Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2024, History

Museums are important sources of extra-academic education for the American public, but they are not held to the same rigorous standards as academia, nor indeed are there any unified standards for the evaluation of museums. Within the museum evaluation framework, the relatively novel field of remedial evaluation -- examining an exhibit with an eye toward improving it rather than merely evaluating its success for repeat displays -- is not readily applied. This thesis argues for the broader implementation of remedial evaluation, examining the guidelines produced by museums for their own use, as well as the contributions to the field by consultants and educators, to create a unified set of criteria that will aid museums in remedial evaluation. The broader goal is to foster a common language that museum professionals can use to hold themselves and their peers to a higher standard of excellence in exhibit design. The resultant rubric is then applied to three Ohio Museums of varying size and scope: the National Museum of the United States Air Force, Motts Military Museum, and Miami Valley Military Museum. These museums run the gamut from a small, volunteer-run organization to a large, publicly funded institution to demonstrate the applicability of the rubric to many institutions.

Undergraduate Honors Program, Malone University, 2024, Honors Thesis

A historical analysis of the experience of both Confederate and Union female POWs and how mid 19th century societal gender norms influenced how these women were perceived by society.

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2024, American Culture Studies

This dissertation explores the role of democracy promotion in US foreign intervention with a particular focus on the weaponization of media and civil society by two important US democracy promotion institutions, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and US Agency for International Development (USAID). Focusing on these two institutions and building on scholarship that takes a critical Gramscian Marxist perspective on US democracy promotion, this study brings media imperialism and deep political scholarship into the conversation. Delimiting the study to focus on US activities, I trace historical patterns of intellectual warfare and exceptional states of violence and lawlessness pursued by the US government in case studies of foreign intervention in which democracy promotion has played an important part since 1983. I survey the evolution of elite US Cold War conceptions of managed democracy as well as transformations of covert Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) media and civil society operations into institutionalized, pseudo-overt US democracy promotion that became a foundational pretext and method for US interventionism post-Cold War. Case studies include the Contra War in 1980s Nicaragua, Operation Cyclone in 1980s Afghanistan, the 2000 overthrow of Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milosevic, the 2002 military coup against Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, the 2004 coup against Haitian president Bertrand Aristide, and the 2014 Euromaidan Coup against Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. I dedicate the penultimate chapter to US-led intervention in the Syrian Civil War that began in 2011, demonstrating how USAID provided instrumental monetary, media, and civil society support to primarily sectarian, theocratic, Salafi rebels against the Ba'athist government. Throughout the dissertation, I argue that the NED and USAID represent important engines of intellectual warfare in US foreign intervention, mobilizing communications and organizational resources to reinf (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Education (Educational Leadership), Youngstown State University, 2024, Department of Teacher Education and Leadership Studies

The military has long been recognized as a traditionally male-dominated field where women have faced various barriers and limited opportunities for advancement. Women are becoming more powerful in the military as leaders, breaking down barriers and dispelling preconceptions as they take command, inspire, and shape the military's future. The problem under investigation was the persistent underrepresentation of women in the U.S. military; due to gender bias and preconceptions that are deeply embedded in military culture, women in the military face unique difficulties and impediments. Therefore, the purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore the perceptions and lived experiences of women leaders in the U.S. military and how they have worked to overcome challenges when accessing top leadership positions. This study followed a qualitative method that utilized a phenomenological design. The researcher collected data from 10 female leaders in top leadership positions within any armed forces. For this study, a top leadership position was defined as (a) Captain, (b) Major, (c) Lieutenant Colonel, (d) Colonel, (e) Brigadier General, and (f) General. The researcher collected data via semi-structured interviews, asking each participant the same ten open-ended questions in the same manner during a private interview. Five themes emerged from the dataset: (a) resilience and adapted strategies, (b) gendered workplace inequities, (c) personal and professional balance, (d) building and nurturing professional networks, and (e) gendered workplace pressures. These themes highlight various aspects of women's experiences, including intersectionality challenges, mental health considerations, and organizational support. Specifically, the recognition of these themes contributes to a more robust understanding of the multifaceted challenges faced by women leaders in the military.

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2024, Musicology

The soundscapes of late-eighteenth and early-to-mid nineteenth-century France were acutely informed by years of political, social, and imperial upheaval and violence. In the decades following the Revolution of 1789, musical instruments sonified political instability and the goals of military conquest. In France, the lines between concert hall, festival ground, and battlefield blurred as a process of organological expansion and ensemble integration began. The nineteenth-century Romantic orchestra which emerged by 1830 was not merely a continuation of eighteenth-century orchestrational practice, but a distinctly French creation that reflected a turbulent, increasingly-militarized national landscape. This dissertation seeks to understand what such an ensemble, and its several component instrumental groups, meant and could do. Musicologists have recently turned to examining the meaning behind instrumental ensembles of this period, paying particular attention to issues of instrumentation, affect, and timbre. My interest in the history and politics of organology and timbre is similarly granular: I suggest that individual instruments carry distinct historical, cultural, and political associations, and that we can begin to understand the social, political, and military history of France between 1789 and 1869 by examining the instruments that animated the nation's major musical genres. I am especially interested in the orchestra's power as a national political collective, its function as a type of sonic weaponry, and its carrying of the sonic markers of empire. By examining the intersections between sound, power, politics, orchestration, warfare, and trauma, my project takes us back in time to the moment when composers such as Hector Berlioz and his contemporaries first deployed sound as a weapon, ushering in cultures of auditory violence that resonated through the following centuries. As I will show, nineteenth-century instruments could be deployed as weapons, just a (open full item for complete abstract)

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

This dissertation assesses U.S. grand strategy in the Caribbean Basin during the early Cold War Period, 1945-1958. It focuses on the use of military assistance and military advisory missions in particular which were present throughout the region and a principal tool of US strategy to maintain influence with local militaries. The analysis takes place on two levels: an initial overview of U.S. security strategy and the issues Washington faced formulating and implementing it in a low priority theater and through examination of two country case studies: Venezuela and Cuba. These countries were strategically important to Washington, and hosts to two sizeable U.S. military missions. In addition, both experienced substantial political instability throughout the period while the U.S. was trying to integrate them into a Hemispheric security program. By 1958, two opposite outcomes had occurred with a radical anti-U.S. regime coming to power in Cuba, and a democracy ousting a military dictatorship in Venezuela. The case studies illustrate the limitations of miliary assistance and advisory support in countries where the political situation remains fraught with uncertainty and violence.

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2023, History

John M. Sant was a World War II bomber co-pilot who was shot down over German-occupied Czechoslovakia in 1944. He and the other eight surviving crew members were captured and sent to Stalag Luft I, a German prison camp near the Baltic Sea. Sant spent the next ten months in captivity, keeping a logistical journal of his daily life in the camp. With this journal, along with primary documents, copies of declassified military paperwork, and a typed account of Sant's narrative located in the Skinner Personal Archive as a chronological framework, this thesis constructs a biographical narrative of Sant's life and wartime experiences. Sant's journal provided an indirect glimpse into his inner thoughts. His entries reflect a fear of being overlooked, both during captivity and following release. Sant found solace in escapism through literature and reminisced about home life, emphasizing the importance of morale and interpersonal connections among the POWs. Elements of optimism infuse the passages he chose to copy down, showing his enduring belief in the strength of the Allied forces. The journal also served as a covert way to challenge the authority of the main camp authorities. Sant's hopefulness played a crucial role in maintaining his emotional well-being, a theme more prominent in his post-war writings. The arrival of new prisoners, while disheartening, meant access to more current information. Sant's diary entries not only reflect his emotional state regarding his fellow POWs but also his reaction to news like General Patton's progress in Europe, offering him temporary relief from worries about America's military effectiveness. His aspirations for post-war life served as a comfort and a way to look forward to a future beyond the uncertainty of war. The journal also played a key role in asserting Sant's sense of self-determination under the strict confines of his POW status. While it contained no information unknown to his captors, it provided him with a sense of con (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Education (EdD), Ohio University, 2023, Educational Administration (Education)

This study explored the Deming System of Profound Knowledge as a method of leadership and management in K-8 education. The study focused on the process of acquiring and understanding Deming's teachings as they related to the principalship and educational leadership. Using autoethnography as methodology, I leverage personal qualitative data and related educational leadership literature to present my personal journey of becoming an educational leader who practices Deming's System of Profound Knowledge as their primary method for leading and managing a school. Upon reflection and analysis, I found W. Edwards Deming's System of Profound Knowledge practical and valuable as a leadership method in today's schools. Though the mastery of Deming's teachings was a long, complex process, it greatly improved my leadership practice. The findings highlight essential knowledge and skills required to understand and practice the System of Profound Knowledge. It connects educational leadership and Deming's method and recommends further research.

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

This dissertation is an analysis of American service members of Italian origin and how their military service during World War II influenced their assimilation into American mainstream society and the construction of present-day Italian-American identity. I argue that Italian-Americans' large-scale service in the military between 1941 and 1945 proved crucial in determining a rapid assimilation into the American mainstream that was complete by the end of the war, as well as substantial educational, professional, and economic advances in the years immediately afterward. One of the keys for this positive record lay in Italian-Americans' unquestioned demonstration of loyalty through their service against their country of origin, Italy. At the same time, while World War II was a catalyst for Italian-Americans' assimilation, their service in Italy also brought about a reconciliation with their Italian roots that they were aiming at downplaying, and ultimately their maintenance instead of complete erasure. Loyal service in World War II later became a tenet of Italian-American pride when it was re-elaborated during the 1960s and 1970s movement for ethnic revival by later generations of Italian-Americans. This study also complements the existing historiography on enemy alien minorities during World War II (German and Japanese-Americans) and other ethnic groups. As a result, it facilitates understanding of the interplay of factors of military service, race, ethnicity, and wider socio-racial contexts in determining inclusion or exclusion into American mainstream society and preservation of elements of ethnic identity.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2023, History (Arts and Sciences)

After the Vietnam War, the US Army pivoted from counter-insurgency in Southeast Asia towards the renewed possibility of war with the USSR in Central Germany. This shift in perspective coincided with dramatic shifts in Army policy, most importantly the transition from conscription to the All-Volunteer Force, as well as the introduction of new battlefield technologies which transformed the battlespace. This dissertation analyzes the complicated military relationship between the US Army and an important European ally. It argues that during this period of intense reform, the US Army and the West German Bundeswehr used both new and preexisting institutions to engage in a period of intense, sympathetic, and mutually inspired reforms which developed significant new concepts in land warfare. This is significant because this period of cooperation helped to reaffirm a special relationship between the US and West Germany, which transformed to become the most significant within NATO and Western Europe. The focus of this dissertation is on the mechanics of the transatlantic exchange and how this shaped both forces through the last decades of the Cold War.

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2023, History (Arts and Sciences)

This thesis explores the chronology of events surrounding the U.S. Arctic Expedition of 1879–1881, also known as the Jeannette Expedition, as well as the expedition's place in public memory. This epic expedition, which tested the limits of human endurance and will for survival, was a story of its time. Its tragic fate captivated the imagination of its contemporaries and was widely covered by the press. However, it is nearly absent in today's collective consciousness of this country and receives little attention from scholars. Often, basic facts concerning the expedition, such as the dates of the events, their duration and sequence, and the number of crew members, vary from one publication or source to another. Relying on primary and secondary materials, the author seeks to verify some of these basic facts and identify the reasons behind the expedition's obscurity in public memory.

Master of Arts (MA), Wright State University, 2023, History

From 1938 until the end of World War II, the Curtiss P-40 fighter participated in the European, North Africa, and Pacific theaters of war. An aircraft's success depends primarily upon the pilot's expertise. Without skilled pilots, technology alone cannot win a war. Technological innovation still plays a crucial role in the success of a nation's air force. Relative to technological developments, how impactful is a pilot's skill on a fighter plane's performance? My thesis structure is a deep look into each pilot's experience and how victory was achieved with a plane that most military writings say is inferior. I investigate the narrative of the aircraft from development based on a pre-war U.S. air doctrine, its exposure and adaptation against enemy aircraft, and the period when piston-driven aircraft performance reached the pinnacle of performance. My analysis shows that due to the adaptability of tactics by fighter pilots, the Curtiss P-40 met Allied needs and aided in the overall contribution to changes in aerial combat. This write-up goes on to show a pilot's expertise plays a crucial role in an aircraft's success, regardless of statistical data or the purpose for which the plane was intended. Technological innovation causes an impact on the success of a nation's air force, but without skilled pilots, technology alone cannot win a war.

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

The Airborne Mafia analyzes the creation and transmission of values, beliefs, and norms from one subculture to the larger US Army bureaucracy and its impacts on Cold War institutional development. This project demonstrates the capacity for a military subculture to have an enormous effect on the behavior of its parent service and national strategic policy. I explore the impact of small groups within the military establishment on shaping military and national strategy—particularly during the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations through such general officers as Matthew B. Ridgway, Maxwell D. Taylor, and James M. Gavin. As this group ascended to control the US Army, they brought three key cultural tenets: operational flexibility, decentralization, and the efficacy of the aerial delivery of combat power. Most scholars have focused on the wartime exploits of parachute units while eschewing their impact on the post-war army. Others have posited that the atomic army, the Strategic Army Corps, and helicopter warfare are indicative of institutionalization and a fight for relevancy without developing the cultural origins of these ideas. Exploring the development of a distinctive airborne mindset through the lenses of organizational culture, psychology, and sociology, this dissertation argues that this tactical-level subculture thrust its leaders to prominence and undergirded significant policy and doctrinal changes during the Cold War.

Master of Arts (MA), Wright State University, 2022, History

Existing scholarly literature on U.S. military bases in foreign nations does not adequately take films depicting such installations into account. This master's thesis is a corrective for this oversight. Recognizing the utility of foreign films featuring American military bases or troop presences, this thesis examines them in light of scholarly work on these installations. Of particular importance in this analysis are the periodization of U.S. basing favored by Robert Kaplan and the categorization of varieties of antibase protest favored by Kent Calder. Using these two writers as an analytical framework, as well as histories of U.S. basing and military occupations, it is possible to view these films as primary sources for these occupations. While depictions of Americans as individuals vary across films, generally U.S. occupations are viewed negatively by the non-American filmmakers examined. Local authorities of host nations are equally criticized for complicity in the crimes committed by the occupiers.

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2022, History (Arts and Sciences)

The governments in both Taipei and Beijing claim the Spratly archipelago in the South China Sea because it has proscribed the southernmost extent of China's ancient territory since the Han Dynasty. Taiwan's relationship with the South China Sea is an understudied, complex history. In May, 1956, Taiwanese forces established a permanent occupation on Itu Aba, the largest landmass in the South China Sea's Spratly Islands. While dwarfed by the mainland Chinese presence there today, the presence of Republic of China (Taiwan) forces in the South China Sea predates the mainland Chinese by several decades. Occupying this territory, known as Tai'ping Island in Chinese, was not expressly needed for Taiwan's defense against the People's Republic of China during the Cold War. Nor is it clear that the South China Sea was militarily necessary for the Taiwanese to retake mainland China, which its Nationalist government outwardly vowed to accomplish. I argue that the occupation demonstrates how the Nationalist government hoped to shore up their status as China in its maritime periphery. For a state that had lost most of its territory to a rival Chinese regime, the occupation of Itu Aba was a crucial symbolic victory. By the way the operation was promoted by the Nationalist press, the government attempted to utilize this occupation as a valence that would coalesce Taiwan's diverse population into a national community. In essence, if a map of the Republic of China included islands that were expressly not Taiwan and its outlying islands, the regime could promote itself as a successor to the Chinese Empire. This nationalist vision lay in opposition both to the various ethnolinguistic cultures held by the expats from mainland China and an indigenous Taiwanese identity. Aside from clarified an understudied issue in Chinese/Taiwanese history, this thesis explores the influence of small territories and states on the actions of larger countries a (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Fine Arts, Miami University, 2022, English

When Nate Luck arrives in California in 1853, he is a wide-eyed, half Russian/half Buriat Mongol kid in love with the idea and ideals of America, looking for freedom and adventure – and he finds plenty of both. Over the next forty years Nate wins devoted friends and fierce enemies, digs for gold in California, punches cattle in Colorado, fights for - and against - the nation, falls in love, lives with and raises a family among the Nez Perce tribe, and sees - and spills - more than his share of blood in the pursuit of freedom and the American Dream. Finally, seeing the law as the only possible path to real freedom, he becomes a lawman – until he's arrested for murder. Fortunately, in Buffalo, Wyoming they take their time holding a trial, so he hopes he can tell his story and make sense of it all before they hang him. Nate's unique perspective and voice as an outsider provides a clear-eyed look at both what America's aspirations and failures. It also invites consideration that, despite all our progress, many of the issues faced by the powerless in 19th century America continue today.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2022, History (Arts and Sciences)

This dissertation explores the evolution of organized escape and evasion training in Britain and the United States from its origins during World War II until the latter half of the 1950s. Both nations spent a great deal of time and effort developing, or trying to develop, advanced escape and evasion programs, and these early origins set the course for modern survival, escape, and evasion training programs in both countries. How each nation viewed its air force's mission shaped the evolution of their respective programs, with the United States' Strategic Air Command's becoming well-funded, robust, and responsive to change. SAC adopted the attitude that it was already at war, and that it needed combat ready aircrews who could carry out their missions on very short notice, which drove the organization to keep combat ready crews steeped in escae, evasion, and survival techniques. In the United Kingdom, budgetary and manpower restraints, coupled with a different vision of the Royal Air Force's mission, produced a small, sometimes ad hoc survival, escape, and evasion program. The evolution of organized escape and evasion training in the British and American militaries also reflects continued military and intelligence cooperation between the two nations after World War II, exemplifying another link that binds the two nations together in one of the world's most stable alliances. Finally, the evolution of this training demonstrates continuities between iv American and British ideas about strategic bombing during World War II and the Early Cold War.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2022, History (Arts and Sciences)

This dissertation focuses on James R. Schlesinger and a group of strategists who advocated increasingly flexible nuclear options from the late 1950s through the end of the Cold War. It addresses two fundamental questions: Did strategic superiority matter, and were there enduring benefits to be gained from nuclear competition? In general, the first generation of nuclear scholars accept that the strategic nuclear balance was stalemated from at least the mid-1960s until the end of the Cold War. A “long peace” thus flowed naturally from such a condition. In the social sciences, the theorists of the nuclear revolution portray US nuclear strategy as illogical, counterproductive, and needlessly destabilizing. This dissertation joins the second generation of scholars who counter that strategic superiority had real meaning, the warfighting strategists pursued logical designs, and nuclear competition ultimately strengthened deterrence and the overall Western position. By developing limited nuclear options and leveraging its technological superiority against an unsophisticated adversary, the United States channeled the superpower competition into areas of asymmetric advantage. Schlesinger and his group of like-minded strategists played a leading role in this process. Together, they designed a framework of analysis for long-term competition that identified emerging areas of strategic opportunity. In the process, Schlesinger and his intellectual camp laid the foundation for the revitalization of American military power in the 1980s.

Master of Arts (MA), Wright State University, 2022, History

On June 26, 1973, Congress passed a supplemental appropriations bill that included a rider that immediately cutoff the use of U.S. funds for U.S. combat activities in Cambodia or Laos. President Nixon vetoed this bill and the House failed to override the veto. Nixon and Congress negotiated a “compromise” under which the cutoff did not take effect until August 15, 1973 and applied also to Vietnam. This thesis concerns the reasons that Congress passed this revised rider, that Congress expanded the rider to Vietnam, and that Nixon signed the revised rider. Changed circumstances (such as the Vietnam Peace Accords) helped Congress pass the rider. Nixon counselor Mel Laird and House Republican leader Gerald Ford took actions that facilitated Congress adding Vietnam to the rider and that compelled Nixon to sign the rider. Sources reviewed for this thesis include Congressional sources, executive branch sources, memoirs, oral histories, and secondary sources.

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2022, History

During the Vietnam Era (1960-1975), the United States underwent significant social change. While American troops were fighting alongside the South Vietnamese against Ho Chi Minh, his North Vietnamese troops, and their pursuit of spreading Communist ideology in Southeast Asia, the American government was also pursuing Communism and antigovernment activity stateside. The main target of the government's suspicion were the G.I. coffeehouses and underground presses utilized by G.I.s who were motivated by their experiences in conflict to join the antiwar movement. The coffeehouses and their associated newspapers sought to provide resources for G.I. and veteran support (legal and otherwise), coffee and other cafe provisions, and a safe space to connect with other G.I.s to discuss their antiwar sentiments, plan protest activity, and disperse their ideas to those outside the confines of their respective bases. Through thorough research and discussion of chosen coffeehouses and underground newspapers, it is clear that these places and resources provided safer outlets for antiwar sentiment, not antigovernment sentiment. The coffeehouses and newspapers instead mediated safe expression and freedom of speech rather than proposed ways to create an organized threat to the U.S. government and its military complex.