Master of Arts, Miami University, 2018, History

This thesis examines the ways in which early modern medical texts presented the mind-body connection as it impacted child-bearing women in seventeenth century England. The medieval rediscovery of ancient Greek medical knowledge dominated understandings of health and healing for centuries but reached its widest audiences with the explosion of vernacular language printed materials in the early modern period. Foundational to these repurposed ancient medical theories was the belief that the mind and body interacted in complex ways, requiring frequent monitoring of emotional states to achieve good health. For practitioners concerned with women's reproductive health, women's emotional regulation was vital to desirable physical outcomes throughout the period of childbearing, lasting beyond modern designations of conception and childbirth. Thus, this thesis challenges assumptions of how early modern historians should mark the phases of reproduction and argues instead that childbearing, at least for women, continued through the first years of an infant's life.

Committee: P. Renée Baernstein (Advisor); William Brown (Committee Member); Cynthia Klestinec (Committee Member) Subjects: European History; Gender; Gynecology; History; Obstetrics; Womens Studies

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2014, American Culture Studies

This dissertation reveals the commonality of public and active women who used creative trades to substantiate their lives in Virginia from 1716-1800. A creative tradeswoman, an existence identified by this scholarship, was an individual who used her musical, dancing, and singing abilities to incur wages. This study focuses on prominent creative tradeswomen such as Mrs. Sully and Mrs. Pick, a traveling musical duo; the singing actresses of the Hallam; Mary Stagg, assembly manager and contributor to the first theater in Williamsburg; Baroness Barbara deGraffenreit, who competed for Williamsburg's premier dancing manager position; and Mrs.Ann Neill, an enterprising music teacher. Despite times of subordination, these women showcased unique forms of creative agency such as acquiring widespread idolization or organizing traveling musical duos. Creative tradeswomen challenged the conventional oppositions between trade and gentry women, education and creative ability, submission and dominance, amateur and professional culture, public and private spaces. The histories of creative tradeswomen demonstrate the fluidity between these binaries while also remapping cultural and social identities as informed by power, subjectivity, trade, music, and dance. As a result, this dissertation illustrates creative tradeswomen as situated within paradoxical systems of power and subordination. The archives at the Rockefeller Library, Virginia Historical Society, New York Historical Society, and the Library of Congress supported the research. This dissertation utilizes a feminist historiography methodology, incorporating a consideration of cultural and social conditions that bring forward creative women’s untold histories. Interdisciplinary in nature, this study makes points of contact between women’s history, cultural history, and gender studies. Creative tradeswomen expands the research on women's labor while locating gender and class as major influencers informing a wom (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Andrew M. Schocket Ph.D. (Advisor); Katherine L. Meizel Ph.D. (Other); Mary Natvig Ph.D. (Committee Member); Clayton F. Rosati Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; American Studies; Gender; Gender Studies; History; Music; Performing Arts; Theater History; Womens Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2011, History

In the decades around 1900, Wilhelmine Germany embarked on a quest for world power status. This endeavor included the acquisition of overseas colonies and a naval arms race with Great Britain, but it also encompassed a broader effort to achieve global presence and economic might through a rapidly expanding merchant fleet. Accordingly, many Germans began to view the maritime community as an extension of the nation and its empire on and over the seas. This study argues that, between the advent of German expansion in 1884 and the outbreak of world war in 1914, a variety of German groups reconceived merchant mariners as emblems of the nation at home, on the oceans, and overseas. Consequently, state authorities, liberal intellectuals, social reform organizations, Protestants, and nautical professionals deployed middle-class constructions of masculinity in their attempts to reform civilian sailors' portside leisure and shipboard labor for the nation. A broader “crisis of masculinity” around 1900 informed this focus on mariners' bodies, sexualities, comportment, and character. Reform groups portrayed their efforts to mold model seamen as essential to the success of German overseas expansion and Weltpolitik. They created highly-gendered programs designed to channel mariners' transnational mobility into steady flows of national power, capital, and culture around the world. This investigation situates its analysis primary and secondary literature in a transnational framework. It follows merchant mariners on a journey across the Atlantic, where most German shipping was engaged, focusing on the ports of Hamburg, Bremen, New York, and Buenos Aires. This structure allows me to consider the tensions between sailors' urban leisure practices, both at home and overseas, and reformers' attempts to anchor these men in marriage, family, Volk, and Heimat. It also allows me to consider how masculinity and Weltpolitik shaped conflicts between traditional notions of skill, training, and co (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Dr. Alan Beyerchen (Committee Co-Chair); Dr. Robin Judd (Committee Co-Chair); Dr. Donna Guy (Committee Member); Dr. Birgitte Soland (Committee Member) Subjects: European History; Gender Studies; Modern History

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2009, History

In March 1972, the United Automobile Workers (UAW) struck for eighteen days at the General Motors (GM) assembly complex in Lordstown, Ohio. Previous historical studies have focused on the origins of labor-management conflict at the factory. Drawing upon documents from the UAW's archives, the business press, and automotive industry trade publications, this thesis contextualizes the strike by linking shop floor conditions with GM's business strategy, the Nixon administration's economic policy, and working class life in the Mahoning Valley. The UAW and GM saw the Chevrolet Vega, manufactured at Lordstown, as the domestic industry's best response to import competition. But bureaucratic imperatives, especially within GM's management structure, encouraged a series of confrontations between the company and union that culminated in the strike and undermined the Vega's viability. The thesis expands our understanding of an iconic moment in American labor history and illuminates the ongoing problems confronting the U.S. automobile industry.

Committee: Kevin Boyle PhD (Advisor); Paula Baker PhD (Committee Member); Mansel Blackford PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: American History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2007, History

This dissertation explores roots of the current urban crisis in the United States. Most scholarly explanations associate the problem, particularly of high levels of African-American poverty, with deindustrialization, which has stripped cities of the factory jobs that once sustained working-class communities. My account deviates from the standard tale of black male unemployment by focusing on shifting patterns of African-American women's labor—both paid and unpaid. Using Baltimore as a case study, it argues that public rather than industrial-sector employment served as the foundation of Baltimore's post-World War II African-American middle and working classes. Women outpaced men in winning government jobs. Concentrated in social welfare agencies, they used their new influence over public policy to improve the city's delivery of public services. Black women's efforts to build an infrastructure for sustainable community development put them at odds in municipal policy-making battles with city officials and business leaders intent upon revitalizing Baltimore through investment in a tourism industry. The social services workers scored some important victories, helping to alleviate poverty by shifting to the government some of the responsibility for health, child, and elder care women earlier provided in the private sphere. The conservative ascendancy of the 1970s and 1980s, reversed many of the gains African-American public-sector workers had won. Intent upon resuscitating the United States' status in the global economy, American presidents, influenced by conservative economists and their elite backers, made macroeconomic and urban policy decisions that justified extensive public-sector retrenchment and cuts or changes to social programs. Public-sector workers and their unions, most notably the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), fought with limited success to prevent the transformation of American public policy. Neoliberal policies ero (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kevin Boyle (Advisor) Subjects: History, United States

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2013, History

This study illuminates labor education by the American Catholic Church. Through a Church vetted program of specialized labor education, the laity became an integral component in the growth and development of American organized labor in the Twentieth Century. Utilizing the social encyclicals, the laity and clergy educated workers about their rights and created a cadre of labor leaders and an activist Catholic laity. The development of the labor schools reflect a unique American interpretation of Church doctrine tailored specifically to conditions in the United States. The Vatican's concern about Americanism caused some of the American Church hierarchy, in the late nineteenth century, to become ambivalent about overt social action on behalf of labor. The laity searched for a way to implement social reform programs like those of the Progressive or Social Gospel movements. Consequently, after the pronouncement of Quadragesimo Anno, the formation of labor education was implemented by committed members of the laity and activist parish priests who chose to interpret the social encyclicals with an American perspective. During the period of the Great Depression, the New Deal and Quadragesimo Anno, Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement catalyzed the formation of the Association of Catholic Trade Unionists which in turn led to the establishment of labor schools throughout the nation. As the Cold War developed, Catholic lay labor education became a bulwark against communist infiltration of organized labor. Two of the most prominent schools were located in Buffalo, New York and Cleveland, Ohio. By concentrating on Catholic labor education in Buffalo and Cleveland, this study demonstrates how vital the labor schools were to these communities. The labor schools in Buffalo and Cleveland present examples of the curriculums and policies developed mutually by the laity and clergy to educate workers (both Catholic and non-Catholic) about their rights and (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: John Grabowski (Committee Chair); David Hammack (Committee Member); John Flores (Committee Member); Paul Gerhart (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; Clergy; European History; Labor Relations; Religious History

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.

Committee: Kimberly Hamlin (Advisor); Susan Spellman (Committee Member); Helen Shoemaker (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; Gender

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 1953, History

Committee: Grover C. Platt (Advisor) Subjects: History

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 1948, Economics

Committee: Lloyd A. Helms (Advisor) Subjects: Economics; History; Sociology

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 1953, History

Committee: Grover C. Platt (Advisor) Subjects: History

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2022, Economics

Were working women from 1900 to 1940 more likely to find a spouse within their same occupation than in another occupation? Our dataset is made up of complete count decennial census data from IPUMS covering 1900 through 1940. We focus on five occupations specifically to limit the study: actresses, physicians and surgeons, professors, teachers, and government officials. As a point of comparison, we also look at women working in manufacturing and agriculture. To determine if working women were more likely to marry within their occupation, we apply the Separable Extreme Value Index from Chiappori et. al. (2020) and the Altham Statistic from Altham and Ferrie (2007) to determine if this was the case. We find that, for our selected occupations, working women were more likely to find a spouse within their same occupation for all of the time covered, but the degree to which it was more likely decreased over time.

Committee: Gregory Niemesh (Advisor) Subjects: Economic History; Economics

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2022, History

This project explores the labor history of the Appalachian region and the presence of American labor history in the museum space and in public memory. The first section is a proposal for a Museum of Appalachian Labor Action, detailing the administrative and exhibitionary organization of a museum dedicated to the labor history of the Central, North Central, and Northern Appalachia, situated in Wheeling, West Virginia. The second section, a museum exhibition design titled “The Mine Wars Experience,” attempts to tell the history of the early 20th-century labor conflict, the West Virginia Mine Wars. The final section is an essay titled “Labor in the Museum,” an overall exploration of the place American labor history occupies in the museum space and in public memory more generally.

Committee: David Steigerwald (Committee Member); David Staley (Advisor) Subjects: History; Museums

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2021, History of Art

Chinese media art has evolved in tandem with the growing enthusiasm for technological revolution since the post-Mao 1980s. While recent scholarship has analyzed the critical role played by the so-called “information fever” in propelling China's transition to a technocratic society, the dynamic interplay between post-Mao techno-utopianism and the development of media art is yet to be historicized. My dissertation fills this gap by examining how artists negotiated new fantasies about information on the one hand, and anxieties about state control and social engineering on the other. Seeing information technology as a new form of power impacting post-socialist artistic practices, I investigate how media artists adopted new ideas and vocabularies from cybernetic theories to articulate the political manipulation of technology and the tension between control and communication. Through inspection of historical documents and audiovisual materials, my preliminary research suggests that the rise of a technocratic society profoundly reshaped subjectivity and corporeality in post-Mao China. As artists reacted to an increasingly precarious status of humanity, the socially and biologically reengineered human body appeared as a vital subject matter in media art. Based on these findings, I argue that media artists of the post-reform era transformed a cybernetic imaginary of the body into new inventive forms of embodiment. In doing so, they were able to visualize the alienating effects of modernization, activating an alternative political imagination that enabled them to rethink the politics of the “human.” Rather than framing Chinese media art as a derivative or an imported art form, my project illuminates its specific social and political context and its potential to resist the dehumanizing aspects of technology. As one of the first efforts to address the impact of technology on art and humanity in the context of post-Mao China, my study complicates a Western-dominated discourse (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Julia Andrews (Advisor); Erica Levin (Committee Member); Kris Paulsen (Committee Member); Namiko Kunimoto (Committee Member) Subjects: Art History; Asian Studies; Science History; Sociology; Technology

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2020, History

This thesis examines the life of an engineer and professor Gustav Trinkler under the Imperial and Soviet Russia. By using archival materials, such as letters, certificates, reports, questionnaires, and a memoir, it explores his living conditions and interactions with authorities before and after the 1917 Russian Revolution. Trinkler was born in 1876 to a prosperous family of a predominantly German ethnicity. Despite his origins, he identified as a Russian throughout his life. Before the 1917 Revolution, Trinkler enjoyed cultivating his estate, sent his family on vacation to the south and petitioned his superiors requesting positions and financial assistance. After 1917, Trinkler aspired to maintain his living standards and re-engineered the life he knew: he obtained a new summer house, enjoyed family vacations in the south and kept sending petitions asking new, Soviet, authorities for assistance and benefits based on his technical skills. He managed to manufacture a Soviet life that was strikingly similar to his Imperial one even after his imprisonment as a "bourgeois" specialist in 1930. Using Trinkler's biography as a microhistory, this thesis points to the need to examine individuals' lives before 1917 to better understand the Soviet system and what constituted novel, "Soviet," behaviors.

Committee: Stephen Norris PhD (Advisor); Scott Kenworthy PhD (Committee Member); Francesca Silano PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: History; Russian History

Master of Fine Arts, The Ohio State University, 2016, Art

My photographic work centers around the self and how identity is constructed through the concept of intersectionality: race, class, gender, sexuality, etc. Particularly, the work is about my own personal identity. I grew up in the “hollers” of West Virginia to a working class family whose primary income came from the coal industry. The imagery and text explores how I have come to my own contemporary understanding of my sexuality, gender performance (masculinity, specifically,) and work ethic is contrast to the traditional ideologies of my family.

Committee: Robert Derr (Advisor); Rebecca Harvey (Committee Member); Ann Hamilton (Committee Member); Dani Leventhal (Committee Member) Subjects: Fine Arts

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

This dissertation is the first attempt to write the history of the commercial pottery industry in the United States. I argue that in the face of outside threats and government indifference, American producers occasionally discarded their competitive instincts and instead sought cooperation with one another to ensure the survival of the industry as a whole. Starting with the establishment of the three largest industrial producers (the Homer Laughlin China Company in Ohio and West Virginia, the Onondaga Pottery/Syracuse China in New York, and Shenango China in Pennsylvania), the first chapter looks at the early successes of these companies through dynamic leadership, innovative product design, and favorable market conditions as well as the establishment of a tradition of trade association. Chapters two and three outline the two major threats to the industry: the proliferation of low-cost imported and non-ceramic china and an American trade and tariff policy that disregarded the needs of small handicraft industries starting in the late 1930s. As foreign product flooded the country, American potters turned to a number of strategies to survive, many of which put competitors in the unique position of banding together to ease a threat bigger than their rivalry. Chapter four examines various marketing strategies employed by potters to carve out a place in a crowded market. Chapter five grapples with issues of labor by looking at the history of unionization in the potteries and positing whether it helped or hurt the workers of a declining industry. The final chapter deals with management's strategies to improve relations with their workers and communities through public relations and social responsibility while also noting the steps these companies took to keep an eye on one another. An epilogue traces the final decline of a large portion of the industry over the past forty years while paying special attention to Homer Laughlin as the final plant to survive. The actions of t (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kenneth Bindas PhD (Advisor); Clarence Wunderlin PhD (Committee Member); Gregory Wilson PhD (Committee Member); Jennifer Wiggins Johnson PhD (Committee Member); Janis Crowther PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; History; Labor Relations; Marketing; Modern History

BA, Oberlin College, 2013, Politics

The popularity of intercollegiate football and men's basketball at the NCAA Division I level has become comparable to that of professional sports during the period between 1960 and 2013. This league, which is comprised of unpaid, amateur athletes enrolled as students at the various member universities, has undergone a number of changes since its formation in 1906. Although holding amateurism to be its core governing principle, the Association has changed the definition of the term from its original construct in 19th century English institutions of higher learning. The first portion of this research concerns the history of the league's definition of this term, as well as the league's relation to its athletes. Further research regarding the legal definition of the NCAA as a national governing body, its relationship to member schools and individual athletes is explored to compliment the understanding of its historical evolution. Jurisprudence and legal precedent is analyzed to describe the amateur ideal in the conception of the American public. Financial figures as well as budgeting for the Association and the university athletic departments are used to compliment the understanding of rising revenue from television and sponsor contracts. General misappropriation of funds, along with corrupt internal investigation practices are identified in conjunction with incongruences in the stated definition of student-athletes and actual practices, strongly suggesting need for reform. Finally, the Sherman Anti-trust Act and the National Labor Relations Act are used to identify avenues of reform to rectify the treatment of athletes as primarily employees, instead of students, of their universities. An alternative format for this pre-professional league is laid out in the final portion of this thesis, realigning this major portion of American labor, entertainment, and education with proper conceptions of propriety and justice.

Committee: Harry Hirsch (Advisor); Eve Sandberg (Committee Chair); Michael Parkin (Committee Member); Michael Traugott (Committee Member) Subjects: African Americans; Curricula; Economics; Higher Education; History; Intellectual Property; Labor Economics; Law; Mass Media; Modern History; Political Science; Recreation; Sports Management

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2001, Education : Criminal Justice

Police employee organizations and unions have long been seen as obstacles to police chiefs and to policy implementation (Walker 1984). More recently, police unions have been identified as an obstacle to the implementation of community policing (Sadd & Grinc 1996). While much has been written concerning police unions, most of the studies are based on anecdotal accounts of police labor relations in a particular department (see Levi 1977 for a representative piece of union research). Police unions have yet to be described or examined empirically. This work uses a large representative sample of police agencies as a starting point to survey both police chiefs and police union leaders to answer three major research questions: (1) what are the characteristics of the typical police employee organization? (2) what are police chief and police employee organization leader perceptions of police labor relationships? and (3) to what extent do police employee organizations interfere with the implementation of community policing? The findings of this research suggest that police employee organizations share many of the characteristics of police agencies: most are relatively small and locally based. Police chiefs and police employee organization leaders have somewhat different perceptions of police labor relationships and these perceptions appear to be related to experience and conflict. Very few police chiefs or police employee organization leaders reported conflict over the implementation of community policing in the last three years.

Committee: Dr. Lawrence F. Travis, III (Advisor) Subjects: Sociology, Criminology and Penology

Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA), Ohio University, 2010, Theater

I took advantage of the opportunities afforded to me by my senior thesis and returned to children's theater for the first time since starting college. I hoped that by creating a children's theater piece I could start my lofty life goal of changing the world. My college theater experience prior to my production was exclusively in the costume shop. Though I understood that costume pieces I made became crucial elements of shows and therefore could help to create moving theatrical experiences for a person, I rarely saw this direct effect. By producing and directing a children's show, Thumbelina: The Story of a Brave Little Girl, I involved myself in all aspects of the production, allowing me to comprehend the effect that each element of a production exerted upon another. To better inform the production Thumbelina, I researched the history of children's theater from its formation in 1903 to current children's theater productions. I also researched theories on the production and benefits of children's theater. Though I had worked in children's theater for many years, I had never studied the form from an academic standpoint. By combining academic research with a theatrical performance I united scholarly and creative approaches to theater in a cohesive form. Furthermore, as I worked on these elements in unison, I discovered overarching themes between the academic approach to theater and the production aspect. I found that my goal of changing the world and influencing young people consistently was one shared by both theater artists producing shows and also the scholars examining children's theater. By combining both the scholarly and the creative in my thesis on children's theater, I made connections that were otherwise unattainable. Not only did I confirm my theory on children's theater's goal of changing the world, I also found the goal of first and foremost entertaining children encompassed both approaches as well. By producing, directing, designing, and costuming a touri (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: William Condee PhD (Advisor) Subjects: History; Theater

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2006, Art Education

Stage actors have long been an integral element of the cultural community in the United States. From vaudeville to the Broadway stage, actors have carved a niche for themselves in the theatrical landscape of the United States. Yet, little has specifically been written on the functionality of the primary theatrical actors' association and union, Actors' Equity Association. This dissertation examines the formation of the theatrical industry and the simultaneous development of Actors' Equity Association as an institution within that industry. In doing so, the work makes connections between development of the industry and the role of Actors' Equity Association on the field's development. This interpretive historical inquiry sets the stage for the contemporary understanding of theatrical actors. The research is focused on unionism, the evolution of labor in the United States, the development of the theatrical industry, and the reactive and proactive behavior of Actors' Equity Association. This case study investigates the development of a creative sector union and its role within an industry through three lenses: resource dependence, institutional isomorphism, and collective action. Each of the theories offers a different perspective for understanding Actors' Equity Association and the theatrical industry in which it operates. It is argued the development of the theatrical industry is significantly linked to the collective action behavior of Actors' Equity Association. Concurrently, resource dependence has helped shape Actors' Equity as well as the larger theatrical field. Additionally, resource dependence and collective action have caused isomorphic change within the theatrical industry.

Committee: Margaret Wyszomirski (Advisor) Subjects: Theater