The Oregon-California Trail is viewed as a transportation system that connected the Missouri River settlements with the Northwest Territory. The trail carried thousands of people westward, and furnished economic opportunities to enterprising people who operated ferries, trading posts, and other trail support services. The study investigates the transferability of John C. Hudson's North Dakota town formation model presented in Plains Country Towns to an area defined by emigration trails. A settlement database is utilized to examine area development over time, and explores the relationship between settlement patterns, the trail, and the railroad. It shows that water, not market access via the trail and railroad, was the primary settlement location influence, and that Hudson's model is not transferable due to different railroad development objectives. Railroads were initially interested in getting through the area, not developing a structure to harvest agriculture products from the adjacent hinterlands. Trail location was not a primary criteria used during the site selection process.

The text is a study of the American merchant fleet from 1945-1961. The study outlines the decline of the fleet during this period. The decline was precipitous, and eventually threatened the fleet's ability to support military demands in the event of a large-scale mobilization. The failings of the merchant marine became apparent as the Vietnamese build-up escalated under Lyndon Johnson. By itself, the American fleet was no longer able to maintain the Vietnamese lifelines. / The text also examines federal legislation which affected the size and composition of the American merchant fleet. The Merchant Ship Sales Act of 1946, the "Long-Range" Shipping Act of 1953, and later Tanker and Passenger Constriction Acts are detailed. Emphasis is given to the role of the Truman and Eisenhower administrations in the passage of these acts. / The basic thrust behind the study is that the United States allowed a vital defense related tool to deteriorate during the early postwar period. In 1945, the American fleet was unsurpassed. Problems of finance, obsolescence, subsidization, and labor, however, led to a rapid decline. A basic problem existed. Because of greater operating, building, and labor costs, American ships were more costly to own than were competitors registered under foreign flags. As a result, hundreds of ships, which might have joined the American fleet, were registered instead in countries like Panama and Liberia. As foreign registration promised greater profits for these operators, they took their vessels away from American registry. This deprived the American fleet of needed replacement vessels, and resulted in a reliance on foreign vessels to carry American goods. The text details the resulting rise of "Flags of Convenience," and the formation of cooperative shipping pools to operate in time of crisis. / Data for the text was compiled mainly from the Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy Presidential Libraries. Numerous secondary works, especially contemporary journal articles, were used. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-04, Section: A, page: 1265. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.

The study analyzes the evolution of American Indian policy. It surveys the European background then focuses on North America, examining the colonial Indian policies of Spain, England, France, Holland, Sweden, and Russia, which set the stage for American policy. In a series of wars to control eastern North America, England triumphed. British Imperial Indian policy became the basis for American policy. / During the Revolution most Indians supported England, thwarting American desires to use or neutralize them. After the war America considered the Indians defeated powers, dictating terms to them. This proved unfeasible and the United States adopted the prerevolutionary British policy. / In the 1790s, problems developed including state resistance to federal authority in Indian affairs, Indian refusal to be slowly dispossessed, British intrigues in the Northwest, Spanish machinations in the Southwest, and in establishing means to regulate Indian affairs. Acts were passed to provide regulation. The factory system was created and trade and intercourse acts were adopted to regulate Indian affairs. Early expeditions to defeat the Indians were unsuccessful. State versus federal problems remained unsolved as did English and Spanish concerns. / The turning point was the War of 1812. England was defeated. The Indians east of the Mississippi River were militarily broken. Between 1810-1813 America seized Spanish West Florida neutralizing that area. Two problems remained: the jurisdictional question and Spanish-Black-Indian troubles in East Florida. / America purchased East Florida from Spain in 1819 ending colonial concerns there. The jurisdictional problem would only be solved by dispossessing the Indians in the troublesome states. By the 1820s, American Indian policy had entered a new phase. All colonial concerns were ended and America was free for the first time to adopt its own Indian policy. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-06, Section: A, page: 2064. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.

Ossian Bingley Hart served his native state of Florida as pioneer, lawyer, entrepreneur, prosecutor, town and county official, legislator, supreme court justice, and--from January 1873 to March 1874--governor. Throughout his mature life he enjoyed respect for his honesty, integrity, and diligence. These accomplishments might not seem unusual for the son of an affluent and influential southern planter family. Hart's actions and values, though, defied many of the stereotypes associated with his background. He stood against secession in 1860 and 1861 and for the Union throughout the Civil War; he emerged from that conflict committed to the grant of full civil rights to freedmen; he acted as catalyst for the Florida Republican party's creation; and he forged a coalition of blacks and southern whites to oust the state's carpetbag leadership, reform its government, and extend the guarantee of civil rights through state law. / This study delves into the history of Florida and of the Hart family to explore the background against which a life such as Ossian Hart's--and, by extension and reflection, the lives of his contemporaries--can be measured and better understood. It permits a careful examination of the evolution of Florida's society, economy, race relations, and politics during the territorial, antebellum statehood, Civil War, and Reconstruction eras. And, it argues for an understanding of the human factors of history while underscoring the diversity, divisions, and complicated interrelationships which molded personalities, issues, and events of the times. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-09, Section: A, page: 2960. / Major Professor: William Warren Rogers. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1994.

Wainwright Shipyard: The Impact of a World War II War Industry on Panama City, Florida, studied a small town's conversion to an industrial center to meet the war emergency. The U.S. Maritime Commission selected Panama City as the location for a shipyard to build cargo vessels called Liberty Ships. The Liberty Ship's simple design made it possible to build with unskilled labor. Liberty shipyards used such mass production techniques as prefabrication, pre-assembly, and welding. J. A. Jones Construction Company, Incorporated, operators of the shipyard, had to recruit and train labor for industrial work. The manpower shortage necessitated the use of non-traditional workers, i.e., women and African-Americans. / Panama City experienced a tripling of its population within a year. This population required housing and the infrastructure to support it--utilities, water and sewage, and transportation facilities. The families who located here required additional child care and educational facilities and medical services. The population strained such local government facilities as police and fire protection and the tax collection agencies. The increased population severely strained the communities' shopping and entertainment facilities. These problems required action by the local community leaders and appropriate governmental agencies such as the U.S. Maritime Commission, War Production Board, Office of Community War services, Federal Public Housing Authority, Federal Housing Administration, and the National Housing Agency to meet the community's war population needs. / The presence of Wainwright Shipyard left a lasting legacy in the community in the form of the infrastructure built to accommodate the residents that remained when the shipyard closed. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-04, Section: A, page: 1073. / Major Professor: Neil Betten. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1994.

This dissertation is a venture in microhistory. Based on detailed diaries and extensive correspondence, it treats the life of Louisa Maxwell Holmes Cocke, an upper class evangelical Christian from Norfolk, Virginia, who lived from 1788 to 1843. On one level it is cultural history broadly defined, a minute study of various cultural and intellectual topics. / On another level this study is an inquiry into the relationship between ideas and the practice of life. Its ground is the history of ideas; its purpose is to suggest the connection between antecedent thought and consequent action in the intelligible relations of an ante-bellum Southern woman's life. / This study attempts a final level of investigation, an examination into manners and feelings. With one Virginia family as a recurrent setting, it seeks to sort out and assess the complex of relationships within an ante-bellum home. Children, guests, slaves--all seen against the background of an unhappy marriage--were the sad context of Louisa Cocke's daily duty and constant sorrow. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 45-04, Section: A, page: 1189. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.

Two groups of Western Indians were incarcerated in Florida. The first included seventy-four Southern Plains Indians (Cheyenne, Comanche, and Kiowa) from the Indian Territory. These were kept at Fort Marion in St. Augustine from 1875 to 1878. Some were guilty of crimes such as murder, but others selected arbitrarily by Army officers or their own tribal leaders were relatively innocent of any wrongdoing. The prisoners had extensive contact with the white population in Florida, and received basic instruction in reading, writing, and Christian religion. The officer in charge of the prisoners, Captain Richard Pratt, actively solicited support from philanthropists in this educational effort, which culminated in the foundation of the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. / Between 1886 and 1888, approximately 500 Apaches from Arizona were held at both Fort Marion and Fort Pickens in Pensacola. While the Plains Indian group was almost exclusively composed of male warriors, the Apache prisoners included women, children, and scouts who fought with the Army against renegades. The controversy generated by the apparent injustice of this wholesale removal, and concern for the health of the prisoners, attracted national attention. The efforts of sympathetic Army officers and the Indian Rights Association led to the prisoners relocation at Mount Vernon Barracks in Alabama. / The captivity of these Native Americans in Florida is significant in that, while overtly punitive in nature, it had some positive results. The prisoners showed an ability to adapt to white culture and conducted themselves with dignity under adverse circumstances. White society in turn began to see Native Americans as human beings deserving their sympathy and respect. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-10, Section: A, page: 3652. / Major Professor: Edward A. Keuchel. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

A study of the American Civil War and the Confederacy would be incomplete without an examination of the religious revivals in the Confederate army. For one of the few times in wartime history, soldiers were unable to escape the flame of religious revivals. From the Army of Northern Virginia, the Army of Tennessee, and the Army of Mississippi to hundreds of scattered commands including northern prisoner of war camps, revivals touched the lives of soldiers, directly or indirectly, as few revivals have before or since. This study traces the beginnings or revivals from a few scattered commands and hospitals to the great revivals of 1863 and 1864. Through the written word carried by colporteurs and the spoken word of the preachers, be they chaplains, missionaries or laymen, the word of God was spread. / Revivals had been common in the South during much of its history and many churches relied upon, and people believed in, its use to spread the Gospel. From this historical, yet personal background, the deterioration of the military situation (before going into battle, soldiers were especially receptive to the Christian message) and camp conditions combined to make an opportune time for religious awareness/awakening. This elementary faith was quickly spread throughout the camp, flaming fiercely only to dissipate and rekindle in yet another camp. Active fighting and certain climate conditions were the only things to put a damper on these fires. Prayer groups and various Christian associations remained constant, keeping the flames smoldering even when the fire could no longer be lit, yet enabling the fire to flicker again when conditions permitted. During the winters and springs of 1863 and 1864, the revivals reached their pinnacles but they continued until the end of the war in all of the major armies. Singing, preaching and praying were common throughout the revivals, and each service was followed by smaller prayer meetings and answering questions of and praying for those who asked. For the soldiers touched by Christianity, it was their work, their cooperation, and their story that made the revivals so important. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-10, Section: A, page: 3398. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.

Although the lumber industry was second only to agriculture as an employer of Southern workers, historians have tended to neglect that subject. Even though the pine forests of Georgia were among the first of the Southern forests to be fully exploited after the Civil War, that phase of the state's history is virtually unknown. This dissertation is intended to close that historical gap. / The finest tracts of timber in Georgia were located along the Altamaha River and its two principal tributaries, the Ocmulgee and Oconee rivers. The virgin timber in this region was harvested between 1865 and 1918 with the 1880s and 1890s being the two decades of highest production. The Georgia Land and Lumber Company, commonly known as the Dodge company, was the largest enterprise operating in the Altamaha River basin and in the state from 1868 through the early 1880s. During these same years the port of Darien, at the mouth of the Altamaha, shipped the bulk of the basin's timber. Lumbering in the basin reached peak production levels after 1880 when the Macon and Brunswick Railroad was purchased by the East Tennessee, Virginia, and Georgia Railroad, thus connecting the area with inland markets throughout the country. Afterward, many companies moved into the basin and erected large lumber mills to harvest the longleaf pine along the railroad. Naturally, the railroad siphoned off a growing percentage of the timber trade from Darien, lessening her importance as a timber port. / An integral part of the longleaf pine lumber story was logging, rafting, and the domestic and foreign marketing of longleaf pine. Other subjects covered are labor relations in the Altamaha basin industry, trade association activity among the mill owners, a description of the machinery employed in the basin mills, and the growing concern over conservation measures. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 44-07, Section: A, page: 2226. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.

A study that examines the development of a late Nineteenth Century businessman, who embraced the ideas of entrepreneurship, and his evolutionary shift toward a philosophy of cooperation for stability and mutual advantage. James W. Ellsworth was a second level of businessman--beneath the extremely wealthy magnates--who founded a coal mercantile firm in Chicago the late 1870s. Selling coal principally to the burgeoning railroads, he amassed a minor fortune and by the 1890s had established a reputation of meeting any company's fuel demands promptly. He developed an appreciation for art, which got him elected as a director of the World's Columbian Exposition in 1983. Ellsworth helped plan, finance, and obtain exhibits for the fair and when it concluded, he was instrumental in creating the Field Columbian Museum from the exposition. The businessman was also president of the Union National Bank. He saved the bank from failure during the depression of 1893-1897, and even solicited a large monetary fund from the Chicago banking community for William McKinley's Presidential campaign in 1896. Moreover, he helped develop Chicago's park system during his tenure as president of the South Park Commission. / During the decade of the 1890s Ellsworth understood the necessity of cooperation. He was involved in many endeavors that he knew little about and was compelled to rely on others for assistance. Gradually the idea of cooperation emerged, which was apparent when he solicited money. In 1898 he expanded his business vertically and began operation of his own coal mines in western Pennsylvania. Utlizing cooperation in the form of paternalism, he created what he called a mining utopia, where the workers lived in nice homes, with clean surroundings, and good social services. He sold the entire town in 1907 and returned to his hometown of Hudson, Ohio and offered to make this community a model town. Residents accepted his proposition only after they agreed to cooperate with him in the project. Part of his plan was the re-establishment of Western Reserve Academy in the town, and he realized this goal in 1916. When he died Ellsworth left the school a handsome endowment. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 44-03, Section: A, page: 0844. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.