BA, Oberlin College, 2021, History

As industrializing nineteenth-century London found itself in the position of a prominent world capital, the city faced problems of overcrowding, high poverty, and waves of epidemics, making the dead progressively more visible in public spheres of society. This thesis examines different forms of publicly-spectated death in Victorian London, moving from anatomical dissections to funerals to burials, following the Victorian corpse in these moments of dealing with the dead and the level of media involvement in structuring and marketing each of these spectacles to the public. While the current historiographical debate surrounding spectacles of death in nineteenth-century Europe agrees that death ceased to be a spectacle at the beginning of the nineteenth century, I argue that death took on new meaning in the nineteenth century, moving from a context of ritual or punishment to ostentatious and media sensationalist displays. These displays reveal a concern with both the commercialism and respectability of death, reflected in literature such as popular novels, newspapers, and reform-minded writings. The media's spin of each of these types of spectacles, coupled with the culture of materiality of nineteenth-century London, indicates that Londoners sought out spectacles of death both as escapist entertainment and as pieces of the larger moral question of respectability, which was distinctly stratified along class lines: who could secure a “good” death, and whose bodies were put on display?

Committee: Ellen Wurtzel (Advisor); Annemarie Sammartino (Committee Co-Chair); Shelley Sang-Hee Lee (Committee Member); Danielle Terrazas Williams (Committee Member); Leonard V. Smith (Committee Co-Chair) Subjects: European History; History; Modern History

M.A. (Master of Arts in English), Ohio Dominican University, 2017, English

This work examines the correlation between Edgar Allan Poe's detective fiction and the environment that influenced him. It focuses on three areas: his journalistic interests, contemporary inspirations, and the effects of a military education. Positioning Poe's detective stories within a historical and cultural context while tracing influences and motivations, lends understanding to the relevance of his new form of story telling and how it was compatible with the world around it.

Committee: Kelsey Squire Ph.D. (Advisor); Martin Brick Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: American Literature

Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 2016, Journalism (Communication)

This thesis examines the impact of the press during the Hatfield and McCoy feud of 1882-1890. This study was inspired by a History Channel program about the infamous feud, which discussed how the coverage of the feud may have influenced yellow journalism and Appalachian stereotypes. The Hatfield-McCoy feud was a bloody border war that occurred along the Tug River Valley, which separated Kentucky and West Virginia. By examining how the press covered the feud in newspapers and the era's dime novels this thesis argues that sensational journalism was occurring as early as 1888—instead of the generally accepted date of 1895. While it cannot be said that the Hatfield-McCoy feud was what started sensational journalism, it is interesting to note that early examples of it were occurring during the feud. This thesis also argues that the feud may have greatly influenced the common Appalachian stereotypes of today through the use of media priming. By showering their stories with reports of wild mountain men and stern-faced Appalachian women, the reporters of the era may have contributed strongly to the stereotyping of an entire group of people.

Committee: Michael Sweeney (Committee Chair); Aimee Edmondson (Committee Member); Ellen Gerl (Committee Member) Subjects: Journalism; Mass Communications; Mass Media

Bachelor of Arts, Wittenberg University, 2006, English

The best-selling novel of the nineteenth century, Mrs. Henry Wood's East Lynne, is not commonly read today; neither is Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. These books, published only twelve years apart, share strikingly similar sensational elements and common themes. However, they were received very differently; while the early critics disapproved of the subject matter of the both books, they praised East Lynne highly yet criticized The Tenant, setting the stage of each book's fate through the first part of the twentieth century. As I show in this section of my honors thesis, it is first and foremost the form of these books – point of view, style, and structure – that determines their early treatment. Since the Victorian era refused to give voice to the experience of vicious living, The Tenant threatens the Victorian disguise of respectability by allowing the reader to witness – through a first-person narrator and a structure composed of a letter and a diary – scenes of debauchery and immoral behavior. East Lynne, on the other hand, distances the reader from the immorality in the book by using a third-person, storyteller perspective, thus presenting the story as exactly that – a story, rather than a truthful account.

Committee: Inboden Robin (Advisor) Subjects: Literature, English

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2009, Mass Communication

This thesis examines the 2005 media coverage of Hurricane Katrina. It analyzes the content and the reasons for the sensationalist reporting which permeated media coverage, and looks at the extent to which racial identity and class level of those affected by the hurricane influenced that media coverage. The analysis shows that although there was an attempt at some level to provide institutional/structural reasons for why people couldn't leave, especially in The New York Times editorial articles, there was far more emphasis on tales of lawlessness and individual stories. When the media did point to institutional factors, two main challenges arose. First, these issues were often not adequately discussed, especially in television news reports. Second, focus on governmental failures often led to finger pointing at officials, instead of examining how the system as a whole had failed

Committee: Lisa McLaughlin Dr. (Committee Chair); Richard Campbell Dr. (Committee Member); Ronald Scott Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: American Studies; Communication; Cultural Anthropology; Journalism; Mass Media; Minority and Ethnic Groups; Rhetoric; Sociology; Womens Studies

MA, Kent State University, 2013, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History

This narrative history investigates the trials, conviction, and ultimate execution of Charles Sterling, a tramp, for the murder and rape of Elizabeth Grombacher in Youngstown, Ohio. In the final fifteen months of Sterling's life, much of Youngstown and its surrounding communities remained so certain of his guilt, despite a lack of concrete evidence or witnesses, that Sterling eventually fell victim to the unique confluence of social ideas and cultural norms which made it impossible for a poor outsider to prove his innocence in a late nineteenth-century American city. It is the inconsistencies between rival papers The Register and Tribune and The Vindicator that forms the primary basis for exploring this case and the community's reaction to it. By applying theories of presentation and framing, pioneered and influenced by Erving Goffman, to the coverage of these leading Youngstown newspapers, this study endeavors to show the complex negotiation that took place between members of the community who otherwise left no written record. Ultimately, this inquiry finds that Sterling's fate though decided by a jury and under the watchful eye of a judge, did not come from the courthouse but from extra-legal beliefs and pressures.

Committee: Kenneth Bindas PhD (Advisor); Elizabeth Smith-Pryor PhD (Committee Member); Kevin Adams PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; American Studies; History; Journalism; Modern History