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

This dissertation focuses on the development of the Lost Cause mythology in North Carolina between the 1880s to the 1920s. The Lost Cause is a racist and inaccurate view of the Civil War years promoted by Neo-Confederate Southerners. This dissertation argues that the Lost Cause developed primarily through the efforts of Neo-Confederate organizations like the United Daughters of the Confederacy. These individuals built a compound-public space that united grassroots movements with official governmental figures to promote the Lost Cause mythology. The formation of this compound-public space and its impact on the Lost Cause provided the necessary cultural support for the development of a Democratic-backed white supremacist campaign in North Carolina in 1898 conducted to reduce the political power of Republicans and African Americans, and to re-establish Democratic hegemony. This dissertation explores the ways in which Neo-Confederates constructed the compound-public space including: the role of politics, gender, religion, education, the media, and Confederate monuments with the express goal of increasing the political power of the Democratic Party.

Committee: Joan Cashin (Advisor); John Brooke (Advisor); Stephanie Shaw (Committee Member); Paula Baker (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; Black History; Education History; Gender; Gender Studies; History; Journalism; Mass Media; Modern History; Religion; Religious History; Teacher Education; Womens Studies

Bachelor of Arts, Wittenberg University, 2020, Communication

Women in the political sector struggle to find their place. Though the number of female representatives has increased in recent years, it has been a slow climb often complicated by the socially prescribed importance of their image to the public eye as represented through media. In the impeachment of President Donald Trump, two female senators, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, were prominently featured on news coverage outlets. As it is not historically common for female politicians to be at the center of major debates, this case allowed for valuable analysis of how the media portrays women in politics. Through this work, three questions are explored: 1) How did cable news media frame Senators Susan Collins' and Lisa Murkowski's roles in the impeachment process of President Donald Trump? 2) How did Senators Collins and Murkowski frame themselves in their self-representations through the impeachment process? 3) How have Collins and Murkowski engaged in self-representation for their overall identities as senators?

Committee: Sheryl Cunningham (Advisor); Kelly Dillon (Committee Member); Edward Hasecke (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; Gender Studies; Mass Communications; Mass Media; Political Science; Womens Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2020, History

This dissertation will explore the short history of Ginling College, a women's college established by American missionaries in Nanjing, China, lasting from 1915 to 1951. Ginling aimed to provide higher education to Chinese women and train women leaders for the advancement of Chinese Christianity. Between 1927 and 1928, the surging appeal of the Chinese to regain control over educational institutions in China pressed Ginling to Sinicize its administration. Under the Chinese leadership, Ginling continued to be managed cooperatively by an international body of women. During World War II, the college earned public acclaim for its service to Chinese refugees during the Nanjing Massacre of 1937 and its relief work for China's government on its wartime campus at Chengdu, West China. After the war, Ginling navigated the furious political complexities of the Nationalist-Communist conflict. In 1951, it was combined with the University of Nanking. All its Western faculty went back to their home countries. However, through local alumnae associations all around the world, Ginling's former Western faculty and overseas alumnae continued to sustain an active women's community. After the economic reform of China in 1978, Ginling's overseas alumnae and faculty reestablished contact with mainland China members. In 1987, through alumnae efforts, Ginling was rebuilt within Nanjing Normal University on its old campus. The Ginling Alumnae Association is still active today. Previous studies often accused the missionary project for overlooking the agency of local people and thus for deepening international misunderstanding. Taking Ginling as an example, this study shows that Western missionaries and Chinese people could have deep and effective communication. Ginling's Western faculty and administrators cared about Chinese needs and respected Chinese agency. Meanwhile, Chinese agency in defending and facilitating the nationalistic cause of sovereignty, independence, and au (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: David Hammack (Advisor) Subjects: American History; Asian Studies; Education History; International Relations; Womens Studies; World History

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2018, History

Early American attitudes toward Marie Antoinette as found in print culture and correspondence illustrates how factions came to understand her as exemplifying the threat politicized women appeared to pose to their republican experiment. Despite differing opinions about the course of the French Revolution and the queen's role within it, Federalists and Republicans believed she exacerbated France's difficulties and disapproved of her conduct. In a time when American women were increasingly engaged in the public sphere, both parties used Marie Antoinette as a counterexample to define American women's proper role within the new republic. Partisans suggested the queen's absolutist agenda undercut French reform and/or hindered the people's liberty and that American women should avoid political activity in order to be spared a similar disastrous fate. This instruction helped both parties devise an ideal republican society that promoted exclusive male political participation and female domesticity while protecting against feminine and monarchical depravities.

Committee: Lindsay Schakenbach Regele PhD (Advisor); P. Renée Baernstein PhD (Committee Member); William Brown PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: History

MA, Kent State University, 2012, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History

The ideology of Republican motherhood, a political philosophy that equated patriotism with gendered social constructions of womanhood, within the early years of the French Third Republic, influenced the implementation of state mandated girls' education in the metropole. Expanding upon already existing gendered cultural constructions of womanhood and the social role of French women, politicians sought to promote the concept of Republican motherhood in the textbooks of school girls to prepare them for their future role as mothers of strong and loyal French citizens. The ideology of patriotic womanhood, under the Third Republican government, was not only a guiding principle for domestic policy, but was also intrinsic to French colonial policy in Algeria. Through the use of a common nineteenth-century European practice known as woman-to-woman medical care, Dr. Dorothee Chellier, a female physicians under the auspice of the colonial government provided medical care to indigenous women in Algeria. Chellier published multiple written accounts of her medical advocacy for indigenous women's health care and her account clearly demonstrates that the ideology of Republican motherhood was a factor in her participation in the medical missions as well as an important facet within the Republican government's policy of assimilating the indigenous population of Algeria by catering to the women within the Berber tribes and predicting that they would not only personally recognize the benefice of French medical care, but pass on these beliefs to their children. Chellier and the Algerian colonial governor sought to assimilate the indigenous population to French social and economic frameworks, but also to ameliorate the fractious environment between the European colonial settlers, indigenous groups, and the French military. Thus, Republican motherhood was a framework used in the metropole and in the colonial context by Republican politicians who sought to harness the power of a mother's i (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Rebecca Pulju PhD (Advisor) Subjects: European History

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2013, History (Arts and Sciences)

During World War II, American women entered the labor force and fulfilled masculine roles in both industry and the military. Yet the majority of American women remained within the home and the completion of daily domestic tasks were elevated to acts of patriotism. For women with families, precisely 1/3 of women war workers by the end of 1943, their most important duty to fulfill was that of motherhood.1 The association between women and participation in the war effort was not unique to this era but harkened back to the American Revolution. According to historian Joan R. Gundersen, "the only distinctly female form of patriotism [or political identity] available when the War of Independence began, was that of a mother's influence over a child to shape morals and patriotism."2 This relationship between eighteenth century female citizenship and motherhood was most notably defined by historian Linda K. Kerber, under the term Republican Motherhood, and introduced to a broad readership in 1976. This thesis argues that J. Edgar Hoover revived Republican Motherhood--in a 1944 article for Woman's Home Companion entitled "Mothers...Our Only Hope"--to reinforce traditional gender roles during World War II. Hoover's articulation of mother as the only hope for the nation's future echoed the eighteenth century belief that a citizen's political socialization began in childhood and was derived from a mother's instruction. Yet it was Hoover's belief that a mother was the true guardian of the nation that created a new interpretation of Republican Motherhood ideology. What I have termed neo-Republican Motherhood relegated women to the domestic realm to maintain a sense of normalcy and subdue anxieties over unintentional female advancement in the postwar era. Neo-Republican Motherhood did not reach its pinnacle until the early years of the Cold War. Through adherence to the ideology and the indoctrination of children in American virtues, women became the guardians of civilization--the b (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Katherine Jellison (Advisor); Brian Schoen (Committee Member); Jessica Roney (Committee Member) Subjects: History

Bachelor of Arts, Ashland University, 2012, History/Political Science

This paper explores the development and participation of women in American politics from pre-American Revolution through the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848. Women's involvement in education, industrialization, and westward expansion are also discussed.

Committee: Patrick Campbell Ph.D. (Advisor); Emily Hess M.A. (Committee Member); Kristen Hovsepian M.I.M. (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; History; Womens Studies