<p> Examining the creation and peopling of the Consolidated Coal Company (CCC) company town Muchakinock, Iowa through the industrial labor migrations of Welsh, Swedes and African-American residents, this thesis focuses upon the social contestations between workers, owners and unions during four bituminous coal miners' strike incitement events in town history (1879&ndash;1900). Presenting some of the most comprehensive historical geography research to date on the company town of Muchakinock, the thesis presents eight claims for resident's strike resistance and ultimate capitulation and union affiliation; and the associated spread of capitalism and trade-unionism across Iowa's coal mining landscapes during the Gilded Age. Seeking a normalization of historical discourse, findings revealed the presence of conflicting discourses in existent historical communications content between predominantly white and African American historical communications content, and identified the emergence of a hegemonic discourse largely based on the representations of the former. More than just a micro-history of the relict company town of Muchakinock, Iowa, the thesis variously explores Muchakinock's wider network of connected geographies across Iowa terrains and the United States.</p>

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University.

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University

<p> This project considers how postwar American Jewish leaders representing a diverse range of ideological commitments, including Zionism, Yiddishism, and liberal Judaism used summer camps to expose children to their ideologies. In the years following World War II, American Jewish leaders anxiously debated how to preserve and produce what they considered authentic Jewish culture, fearing that upward mobility and suburbanization threatened the integrity of Jewish life in America as they knew it. While their newfound social and economic mobility had clear benefits, a diverse grouping of American Jews participated in a communal conversation over how these changes threatened the modes by which Jews had previously affiliated with Judaism and acted as Jews. Without intervention, some argued, &ldquo;authentic&rdquo; Jewish culture would disappear altogether. </p><p> In search of solutions, Jewish educators looked towards the residential sleep-away camp, hoping to construct lived experiences for the youngsters as tools to counteract assimilation, and expecting to mold the increasingly suburban, affluent American youth into ideologically-imbued Jews who espoused one variant or another of Jewish authenticity. Through the elements of camps&rsquo; programs and schedules, Jews with varied ideological, political, and religious perspectives shared nearly identical goals, and aimed to meet them through nearly identical means. With a multi-generational perspective, this project aims to portray both a history of Jewish postwar anxieties and struggles for cultural preservation, and a provide an example of how second and third generation Americans more broadly negotiated their culture, purpose, and future through the intensive molding of youth.</p><p>

<p> Isaiah Lukens of Horsham, Pennsylvania was a renowned mechanic of his age. Having apprenticed to his father Seneca Lukens, he set out from his provincial residence in 1811 to establish himself as clock- and watchmaker in Philadelphia, where he developed a greater understanding of the mechanical arts. In addition to his tall case clocks, Lukens&rsquo; various creations included tower clocks, most notably in the Pennsylvania State House in 1828; odometers; a model of Charles Redheffer&rsquo;s perpetual motion machine; and air rifles. During his travels to Europe, Lukens aided in the improvement of other medical instruments like the lithotripter. These inventions demonstrated his mechanical ingenuity, catapulting him to fame in Philadelphia&rsquo;s literary and scientific organizations, namely as Vice President of The Franklin Institute. </p><p> The graduate thesis explores the working life, craftsmanship, and scientific legacy of Isaiah Lukens in early nineteenth-century Philadelphia. It describes the tools, methods, and designs Lukens utilized in his clock commissions and how they encouraged him to partake in other scientific pursuits, thereby influencing the development of his mechanical inventions. The thesis also presents Lukens&rsquo; relationships with inventors and clockmakers like Joseph Saxton of Philadelphia, signifying Lukens&rsquo; prominence within Philadelphia&rsquo;s intellectual circles. Through the diversification of his clockmaking trade, Isaiah Lukens distinguishes himself from other Philadelphian artisans as a versatile machinist whose scientific contributions impacted America&rsquo;s preindustrial trades.</p><p>

<p> The Volga Germans assert a particular ethnic identity to articulate their complex history as a multinational community even in the absence of traditional practices in language, religious piety, and communal lifestyle. Across multiple migrations and settlements from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, the Volga Germans&rsquo; self-constructed group identity served historically as a tool with which to navigate uncertain politics of belonging. As subjects of imperial Russia&rsquo;s eighteenth-century colonization project the Volga Germans held a privileged legal status in accordance with their settlement in the Volga River region, but their subsequent loss of privileges under the reorganization and Russification of the modern Russian state in the nineteenth century compelled members of the group to immigrate to the Midwest in the United States where their distinct identity took its full form. The Volga Germans&rsquo; arrival on the Great Plains coincided with an era of mass global migration from 1846 to 1940, yet the conventional categories of immigrant identity that subsumed Volga Germans in archival records did not impede their drive for community preservation under a new unifying German-Russian identity. A contingent of Midwest Volga Germans migrated in 1881 to Albina, a railroad town across the Willamette River from Portland, Oregon where the pressures of assimilation ultimately disintegrated traditional ways of life&mdash;yet the community impulse to articulate its identity remained. Thus, while Germans are the single largest ethnic group in the U.S. today numbering forty-two million individuals, Portland&rsquo;s Volga German community nevertheless continues to distinguish itself ethnically through its nostalgia for a unique past.</p><p>

<p> This dissertation focuses on the relatively little-known and highly remote 18^th and 19^th century Russian colonies established in North America, attempts to gain a clearer vision of mostly undefined daily lifeways in the settlements via a search for traditional Russian behaviors, and weighs the impact of cultural isolation on those behaviors. In so doing, lessons-learned are considered as they apply to the enhancement of social justice in the isolated communities of the future, whether they be on this planet or beyond the gravitational pull of Earth.</p><p> Drawing upon a previously researched inventory of 18^th and 19^th century traditional Russian behaviors (which serves as a primary database for the study), two selected settlements are examined for possible traditional behavioral characteristics for Russian America as a whole. One of these is Novo-Arkhangel'sk (present-day Sitka, Alaska)&mdash;the colonial capital and Russian America's primary seaport&mdash;and the other is Kolmakovsky Redoubt, a small trading post located in the interior of Southwestern Alaska. The cultural isolation of each colony is made clear, as is the fact that Kolmakovsky Redoubt has been viewed as perhaps the most isolated community in all of Russia's North American possessions.</p><p> The research for this study has led to exciting results. A high percentage of traditional Russian behaviors found at each of the two sites was revealed to be in unmodified form, despite the settlements' cultural isolation from the motherland and resulting potential for acculturative activity. Specifically, out of 45 traditional behaviors identified for Novo-Arkhangel'sk, 41, or 91%, were seen to be unmodified; of the 25 traditional behaviors uncovered at Kolmakovsky Redoubt, 23, or 92%, were also determined to be unmodified. These high percentages are perhaps all the more surprising when one considers the potential of acculturative pressures surrounding the two Russian enclaves and emanating from indigenous Native societies.</p><p> The bottom line is that this study has opened a view of a part of Russian America not previously available, and endorses the use of the data retrieved for planning future isolated communities characterized by social justice-friendly environments.</p><p>

abstract: ABSTRACT Historians of Anglo-American diplomacy in the nineteenth century tend to focus on the beginning of the century, when tensions ran high, or the end, when the United States and Britain sowed the seeds that would grow into one of the most fruitful alliances of the twentieth century. This dissertation bridges the gap between the century's bookends. It employs world history methodology, giving close attention to how each nation's domestic politics and global priorities played a vital role in shaping bilateral relations. In this manner, it explains how two nations that repeatedly approached the brink of war actually shared remarkably similar visions of peace, free trade, and neutral rights throughout the world. A careful consideration of the shifting priorities of the British Empire demonstrates that London approached trans-Atlantic relations as merely one part of a worldwide strategy to preserve its prestige and economic ascendancy. Meanwhile, naval inferiority, sectional tensions, and cultural affinity ensured that American belligerence never crossed the threshold from bluster to military action. By examining a handful of diplomatic crises originating far from the centers of power in London and Washington, this study argues that disputes between the United States and Britain arose from disagreements regarding the proper means to achieve common ends. During nearly half a century between the Monroe Doctrine and the Treaty of Washington, the two countries reached a mutual understanding regarding the best ways to communicate, cooperate, and pursue common economic and geopolitical goals. Giving this period its due attention as the link between post-Revolutionary reconciliation and pre-World War I alliance promotes a more comprehensive understanding of Anglo-American rapprochement in the nineteenth century. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation History 2014

abstract: This dissertation examines the history of urban nightlife in New York City and San Francisco from 1890 to 1930 and charts the manifestation of modernity within these cities. While some urbanites tepidly embraced this new modern world, others resisted. Chafing at this seemingly unmoored world, some Americans fretted about one of the most visible effects of modernity on the city—the encroachment of sex onto the street and in commercial amusements—and sought to wield the power of the state to suppress it. Even those Americans who reveled in the new modern world grappled with what this shifting culture ultimately meant for their lives, seeking familiarity where they could find it. Thus, this dissertation details how both Americans who embraced the modern world and those who perceived it as a threatening menace similarly sought a mediated modernity, seeking out and organizing spaces within modern amusements that ultimately reinforced existing cultural hierarchies. Using the lens of spatial analysis, this dissertation examines how different groups of Americans used the spaces of nighttime amusement to interrogate how nightlife culture reflected and reinforced dynamics of power in a historical moment when social movements seemed to be upending existing power structures of race, class, and gender. Pioneering works in the field of the history of popular amusements tend to frame the experience of commercial amusements—and by extension modern life—as a liberating force lifting Americans from the staid traditions of the nineteenth century. But this dissertation charts the way Americans sought to moderate the effects of modern life, even as they delighted in it. Even as the modern world seemed on the cusp of overturning social hierarchy, Americans found comfort in amusements that structured space to reaffirm the status quo; while so much of the modern world appeared to break with the past, existing structures of social power remained very much the same. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation History 2018