Search Results

open access

Federal Occupation and Administration of Texas, 1865-1870

Description: The scope of this study is limited to Federal military occupation during the five years from 1865 to 1870. Only the interior counties, where a dense Negro population required the exercise of political and social responsibilities, will be considered in detail. A line from Wise through Bosque, Travis, Wilson, Karnes, and Goliad Counties to the coastal town of Corpus Christi would roughly separate interior from frontier posts.
Date: August 1970
Creator: Shook, Robert W. (Robert Walter)
open access

Life of the Enlisted Soldier on the Western Frontier, 1815-1845

Description: In contrast to the relatively rapid changes occurring in the modern American army, the period between the end of the War of 1812 and the beginning of the Mexican War offers a definite period for a study of military life when reform came slowly. During the period of study, leaders made few attempts to reform the general structure of the military institution as a social system. On the other hand, many changes can be discerned which improved weaponry and equipment, tactics, supply and administrati… more
Date: August 1972
Creator: Graham, Stanley Silton, 1927-
open access

Slavery, Fear, and Disunion in the Lone Star State: Texans' Attitudes toward Secession and the Union, 1846-1861

Description: This work is a study of white Texans' attitudes toward their role in the federal Union and their right to secede from it during the antebellum period. The central question of the study is why did people so strongly Unionist in 1846 became so strongly secessionist by 1861. In tracing this significant shift in Texans' sentiment, the author especially emphasizes the racial attitudes of white Texans, their emotional defense of the institution of slavery, and their strong conviction that the Negroes… more
Date: August 1972
Creator: Ledbetter, Billy D.
open access

The United States and Irish Neutrality, 1939-1945

Description: During the second world war relations between the United States and Ireland deteriorated to the point that many Irishmen feared that an American invasion of Ireland was imminent. At the same time many people in the United States came to believe that the Irish government of Eamon de Valera was pro-Nazi, This study examines the causes for the deterioration of relations between the two countries and the actual attitudes of David Gray, the United States minister to Ireland, and other American offic… more
Date: August 1973
Creator: Dwyer, Thomas Ryle, 1944-
open access

Schools and Schoolmen: Chapters in Texas Education, 1870-1900

Description: This study examines neglected aspects of the educational history of Texas. Although much emphasis has been placed on the western, frontier aspects of the state in the years after Appomattox, this study assumes that Texas remained primarily a southern state until 1900, and its economic, political, social, and educational development followed the patterns of the other ex-Confederate states as outlined by C. Vann Woodward in his Origins of the New South. This study of the educational history of Te… more
Date: May 1974
Creator: Smith, Stewart D.
open access

The West Gulf Blockade, 1861-1865: An Evaluation

Description: This investigation resulted from a pilot research paper prepared in conjunction with a graduate course on the Civil War. This study suggested that the Federal blockade of the Confederacy may not have contributed significantly to its defeat. Traditionally, historians had assumed that the Union's Anaconda Plan had effectively strangled the Confederacy. Recent studies which compared the statistics of ships captured to successful infractions of the blockade had somewhat revised these views. While … more
Date: May 1974
Creator: Glover, Robert W.
open access

Charlotte Perkins Gilman: A Humanist Approach to Feminism

Description: Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935), writer and lecturer, provided philosophical guidance to the feminist movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, During a career spanning the years 1890 to 1935 she published eleven books, wrote articles for popular magazines, and lectured throughout the United States and Europe. Between 1909 and 1916 she wrote, edited, and published a monthly magazine entitled The Forerunner. Gilman's efforts dealt primarily with the status of women, but… more
Date: December 1976
Creator: Potts, Helen Jo
open access

The Origins and Development of Black Religious Colleges in East Texas

Description: This work is a study of the origins, development, and contributions of the black religious colleges of East Texas. The central purpose of the study is to reexamine the role Wiley, Bishop, Texas, and Jarvis colleges have played in black higher education. Although prior to 1960 most studies of Negro institutions of higher education described such schools as total failures in their effort to uplift American Negroes, since that time many scholars have published works which pointed up the achievemen… more
Date: December 1976
Creator: Thompson, Lloyd K.
open access

An Appeal to Reason: Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and Whig Presidential Politics, 1836-1848

Description: American politics from 1832 to 1848 underwent a profound transformation. Whereas in the early years of the republic politics had been based on deference and elitism, by the early 1830's a definite change in the political arena had occurred. With the coming of the "Age of Jackson, " the political rules and styles of the older era began to change. The politics of deference began to give way to the politics of "availability." Because this study is a discussion, examination, and analysis of Webster… more
Date: December 1977
Creator: Teague, William Joseph, 1941-
open access

Petroleum in Saudi-American Relations: The Formative Period, 1932-1948

Description: This dissertation is an examination of the American oil industry in Saudi Arabia and its influence on United States foreign policy. The study examines the Americans who went to Saudi Arabia, the effect of the oil companies on Saudi- American relations, and the American government's response to oil company actions. There is an attempt to answer such questions as: Did the oil companies exert pressure on the American government to influence governmental policy? How effective was this pressure? And… more
Date: August 1978
Creator: Nairab, Mohammad Mahmud
open access

American Prisoners in the Barbary Nations, 1784-1816

Description: Between 1784 and I8l6, all four Barbary nations had captured and enslaved Americans. Generally the pirates treated the imprisoned Americans harshly, but the aid the United States forwarded to them alleviated much of their suffering. During this period the prisoner issue played an important role in formulating American foreign policy in the Mediterranean because of America's keen commercial interest in that region and its benevolent attitude toward its own citizens. In return, those captive Amer… more
Date: May 1979
Creator: Wilson, Gary Edward
open access

The Politics of Expansion: Texas as an Issue in National Politics, 1819-1845

Description: The American movement to acquire the region known as Texas has "been the subject of countless monographs and journal articles. Although the literature on the Texas movement is voluminous, no historian has produced an interpretive synthesis based on that literature and the extant documentary sources. This work is intended "to fill that void "by offering speculative analysis as well as a chronological narrative on the total movement. The scope of this work is comprehensive. It traces the American… more
Date: May 1979
Creator: Saxon, Gerald D.
open access

Sam Rayburn: Trials of a Party Man

Description: Several books have been written about Sam Rayburn, but thus far there has been no attempt to analyze Rayburn's rise to power. No one has delved sufficiently into his political philosophy, his motivations, and his personal convictions regarding the pivotal events of the turbulent 1930s. This dissertation endeavors to fill that void by tracing the course of events which led Sam Rayburn to the speakership of the United States House of Representatives. It records his triumphs, his shortcomings, the… more
Date: May 1979
Creator: Daniel, Edward O.
open access

Portrait of an Age: The Political Career of Stephen W. Dorsey, 1868-1889

Description: This study traces the public life of Stephen Dorsey chronologically from his service in the Civil War to the end of his political career, which came with his failure to have a friend appointed governor of New Mexico Territory in 1889. Traditional interpretations of Dorsey are based on a combination of scant evidence, carpetbagger stereotypes, and the assumption that he was guilty of masterminding the monumental swindle of the Star Route Frauds. Closer examination of Dorsey's public life, howeve… more
Date: May 1980
Creator: Lowry, Sharon K.
open access

Economic Development in Texas During Reconstruction, 1865-1875

Description: The study challenges many traditional stereotypes of Texas during Reconstruction. Contrary to what Democrats charged, the Davis government did not levy exorbitant taxes. Radical taxes seemed high in comparison to antebellum taxes, because antebellum governments had financed operations with indemnity bonds, but they were not high in comparison to taxes in other states. Radical taxes constituted only 1.77 percent of the assessed value of property in Texas, which was lower than the average for the… more
Date: August 1980
Creator: Adams, Larry Earl
open access

United States Lend-Lease Policy in Latin America

Description: President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles began trying to make military matériel available to Latin America during the latter 1930s. Little progress was made until passage of the Lend-Lease Act in 1941 enabled Washington to furnish eighteen Latin American nations with about $493,000,000 worth of military assistance during World War II. This study, based primarily on State Department lend-lease decimal files in the National Archives and documents published in Fore… more
Date: December 1983
Creator: Yeilding, Thomas D. (Thomas David)
open access

The Muse of Fire: Liberty and War Songs as a Source of American History

Description: The development of American liberty and war songs from a few themes during the pre-Revolutionary period to a distinct form of American popular music in the Civil War period reflects the growth of many aspects of American culture and thought. This study therefore treats as historical documents the songs published in newspapers, broadsides, and songbooks during the period from 1765 to 1865. Chapter One briefly summarizes the development of American popular music before 1765 and provides other int… more
Date: August 1984
Creator: Bowman, Kent A. (Kent Adam), 1947-
open access

India's Nonalignment Policy and the American Response, 1947-1960

Description: India's nonalignment policy attracted the attention of many newly independent countries for it provided an alternative to the existing American and Russian views of the world. This dissertation is an examination of both India's nonalignment policy and the official American reaction to it during the Truman-Eisenhower years. Indian nonalignment should be defined as a policy of noncommitment towards rival power blocs adopted with a view of retaining freedom of action in international affairs and t… more
Date: May 1987
Creator: Georgekutty, Thadathil V. (Thadathil Varghese)
open access

Frontier Defense in Texas: 1861-1865

Description: The Texas Ranger tradition of over twenty-five years of frontier defense influenced the methods by which Texans provided for frontier defense, 1861-1865. The elements that guarded the Texas frontier during the war combined organizational policies that characterized previous Texas military experience and held the frontier together in marked contrast to its rapid collapse at the Confederacy's end. The first attempt to guard the Indian frontier during the Civil War was by the Texas Mounted Rifles,… more
Date: December 1987
Creator: Smith, David Paul, 1949-
open access

California-ko Ostatuak: a History of California's Basque Hotels

Description: The history of California's Basque boardinghouses, or ostatuak, is the subject of this dissertation. To date, scholarly literature on ethnic boardinghouses is minimal and even less has been written on the Basque "hotels" of the American West. As a result, conclusions in this study rely upon interviews, census records, local directories, early maps, and newspapers. The first Basque boardinghouses in the United States appeared in California in the decade following the gold rush and tended to be o… more
Date: May 1988
Creator: Echeverría, Jerónima, 1946-
open access

Farming Someone Else's Land: Farm Tenancy in the Texas Brazos River Valley, 1850-1880

Description: This dissertation develops and utilizes a methodology for combining data drawn from the manuscript census returns and the county tax rolls to study landless farmers during the period from 1850 until 1880 in three Texas Brazos River Valley counties: Fort Bend, Milam, and Palo Pinto. It focuses in particular on those landless farmers who appear to have had no option other than tenant farming. It concludes that there were such landless farmers throughout the period, although they were a relatively… more
Date: December 1988
Creator: Harper, Cecil
open access

A New Way of Statecraft: The Career of Elton Mayo and the Development of the Social Sciences in America, 1920-1940

Description: Considered "the father of the science of human relations," Elton Mayo was instrumental in the development of industrial psychology and sociology in America. The career of Elton Mayo and his attraction to influential figures like John D. Rockefeller, Jr., provide a chronological order and interpretive force to understand this development. Mayo's concern about human behavior in the modern industrial world and management's concern over the future of industrial relations, found common ground in th… more
Date: August 1992
Creator: Cullen, David O'Donald, 1951-
Back to Top of Screen