Master of Arts / Department of History / Charles W. Sanders / On June 3, 1825, William Clark, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, and eleven representatives of the “Kanzas” nation signed a treaty ceding their lands to the United States. The first to sign was “Nom-pa-wa-rah,” the overall Kansa leader, better known as White Plume. His participation illustrated the racial chasm that had opened between Native- and Anglo- American worlds. The treaty was designed to ease pressures of proximity in Missouri and relocate multiple nations West of the Mississippi, where they believed they would finally be beyond the American lust for land. White Plume knew different. Through experience with U.S. Indian policy, he understood that land cessions only restarted a cycle of events culminating in more land cessions. His identity as a mixed-blood, by virtue of the Indian-white ancestry of many of his family, opened opportunities for that experience. Thus, he attempted in 1825 to use U.S. laws and relationships with officials such as William Clark to protect the future of the Kansa. The treaty was a cession of land to satisfy conflicts, but also a guarantee of reserved land, and significantly, of a “halfbreed” tract for mixed-blood members of the Kansa Nation. Mixed-blood go-betweens stood for a final few moments astride a widening chasm between Anglo-American and native worlds. It was a space that less than a century before offered numerous opportunities for mixed-blood people to thrive as intermediaries, brokers, traders, and diplomats. They appeared, albeit subtly, in interactions wherever white and Native worlds overlapped. As American Indians lost their economic viability and eventually their land, that overlap disappeared. White Plume’s negotiation of a reserve for his descendants is telling of a group left without a place. In bridging the two worlds, mixed-bloods became a group that by the mid-nineteenth century was defined as “other” by Anglo-American and Indians alike. This study is the first to track these evolving racial constructs and roles over both time and place. Previous studies have examined mixed-blood roles, but their identity is portrayed as static. This study contends that their roles changed with the proximity and viability of full-blood communities with which white officials had to negotiate.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of History / Donald Mrozek / Both Presidents Johnson and Nixon used the ideology of military containment of Communism to justify U.S. military intervention in Vietnam. Until 1968, opponents of this intervention attacked the ideology of containment or its application to Vietnam. In 1968, opponents of the war switched tactics and began to focus instead on the President’s credibility. These arguments quickly became the dominant critique of the war through its end and were ultimately successful in ending it. The Gulf of Tonkin incident and the Tonkin Gulf Resolution were central to the change of opposition strategy in 1968. For Johnson, the Gulf of Tonkin incident had provided the political impetus to pass the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which the administration used as an insurance policy against Congressional dissent. For Congressional dissenters in 1968, inconsistencies in Johnson’s version of the Gulf of Tonkin incident allowed them to undermine the Resolution as a weapon against Congress. For the American people, revelations about the administration’s dishonesty during the incident simply added to grave doubts that Americans already had about Johnson’s credibility; the American people lost confidence in Johnson, ending his Presidency. The dramatic success of this new strategy—attacking the administration’s credibility—encouraged other opponents to follow suit, permanently altering the framework of debate over the war. This change in opposition strategy in 1968 had a number of important consequences. First, this change in rhetoric ultimately ended the war. To sustain his credibility against relentless attack, President Nixon repeatedly withdrew troops to prove to the American people he was ending the war. Nixon ran out of troops to withdraw and had to accept an unfavorable peace. Second, after the war, this framework for debate of military interventions established—between advocates using the ideology of containment and opponents attacking the administration’s credibility—would reemerge nearly every time an administration contemplated military intervention through the end of the Cold War. Finally, because opponents of military intervention stopped challenging containment in 1968, the American public continued to accept the precepts of containment and the Cold War consensus survived until the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.

Master of Arts / Department of History / Donald J. Mrozek / In the 1960s, modernization theory became an important analytical tool to conceptualize change in the Third World. As opposed to rebuilding societies that had already attained industrialization as was done with the Marshall Plan, modernization theorists focused on creating a total theory that encapsulated the entire arc of development from a traditional agricultural society to a modern industrial society. Aware that a colonial relationship subordinating nations on the periphery to the West was impossible, modernization theorists sought to create an amicable bond based on consent. Modernization theory served as the underlying logic of the Alliance for Progress, Peace Corps, and the Strategic Hamlet Program in Vietnam. This thesis argues that although modernization theory certainly had novel aspects, notably its social and psychological elements, much of the theory simply consisted of the coalesced logic, assumptions, and methods acquired from three previous American experiences with development, particularly the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), Point Four Program, and occupation of Japan after World War II. I argue that thought concerning development from the 1930s through the 1960s should be seen as a continuum rather than view modernization theory in the 1950s and 1960s as completely novel. Modernization theorists both intentionally and unknowingly incorporated into modernization theory the logic, assumptions, and methods developed in previous development schemes. Chapter Two examines how the democratic decentralized structure of the TVA became embedded in post-World War II thought about development as an alternative to communist models of development. The chapter also explores TVA director David Lilienthal’s and modernization theorists’ emphasis on technology as both harbingers of modernization and evidence of modernity. Chapter Three investigates how Chester Bowles, the director of the Point Four Program in India, and modernization theorists used Keynesian economics in their development model, arguing that modernization could be induced by government spending in agriculture, education, infrastructure, and health and sanitation. Chapter Three also explores how Bowles and modernization theorists used an evolutionary theory of development derived from America’s past to guide their development in the Third World. Chapter Four examines the similarity between what officials of the Japanese occupation and modernization theorists considered traditional and modern. The chapter also explains that both groups believed in the universal applicability of the principles of American society.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of History / Sue Zschoche / Despite an impressive history of woman-friendly legislation, Kansans tend to be socially conservative. The Equal Rights Amendment, first proposed in 1923, was the culmination of over a century's worth of women's activism attempting to remove the strictures of coverture and to recognize women as citizens in their own right, not as wives or as mothers of male citizens. After largely ignoring the amendment for fifty years, Congress finally passed the ERA in 1972 and submitted it to the states for ratification. Almost immediately, the real and imagined consequences of the legislation provoked a passionate debate among mostly middle-class white women about the meaning of American womanhood. Liberals hoped that the ERA would remove existing barriers to women's educational and professional life; conservatives feared that the ERA would cause women to focus on selfish interests outside of their households, rotting the foundations of family life and American strength. In Kansas, women from both camps converged to discuss the future of the ERA at the feminist-organized Kansas Women's Weekend of July 15-17, 1977, resulting in Kansas sending a conservative faction to the federally funded National Women's Conference later that year. Conservatives failed to derail the convention's feminist agenda, nor were they able to enact a rescission of Kansas' ratification, but in the long run they succeeded in creating widespread uneasiness about the social consequences of the ERA. The vitriolic anti-ERA campaign demonstrated the extent to which female dependency still defined both male and female conservatives' views on the interrelatedness of family, religion, manliness, and national strength. This dissertation explores a volume of letters to Kansas legislators expressing anti-ERA sentiment. The letters provide a unique lens through which to examine the passions aroused by the ERA among grassroots conservatives. Contextualizing this issue are other conservative reactions to feminist activity from the Revolution onward that consistently demonstrate how conservatives valorize female dependency. Although the liberal position regarding women's rights has changed significantly over two hundred years, conservative reaction has invariably embraced and elevated the patriarchal family as proper and necessary to the smooth functioning of a Christian republic.

Master of Arts / Department of History / Louise A. Breen / The land west of the Alleghany Mountains and along the Ohio River and Great Lakes was an area of hotly contested land and sovereignty claims during the colonial period, complete with shifting loyalties and highly factionalized alliances. Warfare and diplomacy in the western territories often hinged on the actions of just one man or a small group of people, with consequences that could cause the collapse of entire empires. The long-standing battle for land and power throughout the Ohio Valley has been called the Long War because once conflict began between the French, British, and Indians in 1754, no one power was truly able to claim the land and its people until the British were forced out of their Great Lakes forts in 1815. George Rogers Clark uniquely united these groups for a short moment in history. A feat made all the more impressive when we consider how long the region remained contested ground between empires. These factions united only once prior the era of American control. During the expedition of George Rogers Clark in 1778, backcountry settlers, French habitants, Indian chiefs, and Spanish officials all united during a small window of time to overthrow British control of the Illinois Country. He moved freely from the top political circles of Virginia to the remote frontier outposts of the Illinois Country. This thesis argues that George Rogers Clark was especially successful at gaining the cooperation of diverse groups of populations and coordinating those groups to work together towards his own goals. Clark certainly owes part of his success to being the right man in the right place at the right time, but it must be remembered that he was the only man to ever bring all of these factionalized groups together.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of History / Mark P. Parillo / The Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line, a key program under President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “New Look” policy, prepared the United States defense posture for “the long haul” in the Cold War. Eisenhower wanted to prevent the escalation of military costs while still providing an adequate defense. Eisenhower emphasized a retaliatory capability and improved continental defenses, the so-called “sword and shield,” which are key features of the New Look. The DEW Line would prove to be a vital component of both. Whereas the initial emphasis of the DEW Line was to warn against attack providing for both active and passive defense measures, soon there was a definite “counter-offensive” role for the DEW Line as well—the protection of the primary retaliatory capability of the United States: the Strategic Air Command (SAC). The place of the DEW Line in the history of the Cold War has been an under appreciated topic. With the exception of the scholarship from the 1950s and early 1960s, only recently have continental defense and particularly the DEW Line been removed from the shadows of other Cold War events, strategies, and military programs. This doctoral thesis is an account of the DEW Line’s conception, implementation, and position in Eisenhower’s New Look and deterrent strategy. The DEW Line proved to be a cardinal feature of Eisenhower’s New Look strategy: it strengthened overall U.S. defenses and defense posture as the one element of U.S. defense policy (“New Look”) that improved and connected both the active and passive measures of continental defense by providing early warning against manned bombers flying over the polar region; it bolstered the deterrent value of SAC; and it was instrumental in developing closer peacetime military cooperation between the United States and Canada. In fact, U.S.- Canadian diplomacy during the 1950s offers an important case study in “superpowermiddle power” interaction. However, despite the asymmetry in their relationship, U.S.- Canadian defense policies proved to be analogous. All of these objectives could not have been accomplished without the technological and logistical abilities necessary to construct successfully the DEW Line.

Master of Arts / Department of Communication Studies, Theatre, and Dance / Charles J. Griffin / This rhetorical history study attempts to refocus the narrow debate on the concept of the “Separation of Church and State.” Most scholars and popular organizations primarily focus their determination of the original intent of the Establishment Clause on the views of James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Virginia. However, according to the United States Constitution it takes three-fourths of the states and two-thirds of Congress to ratify an amendment. As a result, most arguments on this topic center on an extremely small minority of evidence: one of fourteen states, and only one of eighty-one members of Congress to determine the Founders’ original intent. This study reverses this trend and consults evidence from all the states involved as well as the records of Congress. Since comparable documents are vital to understanding history, all the state constitutions, state bills of rights, and state proposed amendments to the Federal Constitution are consulted as evidence at the beginning of this study. Additionally, every reference of religion in the above documents are individually presented in order to alleviate concerns of potential evidence manipulation. Further, the debates in Congress and the multiple drafts of the Establishment Clause are evaluated in the process of determining the Founders’ original intent. Throughout the study, several useful tables have been constructed in order to facilitate the processing and evaluation of such a large base of evidence. The results of this study indicate a lack of evidence for the contemporary view that the Founders’ intent was to create a total separation between church and state. From the specific religious concerns voiced in the state ratification debates of the Constitution, what religious limits were written into state constitutions/bills of rights, and the amendments that states proposed concerning religion; it becomes evident that the Founders’ intention was only to prevent a particular Christian denomination from becoming the established "National American Church.”

Dans le New York underground des années 1940, la Beat Generation gagne son nom, de même que son étoffe contreculturelle, grâce à l’union entre la quête littéraire d’avant-garde et l’art de vivre anticonformiste que concrétisent spontanément ses inspirateurs. La sensibilité revendiquée par les beats de la première heure, soit leur volonté de libération spirituelle, se forge au milieu de l’American Century, entre le péril nucléaire de la guerre froide et l’effervescence hipster exaltée par le jazz. Pourtant, une décennie après cet épisode marginal aboutissant aux publications de Howl and Other Poems (1956) par Allen Ginsberg et de On the Road (1957) par Jack Kerouac, une nouvelle figure sociale entre dans l’orbite de la Beat Generation : le beatnik. Créé par un journaliste, le néologisme reflète les stéréotypes prêtés au mouvement, sitôt subjugué aux forces de la société de consommation. Le mémoire a pour sujet l’entrée de cette contreculture au sein de la culture de masse, tout en signalant le rôle clé qu’y occupe la presse écrite. Par-delà l’implacabilité proverbiale des critiques que relève l’historiographie, la présente étude soutient que les journaux et les magazines, en ouvrant le champ des représentations associées à la Beat Generation, participent à l’avènement du beatnik, réverbéré dans les autres médias. Au terme de l’analyse, la contreculture se comprend tant par ses idées fondatrices que par la pression qu’exerce la culture de masse sur elle; la réunion de ces deux éléments antagoniques renforce l’importance historique de la Beat Generation comme mouvement social aux États-Unis. / In the New York underground scene of the 1940s, the Beat Generation earns its name as well as its countercultural essence thanks to the union between the avant-garde literary pursuit and the unconventional lifestyle that its inspirers spontaneously create. The sensibility proclaimed by the Beats from the very beginning – their desire for spiritual liberation – builds up in the middle of the American Century, between the nuclear threat of the Cold War and the hipster activity exalted by jazz. Nevertheless, a decade after this period leading to the publication of Howl and Other Poems (1956) by Allen Ginsberg and of On the Road (1957) by Jack Kerouac, a new social figure enters the orbit of the Beat Generation : the Beatnik. Conceived by a journalist, the neologism reflects the stereotypes attributed to the movement, soon subdued by the forces of consumer society. This master’s thesis focuses on the insertion of counterculture into mass culture, while noting the key role played by the written press. Beyond the proverbial harshness of the critics acknowledged by the historiography, this study argues that newspapers and magazines, in opening the field of representations associated with the Beat Generation, participate in the arrival of the Beatnik, also echoed in other media. In the end, the meaning of counterculture depends on both its founding ideas and the pressure mass culture exerts on it; the junction of these two antagonistic elements reinforces the historical importance of the Beat Generation as a social movement in the United States.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of History / James E. Sherow / This dissertation contributes to the environmental, agricultural, and technological history of the modern United States by examining pesticide use and the debates surrounding them in the Great Plains from the 1940s to the 1980s. Specifically, it addresses the relationships among aerial sprayers, farmers, agriculturalists, and grassroots concepts of toxicity that emerged from mid-century technological and environmental changes. It argues that pesticides as well as a variety of weeds and insects actively transformed the tools, attitudes, and regulatory policies of their users. Historians of agricultural chemical use in America have focused on the political debates over DDT, the social activism against pesticides that Rachel Carson inspired with her best-selling book Silent Spring (1962), the growth in federal regulatory policy in the 1970s, and the contentious reactions by the chemical and agricultural industries. This study offers a new, ground-level history of pesticides by showing how aerial sprayers, farmers, and agriculturalists developed custom chemical applications and conceptualized toxicity as each related to the technological and environmental changes in the region. Drawing on multiple sources, including agricultural experiment station reports, scientific studies, government documents, farm journals, landowner and aerial spray pilot correspondence, and oral histories, this study explores how local producers changed with their chemicals, spray planes, and pests to develop an environmental ethos that understood toxicity as a synthetic and natural danger. Although opposition to pesticides became central to modern environmentalism, debates around pesticides‘ effectiveness and dangers did not come only from activists or government regulators. Beginning just after World War II, landowners and spray pilots in the fields and rural airstrips of the Great Plains took the hazards of agricultural chemicals seriously, critiquing how and why pesticides were used for decades after. By viewing chemicals, spray planes, and pests, as well as landowners, pilots, and agriculturalists as equal forces in the regional transformation of farming landscapes, this dissertation highlights a new history of pesticides, agriculture, and the environment. Farmers and custom applicators did not simply follow the economic goals of agribusiness. Nor did they dismiss the dangers of pesticides. Rather, they constructed their own standards of injury and environmental risk that stressed accuracy, regulation, and a reasonable certainty of safety—a result of the equally transformational influences of chemicals, pests, and the region. This study finally offers new insights into the creation of national chemical policy and the regulatory debates over pesticides during the 1960s and 1970s.

Master of Arts / Department of History / Donald J. Mrozek / On 16 January 1991, a coalition of nations led by the United States launched a series of air strikes against Iraq to force that country to withdraw from Kuwait. What followed was an intense aerial bombardment of Iraqi military and civilian infrastructure which lasted until 24 February when the coalition began a ground offensive. After four days of ground fighting Iraq withdrew from Kuwait. American pictorial print media created a historical interpretation of the 1991 Persian Gulf War in the sense that selected images were immediately published to a broad audience and these images provided an acceptable story of the war. Perceptions of an Air Campaign examines the cultural meanings of the air war and how these meanings took shape in the narrative pictorial print media produced. The narrative is intricately related to the legacy of the Vietnam War. For generations, Americans viewed contemporary war, politics, foreign affairs, and culture through their memories of the U.S. defeat in Vietnam. President George H.W. Bush guaranteed the U.S. public that the Gulf War was consciously being constructed to avoid a conflict similar to Vietnam. According to the president, the United States was going to war with enough resources for a swift and decisive victory, thereby avoiding the Vietnam pitfall of an open-ended conflict. Pictorial print media articulated a narrative displaying U.S. military strength and dominance that fulfilled Bush’s promise.