St. Augustine in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was a prosperous, multi-ethnic community that boasted trade connections throughout the Atlantic world. Shipping records demonstrate that St. Augustine had access to a wide variety of goods, giving residents choices in what they purchased, and allowing them to utilize their material possessions to display and reinforce their status. Likewise, their choice of residential design and location allowed them to make statements in regards to their place in the social order. St. Augustine was a unique city in the Spanish Empire; the realities of frontier living meant that inter-ethnic connection were common and often necessary for survival and social advancement. Inhabitants enjoyed a high degree of social mobility based on wealth rather than ethnicity or place of origin. Through entrepreneurship and hard work, many St. Augustinians took advantage of the city*s newfound prosperity and fluid social structure to better their economic and societal position. In sum, St. Augustine in the Second Spanish Period (1783-1821) was not a city in decay as the traditional historiography holds; rather, it was a vibrant community characterized by a frontier cosmopolitanism where genteel aspirations and local realities mixed to define the social order.

Nigeria’s petroleum industry is the lynchpin of its economy. While oil has been the source of immense wealth for the nation, that wealth has come at a cost. Nigeria’s main oilproducing region of the Niger River Delta has experienced tremendous environmental degradation as a result of decades of oil exploration and production. Although there have been numerous historical works on Nigeria’s oil industry, there have been no in-depth analyses of the historical roots of environmental degradation over the full range of time from the colonial period to the present. This thesis contends that the environmental degradation of Nigeria’s oil producing region of the Niger Delta is the direct result of the persistent non-implementation of regulatory policies by post-independence Nigerian governments working in collusion with oil multinationals. Additionally, the environmental neglect of Nigeria’s primary oil-producing region is directly traceable back to the time of colonial rule. Vital to this argument is the view that the British colonial state created the economic institutions which promoted Nigerian economic dependency after independence was achieved in 1960. The weakness of Nigeria’s post-colonial dependent system is exposed presently through the continued neglect of regulatory policies by successive post-colonial Nigerian governments.

This thesis illustrates how Pompey’s annexations and organizing of the eastern provinces for Rome were more pragmatic than imperialistic. Greek and Eastern specialists are used in order to give a better back story than the imperialist thesis offers in its reasoning for the annexations. By adding more detail from the Greek and Eastern perspective, other dimensions are opened that shed new light upon the subject of Pompey’s eastern settlements. Through this method, the pirate campaign and the annexation of Syria are greatly developed, especially in concern to changes in culture that Pompey’s settlements forced. The culture of piracy and banditry were curbed by the eastern annexations. In Syria the Greek settlements were revived and protected from the expansion of Arab and Jewish dynasts. Considering the annexation of Pontus, a more detailed analysis on the lex Pompeia and the new taxation system is developed, which questions parts of the imperialist thesis especially in regards to role of the publicani. Graeco-Roman cultural spread is also developed in the Pontus chapter to show some of Pompey’s motives. Previous works are expanded upon and synthesized into this work, the aim being to reconcile some of the arguments, concluding with the proposition that Pompey, his efforts, and his settlements, were more pragmatic than imperialistic

My thesis interrogates the role that the sense of smell plays in the experience of place, arguing that scent has been virtually ignored in public history contexts. The thesis will review the foundational scholarship on the history of the senses and relate the findings of interdisciplinary research that demonstrates how the senses alter one's understanding of the environment and even the formation of memories. This work is relevant to the field of public history since smell can be used to captivate the public in a memorable—and potentially more authentic—engagement with the Mesopotamian past. To address gaps in the present scholarship, I will create a blueprint for an exhibit space that will center around the olfactory experience of place. The reconstructions involved in the design will focus upon medicinal recipes used to treat a variety of ailments in northern Mesopotamia during the Neo-Assyrian period (ca. 9th to 7th centuries BCE). My historical investigations of the medical texts from Mesopotamia will focus upon the identification of ingredients, primarily botanical, with the goal being to recreate ancient remedies for the public to discover through scentscapes. The historical reconstructions will consider modern conceptualizations of socially constructed places, showing how embodied experiences can be better represented by historians and cultural heritage professionals.

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While scholarship in recent decades has begun investigating women's history, museums and historical sites have been slower to do so. Although house museums are more open to interpreting women's history, the histories present often remain limited to the family and the house. In this thesis, I argue that by exploring local archival collections for women's voices, house museums can improve their presentation of women's history. Specifically, I investigate connecting nursing history to upper middle class lifestyles through the Chew family at Cliveden, historical house museum. This paper begins by exploring three local Germantown sites to analyze how women are currently presented on the house tour. Next, I investigate the letters and records of two Chew women, Anne Sophia Penn Chew and Mary Johnson Brown Chew for health concerns, care giving, and the presence of hired nurses. I then explore early nursing training programs at collections housed at the Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing. Using the records of nursing training programs, including the Woman's Hospital, Presbyterian Hospital, and the Visiting Nurse Society of Philadelphia, connections are made between the new trend for educated nurses and upper middle class women and lifestyle, specifically the Chews. Based on my findings, I then propose a method to interpret nursing history on the current house tour at Cliveden. For sources, I especially rely on the documents of the Chew family housed the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. I also draw heavily on the various nursing program records at the Bates Center. / History

This thesis focuses on the interpretive possibilities of the tensions between slavery and the American Revolution that are present in cities that faced British occupation. The history of the occupation is an avenue to incorporate the history of black men and women alongside traditional narratives, which can compel visitors to apply lessons of the past to contemporary problems. By focusing on occupation, I propose that we can expand interpretations at historic sites where the history of the American Revolution is already interpreted for the public by centering on the stories of black men and women who had to decide between joining the British and escaping slavery or remaining enslaved. By surveying the current interpretation of the British occupation in the cities that were occupied, the current interpretation of slavery in these cities, and recent literature on best practices for the interpretation of slavery, this study makes a series of recommendations for Philadelphia’s small and large historic sites. By taking on the task of interpreting black lives during the occupation of the British, staff at such sites has the opportunity to expand its work to not only meaningfully expand African American history, but also expand our public understanding of the complicated meaning of liberty during the Revolution. / History

Connecting people to the past through thought-provoking interpretations is one of the chief aims of history museums. The submarine USS Becuna at the Independence Seaport Museum (ISM), however, has been without critical interpretation since its opening as a museum in 1976. In order to better fulfill its mission, the museum must interpret Becuna’s Cold War history. This project explores the Cold War though the history of the submarine’s service and the lives of the submariners. First by examining submarines during the early decades of the Cold War, this paper fills in the gaps in the historiography of this overlooked part of naval history and reveals the major transitions that the submarine fleet underwent during the 1940s and 1950s. Then, by studying cartoons drawn by the submariners and other naval personal, this paper showcases their unfiltered attitudes about Cold War Era military life. Analyzing the naval cartoons reveals a number of themes, including tensions between enlisted crew and officers, hyper-sexualization of women, and underlying racism. These themes allow us to understand the Navy’s culture during those years since they reflect accepted social norms. Finally, this thesis details how the interpretation of the cartoons along with the submarine’s Cold War history can be integrated into a new app-based tour on the USS Becuna so that visitors can explore and interact with this socially important and forgotten history. / History

This thesis explores the ways in which LGBTQ+ individuals in Philadelphia ascribe significance to various places based on oral history interviews and additional primary source material collected initially for the National Park Service Northeast Regional Office’s LGBTQ+ Heritage Initiative. By examining stories from LGBTQ+ individuals of places that matter most to them in Philadelphia, this thesis argues that historic preservationists can expand their definition of significance to include personal testimony and broaden their practices to better engage the communities whose histories they seek to preserve. / History

This thesis is a study of the intersection of public art and public history in Philadelphia. This project looks at Philadelphia based case studies to see how the intersection of public art and public history can bring in new audiences, act as a form of advertisement, and shape interactive experiences for visitors. Connecting to a body of literature that deals with the power of place, I ask in this study how public history in unexpected places has the power to bring in new audiences that may not have the chance or even want to visit a traditional history museum or historic site. How do these projects and programs serve a community? The study features the history of Art at the Airport, an international series of art exhibits and programs at major airports. Among these, the Philadelphia International Airport’s Art at the Airport program exhibits traditional and innovative art and regularly features historic content. Any airport today is a place of high stress, but surveys of airport visitors indicate that for some art has the ability to relieve anxieties. So what happens when public art and public history collide in this space? While studying Art at the Airport as an intern, I witnessed people who stopped, learned, and gained knowledge of history in a public setting without a book, a teacher, or tour guide. This study allows me to show the power of public history and public art. / History