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open access

Married in a Frisky Mode: Clandestine and Irregular Marriages in Eighteenth-Century Britain

Description: The practice of irregular and clandestine marriage ran rampant throughout Britain for centuries, but when the upper class felt they needed to reassert their social supremacy, marriage was one arena in which they sought to do so. The restrictions placed on irregular marriages were specifically aimed at protecting the elite and maintaining a separation between themselves and the lower echelon of society. The political, social, and economic importance of marriage motivated its regulation, as the c… more
Date: August 2016
Creator: Smith, Summer
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Military-diplomatic Adventurism: Communist China's Foreign Policy in the Early Stage of the Korean War (1950-1951)

Description: The thesis studies the relations of Communist China's foreign policy and its military offensives in the battlefield in Korean Peninsula in late 1950 and early 1951, an important topic that has yet received little academic attention. As original research, this thesis cites extensively from newly declassified Soviet and Chinese archives, as well as American and UN sources. This paper finds that an adventurism dominated the thinking and decision-making of Communist leaders in Beijing and Moscow, w… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Zhong, Wenrui
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

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

Description: 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 t… more
Date: May 2013
Creator: Duch, Anna M.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Myth of Strategic Superiority: Us Nuclear Weapons and Limited Conflicts, 1945-1954

Description: The nuclear age provided U.S. soldiers and statesmen with unprecedented challenges. the U.S. military had to incorporate a weapon into strategic calculations without knowing whether the use of the weapon would be approved. Broad considerations of policy led President Dwight Eisenhower to formulate a policy that relied on nuclear weapons while fully realizing their destructive potential. Despite the belief that possession of nuclear weapons provided strategic superiority, the U.S. realized th… more
Date: May 2012
Creator: Morse, Eric
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Office of the Lieutenant Governor of Texas: a History, Pre-statehood to 1949

Description: The office of a state lieutenant governor often fails to evoke images of power, influence, or prestige. However, in Texas the office is regarded by many as the most powerful political office in the state. The Texas lieutenant governor derives his power from several sources, including the Texas Constitution, Senate rules, statutes, and the personality of the officeholder. This work explores the role of the Texas lieutenant governor in the pre-modern period with an examination of the office’s leg… more
Date: August 2015
Creator: Taylor, Nicholas Gerard
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Patton's Iron Cavalry - The Impact of the Mechanized Cavalry on the U.S. Third Army

Description: The American military experience in the European Theater of Operations during the Second World War is one of the most heavily documented topics in modern historiography. However, within this plethora of scholarship, very little has been written on the contributions of the United States Cavalry to this era. The six mechanized cavalry groups assigned to the Third Army served in a variety of roles, conducting screens, counter-reconnaissance, as well as a number of other associated security missi… more
Date: May 2011
Creator: Nance, William Stuart
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Paul and Slavery: a Conflict of Metaphor and Reality

Description: 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 de… more
Date: December 2013
Creator: Baker, James C.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Peculiar Pairings: Texas Confederates and Their Body Servants

Description: 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 b… more
Date: August 2016
Creator: Elliott, Brian
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Phantom Menace: the F-4 in Air Combat in Vietnam

Description: The F-4 Phantom II was the United States' primary air superiority fighter aircraft during the Vietnam War. This airplane epitomized American airpower doctrine during the early Cold War, which diminished the role of air-to-air combat and the air superiority mission. As a result, the F-4 struggled against the Soviet MiG fighters used by the North Vietnamese Air Force. By the end of the Rolling Thunder bombing campaign in 1968, the Phantom traded kills with MiGs at a nearly one-to-one ratio, the w… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Hankins, Michael W.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Pocky Wenches Versus La Pauvre Femme: Medical Perceptions of Venereal Disease in Seventeenth-century England and France

Description: 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 p… more
Date: December 2013
Creator: Findlater, Michelle J.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Political, Economic, and Military Decline of Venice Leading Up to 1797

Description: 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 f… more
Date: December 2013
Creator: FitzSimons, Anna Katelin
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Portuguese Expeditionary Corps in World War I: From Inception to Destruction, 1914-1918

Description: The Portuguese Expeditionary Force fought in the trenches of northern France from April 1917 to April 1918. on 9 April 1918 the sledgehammer blow of Operation Georgette fell upon the exhausted Portuguese troops. British accounts of the Portuguese Corps’ participation in combat on the Western Front are terse. Many are dismissive. in fact, Portuguese units experienced heavy combat and successfully held their ground against all attacks. Regarding Georgette, the standard British narrative holds tha… more
Date: May 2012
Creator: Pyles, Jesse
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Power of Perception: Women and Politics at the Early Georgian Court

Description: The early Georgian period illustrates how the familial dynamic at court affected women’s opportunity to exert political influence. The court represented an important venue that allowed women to declare a political affiliation and to participate in political issues that suited their interests. Appearances often at variance with reality allowed women to manipulate and test their political abilities in order to have the capability to exercise any possible power. Moreover, some women developed pol… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Stewart, Hailey A.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

A Pre-professional Institution: Napoleon’s Marshalate and the Defeat of 1813

Description: Napoleon’s defeat in 1813 generates a number of explanations from historians regarding why he lost this epic campaign which ultimately resulted in France losing control over the German states. Scholars discussing the French marshalate of the Napoleonic era frequently assert that these generals could not win battles without the emperor present. Accustomed to assuming a subordinate role under Bonaparte’s direct supervision, these commanders faltered when deprived of the strong hand of the maste… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Smith, Eric C.
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

Quia Emptores, Subinfeudation, and the Decline of Feudalism in Medieval England: Feudalism, it is Your Count that Votes

Description: The focus of this thesis is threefold. First, Edward I enacted the Statute of Westminster III, Quia Emptores in 1290, at the insistence of his leading barons. Secondly, there were precedents for the king of England doing something against his will. Finally, there were unintended consequences once parliament passed this statute. The passage of the statute effectively outlawed subinfeudation in all fee simple estates. It also detailed how land was able to be transferred from one possessor to ano… more
Date: August 2017
Creator: Garofalo, Michael D.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Reconstruction in Collin County, Texas, 1865-1876

Description: This is a work of local history examining the course of Reconstruction in Collin County, Texas. National and state level surveys of Reconstruction often overlook the experiences of communities in favor of simpler, broader narratives. The work proceeds chronologically, beginning with the close of the Civil War, and tells the story of Collin County as national Reconstruction progressed and relies on works of professional and non-academic historians, oral histories, census data, and newspapers to … more
Date: August 2015
Creator: Thompson, Jesse R.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Remembering the Forgotten D-day: the Amphibious Landing at Collado Beach During the Mexican War

Description: The current historiography of the Mexican War does not give due credit to the significance of the landing at Collado Beach. No one source addresses all aspects of the landing, nor have any included an analysis of the logistical side of the operation. This thesis presents a comprehensive analysis of the operation from conception to execution in an attempt to fill the gap in the historiography. Additionally, the lessons learned and lessons forgotten from this landing are addressed as to how this … more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Menking, Christopher N.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

“Removing the Danger in a Business Way”: the History and Memory of Quakertown, Denton, Texas

Description: Overall this thesis analyzes a strain of the white supremacist vision in Denton, Texas via a case study of a former middle-class black neighborhood. This former community, Quakertown, was removed by white city officials and leaders in the early 1920s and was replaced with a public city park. Nearly a century later, the story of Quakertown is celebrated in Denton and is remembered through many sites of memory such as a museum, various texts, and several city, county, and state historical markers… more
Date: August 2015
Creator: Stallings, Chelsea
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

A Revolution in Warfare? the Army of the Sambre and Meuse and the 1794 Fleurus Campaign

Description: During the War of the First Coalition, the Army of the Sambre and Meuse, commanded by Jean-Baptiste Jourdan, played the decisive role against Coalition forces in the Low Countries. Created in June 1794, the army defeated the Allies at the battle of Second Fleurus on 26 June 1794 and commenced the Coalition’s retreat to the Rhine River. At the end of the year, Jourdan led the army to winter quarters along the left bank of the Rhine and achieved France’s historically momentous “natural frontier… more
Date: August 2012
Creator: Hayworth, Jordan R.
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

Russian Peasant Women's Resistance Against the State during the Antireligious Campaigns of 1928-1932

Description: This study seeks to explore the role of peasant women in resistance to the antireligious campaigns during collectivization and analyze how the interplay of the state and resistors formed a new culture of religion in the countryside. I argue that while the state’s succeeded in controlling most of the public sphere, peasant women, engaging in subversive activities and exploiting the state’s ideology, succeeded in preserving a strong peasant adherence to religion prior to World War II. It was peas… more
Date: May 2016
Creator: Millier, Callie Anne
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 Significance of Feudal Law in Thirteenth-Century Law Codes

Description: Although developments in feudal law in the thirteenth century influenced the legal environment of Europe for centuries, much of past and current historical research of feudalism examines the social system anthropologically but neglects an in-depth analysis of feudal law codes. My research combines the social-anthropological approach with relevant customary codes to demonstrate the importance of feudal law to a thirteenth-century society plagued by war, economic and social instability, and compe… more
Date: May 2011
Creator: Sijansky, Adam Wayne
Partner: UNT Libraries
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