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open access

Cracking the Closed Society: James W. Silver and the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi

Description: This thesis examines the life of James Wesley Silver, a professor of history at the University of Mississippi for twenty-six years and author of Mississippi: The Closed Society, a scathing attack on the Magnolia State's history of racial oppression. In 1962, Silver witnessed the campus riot resulting from James Meredith's enrollment as the first black student at the state's hallowed public university and claims this was the catalyst for writing his book. However, by examining James Silver's p… more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Fox, Lisa Ann
Partner: UNT Libraries
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United States Psychological Operations in Support of Counterinsurgency: Vietnam, 1960 to 1965.

Description: This thesis describes the development of psychological operations capabilities, introduction of forces, and the employment in Vietnam during the period 1960-1965. The complex interplay of these activities is addressed, as well as the development of PSYOP doctrine and training in the period prior to the introduction of ground combat forces in 1965. The American PSYOP advisory effort supported the South Vietnamese at all levels, providing access to training, material support, and critical advice.… more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Roberts, Mervyn Edwin, III
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Bad Blood: Impurity and Danger in the Early Modern Spanish Mentality

Description: The current work is an intellectual history of how blood permeated early modern Spaniards' conceptions of morality and purity. This paper examines Spanish intellectuals' references to blood in their medical, theological, demonological, and historical works. Through these excerpts, this thesis demonstrates how this language of blood played a role in buttressing the church's conception of good morals. This, in turn, will show that blood was used as a way to persecute Jews and Muslims, and ultimat… more
Date: August 2010
Creator: Pyle, Rhonda
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Concept of Purgatory in England

Description: It is not the purpose of this dissertation to present a history of Purgatory; rather, it is to show through the history the influence of purgatorial doctrine on the English lay community and the need of that community for this doctrine. Having established the importance this doctrine held for so many in England, with an examination of the chantry institution in England, this study then examines how this doctrine was stripped away from the laity by political and religious reformers during the… more
Date: August 2010
Creator: Machen, Chase E.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Evolution, Not Revolution: The Effect of New Deal Legislation on Industrial Growth and Union Development in Dallas, Texas

Description: The New Deal legislation of the 1930s would threaten Dallas' peaceful industrial appearance. In fact, New Deal programs and legislation did have an effect on the city, albeit an unbalanced mixture of positive and negative outcomes characterized by frustrated workers and industrial intimidation. To summarize, the New Deal did not bring a revolution, but it did continue an evolutionary change for reform. This dissertation investigated several issues pertaining to the development of the textile in… more
Date: August 2010
Creator: Welch, M. Courtney
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Soldier Boys of Texas: The Seventh Texas Infantry in World War I

Description: 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 Regi… more
Date: August 2010
Creator: Ball, Gregory W.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Southern Promise and Necessity: Texas, Regional Identity, and the National Woman Suffrage Movement, 1868-1920

Description: 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 natio… more
Date: August 2010
Creator: Brannon-Wranosky, Jessica S.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Culture and Self-Representation in the Este Court: Ercole Strozzi's Funeral Elegy of Eleonora of Aragon, a Text, Translation, and Commentary.

Description: 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 Ferr… more
Date: December 2010
Creator: Cassella, Dean Marcel
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Masters No More: Abolition and Texas Planters, 1860-1890

Description: This dissertation is a study of the effects of the abolition of slavery on the economic and political elite of six Texas counties between 1860 and 1890. It focuses on Austin, Brazoria, Colorado, Fort Bend, Matagorda, and Wharton Counties. These areas contain the overwhelming majority of Stephen F. Austin's "Old Three Hundred," the original American settlers of Texas. In addition to being the oldest settled region, these counties contained many of the wealthiest slaveholders within the state. Th… more
Date: December 2010
Creator: Ivan, Adrien D.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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White Creole Women in the British West Indies: From Stereotype to Caricature

Description: Many researchers of gender studies and colonial history ignore the lives of European women in the British West Indies. The scarcity of written information combined with preconceived notions about the character of the women inhabiting the islands make this the "final frontier" in colonial studies on women. Over the long eighteenth century, travel literature by men reduced creole white women to a stereotype that endured in literature and visual representations. The writings of female authors, who… more
Date: December 2010
Creator: Northrop, Chloe Aubra
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Cattle Capitol: Misrepresented Environments, Nineteenth Century Symbols of Power, and the Construction of the Texas State House, 1879-1888

Description: State officials, between 1882 and 1888, exchanged three million acres of Texas Panhandle property for construction of the monumental Capitol that continues to house Texas government today. The project and the land went to a Chicago syndicate led by men influential in business and politics. The red granite Austin State House is a recognizable symbol of Texas around the world. So too, the massive tract given in exchange for the building, what became the "fabulous" XIT Ranch, also has come to symb… more
Date: May 2011
Creator: Miller, Michael M.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Jacques-Antoine-Hippolyte, comte de Guibert: Father of the Grande Armée

Description: 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 th… more
Date: May 2011
Creator: Abel, Jonathan, 1985-
Partner: UNT Libraries
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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
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Portrait of a southern Progressive: The political life and times of Governor Pat M. Neff of Texas, 1871-1952

Description: Pat M. Neff was a product of his political place and time. Born in Texas in 1871, during Reconstruction, he matured and prospered while his native state did the same as it transitioned from Old South to New South. Neff spent most of his life in Waco, a town that combined New South Progressivism with religious conservatism. This duality was reflected in Neff's own personality. On moral or religious issues, he was conservative. On economic and social issues, he was Progressive. He thus was a typi… more
Date: May 2011
Creator: Stanley, Mark
Partner: UNT Libraries
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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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Southern Attitudes Toward the West, 1783 to 1803

Description: This dissertation argues that the strong relationship that historians see between the South and West in the early 19th century, which allowed them to form what scholars have termed the Old South, had its origins in the twenty-year period after the American Revolution when a group of far-sighted southerners worked to form a political bond between the two regions. They did so by tirelessly defending the West and westerners against political and economic attacks, often from northerners but someti… more
Date: May 2011
Creator: Zemler, Jeffrey Allen
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

War by Other Means - the Development of United States Army Military Government Doctrine in the World Wars

Description: Occupation operations are some of the most resource and planning intensive military undertakings in modern combat. The United States Army has a long tradition of conducting military government operations, stretching back to the Revolutionary War. Yet the emergence of military government operational doctrine was a relatively new development for the United States Army. During the World Wars, the Army reluctantly embraced civil administration responsibilities as a pragmatic reaction to the realiti… more
Date: May 2011
Creator: Musick, David C.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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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
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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
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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
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“Campaigns Replete with Instruction”: Garnet Wolseley’s Civil War Observations and Their Effect on British Senior Staff College Training Prior to the Great War

Description: 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. Ind… more
Date: August 2011
Creator: Cohen, Bruce D.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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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
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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
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The “Dallas Way” in the Gayborhood: The Creation of a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community in Dallas, Texas, 1965-1986

Description: This thesis describes the creation of the gay and lesbian community in Dallas, the fourth largest metropolitan area in the United States. Employing more than seventy-five sources, this work chronicles the important contributions the gay men and lesbians of Dallas have made in the struggle for gay civil rights. This thesis adds to the studies of gay and lesbian history by focusing on a region of the United States that has been underrepresented, the South. In addition, this work addresses the … more
Date: August 2011
Creator: Wisely, Karen S.
Partner: UNT Libraries
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