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The aim of the current study was to conduct a psychobiography of the life of Martin Luther King Junior, who was born in 1929 and died in 1968. He was an American clergyman, husband, father, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American civil rights movement. King fought for civil rights for all people. His “I Have a Dream” speech raised public consciousness of the civil rights movement and established him as one of the greatest orators in the United States of America. His main legacy was to secure access to civil rights for all Americans, thereby empowering people of all racial and religious backgrounds, and promoting equality in the American nation. This is a psychobiographical research study which aimed to explore and describe the life of Martin Luther King junior’s psychological development according to Erik Erikson’s Psychosocial Developmental Theory. King was selected through purposive sampling on the basis of interest, value, and uniqueness to the researcher. Alexander’s model of identifying salient themes was used to analyse the data which were then compared to Erikson’s theory through a process of analytical generalisation. Limitations of the current study were identified and certain recommendations for future research in this field are offered.

"Ghost of a Life Long Past" is a memoir about the necessity of movement and physicality. It chronicles the author's life, both before and after a skiing accident that left him with quadriplegia. The memoir is split into two alternating narratives. One follows the author's post-accident journey to regain physicality and the ability to move through the world and function in his environment. The other is a series of flashbacks, looking[at] the author's pre-accident childhood in Juneau, Alaska. Themes include independence, travel, sports, disability, and the need to test the limits of ones body.

M.A.

Thomas Swann (1805-1883), son of a prominent lawyer in the District of Columbia and educated at the University of Virginia, began his career in 1833 as the Secretary to the Neapolitan Claims Commission in Washington. His marriage to Elizabeth Gilmor Sherlock a year later marked his entrance into Baltimore society and into the affairs of Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. After participating in the B & O's struggles with the Virginia legislature in the late 1840's, Swann became president of the railroad and supervised its extension from Cumberland, Maryland, to Wheeling, Virginia, on the Ohio River. Three years after leaving the B & O, Swann entered politics in 1856 as the Know-Nothing Mayor of Baltimore. From 1856 to 1860 he made numerous improvements, establishing the city's first public police department, fire department, streetcar system, and larger park. With the corning of the Civil War, Swann left the Know-Nothing Party and began a decade of numerous shifting political alliances, in which he was a bellweather in anticipating the wave of the future. In 1864 Swann won election as Governor of Maryland on the Unionist ticket. In 1867 the Maryland legislature elected him to the United States Senate, but he declined the honor knowing the Republican majority in that body would refuse to seat him because of his shift to the Conservative Alliance formed by non-Radical Unionists and Democrats. After a second unsuccessful attempt for the Senate, Swann was elected in 1868 to the House of Representatives as a Democrat in which body he served for ten years. He retired from politics in 1879 to his country estate, Morven Park, in Loudoun County, Virginia, where he died on July 24, 1883. / M.A.

Scholars have long known that Thomas Jefferson Hogg altered the letters to himself in his 1858 Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley, yet the book is still regarded as an essential source of information for Shelley's early years, particularly the Oxford period. But the biography is seriously flawed, not only by extensive alterations which affect other documents besides Shelley's letters to Hogg, but by false assertions, suppressed information, invented anecdotes, and fictionalized depictions of Shelley as a bumbling eccentric and Hogg as the rational friend on whom he is wholly dependent. This study traces the history of the controversy, explaining the reluctance of Shelley scholars to discredit the book, and provides a biography of Hogg, accompanied by an analysis of his character and motives, as a basis for comparison with the Hogg depicted in the Life. The body of the paper analyzes the Life itself, with special attention to the influential Oxford chapters. Hogg's strategies are identified, illustrated, and analyzed, with badly distorted documents placed beside the originals in parallel columns to facilitate comparison. The paper concludes with a brief analysis of the harmful effects of Hogg's Life on Shelley biography and criticism and a suggested procedure for solving these problems. Related documents, many of them unpublished, are included in the Appendix.

John Philip Sousa conducted his professional band from September 26, 1892, until his death in 1932. During that time the Sousa Band became one of the premier musical organizations in the world, recognized for its consistently high level of musicianship and for its stunning instrumental and vocal soloists. Ten saxophonists performed solos with the Sousa Band: Edward Lefebre (1893-94), Jean Moeremans (1894-1900, 1902-1905), Ralph Lick (1917), H. Benne Henton (1919-20), Jascha Gurewich (1920-21), Anthony D'Ortenzio (1921), Frederick Bayers (1923), Richard Gooding (1924), Harold Stephens (1925-26), and Edward Heney (1924-1930). These men were some of the most influential concert saxophonists performing during the years after the death of Adolphe Sax in 1894 until the development of the solo careers of Cecil Leeson, Marcel Mule, Sigurd Rascher and Larry Teal in the 1930's. 518 solo appearances by Sousa's saxophone soloists and over 60 different compositions have been documented through concert programs, concert reviews, and previews.

The life of Ansel Adams is presented as a case study of the photographer's impact on wilderness appreciation. Adams' impacts through his involvement with the Sierra Club, as well as his impacts as an individual, are discussed. Adams' effectiveness in promoting wilderness appreciation is assessed, and implications for contemporary landscape photographers are drawn.

The South African years (1925-1966) of Alex la Guma is examined in this thesis. While La Guma's father was an important role model, most critics have overlooked his mother's contribution to his literary and political development. Throughout the thesis the same point is made about Blanche, La Guma's wife, who supported him in many ways. The researcher describes La Guma's infancy, childhood and adolescence, his father's political profile, how notions of race and writing, coloured identity and family and political experiences created the conditions that enabled him to become a story teller and political activist ...