This study discusses how motion picture spectatorship practices in Brooklyn developed separately from that of any other urban center in the United States between 1893 and 1928. Often overshadowed by Manhattan's glamorous cultural districts, Brooklyn's cultural arbiters adopted the motion picture as a means of asserting a sense of independence from the other New York boroughs. This argument is reinforced by focusing on the motion picture's ascendancy as one of the first forms of mass entertainment to be disseminated throughout New York City in congruence with the Borough of Brooklyn's rapid urbanization. In many significant areas Brooklyn's relationship with the motion picture was largely unique from anywhere else in New York. These differences are best illuminated through several key examples ranging from the manner in which Brooklyn's political and religious authorities enforced film censorship to discussing how the motion picture was exhibited and the way theaters proliferated throughout the borough Lastly this work will address the ways in which members of the Brooklyn community influenced the production practices of the films made at several Brooklyn-based film studios. Ultimately this work sets out to explain how an independent community was able to determine its own form of cultural expression through its relationship with mass entertainment.

This thesis examines the class appeal of Marcus Garvey's propaganda and his relationship with the black American left through the end of his movement's formative years to reveal aspects of his political thought that are not entirely represented in the historiography. Although several historians have addressed Garvey's affiliation with the black American left there has not yet been a consummate study on the nature of that relationship. This study examines the class element of Garvey's propaganda from his formative years through his radical phase, tracing the evolution of his ideas and attributing factors to those changes. Garvey influenced and was influenced by the labor movement and the class appeal of his propaganda was much stronger than historians have allowed. Garvey ultimately distanced himself and his program from the left for a number of reasons. The United States Justice Department's campaign to infiltrate his organization and remove him at the height of the Red Scare caused him to distance his program from the left. Since Garvey was pragmatic, not ideologically driven, and economic theory was secondary to black autonomy in his philosophy, increased criticism from former associates in the black American left, coupled with his exclusion from African-American intelligentsia, impacted his decision to embrace an alternative program. During the final years of his radical phase Garvey's ideas, program and relationships were impacted by a collision of the personal and political in his world. Understanding the complexity of Garvey's evolving ideology, and looking at the causes for those changes, are crucial to the study of the movement and its impact.

This study examines in depth the most common interpretation of the opening of the Third Seminole War (1855-1858). The interpretation in question was authored almost thirty years after the beginning of the war, and it alleges that the destruction of a Seminole banana plant garden by United States soldiers was the direct cause of the conflict. This study analyzes the available primary records as well as traces the entire historiography of the Third Seminole War in order to ascertain how and why the banana garden account has had such an impactful and long-lasting effect. Based on available evidence, it is clear that the lack of fully contextualized primary records, combined with the failure of historians to deviate from or challenge previous scholarship, has led to a persistent reliance on the banana garden interpretation that continues to the present. Despite the highly questionable and problematic nature of this account, it has dominated the historiography on the topic and is found is almost every written source that addresses the beginning of the Third Seminole War. This thesis refutes the validity of the banana garden interpretation, and in addition, provides alternative explanations for the Florida Seminoles' decision to wage war against the United States during the 1850s.

The 1920s represented a time of tension in America. Throughout the decade, marginalized groups created competing versions of a proper citizen. African-Americans sought to be included in the national fabric. Racism encouraged solidarity, but black Americans did not agree upon one method for coping with, and hopefully ending, antiblack racism. White women enjoyed new privileges and took on more roles in the public sphere. Reactionary groups like the Ku Klux Klan found these new voices unsettling and worrisome and celebrated a white, nativeborn, Protestant and male vision of the American citizen. Simultaneously, technological innovations allowed for advertising to flourish and spread homogenizing information regarding race, gender, values and consumption across the nation. These advertisements selectively represented these changes by channeling them into pre-existing prescriptive ideology. Mainstream ads, which were created by whites for white audiences, reinforced traditional ideas regarding black men and women and white women’s roles. Even if white women were featured using technology or wearing cosmetics, they were still featured in prescribed roles as housekeepers, wives and mothers who deferred to and relied on their husbands. Black women were featured in secondary roles, as servants or mammies, if at all. Concurrently, the black press created its own representations of women. Although these representations were complex and sometimes contradictory and had to reach multiple audiences, black-created ads featured women in a variety of roles, such as entertainers, mothers and business women, but never as mammies. Then, in a decade of increased tensions, white-created ads relied on traditional portrayals of women and African-Americans while black-designed ads offered more positive, although complicated, visions of womanhood.

This thesis examines the video game industry within the United States from the first game that was created in 1958 until the shift to Japanese dominance of the industry in 1985, and how white, middle class masculinity was reflected through the sphere of video gaming. The first section examines the projections of white, middle class masculinity in U.S. culture and how that affected the types of video games that the developers created. The second section examines reflections of this masculine culture that surrounded video gaming in the 1970s and 1980s in the developers, gamers, and the media, while demonstrating how the masculine realm of video gaming was constructed. Lastly, a shift occurred after the 1980 release of Pac-Man, which led to a larger number of women gamers and developers, as well as an industry that embraced a broader audience. It concludes with the crash of the video game industry within the United States in 1983, which allowed Japanese video game companies to gain dominance in video gaming worldwide instead of the U.S. companies, such as Atari.

The Caribbean countries have attracted increasing interest from students of American political history and the more their history is investigated, the more do we realize the growing significance of the role played by American capital in the development of their industries. The literature of tropical agriculture is coming to be more extensively available but until only recently has this subject received slight attention from our writers. The concentration of any attention on the fruit phase of tropical agriculture by American students of history and economics has been nearly wholly lacking, as well as receiving only scant attention from writers not connected with interests having financial investments in the Caribbean. The American people have every reason to be more actively interested in tropical agriculture, and the general public should familiarize itself more intimately with the tropical fruits that are now fast becoming a staple food for every American household.

This thesis explores the role of Chinese historical digital games in reconstructing historical narratives and engaging players. By using narrative interviews and game analysis, the study examines how players interact with these games and how game communities react to them. The emotional attachment of players to historical elements in these games is identified, which can lead to harmful disputes, but also foster tolerance, empathy, and inspiration. The study reveals the potential of historical digital games to encourage civic responsibility and reflection on social issues, but also highlights the challenges posed by restricted artistic expression and game content censorship in China. The research concludes that historical digital games can serve as a unique form of historical narrative that not only ensures the survival of history in popular culture but also fosters a more ideal and attractive future. The study calls for further research on specific games to fully understand the potential of Chinese historical digital games in promoting critical thinking and civic responsibility.

[pt] As narrativas do corredor de fazendas históricas no Vale do Paraíba fluminense convidam o visitante a recordar o passado da região pelo prisma da opulência e refinamento dos barões de café oitocentistas. A violenta escravidão que moldou a sociedade (de ontem e de hoje) surge apenas como pano de fundo nestes espaços, os quais encontram nas representações do passado a sua potência. Estas atrações turísticas selecionam, preservam e institucionalizam lugares de memória, transformando as fazendas em uma versão estetizada da continuidade entre o passado e o presente. Procuramos analisar estes espaços como campo de negociação e disputa de significados, memórias e identidades. Entendemos que as fazendas do Vale do Paraíba fluminense não caracterizam casos isolados, e sim são parte de um contexto mais amplo, no qual estão em jogo representações sociais e luta por direitos civis após a abolição da escravidão em países marcados pela diáspora. Guardadas diferenças geográficas, econômicas, linguísticas e culturais, o circuito de fazendas históricas da US Route 61, no Vale do Mississippi, nos Estados Unidos, deixa entrever processos semelhantes, vividos de diferentes formas, mas que respondem na atualidade a questões próximas, especialmente no que tange ao enfrentamento de desigualdades raciais. A partir de materiais de divulgação, do registro visual das fazendas, de reportagens de jornais e de entrevistas com pessoas envolvidas nos circuitos, procura-se compreender como estes espaços organizam, reconhecem e experimentam o passado escravista e o presente em que desigualdades raciais e demandas por reparação permanecem vivas. Se o ponto de partida é a fazenda, o de chegada é o racismo e seus enfrentamentos. / [en] The narratives of the historic plantations tours in the Vale do Paraíba (known as the Coffee Valley), in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, invite the tourist to recall the past through the prism of the opulence and refinement of the coffee barons of the 19th century. The erasure and containment of all the barbarity typical of the plantation system diminish the horror of enslavement in order to select those memories that find their symbolic power in the nostalgic touristic gaze. These plantations select, preserve and institutionalize places of memory, turning themselves into an aestheticized version of the continuity between past and present. This thesis examines how this gaze for the idyllic plantation poses a set of obstacles to a deeper understanding of the entangled narratives of the past. Note that the Brazilian plantations route is not an isolated case; it s part of a broader context, in which the struggle for civil rights in countries marked by slavery is at stake. Geographical, economic, linguistic and cultural differences aside, the historic plantations tours along the Mississippi River Valley, in the United States, allows us to glimpse similar processes, experienced in different ways. Based on promotional materials, plantations photographs, newspapers and interviews with people involved in these initiatives, we attempt to understand how these spaces shape the slavery past memories in countries where racial inequalities and demands for reparation remain alive. By comparing the plantations narratives of slavery in both countries of Atlantic World, we disclosure disputes, itineraries and strategies of social representations and black resistance. If the starting point is the plantation, the finish line is the racism and its confrontations.

While it is true that historic cemeteries are places that contain a wealth of knowledge about the history of a community they are sometimes not well maintained. The information within can be lost as grave-markers are damaged either by natural causes or human interaction. In larger cemeteries preserving these significant places can sometimes be difficult due to a number of different factors. Therefore focusing preservation efforts on specific locations where damage is more likely to occur is crucial to ensure that the monuments that are the most at risk are preserved. One possible way of accomplishing this is through the utilization of a geographic information system (GIS) to determine the shortest distance path an individual may take to reach a specific grave-marker. This can be accomplished by conducting a near analysis between an origin point and every grave-marker. These paths would also show each grave-marker that an individual passes indicating the potential for purposeful or accidental interaction. With this information efforts such as photogrammetry can be applied effectively for digital heritage preservation. Such methods would permit individuals to manipulate three-dimensional representations of grave-markers in order to preserve a large portion of the information it contains.

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