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Jacques-Antoine-Hippolyte, comte de Guibert: Father of the Grande Armée
The eighteenth century was a time of intense upheaval in France. The death of Louis XIV in 1715 and the subsequent reign of Louis XV saw the end of French political and martial hegemony on the continent. While French culture and language remained dominant in Europe, Louis XV's disinterested rule and military stagnation led to the disastrous defeat of the French army at the hands of Frederick the Great of Prussia in the Seven Years War (1756-1763). The battle of Rossbach marked the nadir of the French army in the Seven Years War. Frederick's army routed the French infantry that had bumbled its way into massed Prussian cavalry. Following the war, two reformist elements emerged in the army. Reformers within the government, chiefly Etienne François, duc de Choiseul, sought to rectify the army's poor performance and reconstitute France's military establishment. Outside the traditional army structure, military thinkers looked to military theory to reinvigorate the army from within and without. Foremost among the latter was a young officer named Jacques-Antoine-Hippolyte de Guibert, whose 1772 Essai général de tactique quickly became the most celebrated work of theory in European military circles. The Essai provided a new military constitution for France, proposing wholesale reform to create an army that could face the Prussian juggernaut. His star quickly rising, Guibert became the toast not only of literary Paris but all of Europe. Guibert exerted an overwhelming influence on military theory across Europe for the next fifty years. His military theories laid the foundation for the French army of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras. As other nations adopted French methods, Guibert's influence spread across the continent, reigning supreme until the 1830s. Guibert's importance to military theory is analogous to Voltaire's influence on European literature and culture, an area in which Guibert was not unfamiliar. Guibert …
Jacques-Antoine-Hippolyte, Comte De Guibert: Father of the Grande Armée
Jacques-Antoine-Hippolyte, comte de Guibert (1743-1790) dedicated his life and career to creating a new doctrine for the French army. Little about this doctrine was revolutionary. Indeed, Guibert openly decried the anarchy of popular participation in government and looked askance at the early days of the Revolution. Rather, Guibert’s doctrine marked the culmination of an evolutionary process that commenced decades before his time and reached fruition in the Réglement of 1791, which remained in force until the 1830s. Not content with military reform, Guibert demanded a political and social constitution to match. His reforms required these changes, demanding a disciplined, service-oriented society and a functional, rational government to assist his reformed military. He delved deeply, like no other contemporary writer, into the linkages between society, politics, and the military throughout his career and his writings. Guibert exerted an overwhelming influence on military thought across Europe for the next fifty years. His military theories provided the foundation for military reform during the twilight of the Old Regime. The Revolution, which adopted most of Guibert’s doctrine in 1791, continued his work. A new army and way of war based on Guibert’s reforms emerged to defeat France’s major enemies. In Napoleon’s hands, Guibert’s army all but conquered Europe by 1807. As other nations adopted French methods, Guibert’s influence spread across the Continent, reigning supreme until the 1830s. This dissertation adopts a biographical approach to examine Guibert’s life and influence on the creation of the French military system that led to Napoleon’s conquest of Europe. As no such biography exists in Anglophone literature, such a work will fill a crucial gap in understanding French military success to 1807. It examines the period of French military reform from 1760 to the creation and use of Napoleon’s Grande Armée from 1803 to 1807, illustrating the importance of …
British Labour Government Policy in Iraq, 1945-1950
Britain during the Labour government's administration took a major step toward developing Iraq primarily due to the decision of Ernest Bevin, the Foreign Minister, to start a new British policy toward the Iraqi regimes that would increase the British influence in the area. This led to Bevin's strategy of depending on guiding the Iraqi regime to make economic and political reforms that would lead to social justice.
Service Honest and Faithful: The Thirty-Third Volunteer Infantry Regiment in the Philippine War, 1899-1901
This manuscript is a study of the Thirty-Third Infantry, United States Volunteers, a regiment that was recruited in Texas, the South, and the Midwest and was trained by officers experienced from the Indian Wars and the Spanish-American War. This regiment served as a front-line infantry unit and then as a constabulary force during the Philippine War from 1899 until 1901. While famous in the United States as a highly effective infantry regiment during the Philippine War, the unit's fame and the lessons that it offered American war planners faded in time and were overlooked in favor of conventional fighting. In addition, the experiences of the men of the regiment belie the argument that the Philippine War was a brutal and racist imperial conflict akin to later interventions such as the Vietnam War. An examination of the Thirty-Third Infantry thus provides valuable context into a war not often studied in the United States and serves as a successful example of a counterinsurgency.
The Rise of the Republicans: Party Realignment in Twentieth Century Texas
This dissertation is a study of the political transformation of Texas during the twentieth century from a predominantly Democratic to a two-party state. It is commonly asserted that the fundamental conservatism of Texas voters led them to abandon the national Democratic Party as it embraced more liberal reforms. This shift led to a rise in support in Texas for the Republican Party, which continued to advocate a more conservative agenda. But this change demands a more thorough explanation at the local level, in part because such a study can also reveal other factors at work. This dissertation first examines how prohibition impacted the state's political status quo and provided an opportunity for the Republican Party to increase its numbers. It then discusses the New Deal and the growth of Texas's oil industry, and how government regulation shaped political developments. The impact of urbanization and suburbanization on Republican growth are also addressed, along with numerous campaigns that reflected the changes occurring in Texas's electorate during this time. Although Dwight D. Eisenhower's 1952 and 1956 wins in Texas were a strong indication of the realignment among Texas voters, it was John G. Tower's election to the United States Senate that served as the first catalyst for the Republicans' dream of a two-party state. Following the election of Tower, the Republicans faced setbacks from the landslide victory of Lyndon B. Johnson after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, followed by the Watergate scandal, but they managed to rebound effectively. Thus, in addition to addressing the question of what spurred the rise of the Republican Party in Texas during the first half of the twentieth century, this dissertation provides more nuanced answers to the question of how Texas became a two-party state by 1988, which of course paved the way for a Republican triumph …
Paul and Slavery: a Conflict of Metaphor and Reality
The debate on Paul’s views on slavery has ranged from calling him criminal in his enforcement of the status quo to rallying behind his idea of equal Christians in a community. In this thesis I blend these two major views into the idea that Paul supported both the institution of slavery and the slave by legitimizing the role of the slave in Christian theology. This is done by reviewing the mainstream views of slavery, comparing them to Paul’s writing, both the non-disputed and disputed, and detailing how Paul’s presentation of slavery differed from mainstream views. It is this difference which protects the slave from their master and brings attention to the slave’s actions and devotion. To Paul, slavery was a natural institution which should be emulated Christian devotion. He did not challenge the Romans but called for Christians to challenge the mainstream views of the roles of slavery in the social hierarchy of their communities.
Capital Ships, Commerce, and Coalition: British Strategy in the Mediterranean Theater, 1793
In 1793, Great Britain embarked on a war against Revolutionary France to reestablish a balance of power in Europe. Traditional assessments among historians consider British war planning at the ministerial level during the First Coalition to be incompetent and haphazard. This work reassesses decision making of the leading strategists in the British Cabinet in the development of a theater in the Mediterranean by examining political, diplomatic, and military influences. William Pitt the Younger and his controlling ministers pursued a conservative strategy in the Mediterranean, reliant on Allies in the region to contain French armies and ideas inside the Alps and the Pyrenees. Dependent on British naval power, the Cabinet sought to weaken the French war effort by targeting trade in the region. Throughout the first half of 1793, the British government remained fixed on this conservative, traditional approach to France. However, with the fall of Toulon in August of 1793, decisions made by Admiral Samuel Hood in command of forces in the Mediterranean radicalized British policy towards the Revolution while undermining the construct of the Coalition. The inconsistencies in strategic thought political decisions created stagnation, wasting the opportunities gained by the Counter-revolutionary movements in southern France. As a result, reinvigorated French forces defeated Allied forces in detail in the fall of 1793.
Soldier Boys of Texas: The Seventh Texas Infantry in World War I
This study first offers a political, social, and economic overview of Texas during the first two decades of the twentieth century, including reaction in the Lone Star state to the declaration of war against Germany in April, 1917; the fear of saboteurs and foreign-born citizens; and the debate on raising a wartime army through a draft or by volunteerism. Then, focusing in-depth on northwest Texas, the study examines the Texas National Guard unit recruited there, the Seventh Texas Infantry Regiment. Using primarily the selective service registration cards of a sample of 1,096 members of the regiment, this study presents a portrait of the officers and enlisted soldiers of the Seventh Texas based on age, occupation, marital status, dependents and other criteria, something that has not been done in studies of World War I soldiers. Next, the regiment's training at Camp Bowie, near Fort Worth, Texas, is described, including the combining of the Seventh Texas with the First Oklahoma Infantry to form the 142nd Infantry Regiment of the Thirty-Sixth Division. After traveling to France and undergoing nearly two months of training, the regiment was assigned to the French Fourth Army in the Champagne region and went into combat for the first time. The study examines the combat experiences of these soldiers from northwest Texas and how they described and expressed their experiences to their families and friends after the armistice of November 11, 1918. The study concludes with an examination of how the local communities of northwest Texas celebrated the armistice, and how they welcomed home their "soldier boys" in the summer of 1919. This study also charts the changing nature of the Armistice Day celebrations and veteran reunions in Texas as time passed, as well as the later lives of some of the officers and men who served with the …
Forging Their Legacy: Cooperation and Accommodation in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, 1848-1870
Forging Their Legacy: Cooperation and Accommodation in the Lower Rio Grande Valley is an examination of the relationships created during the mid-nineteenth century between Anglo and Tejano elites in the five counties that make up the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Conducted through a quantitative lens, the five-chapter study seeks to demonstrate that, although the period between 1848 and 1870 was fraught with conflict and violence, the Anglo and Tejano elite of the Lower Rio Grande Valley came together in cooperation in order not only to survive these troubling times but to prosper. The thesis begins by identifying and analyzing the economic and political elite in the Lower Rio Grande Valley during the 1850s. A new crop of Anglo immigrants arrived with the Mexican-American War, but only a small number willing to assimilate to local Tejano culture were able to leave their mark on the Lower Valley. Chapter 4 relates the effect of the Civil War on the elite of the Lower Valley. It explores the profitable cotton trade during the war and the struggle that both Anglo and Tejano elites faced during Reconstruction. The thesis concludes with a macro-analysis of the twenty-two-year period from 1848-1870. It summarizes overall trends found in both the Anglo and Tejano elite communities and challenges the often-repeated argument of rapid dispossession by Anglos.
African American Children in the Jim Crow North: Learning Race and Developing a Racial Identity
This thesis explores how African American children in the North learned race and racial identity during the Jim Crow era. Influences such as literature, media, parental instruction, interactions with others, and observations are examined.
Weapons of Mass Deception: Opacity and the Israeli Nuclear Program
Access to nuclear technology and growing concern over the spread of nuclear weapons triggered an international debate in the 1960s that led to the creation of the Nonproliferation Treaty. Ratified in 1970, NPT was designed to prevent the horizontal spread of nuclear weapons and limit destructive uses of nuclear energy. At the same time, it also normalized the arsenals of existing nuclear states and encouraged exchanges of nuclear information, technology, and materials for peaceful purposes. Nonproliferation policy relies on a theory of the development process that identifies a nuclear frontier to locate evidence of nuclear capabilities. Absent from the proliferation model, however, are cases of covert nuclear weapons programs. For almost 50 years, it has been generally accepted that Israel is a nuclear weapon state, yet Israeli officials have never confirmed nor denied the possession of nuclear weapons. Israel has not signed NPT and has not appeared to conduct a nuclear test, in effect absolving the nuclear program's main reactor from international inspections. Uncertainty surrounding the Israeli program stems from a tradition of deliberate secrecy and deception that constitutes a national policy of opacity. This study argues that opacity has armed Israel with the privilege of nuclear immunity, exempting its secret nuclear activity from the standards and regulations imposed on all other nuclear weapon states. To circumvent the barriers built by opacity, a mixture of declassified material, nuclear history and security literature, and postcolonial studies refines the history of Israel's nuclear program. By examining the American-Israeli nuclear relationship, the sources of opacity, and the framework of nonproliferation that sustains an international nuclear regime, Israel's role in the nuclear world becomes visible.
Between Comancheros and Comanchería: a History of Fort Bascom, New Mexico
In 1863, Fort Bascom was built along the Canadian River in the Eroded Plains of Territorial New Mexico. Its unique location placed it between the Comanches of Texas and the Comancheros of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. This post was situated within Comanchería during the height of the United States Army's war against the Southern Plains Indians, yet it has garnered little attention. This study broadens the scholarly understanding of how the United States Army gained control of the Southwest by examining the role Fort Bascom played in this mission. This includes an exploration of the Canadian River Valley environment, an examination of the economic relationship that existed between the Southern Plains Indians and the mountain people of New Mexico, and an account of the daily life of soldiers posted to Fort Bascom. This dissertation thus provides an environmental and cultural history of the Canadian River Valley in New Mexico, a social history of the men stationed at Fort Bascom, and proof that the post played a key role in the Army's efforts to gain control of the Southern Plains Indians. This study argues that Fort Bascom should be recognized as Texas' northern-most frontier fort. Its men were closer to the Comanche homeland than any Texas post of the period. Its records clearly show that the Army used Fort Bascom as a key forward base of operations against Comanches and Kiowas. An examination of Bascom's post returns, daily patrols, and major expeditions allows its history to provide a useful perspective on the nineteenth-century American Southwest.
The Art-Union and Photography, 1839-1854: The First Fifteen Years of Critical Engagement between Two Cultural Icons of Nineteenth-Century Britain
This study analyzes how the Art-Union, a British journal interested only in the fine arts, approached photography between 1839 and 1854. It is informed by Karl Marx’s materialism-informed commodity fetishism, Gerry Beegan’s conception of knowingness, Benedict Anderson’s imagined community, and an art critical discourse that was defined by Roger de Piles and Joshua Reynolds. The individual chapters are each sites in which to examine these multiple theoretical approaches to the journal’s and photography’s association in separate, yet sometimes overlapping, periods. One particular focus of this study concerns the method through which the journal viewed photography—as an artistic or scientific enterprise. A second important focus of this study is the commodification of both the journal and photography in Britain. Also, it determines how the journal’s critical engagement with photography fits into the structure and development of a nineteenth-century British social collectivity focused on art and the photographic enterprise.
Manipulating Fear: The Texas State Government and the Second Red Scare, 1947-1954
Between 1947 and 1954, the Texas State Legislature enacted a series of eight highly restrictive anti-communist laws. Designed to protect political, military, and economic structures in the state from communist infiltration, the laws banned communists from participating the political process, required registration of all communists who entered the state and eventually outlawed the Communist Party. Drawn from perceptions about Cold War events, such as the Truman Doctrine and the Korean War, and an expanding economy inside of Texas, members of the state legislature perceived that communism represented a threat to their state. However, when presented with the opportunity to put the laws into action during the 1953 Port Arthur Labor Strike, the state government failed to bring any charges against those who they labeled as communists. Instead of actually curtailing the limited communist presence inside of the state, members of the state government instead used the laws to leverage political control throughout the state by attacking labor, liberals in education and government, and racial minorities with accusations of communism.
Lone Star Insanity: Efforts to Treat the Mentally Ill in Texas, 1861-1929
During the mid-nineteenth century, the citizens of Texas were forced to keep their mentally disturbed family members at home which caused stress on the caregivers and the further debilitation of the afflicted. To remedy this situation, mental health experts and Texas politicians began to create a system of healing known as state asylums. The purpose of this study is to determine how Texas mental health care came into being, the research and theories behind the prevention and treatment programs that asylum physicians employed to overcome mental illness, in addition to the victories and shortcomings of the system. Through this work, it will be shown that during the 1850s until the 1920s institutions faced difficulty in achieving success from many adverse conditions including, but not limited to, overcrowding, large geographical conditions, poor health practices, faulty construction, insufficient funding, ineffective prevention and treatment methods, disorganization, cases of patient abuse, incompetent employees, prejudice, and legal improprieties. As a result, by 1930, these asylums were merely places to detain the mentally ill in order to rid them from society. This thesis will also confirm that while both Texas politicians and mental health experts desired to address and overcome mental illness in Texas, they were unable to do so due to arguments, selfishness, corruption, failures, and inaction on the part of both sides. However, this thesis will ultimately reveal it was lack of full support from Texas legislators, deriving from the idea that this system was not one of their top priorities among the state’s concerns, that led to the inability of the Texas mental health care system to properly assist their patients.
Southern Promise and Necessity: Texas, Regional Identity, and the National Woman Suffrage Movement, 1868-1920
This study offers a concentrated view of how a national movement developed networks from the grassroots up and how regional identity can influence national campaign strategies by examining the roles Texas and Texans played in the woman suffrage movement in the United States. The interest that multiple generations of national woman suffrage leaders showed in Texas, from Reconstruction through the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, provides new insights into the reciprocal nature of national movements. Increasingly, from 1868 to 1920, a bilateral flow of resources existed between national women's rights leaders and woman suffrage activists in Texas. Additionally, this study nationalizes the woman suffrage movement earlier than previously thought. Cross-regional woman suffrage activity has been marginalized by the belief that campaigning in the South did not exist or had not connected with the national associations until the 1890s. This closer examination provides a different view. Early woman's rights leaders aimed at a nationwide movement from the beginning. This national goal included the South, and woman suffrage interest soon spread to the region. One of the major factors in this relationship was that the primarily northeastern-based national leadership desperately needed southern support to aid in their larger goals. Texas' ability to conform and make the congruity politically successful eventually helped the state become one of NAWSA's few southern stars. National leaders believed the state was of strategic importance because Texas activists continuously told them so by emphasizing their promotion of women's rights. Tremendously adding credibility to these claims was the sheer number of times Texas legislators introduced woman suffrage resolutions over the course of more than fifty years. This happened during at least thirteen sessions of the Texas legislature, including two of the three post-Civil War constitutional conventions. This larger pattern of interdependency often culminated in both sides-the Texas and national …
Reclaiming Female Virtue: Social Hygiene, Venereal Disease and Texas Reclamation Centers during World War I
During the Progressive Era in the United States, social hygiene reformers underwent a fundamental change in their stance toward women accused of prostitution or promiscuous behavior. Rather than viewing such women as unfortunate victims of circumstance who were worthy of compassion, many Progressives deemed them as predatory villains who instead deserved incarceration, forced rehabilitation, and non-consenting medical interference. Texas, due to the many military bases within its borders, became a key battleground in this moral crusade against women as the carriers and proliferators of VD. "Promiscuous" women were seen as not only dangerous to the soldiers but also as a threat to the nation's security, creating an environment that led Texas Progressives to suppress women's civil liberties in the name of protecting soldiers. The catalyst for this change in attitude was World War I. The Great War brought to the forefront an unpleasant reality facing a significant percentage of America's fighting men: venereal disease. While combating sexually transmitted diseases was a serious medical and manpower concern for the military in the era before penicillin, the sole focus on women as the carriers and proliferators of VD led to a nationwide campaign against the "social evil" that demonized women and led to the suspension of thousands of women's habeas corpus rights. This dissertation examines how the twin crusades of Progressivism and the War to End All Wars created conditions in Texas that for many women meant appalling repression rather than progress toward the enjoyment of greater equality.
Skiddy Street: Prostitution and Vice in Denison, Texas, 1872-1922
Prostitution was a rampant and thriving industry in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Texas. Due to the arrival of the M.K. and T. Railroad, the city of Denison became a frontier boomtown and prostitution as well as other vice elements grew alongside the town. Skiddy Street was one road south of Main Street in Denison and housed the most notorious brothels and saloons in the city. In the late nineteenth century, few national laws were present to regulate red-light districts and those that existed were largely ignored. Economically, prostitution was an important addition to the coffers of cities such as Denison, and through taxing and licensing of prostitutes, city leaders profited off of the vice industry. The early decades of the twentieth century led to changes in the toleration of prostitution and red-light districts on the national level. Progressive reform movements, temperance, World War I, and the National Railroad Shopmen’s strike, each contributed to the dissolution of Skiddy Street in Denison as toleration and open acceptance of prostitution waned. This study attempts to understand how and why prostitution thrived during Denison’s early frontier days, who some of the prostitutes were that plied their trade on Skiddy Street, and how national, state, and local changes in the early twentieth century led to the termination of most red-light districts, including Denison’s.
Cultural Exchange: the Role of Stanislavsky and the Moscow Art Theatre’s 1923 and 1924 American Tours
The following is a historical analysis on the Moscow Art Theatre’s (MAT) tours to the United States in 1923 and 1924, and the developments and changes that occurred in Russian and American theatre cultures as a result of those visits. Konstantin Stanislavsky, the MAT’s co-founder and director, developed the System as a new tool used to help train actors—it provided techniques employed to develop their craft and get into character. This would drastically change modern acting in Russia, the United States and throughout the world. The MAT’s first (January 2, 1923 – June 7, 1923) and second (November 23, 1923 – May 24, 1924) tours provided a vehicle for the transmission of the System. In addition, the tour itself impacted the culture of the countries involved. Thus far, the implications of the 1923 and 1924 tours have been ignored by the historians, and have mostly been briefly discussed by the theatre professionals. This thesis fills the gap in historical knowledge.
The Ultimate Ethos: Challenges, Cooptation and Survival During Ultimate’s Adolescence
Ultimate is the fastest growing field sport in America. Created in 1968, forty-five years later the sport was still on the periphery of the mainstream but reached new heights in 2013 – two professional leagues, over 800 college teams and a broadcasting deal with ESPN – and the discussions throughout the sports’ history have never been as relevant. Self-officiation and the Spirit of the Game are the main tenets that make up the ethos of the sport and its community. These unique aspects differentiate Ultimate’s predominate culture from that of mainstream sports culture. This study shows the countercultural ties and survival of the ethos during the adolescent period of Ultimate’s evolution (1987-2010). It examines the progression of the community’s established grassroots culture and the governing body of the sport alongside the influx of young players with mainstream sports attitudes who bolstered certain organizers’ attempts to alter Ultimate in the hopes of gaining “legitimacy” through adding third-party officials, commercialization and corporate sponsorship.
Adapting on the Plains: the United States Army's Evolution of Mobile Warfare in Texas, 1848-1859
The Army, despite having been vexed for a century on how to effectively fight the Plains Indians, ultimately defeated them only a decade after the Civil War. This thesis will bring to the forefront those individuals who adapted fighting techniques and ultimately achieved victories on the Texas frontier before the Civil War. The majority of these victories came as a result of mounted warfare under the direction of lower ranking officers in control of smaller forces. The tactic of fighting Indians from horseback was shown to be effective by the Rangers and later emulated by the Army.
Commercial Diplomacy: The Berlin-Baghdad Railway and Its Peaceful Effects on Pre-World War I Anglo-German Relations
Slated as an economic outlet for Germany, the Baghdad Railway was designed to funnel political influence into the strategically viable regions of the Near East. The Railway was also designed to enrich Germany's coffers with natural resources with natural resources and trade with the Ottomans, their subjects, and their port cities... Over time, the Railway became the only significant route for Germany to reach its "place in the sun," and what began as an international enterprise escalated into a bid for diplomatic influence in the waning Ottoman Empire.
Cowboys, “Queers,” and Community: the AIDS Crisis in Houston and Dallas, 1981-1996
This thesis examines the response to the AIDS crisis in Houston and Dallas, two cities in Texas with the most established gay communities highest number of AIDS incidences. Devoting particular attention to the struggles of the Texas’ gay men, this work analyzes the roadblocks to equal and compassionate care for AIDS, including access to affordable treatment, medical insurance, and the closure of the nation’s first AIDS hospital. In addition, this thesis describes the ways in which the peculiar nature of AIDS as an illness transformed the public perception of sickness and infection. This work contributes to the growing study of gay and lesbian history by exploring the transformative effects of AIDS on the gay community in Texas, a location often forgotten within the context of the AIDS epidemic.
Weeding Out the Undesirables: the Red Scare in Texas Higher Education, 1936-1958
When the national Democratic Party began to transform to progressive era politics because of the New Deal, conservative reactionaries turned against the social welfare programs and used red scare tactics to discredit liberal and progressive New Deal Democrat professors in higher education. This process continued during the Second World War, when the conservatives in Texas lumped fascism and communism in order to anchor support and fire and threaten professors and administrators for advocating or teaching “subversive doctrine.” In 1948 Texas joined other southern states and followed the Dixiecrat movement designed to return the Democratic Party to its original pro-business and segregationist philosophy. Conservatives who wanted to bolster their Cold Warrior status in Texas also played upon the fears of spreading communism during the Cold War, and passed several repressive laws intended to silence unruly students and entrap professors by claiming they advocated communist doctrine. The fight culminated during the Civil Rights movement, when conservatives in the state attributed subversive or communist behavior to civil rights organizations, and targeted higher education to protect segregated universities. In order to return the national Democratic Party to the pro-business, segregationist philosophy established at the early twentieth century, conservatives used redbaiting tactics to thwart the progressivism in the state’s higher education facilities.
Culture and Self-Representation in the Este Court: Ercole Strozzi's Funeral Elegy of Eleonora of Aragon, a Text, Translation, and Commentary.
This dissertation presents a previously unedited text by one of the most distinguished- yet neglected-Latin writers of the Italian Renaissance, Ercole Strozzi (1471-1508), a poet and administrator in the court of Ferrara. Under the Este Dukes, Ferrara became a major center of literary and artistic patronage. The Latin literary output of the court, however, has received insufficient scholarly scrutiny. The text is a verse funeral elegy of Eleonora of Aragon (1450-1493), the first Duchess of Ferrara. Eleonora was a remarkable woman whose talents and indefatigable efforts on behalf of her husband, her children, and her state, won her accolades both at home and abroad. She also served as a prototype for the remarkable careers of her two daughters, Isabella d'Este, and Beatrice d'Este, who are celebrated for their erudition and patronage of arts and letters. The text is a mirror of the Estense court and reveals to us how its members no doubt saw themselves, at the very peak of its temporal power and the height of its prestige as a center of cultural creativity. It is also important for the striking portrait it presents of Eleonora. Ercole Strozzi chose to call his poem an epicedium, an ancient minor literary genre that had received attention in the two decades prior to its composition, due to the discovery and printing of the silver age Roman poet Statius, whose text includes several epicedia. Strozzi deftly adapts and transcends both his ancient and contemporary models (especially Poliziano), and in the process, creates a new Latin literary genre, the Renaissance epicedium. It is a fine poem, full of both erudition and creativity, and as such is the first fruits of what would be Ercole Strozzi's illustrious poetic career. The work is genuinely worthy of study on both esthetic and historical grounds.
A History of the Phenomenon of the Maras of El Salvador, 1971- 1992
This thesis grounds its examination of the maras of El Salvador in the historical past (1971-1992) rather than the present, which constitutes a departure from current scholarship on the subject. This thesis revises our current understanding of the emergence and development of maras in El Salvador through the recovery, insertion and examination of key local events, conditions, and historical actors of the 1970s and 1980s. From signifying friendship and camaraderie prior to the late 1980s, the maras increasingly became the target of public concern and Salvadoran security forces over the course of the 1980. By the late 1980s the maras increasingly became associated with criminal activity in Salvadoran society and popular culture. To document these changed conditions, this thesis relies extensively on previously untapped and ignored primary sources: newspapers and oral history interviews.
The Shifting Borders of Egypt
The formation of state borders is often told through the history of war and diplomacy. What is neglected is the tale of how borders of seemingly peaceful and long-extant places were set. In drawing Egypt’s borders, nineteenth-century cartographers were drawing upon a well of knowledge that stretched back into antiquity. Relying on the works of Greco-Roman writers and the Bible itself, cartographers and explorers used the authority of these works to make sense of unfamiliar lands, regardless of any current circumstances. The border with Palestine was determined through the usage of the Old Testament, while classical scholars like Herodotus and Ptolemy set the southern border at the Cataracts. The ancient cartography of Rome was overlaid upon the Egypt of Muhammad Ali. Given the increasing importance Egypt had to the burgeoning British Empire of the nineteenth century, how did this mesh with the influences informing cartographical representations of Egypt? This study argues that the imagined spaces created by Western cartographers informed the trajectory of Britain’s eventual conquest of Egypt. While receding as geopolitical concerns took hold, the classical and biblical influences were nonetheless part of a larger trend of Orientalism that colored the way Westerners interacted with and treated the people of Egypt and the East. By examining the maps and the terminology employed by nineteenth century scholars on Egypt’s geography, a pattern emerges that highlights how much classical and biblical texts had on the Western imagination of Egypt as the modern terms eventually superseded them.
A Champion for the Chicano Community: Anita N. Martínez and Her Contributions to the City of Dallas, 1969-1973
Much has been published in Chicano studies over the past thirty to forty years; lacking in the historiography are the roles that Chicanas have played, specifically concerning politics in Dallas, Texas. How were Chicanas able to advance El Movimiento (the Mexican American civil rights movement)? Anita Martínez was the first woman to serve on the Dallas City Council and the first Mexican American woman to be elected to the city council in any major U.S. city. She served on the council from 1969 to 1973 and remained active on various state and local boards until 1984. Although the political system of Dallas has systematically marginalized Mexican American political voices and eradicated Mexican American barrios, some Mexican Americans fought the status quo and actively sought out the improvement of Mexican barrios and an increase in Mexican American political representation, Anita N. Martínez was one of these advocates. Long before she was elected to office, she began her activism with efforts to improve her children’s access to education and efforts to improve the safety of her community. Martinez was a champion for the Chicano community, especially for the youth. Her work for and with young Chicanos has earned her the moniker, “Defender of Dreams.” She created a chicano recreation center in Dallas, as well as various poverty programs and neighborhood beautification projects. Although she has remained relatively unknown, during her tenure on the Dallas City Council, between the years 1969 and 1973, Anita Martínez made invaluable, lasting contributions to the Chicano community in Dallas.
“Campaigns Replete with Instruction”: Garnet Wolseley’s Civil War Observations and Their Effect on British Senior Staff College Training Prior to the Great War
This thesis addresses the importance of the American Civil War to nineteenth-century European military education, and its influence on British staff officer training prior to World War I. It focuses on Garnet Wolseley, a Civil War observer who eventually became Commander in Chief of the Forces of the British Army. In that position, he continued to write about the war he had observed a quarter-century earlier, and was instrumental in according the Civil War a key role in officer training. Indeed, he placed Stonewall Jackson historian G.F.R. Henderson in a key military professorship. The thesis examines Wolseley’s career and writings, as well as the extent to which the Civil War was studied at the Senior Staff College, in Camberly, after Wolseley’s influence had waned. Analysis of the curriculum from the College archives demonstrates that study of the Civil War diminished rapidly in the ten years prior to World War I.
Intelligence and the Uprising in East Germany 1953: An Example of Political Intelligence
In 1950, the leader of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), Walter Ulbricht, began a policy of connecting foreign threats with domestic policy failures as if the two were the same, and as if he was not responsible for either. This absolved him of blame for those failures and allowed Ulbricht to define his internal enemies as agents of the western powers. He used the state's secret police force, known as the Stasi, to provide the information that supported his claims of western obstructionism and to intimidate his adversaries. This resulted in a politicization of intelligence whereby Stasi officers slanted information so that it conformed to Ulbricht's doctrine of western interference. Comparisons made of eyewitness' statements to the morale reports filed by Stasi agents show that there was a difference between how the East German worker felt and the way the Stasi portrayed their attitudes to the politburo. Consequently, prior to June 17, 1953, when labor strikes inspired a million East German citizens to rise up against Ulbricht's oppressive government, the politicization of Stasi intelligence caused information over labor unrest to be unreliable at a time of increasing risk to the regime. This study shows the extent of Ulbricht's politicization of Stasi intelligence and its effect on the June 1953 uprising in the German Democratic Republic.
Women in the Foreign Service: A Case Study of Margaret Parx Hays, 1942-1964
This project seeks to include the historical significance of women in the Foreign Service and subsequently the United States Department of State between 1942 and 1964. Using the life and experience of Margaret Parx Hays, one of fewer than three hundred female foreign service officers before 1960, this study explores the importance of examining women at the "ground level." This narrative examines the life of Hays at several different duty stations and her experience navigating a male-dominant workplace congruent to the political and diplomatic missions of each stations. Hays was stationed in Buenos Aires, Argentina (1942-1945); Bogota, Columbia (1945-1947); Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1948-1950); Washington D.C., U.S. (1951-1954; 1959-1962); Manila, Philippines (1954-1956); Mexico City, Mexico (1956-1958); and Hong Kong, China (1962-1964). Throughout the deployment at each station, Hays was confronted with major political events in her duty station's history or in the intersection of American foreign and domestic policy. Through the use of Hays's archived collection of personal papers, including letters and newspapers, this thesis presents a more representative story about women and about the Department of State as a larger whole than previous scholarship that has ignored how gender affected diplomatic history.
The Walling Family of Nineteenth-Century Texas: An Examination of Movement and Opportunity on the Texas Frontier
The Walling Family of Nineteenth-Century Texas recounts the actions of the first four generations of the John Walling family. Through a heavily quantitative study, the study focuses on the patterns of movement, service, and seizing opportunity demonstrated by the family as they took full advantage of the benefits of frontier expansion in the Old South and particularly Texas. In doing so, it chronicles the role of a relatively unknown family in many of the most defining events of the nineteenth-century Texas experience such as the Texas Revolution, Mexican War, Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Close of the Frontier. Based on extensive research in census, tax, election, land, military, family paper, newspaper, and existing genealogical records; the study documents the contributions of family members to the settlement of more than forty counties while, at the same time, noting its less positive behaviors such as its open hostility to American Indians, and significant slave ownership. This study seeks to extend the work of other quantitative studies that looked at movement and political influence in the Old South, Texas, and specific communities to the microcosm of a single extended family. As a result, it should be of use to those wanting a greater understanding of how events in nineteenth-century Texas shaped, and were shaped by, families outside the political and social elite.
Why the Fuse Blew: the Reasons for Colonial America’s Transformation From Proto-nationalists to Revolutionary Patriots: 1772-1775
The most well-known events and occurrences that caused the American Revolution are well-documented. No scholar debates the importance of matters such as the colonists’ frustration with taxation without representation, the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, and the Coercive Acts. However, very few scholars have paid attention to how the 1772 English court case that freed James Somerset from slavery impacted American Independence. This case occurred during a two-year stall in the conflict between the English government and her colonies that began in 1763. Between 1763 and 1770, there was ongoing conflict between the two parties, but the conflict temporarily subsided in 1770. Two years later, in 1772, the Somerset decision reignited tension and frustration between the mother country and her colonies. This paper does not claim that the Somerset decision was the cause of colonial separation from England. Instead it argues that the Somerset decision played a significant yet rarely discussed role in the colonists’ willingness to begin meeting with one another to discuss their common problem of shared grievance with British governance. It prompted the colonists to begin relating to one another and to the British in a way that they never had previously. This case’s impact on intercolonial relations and relations between the colonies and her mother country are discussed within this work.
Embracing Equality: Texas Baptists, Social Christianity, and Civil Rights in the Twentieth Century
Texas Baptists in the twentieth century struggled to overcome prejudice and embrace racial equality. While historians have generally agreed that Baptist leadership in Texas was more progressive in regard to race relations than that of other southern states, Texas Baptists acquiesced to calls for racial justice with great difficulty. This study seeks to analyze the relationship between Texas Baptists' understanding of social Christianity and their views of racial equality. Furthermore, this study seeks to examine the extent to which white Texas Baptists actually changed their racial views and incorporated African Americans into their church services following the civil rights movement. An analysis of the racial transformation of one of Texas' most famous Baptists, W. A. Criswell, and the history of the Christian Life Commission, which is the ethical arm of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, provides great insight in to the racial progress made by Texas Baptists in the twentieth century. As Texas Baptists enter the twenty-first century and encounter a large and growing Hispanic population, the findings of this study will render aide to those who wish to embark on a new future by learning from the mistakes of their past.
Showing the Flag: War Cruiser Karlsruhe and Germandom Abroad
In the early 1920s the Weimar Republic commissioned a series of new light cruisers of the Königsberg class and in July 1926, the keel of the later christened Karlsruhe was laid down. The 570 feet long and almost 50 feet wide ship was used as a training cruiser for future German naval officers. Between 1930 and 1936 the ship conducted in all five good-will tours around the world, two under the Weimar Republic and three under the Third Reich. These good-will tours or gute Willen Fahrten were an important first step in reconciling Germany to the rest of the world and were meant to improve international relations. The Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defense carefully orchestrated all stops of the vessels in conjunction with the respective embassies abroad. Final arrangements were made at least six-nine months before the scheduled visits and even small adjustments to the itinerary proved troublesome. Further, all visits were treated as “unofficial presentations.” The mission of the Karlsruhe was twofold: first to extend or renew relations with other nations, and second to foster notions of Heimat and the Germandom (Deutschtum) abroad. The dissertation is divided in two large parts; the individual training cruises with all the arrangements, the selection of the individual nations and ports, and explores the level of decision making amongst the various agencies, departments, and organizations involved. For the Weimar Republic, the ship represented modernity and a break with the past, and embodied at one and the same time, traditional German culture and the idea of progress. Since the cruiser continued its training abroad after 1933, a comparison between the “two Germanies” makes sense. The second part of the research will explore the notion of Heimat and the Germans living abroad and how the Karlsruhe acted as a symbolic link between the …
Child Rescue As Survival Resistance: Hidden Children in Nazi-occupied Western Europe
The phenomenon of rescue organizations that devoted themselves specifically to hiding and saving Jewish children appeared throughout Nazi-occupied Western Europe (France, Belgium, and the Netherlands). Jewish and non-Jewish rescuers risked their lives to save thousands of children from extermination. This dissertation adds to the historiographical understanding of Holocaust resistance by analyzing the efforts of these child rescue organizations as a form of “survival resistance.” Researching the key aspects of traditional resistance (conscious intent, extensive organization, and effective turn-out) demonstrates that, while child rescue did not present armed resistance, it still was a form of active resistance against the Nazi Final Solution. By looking at rescuers’ testimonies and archival sources (from Yad Vashem, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Centre de documentation juive contemporaine, and Kazerne Dossin), this dissertation first outlines the extensive organization and intent of Jewish rescue groups, such as the Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants (OSE) and Comité de défense des Juifs (CDJ), in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. The second part looks at rescue organization and intent by Catholic, Protestant, and humanitarian groups. The dissertation concludes by discussing the effectiveness of organized child rescue. In the end, the rescue groups saved thousands of children and proofs that Child rescue in Nazi-occupied Western Europe was a valid--not to mention heroic--form of survival resistance.
Prison Productions: Textiles and Other Military Supplies from State Penitentiaries in the Trans-Mississippi Theater during the American Civil War
This thesis examines the state penitentiaries of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas that became sources of wartime supplies during the Civil War. A shortage of industry in the southwest forced the Confederacy to use all manufactories efficiently. Penitentiary workshops and textile mills supplied a variety of cloth, wood, and iron products, but have received minimal attention in studies of logistics. Penitentiary textile mills became the largest domestic supplier of cloth to Confederate quartermasters, aid societies, citizens, slaves, and indigent families. This study examines how penitentiary workshops converted to wartime production and determines their contribution to the Confederate war effort. The identification of those who produced, purchased, distributed, and used penitentiary goods will enhance our knowledge of overall Confederate supply.
Health on the Homestead: Women Physicians and the Search for Professional Medical Authority in the American West, 1870-1930
This project seeks to clarify the historical significance of women in the American West between 1870 and 1930 through the education, careers, and personal lives of western women physicians. The narratives presented in the work provide alternative roles for western women aside from the stereotypical images found in popular culture and history, such as the "Bad Woman," the prostitute, and the obedient homesteading wife. This collective biography additionally demonstrates how women participated in American medical culture during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, emphasizing their agency as historical actors, and countering the common misconception that Victorian women were merely passive subjects of their time and place. The lives of four physicians named Ellis Reynolds Shipp, Mary Babcock Atwater, Mary Bennett Ritter, and Mary Canaga Rowland are available through memoirs, biographies, scholarly articles, newspapers, and other sources that contextualize their careers into the broader context of Western, medical, and nineteenth-century history. Through their personal and professional experiences, a greater story of female autonomy emerges in a period understood to be inherently oppressive to and unnavigable for women.
Competing Models of Hegemonic Masculinity in English Civil War Memoirs by Women
This thesis examines the descriptions of Royalist and Parliamentarian masculinity in English Civil War memoirs by women through a close reading of three biographical memoirs written by Margaret Cavendish, duchess of Newcastle; Lady Ann Fanshawe; and Lucy Hutchinson. Descriptions of masculinity are evaluated through the lens of Raewyn Connell's theory of hegemonic masculinity to understand the impact two competing models of masculinity had on the social and political culture of the period. The prevailing Parliamentarian hegemonic masculinity in English Civil War memoirs is traced to its origins before the English Civil War to demonstrate how hegemonic masculinity changes over time. The thesis argues that these memoirs provide evidence of two competing models of Royalist and Parliamentarian masculinities during the Civil War that date back to changes in the Puritan meaning of the phrase “man of merit”, which influenced the development of a Parliamentarian model of masculinity.
My Crown Is in My Heart, Not on My Head: Heart Burial in England, France, and the Holy Roman Empire From Medieval Times to the Present
Heart burial is a funerary practice that has been performed since the early medieval period. However, relatively little scholarship has been published on it in English. Heart burial began as a pragmatic way to preserve a body, but it became a meaningful tradition in Western Europe during the medieval and early modern periods. In an anthropological context, the ritual served the needs of elites and the societies they governed. Elites used heart burial not only to preserve their bodies, but to express devotion, stabilize the social order and advocate legitimacy, and even gain heaven. Heart burial assisted in the elite Christian, his or her family, and society pass through the liminal period of death. Over the centuries, heart burial evolved to remain relevant. The practice is extant to the present day, though the motivations behind it are very different from those of the medieval and early modern periods.
Taking It to the Streets: the History of Gay Pride Parades in Dallas, Texas: 1972-1986
This thesis describes the organization of two waves of pride parades in the city of Dallas, Texas. Using more than 40 sources, this work details how LGBT organizers have used pride parades to create a more established place for the LGBT community in greater Dallas culture. This works adds to the study of LGBT history by focusing on an understudied region, the South; as well as focusing on an important symbolic event in LGBT communities, pride parades.
The Highsmith Men, Texas Rangers
The Highsmith Men is a general historical narrative of four prominent men who happened to be Texas Rangers. The story begins in Texas in 1830 and traces the lives of Samuel Highsmith, his nephew, Benjamin Franklin Highsmith, and Samuels's sons, Malcijah and Henry Albert Highsmith, who was the last of the four to pass away, in 1930. During this century the four Highsmiths participated in nearly every landmark event significant to the history of Texas. The Highsmith men also participated in numerous other engagements as well. Within this framework the intent of The Highsmith Men is to scrutinize the contemporary scholarly conceptions of the early Texas Rangers as an institution by following the lives of these four men, who can largely be considered common folk settlers. This thesis takes a bottom up approach to the history of Texas, which already maintains innumerable accounts of the sometimes true and, sometimes not, larger than life figures that Texas boasts. For students pursuing studies in the Texas, the American West, the Mexican American War, or Civil War history, this regional history may be of some use. The early Texas Rangers were generally referred to as "Minute Men" or "Volunteer Militia" until 1874. In this role, the Highsmith men participated in many historic Texas engagements including but not limited to the Siege of Béxar, the battle of the Alamo, San Jacinto, the Cordova Rebellion, Plum Creek, the Mexican Invasions of 1842, the Mexican War, the Civil War, Salado Creek, Brushy Creek, and the capture of Sam Bass. Not only did people like the Highsmiths, who were largely considered "common folk," participate in these battles, they were also Texas Rangers. None of the Highsmith men were full time Texas Rangers, which discredits prominent stereotypes. The Highsmith Men shows that the Texas Ranger institution and the …
Peculiar Pairings: Texas Confederates and Their Body Servants
Peculiar Pairings: Texas Confederates and their Body Servants is an examination of the relationship between Texas Confederates and the slaves they brought with them during and after the American Civil War. The five chapter study seeks to make sense of the complex relationships shared by some Confederate masters and their black body servants in order to better understand the place of "black Confederates" in Civil War memory. This thesis begins with an examination of what kind of Texans brought body servants to war with them and the motivations they may have had for doing so. Chapter three explores the interactions between master and slave while on the march. Chapter four, the crux of the study, focuses on a number of examples that demonstrate the complex nature of the master slave relationship in a war time environment, and the effects of these relationships during the post-Civil War era.
Frances Farenthold: Texas' Joan of Arc
Born in 1926, Frances "Sissy" Tarlton Farenthold began her exploration of politics at a young age. In 1942, Farenthold graduated from Hockaday School for Girls. In 1945, she graduated from Vassar College, and in 1949, she graduated from the University of Texas School of Law. Farenthold was a practicing lawyer, participated in the Corpus Christi Human Relations Commission from 1964 to 1969, and directed Nueces County Legal Aid from 1965 to 1967. In 1969, she began her first term in the Texas House of Representatives. During her second term in the House (1971-1972), Farenthold became a leader in the fight against government corruption. In 1972, she ran in the Democratic primary for Texas governor, and forced a close run-off vote with Dolph Briscoe. Soon afterwards in 1972, she was nominated as a Democratic vice-presidential candidate at the Democratic convention, in addition to her nomination as the chairperson of the National Women's Political Caucus. Farenthold ran in the Democratic primary for governor again in 1974, but lost decisively. From 1976 until 1980, she was the first woman president of Wells College, before coming back to Texas and opening a law practice. For the next three decades, Farenthold practiced law, taught at the University of Houston, and furthered her activism for the environment, as well as women's, minority's, gay and lesbian, and immigrant's rights. She currently lives in Houston and continues working towards these goals.
Pocky Wenches Versus La Pauvre Femme: Medical Perceptions of Venereal Disease in Seventeenth-century England and France
In early modern Europe, syphilis tormented individuals regardless of social standing. The various stages of infection rendered individuals with visible chancres or “pocky” marks throughout their body. The tertiary stage signaled the spreading of the disease from the infected parts into the brain and cardiovascular system, eventually leading to dementia and a painful death. Beginning with the initial medical responses to venereal disease in the sixteenth century and throughout the early modern period, medical practitioners attempted to identify the cause of syphilis. During the seventeenth century, English practitioners maintained that women were primarily responsible for both the creation and transmission of syphilis. In England, venereal disease became the physical manifestation of illicit sexual behavior and therefore women with syphilis demonstrated their sexual immorality. Contrastingly, French medical practitioners refrained from placing blame on women for venereal infection. The historiography of early modern discourse on venereal disease fails to account for this discrepancy between English and French perceptions of syphilis in the seventeenth century. This thesis seeks to fill the gap in this historiography and suggest why French practitioners abstained from singling out women as the primary source of venereal infection by suggesting the importance that cultural influences and religious practices had toward shaping medical perceptions. The cultural impact of the querelle des femmes and Catholic practices in France plausibly influenced the better portrayal of women within the medical treatises of seventeenth-century France when compared to Protestant England.
Mary Jones: Last First Lady of the Republic of Texas
Abstract This dissertation uses archival and interpretive methods to examine the life and contributions of Mary Smith McCrory Jones in Texas. Specifically, this project investigates the ways in which Mary Jones emerged into the public sphere, utilized myth and memory, and managed her life as a widow. Each of these larger areas is examined in relation to historiographicaly accepted patterns and in the larger context of women in Texas, the South, and the nation during this period. Mary Jones, 1819-1907, experienced many of the key early periods in Anglo Texas history. The research traces her family’s immigration to Austin’s Colony and their early years under Mexican sovereignty. The Texas Revolution resulted in her move to Houston and her first brief marriage. Following the death of her husband she met and married Anson Jones, a physician who served in public posts throughout the period of the Texas Republic. Over time Anson was politically and personally rejected to the point that he committed suicide. This dissertation studies the effects this death had upon Mary’s personal goals, her use of a widow’s status to achieve her objectives, and her eventual emergence as a “Professional Widow.” Mary Jones’s attempts to rehabilitate her husband’s public image provided her with opportunities which in turn led her into a larger public sphere, enabled her to maintain her social-economic status as a widow, and to shape the public image of both her husband and parts of the Texas image. Mary Jones attempted to publish Anson’s papers, rehabilitate his memory, and preserve papers and artifacts from the period of the Republic. Directly and indirectly this led to the preservation of the San Jacinto battlefield, the reburial of her husband, the discovery of a copy of the Texas Declaration of Independence, the founding of the Daughters of the Republic of …
The Political, Economic, and Military Decline of Venice Leading Up to 1797
This thesis discusses the decline of the Venetian nobility, the collapse of the Venetian economy, and the political results of the surrender of the Venetian Republic to Napoleon Bonaparte in 1797. Topics include the formation of Venice, Venetian domination of trade, the class system in Venice prior to 1797, the collapse of the aristocracy, feudalism in Venice, Venice’s presence in the Adriatic and Aegean seas, and the rise of the middle class within the provisional democratic government. Very few historians have attempted to research the provisional democracy of Venice and how the political and class structure of Venice changed as a result of the collapse of the Republic in 1797. Using primary sources, including government documents and contemporary histories, one can see how the once dominant noble class slowly fell victim to economic ruin and finally lost their role in the political leadership of Venice all together. During this same period, the middle class went from only holding secretarial jobs within the government, to leaders of a modern democratic movement. On top of primary research, several secondary sources helped in explaining the exclusivity of the noble class and their journey from economic dominance to economic ruin and the administrative consequences of this decline for the people of the Republic. This thesis aims to fill gaps in recent research concerning Venetian political history and specifically the period between the surrender of Venice on 12 May 1797, and the signing of the Treaty of Campo Formio, in which France awarded Venice to Austria, on 18 October 1797.
Joaquín de Arredondo in Texas and Northeastern New Spain, 1811-1821
Joaquín de Arredondo was the most powerful and influential person in northeastern New Spain from 1811 to 1821. His rise to prominence began in 1811 when the Spanish military officer and a small royalist army suppressed Miguel Hidalgo’s revolution in the province of Nuevo Santander. This prompted the Spanish government to promote Arredondo to Commandant General of the Eastern Internal Provinces, making him the foremost civil and military authority in northeastern New Spain. Arredondo’s tenure as commandant general proved difficult, as he had to deal with insurgents, invaders from the United States, hostile Indians, pirates, and smugglers. Because warfare in Europe siphoned much needed military and financial support, and disagreements with New Spain’s leadership resulted in reductions of the commandant general’s authority, Arredondo confronted these threats with little assistance from the Spanish government. In spite of these obstacles, he maintained royalist control of New Spain from 1811 to 1821, and, in doing so, changed the course of Texas, Mexican, and United States history. In 1813, he defeated insurgents and American invaders at the Battle of Medina, and from 1817 to 1820, his forces stopped Xavier Mina’s attempt to bring independence to New Spain, prevented French exiles from establishing a colony in Texas, and defeated James Long’s filibustering expedition from the United States. Although unable to sustain Spanish rule in 1821, Arredondo’s approval of Moses Austin’s petition to settle families from the United States in Texas in 1820 and his role in the development of Antonio López de Santa Anna, meant the officer continued to influence Mexico. Perhaps Arredondo’s greatest importance is that the study of his life provides a means to learn about an internationally contested region during one of the most turbulent eras in North American history.
Continuity of Caste: Free People of Color in the Vieux Carré of New Orleans, 1804-1820
Because of its trademark racial diversity, historians have often presented New Orleans as a place transformed by incorporation into the American South following 1804. Assertions that a comparatively relaxed, racially ambiguous Spanish slaveholding regime was converted into a two-caste system of dedicated racial segregation by the advent of American assumption have been posited by scholars like Frank Tannenbaum, Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, and a host of others. Citing dependence on patronage, concubinage, and the decline in slave manumissions during the antebellum period, such studies have employed descriptions of the city’s prominent free people of color to suggest that the daily lives of non-whites in New Orleans experienced uniform restriction following 1804, and that the Crescent City’s transformation from Atlantic society with slaves to rigid slave society forced free people of color out of the heart of the city, known as the Vieux Carré, and into “black neighborhoods” on the margins of town. Despite the popularity of such generalized themes in the historiography, however, the extant sources housed in New Orleans’s valuable archival repositories can be used to support a vastly divergent narrative. By focusing on individual free people of color, or libres, rather than the non-white community as a whole, this paper seeks to show that free people of color were self determined in both public and private aspects of daily life, irrespective of governmental regime, and that their physical presence and political agency were not entirely eroded by the change in administration. Through evaluation of the geography of free black-owned properties listed in the city’s notarial archives, as well as baptisms, births, deaths, and marriages listed in archdiocese ledgers, I show that the family and community lives of free people of color in New Orleans’ oldest neighborhood appeared alive and well throughout the territorial period.
The Argei: Sex, War, and Crucifixion in Rome and the Ancient Near East
The purpose of the Roman Argei ceremony, during which the Vestal Virgins harvested made and paraded rush puppets only to throw them into the Tiber, is widely debated. Modern historians supply three main reasons for the purpose of the Argei: an agrarian act, a scapegoat, and finally as an offering averting deceased spirits or Lares. I suggest that the ceremony also related to war and the spectacle of displaying war casualties. I compare the ancient Near East and Rome and connect the element of war and husbandry and claim that the Argei paralleled the sacred marriage. in addition to an agricultural and purification rite, these rituals may have served as sympathetic magic for pre- and inter-war periods. As of yet, no author has proposed the Argei as a ceremony related to war. By looking at the Argei holistically I open the door for a new direction of inquiry on the Argei ceremony, fertility cults in the Near East and in Rome, and on the execution of war criminals.The Argei and new year’s sacred marriage both occurred during the initiation of campaign and spring planting and harvest season. Both in the ancient Near East and in Rome, animal victims were sacrificed and displayed through impaling, crucifixion, and hanging for fertility and in war. for both Rome and the Near East war casualties were displayed on sacred trees. Through the Near East cultures a strong correlation existed between impaling, hanging, and crucifixion in war and Sacred Tree fertility worship. By examining Roman tree worship, military rituals, and agricultural ceremonies a similar correlation becomes apparent. on the same day of the Argei, Mars was married to the anthropomorphized new year and within the month became a scapegoat expelled from the city. Additionally, on the first day of the Argei boys became soldiers.
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