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

BA, Oberlin College, 2017, Sociology

Head Start, a federally-funded preschool program for low-income children which also provides social services to parents, has persisted since its founding in the 1960s. The program has also received consistent public support since its implementation. Head Start's popularity makes it unique in comparison to other welfare programs in the country. The United States' welfare state is weak and underfunded when compared to other countries; the US lacks a comprehensive national welfare system, and the existing system exacerbates inequalities based on gender and race.Despite the lack of support for welfare services, Head Start continues to serve children and families across the country. Head Start programs are available in every state, and 1,000 local agencies provide services to over 1 million children and their families yearly. The program has been shown to increase academic and social outcomes for low-income children well past the preschool years, and continues to endure in communities like Lorain County.I present the findings from 15 interviews with parents, preschool program and Head Start administrators, and coordinators of community agencies that collaborate with Head Start. I find that Head Start has persisted in Lorain County due to its adaptability to county-specific challenges surrounding the lack of public transportation, its degree of embeddedness in the community due to organizational ties, and its adherence to the growing prioritization of academic preparation for kindergarten during preschool. I conclude by suggesting future research to better understand the link between welfare services and public transportation, and by making policy recommendations.

Committee: Greggor Mattson (Advisor) Subjects: Early Childhood Education; Education; Sociology; Welfare

Master of Arts, Oberlin College, 1938, Geology

During the course of the school year 1936-37 spent at Oberlin, which is situated near the center of Lorain County, Ohio, the writer had the opportunity to study the outcrops and to gather records of wells in this area.A study of the strata of this county is confusing because the same rocks have been described under different formational names. Originally many of these strata were traced northward from type sections in central Ohio or westward from type sections near Cleveland. At a later date many of the strata were reclassified and assigned to formations which had been traced westward from Pennsylvania.The object of this thesis is two-fold: first, to describe the strata as classified by the most recent studies in the region, which both the extent and the individual characteristics of these formation given, and second to determine the conditions under which the strata were deposited.

Committee: Frederick Foreman (Advisor); Reuel Frost (Other); Erwin Stumm (Other) Subjects: Geology

Master of Arts, Oberlin College, 1948, Geography

Geographic study aims at systematic description and interpretation of the interrelationship of organic and inorganic things on the face of the earth. The geographer analyzes land use patterns in the attempt to understand the intimate relationship existing between man and the geographic environment. The number of people that a given amount of land will support, and hence the manner in which this population uses that land, is a function of the resources of the area and the culture of the men making up the population. Basically, resources of the land are its geographic elements of soil, climate, physiography, and vegetation; by culture is implied the economic, political, and social institutions by which men govern their activities. The land use patterns resulting from the alteration of the natural environment by men, conditioned by these geographic and cultural influences, constitute part of cultural geography.Constant effort is made toward more and more detailed description and interpretation of the landscape, which involves decreasing the size of the unit studied. The characteristics of Lorain County land use have been described briefly when use regions of North America or of the state of Ohio have been analyzed. In this thesis, Lorain County is the unit of study, subdivisions being made within the county limits.The general land use characteristics of Lorain County are typical of most of the counties of northern Ohio which border on Lake Erie. In this respect the dominance of the influence of geographic factors is clear, for in many ways these factors are similar in the lake-border region. Cultural influences account for the minor variations.To accomplish a detailed graphic description of Lorain County land use (the accompanying Plates) it was necessary to construct the maps from interpretation of aerial photographs. A somewhat more detailed analysis could have been made if the uses could have been mapped in the field, but the area to be covered was much too large (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: R.B. Frost (Advisor); Irene Moke (Other) Subjects: Agriculture; Agronomy; Geography; Geology; Physical Geography

Master of Arts, Oberlin College, 1947, Geography

The purpose of this thesis is to explain why artificial drainage is necessary in Lorain County, Ohio, and how it has been accomplished under county supervision. Artificial drainage is the process of removing an excess of water from the soil by means of open ditches or underground drains. Its main purpose is to improve the condition of the soil for agriculture. An organized drainage enterprise should provide adequate outlets into which the farms of the district may be tile drained, and should provide relief for the region as a unit.The maps showing the location of the county ditches and drains were made from Lorain County ditch records and maps and checked with aerial photographs of the county. The beach ridges in the county, as shown in Plate I and figure 5, are taken from the unpublished maps by Frank Carney which show the abandoned shorelines of the glacial lakes in the Vermilion and Oberlin topographical quadrangles.

Committee: Reuel Frost (Advisor) Subjects: Agriculture; Agriculture, Soil Science; Agronomy; Geology; Physical Geography

Master of Arts, Oberlin College, 1948, Geology

Throughout the course of the school year 1947-48 the writer has collected specimens of the Bedford shale from various localities within Lorain County, Ohio. Textural and mineralogical analyses have been made of the specimens in order to determine the textural and petrologic variation between the two facies, and whether each of the facies was deposited under similar conditions.

Committee: Frederick Foreman (Advisor) Subjects: Geology

BA, Oberlin College, 1999, Economics

Household income is one of the most common variables in economic models. Theory and logic tells us that it will influence a whole range of household choices, from the decision to go to school, to the decisions to change jobs or move. Income is also used in range of political science and sociological models. These models use income and relative economic position to explain political and social behavior. On the face of it income seems to be a straightforward concept, once you have included and excluded all relevant income streams. It also seems reasonable to assume that individual households know their income, and make decisions based on that knowledge. What if, however, households don't really know how much they earn? Or, more accurately, what if they know how much they earn, but they don't really know the significance of their income relative to others? This is one question that emerges from the research discussed in this paper. Based on interview data, this exploratory study finds several trends about perceptions of income and income inequality on which further research could be based. Among them is the fact that most people are not able to accurately place their income on a schematic representation of the overall income distribution. Other findings suggest that certain groups of people are most interested in changing income distribution. Still others suggest that most people judge their income and income satisfaction by comparing themselves to people who are like them- people who live near them, have similar education to them, and look like them. These and other findings will be discussed in this paper. It will examine in turn the respondents' perceptions and opinions about income inequality, their perceptions about their own income, their opinions about equality and inequality in the abstract, and the models they seem to use to explain economic change.

Committee: Hirschel Kasper (Advisor) Subjects: Economic Theory; Economics

BA, Oberlin College, 1999, Economics

In my experiment, I am trying to find the value, to Lorain County property owners, of cleaning up the Black River which runs through Lorain County. This study involves a number of property variables, a number of neighborhood variables, and the environmental variables. The hedonic price function takes this general form: Property Price = c + β1Property Characteristics + β2Neighborhood Characteristics + β3Environmentai Characteristics + u. This equation says that the price of a piece of property is a function of several things: the characteristics of the property, the characteristics of the neighborhood it's in, and the characteristics of the environment. The slope coefficients β1, β2, and β3 are the hedonic prices of the property, neighborhood, and environmental characteristics, respectively. u represents the combined effect of all the housing characteristics about which I have no information. I hypothesize that the environmental health of the Black River is a commodity (or source of pleasure) in the housing bundle. At first, one might suspect that the health of a nearby stream is not considered when purchasing a house. However, recall that water moves in a hydrologic cycle. The Ohio EPA says, "the populations of fish in a river reflect the overall state of environmental health of the watershed as a whole. This is because fish live in water which has previously fallen on the cities, fields, strip mines, grasslands, and forests of the watershed." The water and other solutes in the river are products of the land around a river. A river near an urban center that sends off sulfur and carbon monoxide will have elevated acidity because the rain washes the airborne pollutants into the river. The fish and insects will reflect this increased acidity. Therefore, the river is a good approximation of the health of the surrounding area. In order to test this hypothesis, I determine the implicit price of the health of the Black River. In regression Property Price = c + β1Property (open full item for complete abstract)

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