<p> This dissertation examines how West Indians utilized the conception of black internationalism&mdash;the idea that blacks across the world were part larger global community regardless of country of origin&mdash;to inform and give meaning to their struggles in Panama. West Indians were active participants in Marcus Garvey's international Pan-African organization, the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), and joined it in droves. Through participation in the UNIA and a strong belief in Garveyism, West Indians started schools and opened businesses to support the community, all the while envisioning themselves as part of a worldwide community of blacks. The dissertation also discusses how in the 1930s and 1940s black internationalism lost sway among West Indians due to shifting social and political contexts. As second generation West Indians&mdash;those born in Panama&mdash;came of age, they no longer embraced black internationalism. Second generation West Indians (or criollos) sought to integrate into Panamanian society by embracing Spanish and participating in national politics. The main tenets of black internationalism failed to resonant among criollos, who had a more internal and national focus than their parents. Still, race played a large role in criollo efforts to become part of Panamanian society. Criollos embraced their racial heritage and fought for consideration as both Panamanian and black. </p><p> This dissertation also offers the most in-depth look at the West Indian community in Panama to date, and foregrounds their history within the overall history of Panama. West Indians had a major influence on Panamanian history, most notably during the 1930s and 1940s when racist, anti-West Indian political parties and politicians rose to prominence. These politicians, most prominently Arnulfo Arias, pledged to expel West Indians from Panama. This dissertation offers a thorough overview of Panamanian history from 1920 to the 1940s, but it does so using the experience of West Indians as the jumping off point. </p>

<p> This dissertation addresses how Victorian class hierarchy persisted on the frontier, and manifested in aspects of military life at Fort Laramie, Wyoming. Historians have argued that Victorian culture was omnipresent, but forts were located on the frontier, which was removed from the cultural core. While social status differences were a central aspect of Victorian culture, few studies have investigated how resilient class divisions were in differing landscapes. The U.S. western frontier was a landscape of conflict, and under the continual stress of potential violence, it is possible that Victorian social status differences weakened. While status differences in the military were primarily signaled through rank insignia and uniforms, this research focuses on subtle everyday inequalities, such as diet and pet dogs. Three independent lines of evidence from Fort Laramie, Wyoming (1849&ndash;1890) suggest that Victorian social status differences did persist despite the location. The Rustic Hotel (1876&ndash;1890), a private hotel at Fort Laramie, served standardized Victorian hotel dishes, which could be found in urban upper-class hotels. Within the military, the upper-class officers dined on the best cuts of beef, hunted prestige game birds, and supplemented their diet with sauger/walleye fish. Enlisted men consumed poorer cuts of beef, hunted smaller game mammals, and caught catfish. Officers also owned well-bred hunting dogs, which were integrated into the family. In contrast, a company of enlisted men frequently adopted a communal mongrel as a pet. This project increases our knowledge of the everyday life on the frontier and social relationships between officers and enlisted men in the U.S. Army. It also contributes to a larger understanding of Victorian culture class differences in frontier regions.</p>

<p> The projects in this meditation focus on the importance of collaboration in public history. Using two different tools, both projects show a new way for understanding the histories of two diverse Louisiana American Indian communities. The project on the Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana is not a complete public history project, but it shows the progression of research and preliminary work needed for the pubic history aspect through an interactive map. The Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana exhibit highlights the importance of collaboration and consultation with the Tribe, which happened at nearly every step of the curation and development of the exhibit. Focusing on the inclusion of these communities, and those surrounding them, helped in the understanding of the audience for each of these projects, as well as the overall importance of consultation with the community or communities represented.</p>

<p> During the early twentieth century, Navajo lands were extensive and isolated. Traditional Navajo leadership was much more local, and it varied from clan to clan. The discovery of natural resources on Navajo lands in the 1920s led to the creation of the Navajo Tribal Council to negotiate leases with the federal government. Through the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), the federal government dominated the council. However, the reforms of the Indian New Deal and the urgency of World War II brought immense changes as many non-Navajo leaders left the BIA for important wartime positions within the federal government, and the Navajo Tribal Council became more independent. During this period the relationship between the council and federal government changed as the council was given greater autonomy in governing the tribe. This thesis examines the history of the council leading up to and during World War II. By comparing the home front of World War I to the home front of World War II, it argues that the council achieved greater self-determination during this period, something often downplayed by historians, and created a unique system of government distinctive only to Navajos. The leadership of the council in providing for the common defense, defining and protecting property rights, and assisting with the federal government in the creation of human service programs established solid reasons for continued autonomy after World War II.</p>

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University / This research is concerned with analysis of all men mentioned in seven fifth grade American history textbooks of recent publication and to ascertain if the twenty-one selected persons for the middle grades as recommended by the Committee on American History in Schools and Colleges have been given enough attention to develop their significance.

<p> This thesis is a public history project that contains a traditional paper, as well as an accompanying documentary. Both parts of this project examine the life and work of Louise Olivier, a cultural activist during the twentieth century, and examine how her activism continues to impact Louisiana through her preservation work and impact on others. In examining Olivier&rsquo;s work, through the traditional paper or documentary, one can see how her work influenced and helped create the next generation of cultural activists while also sparking the interest in traditional Louisiana Acadian customs and traditions. </p><p>

<p> Before the United States entered World War I, President Wilson and Congress established the Council of National Defense, August 29, 1916. Each state formed a State Council that oversaw the structure and organization of smaller county councils, community councils, women's committee, and black auxiliary councils. Scholarship focused on Arkansas State Council of Defense (ASCD) is scarce, but scholarship on Colored Auxiliary Council of Defense (CACD) for Arkansas is virtually nonexistent. </p><p> This digital history project, titled <i>The Arkansas Colored Auxiliary Council: Black Activism during World War I, 1917-1918</i>, explores the history of CACD, its formation, individuals involved, and some of its accomplishments. The goal of this project is to bring awareness to the CACD&rsquo;s mission, work, and members. Official reports submitted by Arkansas to the federal government omitted work accomplished by the Colored Auxiliary Council. This project highlights the contributions of black civilians and CACD in Arkansas during World War I.</p><p>

<p> While much of colonial California historiography includes detailed narratives of the mission Indian workers, very little is known regarding those Indians who moved from the missions to work on the large California ranchos and elsewhere. The stories of these Indian workers have often been ignored; further, the narratives which do exist contain some form of debt peonage to explain their working arrangement. This dissertation attempts to challenge these debt peonage theories and offer a more accurate account of the working arrangement that developed on the California rancho during the Mexican (1821&ndash;1848) and early American (1849&ndash;1880) periods. Employing important primary sources&mdash;including rancho account books, letters, court documents, census records, and probate inventories&mdash;this dissertation ventures to show that Indian labor arrangements on these ranchos were less repressive than previously presented. In addition, it reveals the misunderstood nature and importance of the rancho store to both the Rancho owners and their Indian workers.</p><p>

This thesis reassesses the significance of the prominent journalist and political thinker Walter Lippmann within the intellectual history of American democracy in the early twentieth century. It argues that he shaped this history more distinctively and more contingently than the existing scholarship allows. Contesting the elitist vision of technocratic government associated with him by scholars since the 1980s, the thesis contends that he became influential because his democratic theory provided his contemporaries with a demanding account of political culture. By combining the conceptual resources of liberal constitutionalism with social psychology, Lippmann developed a particular kind of democratic theory, which explained opinion formation through the political dynamics of existing cultural environments, and which animated a particular mode of political thought in the early twentieth century. This mode made him into one of the leading theorists of American democracy in the 1910s and especially the 1920s. It also exposed him to sustained criticism during the economic and international crises of the 1930s and 1940s. At stake in this mode were the possibilities and difficulties of explaining politics in a modern democracy through cultural concepts.

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