Master of Arts / Department of History / Mark P. Parillo / As the 1950s began, Western European defense policy posed unique challenges for the United States. At the outset of the Cold War, U.S. officials recognized that maintaining a free Western Europe was vital to the long-term survival of the United States against the Soviet Union and its satellite nations. While America could rely on its long-range nuclear bombers (and, in a few years, its intercontinental ballistic missiles) as a deterrent to Soviet aggression against the continental United States, the situation in Europe was more complicated. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), first organized in 1949, was the defense pact designed to counter the Soviet Bloc in Eastern Europe. The NATO alliance, however, still recovering from the destruction of the Second World War, was in no condition to oppose Soviet aggression at the end of 1950. Yet by 1955, the situation in Europe was dramatically different. The NATO allies had transformed from a loose confederation of weak nations to a strong international alliance capable of confronting the Communist forces if necessary. At the center of this transformation was Dwight D. Eisenhower. In January 1951, Eisenhower assumed the position of NATO's first Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (SACEUR) and spent nearly two years strengthening the Western European alliance. Then, after entering the White House as president in 1953, Eisenhower used his experiences as SACEUR to reinforce several aspects of his own defense policy. Ultimately, several key aspects of Eisenhower's ―New Look‖ defense policy (such as the continued emphasis of the NATO alliance) had their antecedents in Eisenhower's service as NATO Supreme Commander.

Master of Arts / Department of History / Robert D. Linder / This thesis examines early Pentecostalism in light of the Populist Movement. There are two main arguments in this study. First, I maintain that early Kansas Pentecostalism, as seen in the teachings of Charles Fox Parham, was heavily influenced by Populist ideas and language. Parham displayed Populist tendencies in his attacks on the Protestant Establishment, which he believed had neglected to care for the spiritual and physical needs of “the people.” This failure on the part of the churches led Parham to believe that a major reform of the church was needed. Parham went beyond simply criticizing the establishment. He also developed a popular theology that empowered individuals, many of whom were poor and working-class, and created a strong sense of collective aspiration. The second argument of this study is that Populism fostered a sociopolitical environment in which Pentecostalism could thrive. Parham’s confrontations with the Protestant Establishment and his concern with the needs of “the people” was attractive to many individuals who tended to support movements that sought to disrupt the status quo. One event that can shed light on early Kansas Pentecostalism’s relationship with Populism was a revival in Galena, Kansas, a lead and zinc mining town in the southeast corner of the state, that took place from October 1903 to January 1904. By examining some of the connections between the Populist movement and early Kansas Pentecostalism, this study provides some insight into the development of one of the most popular expressions of Christianity in the world.

This study examines the Spanish ethnohistoric evidence for the economic role of cotton in the Southwest at the time of contact, doing so within an integrated framework for economic behavior. Critical evaluation of the text and the organization of individual references to cotton by production, distribution, and consumption reveal the limited nature of this line of evidence; however, systematic comparison of the information it does yield shows that the Spanish documentary record does not support archaeological inferences of complex economic behavior with regard to cotton. Rather, the text suggests patterns that are more characteristic of a trading partner system. A comparison of this evidence with the archaeological record would shed additional light on this question.

This study was an analysis for design of Hohokam Indian motifs and elements found in decorated pottery. The most common motifs were analyzed and interpreted for use by contemporary textile and garment designers using the capabilities of an eight-harness floor loom, an electronic 6000 Passap knitting machine, and surface design techniques of stencilling, silk painting, and applique. The weaving techniques were restricted to loom-controlled techniques using color-and-weave effect. Every time an element from the past was incorporated into a contemporary setting, something new was learned from the historic material. The purpose of this research was to expose designers to a "new" source of multiple motifs which could provide stimulating and thought-provoking ideas for use in contemporary textiles and garments.

The River Bend neighborhood should be preserved as Binghampton Rural Historic District because it is a vestige of the Mormon colony of Binghampton and because it preserves part of the farming history of the Tucson basin. It reflects the pattern of both Mormon agrarian colonization and western settlement. Reminders of the original Mormon farmers exist in the form of fence lines, tree lined roads, orchards, and irrigation ditches. Unpaved, straight streets are aligned with the cardinal directions. The clustering of buildings in a comparatively large open space is characteristic of the spatial arrangement of rural Mormon landscapes. A survey of residents indicates a majority support the petition to become a historic district, but rezoning is a political process which will require the neighborhood to use a multi-faceted approach to achieve protection.

This is a landscape study of the Spanish-American village of Chimayo, New Mexico where the vestige of a fascinating pre-modern folk landscape persists into the present. The landscape in Chimayo has undergone significant restructuring in the present century--from colonial agricultural landscape to modern suburban townscape--yet an image of the traditional rural landscape remains. The complex modern economic and social forces (e.g., automobiles, telecommunications, tourism) which, early in this century, supplanted Chimayo's colonial subsistence agricultural economy has also restructured its landscape. This project has revealed that artifacts, spaces, and place images can persist in a changing rural landscape. Moreover, in the evolution of the vernacular landscape of Chimayo, New Mexico, the pre-modern folk landscape has been partially conserved, both physically and in myth, and persists as an integral part of the contemporary landscape.

Territorial growth of Indian lands under American domination seems to be inconsistent with the expressed goals of a dominant society and is certainly inconsistent with the patterns reflected in the relationships between Indian communities and the United States. How is it that in this atmosphere fueled by the desire to take land from Tribes the Navajo Nation grew from 3.5 million acres in 1868 to over 16 million acres (a 358% increase) while their neighbors, the Hopis, lost over 40% of their original reservation land and most other tribes, as well, have lost much of their traditional use areas? This research attempts to answer these questions while testing the theory that Navajo expansion has been through a unique form of colonialism driven by a religiously rooted sense of Manifest Destiny. The results should provide insights for historians, practitioners of Indian Law, political scientists, and tribal leaders.

This study examines the activity of the Nellie Boyd Dramatic Company between 1879 and 1888. Actress-manager Nellie Boyd formed the company around 1876 and from 1879 onward she decided to perform exclusively in the western U.S., pioneering several southwestern territories. This thesis discusses the Boyd company's impact on the life of particular western towns; the organization of the company, its repertoire and the possible significance of Boyd's choice of roles; and the critical reception accorded to Boyd and her company. The study of Boyd's career in the West offers insights into the significance of traveling companies on the cultural and social development of growing communities. It illustrates the activity of independent traveling companies parallel to the rise of the combination managerial system. It also reveals the story of a woman leading a successful show-business enterprise and enhancing her personal and professional reputation in the nineteenth-century western scene.

<p> <i>Community Life</i> by Michi Tanaka was one of eight government commissioned murals created by students at Rohwer Relocation Center in 1944 illustrating the Japanese American evacuation and relocation. The final versions of these works no longer exist. The preparatory drafts, however, remain intact and provide valuable information regarding the artists' experiences at Rohwer. Through an iconographic analysis of Tanaka's mural draft and an exploration of themes and principal elements in her life at camp such as religion, fashion and socialization, this thesis suggests that <i>Community Life</i> illustrates a cultural synthesis between two disparate cultures. This synthesis influenced the development of a bicultural identity, specifically among <i> Nisei</i> (or the American-born children of Japanese immigrants) such as Tanaka. The mural can be viewed as an introspective consideration of Tanaka's incarceration in which the cultural conflict of her Japanese heritage and American citizenry seems to have been resolved artistically.</p>

This thesis examines strike activity in the United States from 1881 to 1972. Although part of its aim is simply to describe and analyse trends of activity, its main concern is sociological: the explication and testing of the theory of the institutionalisation of industrial conflict. Since official statistics on strikes are the basic data employed, chapter one considers the problems with the use of such statistics. Phenomenologists criticise the use of all official data, on the grounds that there is no 'true' distribution of social phenomena independent from the reality of everyday life, and that official figures are merely records of bureaucratic procedures. But, unlike crime statistics, strike figures measure a true distribution of activity. They simply record how often labour-management disputes develop into collective and complete stoppages of work; the strike is a category used in everyday life and its meaning as a tactical weapon in disputes is clear. Although the strike, as a 'stoppage of work to express a grievance or enforce a demand', cannot be defined independently from actors' meanings and intentions, this intentionality aspect is not a crucial problem: given the strike's role in the employment relationship, the inferring of intentions is not difficult. The main problems are practical; for example, it is hard to know where one strike ends and another begins. Such problems can be by-passed, however, if we concentrate on trends in activity. Since the different American recording agencies have used very similar definitions and procedures, their data are statistically reliable, especially for workers involved and 'days lost' in strikes. Their validity is more questionable, but, since we are concerned with trends and not with strike statistics as indices of the absolute amount of conflict at one time, we may proceed to use the official data, although considerable caution will be required regarding information on such things as the 'causes' of strikes. Chapter two examines the theory of the institutionalisation of industrial conflict. Its 'conventional' version, developed to its fullest extent by industrial relations writers of the 1950s, argues that institutions will grow up to channel and thus to control conflicts of these institutions, collective bargaining is the most important. As unions and management learn to co-operate, strikes become tactical weapons in the bargaining process and lose any wider political significance; not only are they institutionally controlled, but their frequency and intensity fall as institutional means are found for the resolution of conflict. One strand of the conventional view stresses the importance of industrialisation for the amount of conflict; in the 'early' period activity will be high because of the disruption caused by rapid industrial change, but subsequently workers will become accustomed to industry, and conflict will become less intense. This view is taken up by Shorter and Tilly in their book Strikes in France 1830-1968. They set out to chart the course of strikes from 'early' to 'modern' forms of protest and, although they criticise previous writings on the effect of industrialisation, can be taken as giving a distinct variant of the institutional isat ion theory. They stress the political role of the strike and thus widen the scope of the theory; and, in arguing for a transformation of the strike into a political demonstration instead of an economic battle, they follow the broad lines of the theory. Finally, a 'radical' version of the theory is identified. This grew up in response to the conventional line and argues that institutionalisation has not taken place on equal terms; there is a fundamental inequality of power in capitalist societies which has meant that the trade unions have been incorporated into the system on terms set by employers and the government. Workers have become enmeshed in a system over which they have little real control. This set of theories, being concerned with long-term trends in labour relations, is clearly suitable for testing against strike data. The central prediction is that the frequenty and duration of activity will decline as instituionalisation progresses, and strikes will also become more 'predictable' and 'orderly'. A weaker argument is that the effect of institutionalisation on industrial conflict will be contingent on economic circumstancesj we must therefore examine economic influences on strikes and whether any change in their impact can be attributed to instituional developments. It is also necessary to examine trends within industries and regions, to see if trends at a more detailed level than that revealed by the aggregate statistics support the instituionalisation theory. Chapter three tests the theory against the data on strike trends for 1881-1972. The notable feature of American strikes has been their failure to change 'shape': their frequency, size and duration have remained remarkably constant. This basic finding sets the framework within which all other results must be examined. Thus the observed rise in union involvement in strikes fits the theory's predictions, but does not counteract the fundamental weakness of the view that the amount of conflict will decline. Trends in the issues in strikes show the expected increase in strikes for union recognition during the 1930s, when collective bargaining was being established nationally, but these recognition strikes have not disappeared subsequently. Within industries, one would expect activity to peak when bargaining was being established, but to decline thereafter; but an examination of long-term trends in several sectors showed that such a pattern was unusual. Similarly, regional trends in activity do not fit the institutional isat ion model. Thus, changes in activity cannot be explained by either of the processes identified by the 'conventional' theory, namely collective bargaining and industrialisation. Neither is it possible to suggest that trends towards institutionalisation will be limited to particular industries or regions. Chapter four investigates the more subtle argument that the nature of economic and other influences on strike activity will be affected by the degree of institutionalisation. Thus the period 1946-72, during which institutionalised relations have been established, is compared with two earlier periods, representing the years of rapid industrialisation (1881-1910) and the period when bargaining was not institutionalised (1900-39). Using a multiple regression framework, the overall explanatory power of the economic determinants of strike activity does not vary markedly between these periods; but there is some evidence to suggest that the direction of the influence of particular variables has changed. The fact that a change occurred fits the institutionalisation model, but the precise direction of the change cannot be explained by it. Strike activity has been broadly influenced by economic conditions, but this link has not been direct; strikes are associated not with the current unemployment rate but with measures of the height and depth of previous business cycles. A general, and not an immediate, influence is at work. Shorter and Tilly expect that the degree of working class organisation will be the crucial variable intervening between economic conditions and strikes, and that strikes up to the New Deal should reflect political and not economic influences. Detailed examination of several models of strike activity suggests that these expectations are unfounded; the influence of union density on strikes has been relatively weak, and political and economic variables have not operated in the predicted directions.