Edward Alsworth Ross (1866-1951) was a prolific modern intellectual who sought to understand and reform society. Midwestern in his origins and attitudes, Ross taught at several universities but in 1906 he settled at the University of Wisconsin. Ross began as a student and advocate of state economics, but he ultimately saw sociology as a more meliorative science. Between 1896 and 1901 Ross developed a theory of social control which argued that institutional restraints could lead to cooperation and progress. As a teacher, scholar, and mentor he established a sociological canon for the pre-1914 generation of American scholars. / Ross's personal standards of objectivity crossed over from advocacy to dissent in 1901, when he was fired from Stanford, and in two 1910 incidents at Wisconsin. Both incidents forced him into a more accommodating mode, first with the academic community and then within the public sphere. Long convinced that "native" Americans were threatened by immigrants, Ross set out between 1910 and 1925 to observe foreign societies, ostensibly to prove American superiority and to suggest social reforms. His dispatches from China, Panama, and revolutionary Russia were serialized in popular magazines in addition to several contemporary essays on American society. / Selected by a relief organization in 1917 to observe Russia, Ross returned highly critical of socialism. The Progressive critic of big business now praised 1920s American economic efficiency, particularly the industrial and social "controls" of Henry Ford. Still, he remained active in the women's movement, the ACLU, and in academic organizations well into his seventies. / Ross's theory of social control continues to augment sociological literature as a set of common values which determine socialization, while historians also have utilized social control as a paradigm of the Progressive Era and the recent postwar consensus. Across a career of fifty years, in over 200 written works and in the literature of social control, Ross's legacy remains in American intellectual discourse. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 57-04, Section: A, page: 1810. / Major Professor: Neil T. Jumonville. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1996.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 33-05, Section: A, page: 2264. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1972.

Was Florida a true member of the Old South and its rebel offspring or just a peripheral entity? This study looks at this seemingly simple question to probe the economic ties between Florida and her sister states of the lower South from 1850 to 1865. Clearly Florida was part and parcel of the Cotton Kingdom. The state had a reputation by 1860 as an agricultural power boasting large harvests in a lush tropical climate. This image was heralded in newspapers and journals across the lower South. The realities of poor transportation and inclement weather failed to make an impression on what quickly became the myth of Florida's riches. Residents clung to the idea of a fecund Florida ready to supply any needs, which buoyed confidence in the viability of their section as a separate nation. / Florida, the third state to secede, played a significant role in the short economic life of the Confederacy. The war years are considered at length and are the main focus of the dissertation. The conflict made state bays and inlets safe havens for blockade runners and a conduit for imported goods and exported staples like cotton. Florida was also a vital component in Confederate logistical planning and influenced the operations of rebel forces in other states. Salt and cattle, the peninsula's major contributions, augmented the rebel supply larder despite failures to live up to overly optimistic expectations based on pre-war perceptions. Union forces, aware of the material aid going to the rebels, waged a type of economic warfare in an effort to cut off the flow of supplies. As an economic member of the Confederacy Florida earned recognition as an important region, and one which can not be dismissed. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-10, Section: A, page: 3706. / Major Professor: John Hebron Moore. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.

Environmental history is a new subdiscipline in history. The goals of this survey are to show the varieties of environmental history, to discern the point of view which makes the field unique, to identify some of its past and present practitioners, and to suggest future lines of development. The introductory chapter is followed by, 'Historians of the American West,' 'The Annales School,' 'Independent Efforts and Current Issues,' 'Emergence of a Subdiscipline,' and 'A Proposal and an Explanation.' Environmental history is an interdisciplinary field concerned with the effect of the physical environment on man, the impact of man on nature, the history of nature, and the impact of man on man. The central proposition of environmental history is that man responds to the opportunities and limitations offered by the environment. Man acts in the context of geography, climate, flora, and fauna. Environmental history identifies the parameters within which human actions take place and emphasizes the role of environmental factors in historical events. Man is part of a complex ecosystem, he does not operate in a vacuum. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.) / acase@tulane.edu

Early in the twentieth century New Orleans business and political leaders discussed ways to remedy their city's economic backwardness, to transform it into a developed capitalist city. Central to their plans was expansion of trade with Latin America. They set out to build a hemispheric north-south commercial system in which New Orleans would serve as the midwife for increased trade between the Mississippi Valley and Latin America. They expected such trade to stimulate development. Manufacturing, for example, would grow as imports of Latin American commodities were processed in local factories. By becoming the nation's Gateway to the Americas, New Orleans would break free from underdevelopment Fighting for this plan was the city's international program, an informal alliance of business associations and government agencies. Taking advantage of New Orleans's geographic position and of a favorable hemispheric economic structure, the international program was successful. While its promotional efforts thrust the city forward as the hemispheric gateway, local capital was increasing its trade and business with Latin America. By 1950 the international program's strategic design seemed within reach But in the early 1960s the international program fell apart and local capital's involvement with Latin America declined. Failure resulted from external pressures and from internal shortcomings. The hemispheric political economy no longer favored the Crescent City. Latin American governments, influenced by nationalism, increasingly required their own raw materials to be processed at home; this policy undercut New Orleans's hopes for its own industrialization. At the same time, U.S. conglomerates or multinationals weakened or purchased local firms with Latin American interests. Any adjustment the city might have made to these threatening circumstances was hampered by divisions and factionalism within the international program By 1970 the old strategic orientation toward Latin America no longer unified and inspired the city's elite. 'Gateway to the Americas' was still heard occasionally as a promotional slogan. But it was a slogan without substance. It was no longer the expression of hemispheric economic tendencies and of local capital / acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

This dissertation investigates both the social and legal pressures brought to bear on carrying pistols in Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and the eastern portions of Colorado and New Mexico. Several major facets of society in these areas during the last quarter of the nineteenth century have been investigated. State and local laws prohibiting the carrying of pistols were put into effect in the above mentioned areas and did achieve a certain level of enforcement. The pressures causing this phenomenon originated with several segments of society, especially the newspaper press and various cattlemen's associations The 'Wild West' was constantly receding before a more settled civilization with a corresponding reduction in the practice of carrying pistols at various places and at varying times. As society gained an increasing disapprobation toward the practice of carrying pistols, a transitional phase of concealing the weapons occurred in some places. Of course the practice was not as widespread as is generally believed, and many ordinary, as well as famous, persons never wore sidearms Even though there was polarization of attitudes concerning the practice of carrying pistols, social and legal pressures did reduce the pistol carrying practice paralleling a reduction in violence during the 1880's and 1890's This dissertation is timely in two respects. First, it illuminates a segment of the history of a current and vexing part of a recent and larger reinterpretation of the 'Old West' by such historians as Robert Dykstra, Phillip D. Jordan, Eugene Hollen and others. As such, this dissertation has an important contribution to make to solutions of the handgun problem today, and to present a better understanding of a much misunderstood era in American history / acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu