth-century heyday—and the intersections of these elements with the progression of capitalism and the commercialization of leisure. Through this examination, it reveals the pleasure gardens as apt stages for the social transgression, subversion, and emulation performed by garden visitors, and provides a more nuanced understanding of the role(s) that music, musical works, and musicians played in such performances.

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

Ronald Reagan, conservatism, economics, and the Cold War define many of the historical analyses of 1980s America. Recently, studies on the decade's cultural artifacts, social protests, and the divisive culture wars have finally come into focus. The intersection of film studies and historical analysis of the ‘80s has few comprehensive explorations, which this project seeks to expand. This thesis analyzes the portrayal of youth sexual culture in 1980s American mainstream and independent films while also contextualizing the broader American culture in which these films were made. The use of mainstream and independent films will not only tease out any similarities and differences, but these analyses will also explore how these films reinforced, or complicated, contemporary cultural values. The project will move through the decade by examining the following films and their respective film reviews: Little Darlings, The Last American Virgin, Sixteen Candles, She's Gotta Have It, Dirty Dancing, and Casual Sex? By combining the theoretical frameworks and methodologies from film studies, cultural studies, and historical research, this project will create a unique perspective of 1980s American youth sexual culture while also establishing these films did not exist in a vacuum. The thesis asserts that the space for female-centered conversations on films about sexuality, especially for young girls, existed at the beginning of the 1980s but dwindled as the decade went on. Throughout the 1980s, films about youth sexual culture became male-dominated and reduced the female perspective to a subplot even in cases where these stories centered on the female characters. By the end of the decade, complicated female perspectives on sexuality were reduced to perpetuating patriarchal themes and expectations. As a medium, film failed to encapsulate authentic female voices in the 1980s. Instead, film provided youth audiences access to sexual experiences if they could not easily get them els (open full item for complete abstract)

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

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

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2022, History

Hockey holds a central place in Canadian national identity. Despite the traditional dominance of Canadian teams in the pre-war and immediately post-war years, European nations such as the USSR, Sweden, and Czechoslovakia developed their hockey programs quickly in the post-war years, challenging Canadian dominance, and thus jeopardizing, in the eyes of Canadians, one of the most central aspects of their national culture. This loss of hockey supremacy compounded an already challenging period in which Canadians struggled to define what it meant to be Canadian in the US-led Cold War world. This thesis examines the Canadian cultural dynamics of Canadian participation in international hockey competitions during the 1960s and 1970s. These tournaments and exhibition tours played against foreign teams were commonly detailed by the Canadian press using no uncertain terms to express their contempt for their opponents. This thesis suggests the public focus on international hockey during this period reflects the uncertainty of Canadian culture and politics at home. Faced with trouble defining Canadian national identity in the Cold War world, Canadians looked to their national sport as a means of reaffirming their identity, rooted in northern masculine toughness and “Canadianness.” This work uses sports periodicals from the period between 1955 and 1975, to assess the shifting attitudes towards Canadian hockey in international competitions, and how Canadians viewed themselves in relation to the wider Cold War world when confronted with a domestic cultural crisis. This work expands on the diligent work of scholars of Canadian culture and those in the expanding subfield of hockey studies by providing a look at the thoughts of Canadians, and how their attitudes towards hockey reflect their attitudes towards Canadian culture.

PHD, Kent State University, 2021, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History

This project examines the idea of the West, its permutations, and its uses in ¬conservative rhetoric through the twentieth century. Exploring the West as a cultural and political idea in conservative discourse adds to the historiography of conservatism by demonstrating conservative interests outside of electoral politics. The West and the concept of Western civilization provided a common language for conservative writers. But while conservatives largely agreed with what the West was, in a general sense, they argued over its condition and, more commonly, the exact causes of what they perceived as its decline. Key was a tension within the conservative understanding of the West, a perspective that both extolled its dominance and lamented its current weakened state. The West was the birthplace of industry even while conservatives fretted about the ruinous power of modernity. It was the heartland of democracy, even though conservatives decried what they perceived as the decline of liberalism. It was superior to the East, even though conservatives worried that Western decay would infect the Orient and lead to global war. In many cases, conservatives developed these critiques in response to changes within America that they universalized to become a Western problem, adding credence to their complaints. Conservatives repeatedly referred to the West in connection to a few themes or contexts: modernity, science, religion, materialism, education, liberalism and failed leadership, and foreign policy. This project examines these themes and how they were restructured in new contexts by different authors across the century. In doing so, it demonstrates that the West and Western civilization were central to conservative thought, and it provided a thread vital to binding together different strands of conservatism across the twentieth century.

PHD, Kent State University, 2021, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History

Lengyel, Christian M., PhD., December 2021 History Greenbacks and Greybacks: Iconographic Depictions of Union and Confederate Nationalism on Civil War-Era Currency (335 pp.) Dissertation Advisor: Kevin Adams Nationalism studies have recently increased in popularity, and particularly those focused on the era of the U.S. Civil War. But for all the attention scholars have given to this specific area of research, no single investigation exists that directly compares and contrasts the visual patriotic impulses of the North and the South under the banner of one holistic work. Further, no authority has ever accomplished such a feat using the iconographies on both sides' government-issued paper dollars as the main vehicles for inquiring into this important facet of the country's history. The present dissertation utilizes those essential artifacts as a means of illustrating the Union and the Confederacy's separate nationalistic philosophies and highlighting that, from the start of the struggle, they included different casts of characters, subjects, and symbols. These findings indicate that each body attempted to portray itself as a distinct entity who relied on inherently individualized sets of “signs” to exemplify its leaders' divergent ideas about proper American patriotism. Therefore, by using the analytical technique of semiotics – as well as quantitative and qualitative assessments – to classify the images at-hand, the following review tests the significance, frequency, and type(s) of monetary vignettes that northern and southern Treasury officials employed to represent their respective nations. What it discovers is that the initial batteries of U.S. Greenbacks were far simpler, less inconsistent, and more unique in their appearance than early C.S.A. Greybacks, only showcasing added layers complexity when it became apparent that the North would emerge victorious. This project thus argues that contrary to the convoluted designs of Confederate bills, the (open full item for complete abstract)

BA, Oberlin College, 2021, History

My thesis examines the fluid boundaries between French historical and literary writing in the 19th century, and the shifts in “historical consciousness” that occurred in both fields as the century progressed. I examine three exemplary French writers—Jules Michelet, a historian, and Honore de Balzac and Emile Zola, both novelists—considering each primarily as a historical thinker, regardless of whether they considered themselves to be one. I argue that as the 19th century progressed, the broad shift in French institutions towards positivist epistemological and explanatory frameworks was reflected in literature, as well as in history. Both disciplines, one increasingly academic and one primarily cultural, were affected in strikingly similar ways by the influence of positivism and scientism, providing a distinct aesthetic and rhetorical lens through which the impact of post-1848 positivism can be understood. As positivism infiltrated the practice of history, pushing the discipline farther into the realm of science, so too did it affect the historical thinking of prominent novelists. Additionally, I argue that the shift in historical consciousness reflects broader social fragmentation as France vacillated between various forms of government and their attendant social ideologies across the century. As political regimes and ideologies came and went, novelists, like historians, turned to rationalist frameworks, rather than idealistic or metaphysical ones, to explain their rapidly evolving political, social, and cultural moments. In addition to analyzing the impact these shifts had on historical consciousness in France, my thesis attempts to understand how historical thinking changes in response to shifts in institutional authority and ideology.

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2021, American Culture Studies

From 1981-1996, the United States experienced an epidemic of human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) that held profound implications for issues ranging from civil rights, public education, and sexual mores, to government accountability, public health, and expressions of heterosexism. Popular comic books that broached the subject of HIV/AIDS during the U.S. epidemic elucidate how America's discourse on the disease evolved in an era when elected officials, religious leaders, legal professionals, medical specialists, and average citizens all struggled to negotiate their way through a period of national crisis. The manner whereby comic book authors, illustrators, and publishers engaged the topic of HIV/AIDS changed over time but, because comic books are an item of popular culture primarily produced for a heterosexual male audience, such changes habitually mirrored the evolution of the nation's mainstream, heteronormative debates regarding the epidemic and its sociocultural and political implications. Through studying depictions of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in popular comic books, alterations in the heterocentric, national discourse emerge revealing how homophobic dismissals of the “gay plague” in the early 1980s gave way to heterosexual panic in the mid-1980s, followed by the epidemic's reinterpretation as a national tragedy in the late-1980s. Ultimately, this study uncovers how, in the early 1990s, HIV/AIDS awareness became a national cause celebre and a fad effectively commoditized by the economic forces of American popular culture until its novelty waned when the epidemic phase of the U.S. HIV/AIDS crisis drew to a close in the mid-1990s. Throughout, representations of HIV/AIDS in popular American comic books show how comic book creators sought to elevate their medium beyond the confines of its perceived juvenile trappings by exploring topical and controversial material that would appeal to the expanding market of adult buyers that blos (open full item for complete abstract)

Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2020, Art History

This thesis traces the niche that women have created for themselves in the tattoo community, with a focus on the United States. I discuss the relationship between increasing visibility for women in the tattoo industry and the shift in women's status in American culture. My study cincludes with contemporary tattooed women, including prominent female tattoo artists, collectors, and media personalities.

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Toledo, 2019, History

This dissertation is a cultural history of the American reaction to the Upper Canadian Rebellion and the Patriot War. This project is based on an analysis of newspaper articles published by William Lyon Mackenzie and his contemporaries, diplomatic cables between Washington D.C. and London, letters, and accounts of celebrations, toasts, and public meetings which occurred between 1837 and 1842. I argue Americans and Upper Canadians in the Great Lakes region made up a culture area. By re-engaging in a battle with the British, Upper Canadians, and their American supporters sought redemption. Reacting to geographic isolation from major metropolitan areas and a looming psychic crisis motivated many of these individuals to act. And, even though the rebellion and Patriot War were ultimately unsuccessful, the threat of a rekindled conflict with Britain crept into North America while thoughts of the revolutionary Spirit of `76 invigorated the masses and served as a litmus test for maintaining peaceful international relations between the U.S. and Britain, a preface to Manifest Destiny, and a testament to the power of the nineteenth-century culture industry.

Master of Arts (MA), Wright State University, 2019, History

The current status of the literature involving radio broadcasts and music from the Cold War delves into either one area of concentration or the other. That is, either historians have little to no mention of radio, or historians explore music without mentioning radio. There are no studies that solely focus on the use of radio and music in combination with one another. This is what the thesis offers to this area of concentration. In addition to examining the use of radio and music in combination with one another, this work delves into radio directly after the conclusion of the Second World War and what its purpose would be as the Cold War progressed. Other areas of concentration are three music genres popular from 1953 to 1968, which helped with subversion against the Soviet Union and the Eastern European states. These three music styles are: jazz, rock and roll, and British pop music with a heavy focus on the Beatles. This thesis will argue that radio and music, in combination with one another, did contribute as a significant factor to the peaceful demise of the Soviet Union in the long term. In addition, both were used as a subversive measure that allowed those behind the Iron Curtain to experience Western culture.

PHD, Kent State University, 2018, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History

To explore how and why marriage rates in the United States reached record-breaking heights during World War II, Romanticizing Patriarchy uses cultural and social history methodologies to argue that films, magazines, servicemen, and women, romanticized patriarchy in wartime America. To do this, American culture and individuals deemphasized patriarchal power in marriage and instead emphasized the loving and supportive characteristics of marital unions. This idealized perception of patriarchal marriage served as a powerful tool that preserved short and long term national stability by alleviating wartime problems and postwar concerns. In this sense, marriage promised to (1) create national unity through family formation by providing an emotional link across the home front and warfronts, (2) promote marital monogamy, and thereby lessen the threat venereal disease posed to American fighting forces while legitimately reproducing the national citizenry, and (3) preserve husbandly authority and female subordination even as wartime challenged normative gender roles. In other words, the World War II concept of romantic patriarchy solidified war marriage as a form of social control, which preserved the power and privileges of white men during the war and into the postwar era. Much of the historical literature accepts that the Cold War triggered what many Americans thought was a golden age of marriage in the 1950s. During this time, scholars suggest that a culture of conformity and strict gender roles created domestic tension and planted the seeds for the Women's Liberation Movement. This dissertation, however, shows that romantic patriarchy encouraged skyrocketing marriage rates during World War II and provided the foundation for the mythical family ideal of the 1950s. My work also reveals how wartime Americans thwarted women's independence and egalitarian relationships by romanticizing the normative gender roles that the war prevented them from practicing. These idealiza (open full item for complete abstract)

MA, Kent State University, 2018, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History

By examining the lives and battle experiences of three brothers, this thesis explores their perceptions of cowardice and courage as Union soldiers during the American Civil War. Using primary sources from a newly uncovered collection, the Reiter Family Collection, and using a single family, the Bassetts, as a microcosm of both their community and northern society this thesis examines questions such as in the values, motivation, and struggles of loss, remembrance, and survivors guilt. As historians have often understudied the complicated nexus between experiences of cowardice and courage, this research takes an approach not common in the extant literature. What I refer to as the continuum shows that soldiers felt courage and cowardice concurrently. As a result, there was, and is, more to study about cowardice and courage than the obvious dichotomy. This work describes these terms on a continuum, a flexible scale wherein a person can experience cowardice and courage simultaneously. Examining cowardice and courage through the experiences of the Bassett brothers, this thesis explores who the brothers were, where they came from, and how they fit into the greater scheme of Union wartime society. It continues with an analysis of the experiences and perceptions of the brothers and their different cowardly and courageous experiences. Finally, the thesis concludes with a detailed glance at their successful or failed attempts at redemption.

PHD, Kent State University, 2017, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History

The historiography surrounding the role of the United States in relation to the creation of Israel is wide-ranging and covers a variety of perspectives. The voices of Arab Americans, however, are largely absent, due in part to a belief that the Arab American population was too small, fragmented, and disinterested in politics to have tried to influence American politics. This dissertation challenges that idea by examining the rhetoric, imagery, and messages of Arab American groups and their supporters in comparison with those of Zionist organizations and their proponents, with a specific focus on the efforts of the Institute of Arab American Affairs. By doing so, this work shows that members of the Institute viewed the United States as a reference culture and sought to convince Americans that the Arabs of Palestine were the best reflection of American identity and ideals. This work is thematically organized, examining how the Institute engaged with issues such as race and religion, democracy and justice, national security, and modernization to challenge previously held stereotypes regarding both Arabs and Jews and their respective claims to the Holy Land. Thus, this work shows that not only were Arab Americans politically active prior to the June War of 1967 between Israel and its Arab neighbors, they had a sophisticated understanding of what issues and ideas were important to a (white, Christian) American audience and sought to win that audience's support in order to influence policy makers, while combating Zionists' use of similar arguments to gain American support for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. The failure of the Institute and other Arab organizations during this time period to secure U.S. recognition of an Arab state in Palestine was not, therefore, due to inaction or indifference by the Arab American community, but rather to its inability to break through the dominant frames promoted by Zionists and their supporters that a Jewish state i (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2017, History

When Cowboys Come Home explores changing notions of manhood in post-World War II America. It does so through a series of intellectual biographies about veterans of World War II who became writers after the war ended. Combining cultural history, biography, histories of sexuality, and masculinity studies, I look at how cultural understandings of male roles during wartime influenced returning veterans and American post-war society in general. This dissertation shows how veterans' experiences in wartime caused them to discard masculine ideals such as competition and physical prowess, and replace them with concepts such as authenticity and male camaraderie. Furthermore, through the close male experiences these veterans had, I complicate our understanding of male intimacy by queering the experiences of veterans in post-war America. In the individual chapters of this dissertation, I examine the lives of individual veterans. Through diaries, letters, and fiction, I show how writers such as James Jones (From Here to Eternity), Stewart Stern (Rebel Without A Cause), and Edward Field (Stand Up, Friend, With Me) defined manhood in relation to what many veterans perceived as an alienating, conformist society of the 1950s. While Jones created a Writer's Colony for men to separate themselves from what he perceived as an effeminate American civilization, Stern used Freudian theory to imagine that manhood required adjusting to adult responsibilities of family life. At the same time, Stern tried to make these domestic ideals consistent with the romantic same-sex love he felt during the war. Meanwhile, Edward Field demonstrates the ways in which gay veterans of the war took advantage of the male intimacy they experienced during wartime and fashioned it into an alternative model for manhood. By examining these veterans alongside the larger cultural and intellectual context of post-war America, we gain an understanding of how complicated ideas of manhood were in American society, and u (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts in History, Youngstown State University, 2016, Department of Humanities

This thesis examines the place, meaning, and changing role of the horse in American history -- both physically, including its impacts on the natural environment and its place in the history of transportation, and culturally in modern American memory. As the horse has declined in importance as a beast of burden, it has become increasingly relevant and important culturally, becoming a sort of American artifact central to the notions of American authenticity and the Western experience. The use of the horse as a leisure activity has caused damage to the environment that is specific to the biological makeup of the horse. Although this phenomenon can be examined through various lenses, emphasis here will be placed on the changing place of the horse in western national parks, where over the course of the past century it has undergone transformation from basic transport engine to a starring role in the modern mythology of an authentic western experience.

Master of Music (MM), Bowling Green State University, 2016, Music History

Moravian-born impresario Max Maretzek was one of the leading opera managers in nineteenth-century America, specializing in Italian opera. During his career, Maretzek highlighted three cities as being "musical centers" in America: New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. While he noted that these cities were the most important for opera, he did not treat each one the same. Indeed, each of these cities had a heritage that affected their responses to opera. For example, the Puritanical heritage of Boston caused Maretzek to cancel his production of Verdi's Rigoletto in 1861, because citizens were revolted by the opera's immoral plot. In this project, I will explore, discuss, and analyze reception of Maretzek's Italian operas, and how this reception affected how he produced opera. Using Jauss's ideas on reception theory, specifically the "horizon of expectations," I will explore the historical and cultural contexts of Maretzek's three musical centers, coupled with research on opera in nineteenth-century America by Katherine Preston, John Dizikes, and June Ottenberg. Since Maretzek was an early proponent of Verdi's operas, I will discuss the reception of Maretzek's productions of Italian opera, with emphasis on Verdi and the various controversies his operas engendered. I will show that Maretzek responded to criticism differently in each of the three cities: his productions were more adventurous in his home base of New York, and more conservative in Boston and Philadelphia. Finally, I will situate Maretzek and his work in the overarching cultural context of Italian opera in nineteenth-century America, drawing on the work of Lawrence Levine and Kristen Turner. While Italian opera is commonly discussed as representing the interests of the wealthy upper class in America during this time, I will argue that discussions of Maretzek in this context require a more nuanced discussion. While there were efforts by wealthy citizens to claim Italian opera as their own, Maretzek marketed (open full item for complete abstract)