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open access

Southern Roots, Western Foundations: the Peculiar Institution and the Livestock Industry on the Northwestern Frontier of Texas, 1846-1864

Description: This dissertation challenges Charles W. Ramsdell's needless war theory, which argued that profitable slavery would not have existed west of the 98th meridian and that slavery would have died a natural death. It uses statistical information that is mined from the county tax records to show how slave-owners on the northwestern frontier of Texas raised livestock rather than market crops, before and during the Civil War. This enterprise was so strong that it not only continued to expand throughout… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Liles, Deborah Marie
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Showing the Flag: War Cruiser Karlsruhe and Germandom Abroad

Description: 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 i… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: De Santiago Ramos, Simone Carlota Cezanne
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Between Comancheros and Comanchería: a History of Fort Bascom, New Mexico

Description: 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… more
Date: August 2012
Creator: Blackshear, James Bailey
Partner: UNT Libraries

Uncle Sam Does Not Want You: Military Rejection and Discharge during the World Wars

Description: In the United States, rapid military mobilization for the world wars marked a turning point in the national need to manage and evaluate manpower. To orchestrate manpower needs for the military, industry, and those relating to familial obligations, Woodrow Wilson's administration created the Selective Service System during the First World War. In categorizing men, local Selective Service boards utilized rapid physical and psychological diagnostic techniques and applied their assessments to curre… more
Access: Restricted to UNT Community Members. Login required if off-campus.
Date: August 2019
Creator: Smith Chamberlain, Tiffany Leigh
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Ultimate Ethos: Challenges, Cooptation and Survival During Ultimate’s Adolescence

Description: 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 different… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Brooks, David
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Health on the Homestead: Women Physicians and the Search for Professional Medical Authority in the American West, 1870-1930

Description: 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… more
Date: May 2019
Creator: Doak, Kate Lynn
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Manipulating Fear: The Texas State Government and the Second Red Scare, 1947-1954

Description: 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 a… more
Date: May 2019
Creator: Bonewell, Shaffer Allen
Partner: UNT Libraries

The Rise and Fall of the Greenback Party in Texas: Economic Change and Political Dissent in the Post-Civil War Era

Description: In 1873, a financial crisis plunged the United States into a deep economic depression that exacerbated a number of post-war economic issues. By the late 1870s, political dissent centered primarily on financial issues merged into the Greenback movement, which represented a loose coalition of reformers calling for economic relief based on the expanded use of greenbacks (paper currency issued by the United States Treasury during the Civil War). The Greenback Party emerged as a direct response to f… more
Access: Restricted to UNT Community Members. Login required if off-campus.
Date: December 2019
Creator: Sinclair, Cameron L.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and Racial Dynamics: The Importance of SNCC's Arkansas Project, 1962-1966

Description: In this thesis I look at the Arkansas Project and more specifically the racial dynamics within the project and the surrounding communities in Arkansas where SNCC engaged to assist the residents fight for their civil rights. In addition, I analyze how the differences in the urban and rural communities were affected by the racial dynamics of the project's leadership. The Arkansas project was led by William Hansen, a white man, which made him and the project unique from not only other SNCC project… more
Date: December 2019
Creator: Lacy, David Aaron
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Famine Fighters: American Veterans, the American Relief Administration, and the 1921 Russian Famine

Description: This study argues that the American Relief Administration (ARA) operationally and culturally was defined by the character and experiences of First World War American military veterans. The historiography of the American Relief Administration in the last half-century has painted the ARA as a purely civilian organization greatly detached from the military sphere. By examining the military veterans of the ARA scholars can more accurately assess the image of the ARA, including what motivated their … more
Date: December 2019
Creator: Huebner, Andrew Brooks
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Creating the Character of North Texas: Demographics and Geography, 1841-1861

Description: Several historians have identified North Texas as constituting a unique cultural region in antebellum Texas, due to the more limited cotton and slave economies and greater opposition to secession. Different settlement patterns have been put forward as an explanation for the distinct "character" of North Texas, with North Texas being portrayed as being settled largely by migrants from the Upper South while the rest of the state was primarily settled by Lower Southerners. The argument rests on th… more
Date: December 2019
Creator: Stites, Russell
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Art-Union and Photography, 1839-1854: The First Fifteen Years of Critical Engagement between Two Cultural Icons of Nineteenth-Century Britain

Description: 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 phot… more
Date: August 2011
Creator: Boetcher, Derek Nicholas
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

A History of the Phenomenon of the Maras of El Salvador, 1971- 1992

Description: 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 ma… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Castillo, Vogel Vladimir
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Shifting Borders of Egypt

Description: 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 … more
Date: May 2015
Creator: Chavez, Miguel Angel
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Light of Dark-Age Athens: Factors in the Survival of Athens after the Fall of Mycenaean Civilization

Description: When looking at Dark Age Greece, one of the most important sites to consider is Athens. The Dark Age was a transitional period between the fall of Mycenaean Greece of the Bronze Age, and Archaic Greece of the Iron Age. This period is called the Dark Age because the palaces that ruled the Mycenaean age collapsed, and with them fell civilization in mainland Greece. Writing, fine art, massive architecture, trade, and luxury goods disappear from mainland Greece. But Athens survived the fall of the … more
Date: May 2015
Creator: Golightly, Paul
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Cosmology, Extraterrestrial Life, and the Development and Character of Western European Thought in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

Description: Cosmology, as an all-encompassing theoretical construction of universal reality, serves as one of the best indicators for a variety of philosophical, scientific, and cultural values. Within any cosmological system, the question of extraterrestrial life is an important element. Mere existence or nonexistence, however, only exposes a small portion of the ideological significance behind the contemplation of life outside of earth. The manners by which both believers and disbelievers justify thei… more
Date: August 2011
Creator: Simpson, Emily
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Ruinous Pride: The Construction of the Scottish Military Identity, 1745-1918

Description: Following the failed Jacobite Rebellion of 1745-46 many Highlanders fought for the British Army in the Seven Years War and American Revolutionary War. Although these soldiers were primarily motivated by economic considerations, their experiences were romanticized after Waterloo and helped to create a new, unified Scottish martial identity. This militaristic narrative, reinforced throughout the nineteenth century, explains why Scots fought and died in disproportionately large numbers during the … more
Date: August 2011
Creator: Matheson, Calum Lister
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Beyond the Cabinet: Zbigniew Brzezinski’s Expansion of the National Security Adviser Position

Description: The argument illustrated in the thesis outlines Zbigniew Brzezinski’s ability to manipulate himself and his agenda to top priority as the national security advisor to President Carter. It further argues that Brzezinski deserves more blame for the failure of American foreign policy towards Iran; not President Carter. The sources include primary sources such as Zbigniew Brzezinski and President Jimmy Carter’s memoirs as well as information from President Carter’s library in Atlanta, Georgia. Seco… more
Date: August 2011
Creator: McLean, Erika
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Texas Confederate Home for Men, 1884-1970

Description: Founded in 1886 by a local veteran’s organization, the Texas Confederate Home for Men served thousands of veterans throughout its tenure. State-run beginning in 1891, the facility became the center of controversy multiple times, with allegations of mistreatment of residents, misappropriation of funds, and unsanitary conditions in the home. Despite these problems, for several decades the home effectively provided large numbers of needy veterans with a place where they could live out their remain… more
Date: August 2011
Creator: Kirchenbauer, Amy Sue
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

A Champion for the Chicano Community: Anita N. Martínez and Her Contributions to the City of Dallas, 1969-1973

Description: 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 t… more
Date: August 2011
Creator: Cloer, Katherine Reguero
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Prison Productions: Textiles and Other Military Supplies from State Penitentiaries in the Trans-Mississippi Theater during the American Civil War

Description: 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 quartermaste… more
Date: August 2011
Creator: Derbes, Brett J.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Toward an Ecological Understanding of the Vendée: Old Myths and New Paradigms

Description: This work explores the motivations of the two major parties in the civil war in the Vendée from 1793 to 1796. It suggests that traditional understandings overemphasize simplistic notions of the idealistic crusade; the Revolutionaries fought for Republican ideals, while the locals fought to defend traditional Catholicism. This thesis suggests that the major motive for both sides was a fight for survival that was framed and expressed in political and religious terms rather than motivated by them.… more
Date: August 2011
Creator: Strietelmeier, Paul
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Brazos Valley Groundwater Conservation District: A Case Study in Texas Groundwater Conservation

Description: This thesis examines the history of groundwater management through the development of groundwater conservation districts in Texas. Political, economic, ideological, and scientific understandings of groundwater and its regulation varied across the state, as did the natural resource types and quantities, which created a diverse and complicated position for lawmakers and landowners. Groundwater was consistently interpreted as a private property right and case law protected unrestricted use for the… more
Date: August 2011
Creator: Teel, Katherine
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Capital Ships, Commerce, and Coalition: British Strategy in the Mediterranean Theater, 1793

Description: 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… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Baker, William Casey
Partner: UNT Libraries
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