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open access

Adapting on the Plains: the United States Army's Evolution of Mobile Warfare in Texas, 1848-1859

Description: 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 Indian… more
Date: May 2013
Creator: Buchy, Mark B.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Embracing Equality: Texas Baptists, Social Christianity, and Civil Rights in the Twentieth Century

Description: 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 s… more
Date: May 2013
Creator: Davis, Joseph J.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Fortification Renaissance: the Roman Origins of the Trace Italienne

Description: The Military Revolution thesis posited by Michael Roberts and expanded upon by Geoffrey Parker places the trace italienne style of fortification of the early modern period as something that is a novel creation, borne out of the minds of Renaissance geniuses. Research shows, however, that the key component of the trace italienne, the angled bastion, has its roots in Greek and Roman writing, and in extant constructions by Roman and Byzantine engineers. The angled bastion of the trace italienne … more
Date: May 2013
Creator: Vigus, Robert T.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Ho Chi Minh Trail and Operation Commando Hunt: the Failure of an Aerial Interdiction Campaign

Description: In November 1968, the United States 7th Air Force began a year-round bombing campaign of southeastern Laos to slow the infiltration of Vietnamese troops and supplies into South Vietnam. Despite the massive amount of bombs dropped, the campaigns of Operation Commando Hunt were unable to stop the Communists from sending men and materiel down the Ho Chi Minh Trail to support their operations in the south. This thesis seeks to show that President Lyndon Johnson's decision to stop bombing North Vi… more
Date: May 2013
Creator: Ha, Dong Nguyen
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 Strategic and Operational Debate Over Operation Anvil: the Allied Invasion of Southern France in August, 1944

Description: In August, 1944, the Allies embarked on one of the "two supreme operations of 1944," Operation Anvil/Dragoon. It is an operation that almost did not happen. Envisioned as a direct supporting operation of Overlord, Anvil soon ran into troubles. Other operations taking away resources away from Anvil in addition to opposition from the highest levels of Allied command threatened Anvil. This thesis chronicles the evolution of this debate, as well as shed light on one of the most overlooked and s… more
Date: May 2013
Creator: Zinsou, Cameron
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Ethnogenesis and Captivity: Structuring Transatlantic Difference in the Early Republic, 1776-1823

Description: This study seeks to understand the development of early American ideas of race, religion, and gender as reflected in Indian and Barbary captivity narratives (tales of individuals taken captive by privateers in North Africa) and in plays that take American captives as their subject. Writers of both Indian and Barbary captivity narratives used racial and religious language – references to Indians and North Africans as demonic, physically monstrous, and animal – simultaneously to delineate Native… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Siddiqi, M. Omar
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Lester Walton’s Champion: Black America’s Uneasy Relationship with Jack Johnson

Description: In 1908 Jack Johnson became the first black heavyweight boxing champion of the world. His reign would be rife with controversy, leading to widespread racial violence and draconian government intervention. Lester Walton, theater critic for the New York Age, became obsessed with Johnson; his extensive writing on the boxer powerfully reveals not just Walton’s own struggle with issues of race in America, but sheds light on the difficulties the black community at large faced in trying to make sens… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: McKee, Dave
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

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

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

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

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

Dramatizing Lynching and Labor Protest: Case Studies Examining How Theatre Reflected Minority Unrest in the 1920S and 30S

Description: Theatre is widely unrecognized for the compelling influence it has held in society throughout history. In this thesis, I specifically examine the implications surrounding the social protest theatre of black and Jewish American minority communities in the first half of the twentieth century. I discuss how their historical circumstance, culture, and idiosyncratic natures caused them to choose agitated propaganda theatre as an avenue for protest. I delve into the similarities in circumstance, but … more
Date: December 2013
Creator: Goldmann, Kerry L.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Hermanos De Raza: Alonso S Perales and the Creation of the Lulac Spirit

Description: There were two great ambitions in the life of Alonso S. Perales: the first was to help his people, the Mexican-Americans; the second was to help all of mankind. To pursue this first ambition, Perales became very active as a major political leader who supported civil rights and the abolishment of racial discrimination. Many viewed him as a defender of la raza (the Mexican-American race) and one of the most influential Mexican-Americans of his time. As such, Perales devoted most of his work to de… more
Date: December 2013
Creator: Mila, Brandon H.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Historical and Theological Backgrounds of the Whore of Babylon in Revelation 17 & 18 in a Jewish Context

Description: I argue that some ancient Jewish sects, specifically the community at Qumran and the early Christians, did in fact write against, speak out against, and interpret ancient tests as being against their fellow Jews, the Temple, Jerusalem or all three. Given the time in which these occurred, I argue that those sects believed that the Roman Empire would be means in which their god would punish/destroy Jews that did not believe as they did, the Temple that did not represent what they thought it shoul… more
Date: December 2013
Creator: Wheatley, Warren
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Josephus’ Jewish War and the Causes of the Jewish Revolt: Re-examining Inevitability

Description: The Jewish revolt against the Romans in 66 CE can be seen as the culmination of years of oppression at the hands of their Roman overlords. The first-century historian Josephus narrates the developments of the war and the events prior. A member of the priestly class and a general in the war, Josephus provides us a detailed account that has long troubled historians. This book was an attempt by Josephus to explain the nature of the war to his primary audience of predominantly angry and grieving Je… more
Date: December 2013
Creator: Lopez, Javier
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

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
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