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One of the stock assumptions that inhabits our understanding of the history of 19th- and early 20th-century immigration to an industrializing America is the wretchedness of the new immigrant laborers. The waves of new Americans from impoverished rural zones of emigration that swept into the nation were thought to be simple, rural people of limited skill for an advanced economy, unschooled in the norms of civic life, ignorant of democratic processes. Oscar Handlin was the original architect of this view; he saw the new ethnic groups as unsophisticated pre-moderns, and, as "peasants, they had not the background or skills to make their way in the economy of the New World." Whatever progress the new ethnic groups achieved in cultural and civic matters was attributable to learning and adapting to American influence, a process of assimilation that instilled social discipline in personal and public life and an appreciation for American democracy. This study challenges this assumption and relocates the locus of investigation overseas, to transnational sources of civic life in the pre-emigration lands of Ireland and South/Central Italy to explain the rapid rise and proliferation of ethnic voluntary associations in the late 1800s, early 1900s. The empirical universe is the Irish and Italians of Philadelphia; the time frame is 1880-1920, and the social site of investigation and analysis is the vibrant community life of ethnic voluntary associations the Irish and Italians constructed. This study also challenges a reading of the Irish associations in Philadelphia as little more than neighborhood clubs peopled by an aspiring upper strata of the Irish American community reaching for bourgeois values. This work suggests that the associations were populated by the working class, many born in Ireland, that substituted an ethic of solidarity for individual achievement values, a communal opposition to symbols of past oppression and agents of privilege. The Irish Americans of Philadelphia had cultural advantages prior to emigration, and they capitalized on this stock of common knowledge absorbed in native Ireland to transfer the norms, methods and moral codes of behavior from the Irish Friendly Society to the Irish American Beneficial Association of Philadelphia. However closely the Irish of Philadelphia followed the original transatlantic model, they ultimately molded their own style of ethnic association that elevated humanitarian communal values and constructed their civic life on a scaffolding of stable financial reasoning backed by a solid group discipline. The region of Abruzzo in South/Central Italy sent a disproportionate share of its rural people to Philadelphia in a massive chain migration that formed the Italian colony of South Philadelphia in the early 1900s. The Abruzzesse were a mountainous people defined by their rocky hilltop topography and a hard heritage derived from eking out an existence working rocky soil or shepherding; this was a mobile population cultured in the tradition of seasonal migration within Europe as the small farmers and rural laborers often spent months away from home in search of work to support their family and home. The rural proletariat of Abruzzo that eventually settled in Philadelphia also arrived with a rich civic heritage firmly intact, and the Italians capitalized on their knowledge and experience of an advanced civic culture based in local mutual aid to establish beneficial associations in Italian Philadelphia. In the process of following transatlantic models and in creating their own life, these ethnic groups constructed a collective consciousness mediated through the immediate community and educational mission of the ethnic associations. For the Irish, the association became the protective institution for a world view that defined Irish identity within the Diaspora as a community of exiles torn from cherished rural locations, a people bent on maintaining a vigilant eye on enemies such as the occupying British state in Ireland, on Irish landlordism and anti-Catholic agents in America, ever supportive of Irish nationalism. This consciousness grafted all kinds of imaginary symbols to its base, including race, a Social Darwinistic rendering of the Celtic type as superior to the Anglo Saxon, and a matrix of factors that conflated social class, nationalism, and sentimental remembrance into a hard opposition leveled at all forms of illegitimate privilege. The Italians were a mobile people of the mountains loyal to family and land, schooled in the rigors of migration, backed by the civic institutions of self-help they constructed in their agricultural towns; they were not burdened by the weight of sentimental nationalism as the Irish were in their Diaspora. Yet, during Italy's time of crisis during World War I, the Italian Americans of Philadelphia awakened national leanings and constructed a movement of national support for failing Italy. The Italian American associations of South Philadelphia came alive to sponsor financial and moral support for Italy at war, and a renewed Italian imperialism in the immediate post-war years. Thus, as the Irish and Italians drew on their old-world methods to create new civic institutions in Philadelphia, they also constructed separate ethnic identities and an active community, a vibrant energy that made industrial Philadelphia the home of the American voluntary association. / History

Master of Arts / Department of English / Timothy A. Dayton / Ralph Waldo Emerson’s early life and education led him to focus on self-development and social concerns. His subsequent individualism and concern for society were not just characteristics of his own personal behavior, but of his vision for the world. The individual and the social form a symbiotic relation critical to understanding this vision. Once Emerson had fully established this vision, he sought to make it known in an attempt to improve American society, which he felt was degenerate and in decline. Emerson suggests that the source of his rejuvenating vision can be found in the principles and ideas of the American Revolution. Emerson appeals to ideals and practice common during the Revolution and immediate post-Revolutionary period. Americans slowly drifted away from practicing these Revolutionary ideals. Emerson appropriates Revolutionary ideals and characteristics to create individual and social change in the America of his day. While this program for change seems clear and straightforward, it becomes problematic when actually applied.

Master of Arts / Department of History / Mark P. Parillo / The United States Army faced a dire challenge when conscription was phased out in favor of the All-Volunteer Force (AVF) in 1973. The Army was confronted with pressing manning requirements while suffering from the American public’s disapproval over the war in Vietnam. The end of the draft in favor of an all-volunteer force did not offer a great deal of promise for filling Army manpower requirements. Army leadership realized that it needed new methods that could recruit quality volunteers while simultaneously reforming the Army’s public image. Paid television advertising, able to reach a wide and diverse viewing audience, was pursued as a way to achieve both of those objectives. This study examines Army television advertisements since the creation of the AVF and analyzes their imagery and messages. Surprisingly consistent themes and messages have persisted in the Army’s television advertising for over thirty-five years of the AVF’s existence. During that same time, American attitudes toward the military were increasingly characterized by an interesting paradox. The American public overwhelmingly supported the military but grew less inclined to volunteer for military service. The public’s good feelings toward the Army and its “support for the troops” were not borne out with strong recruitment numbers during the years of the AVF. This work will argue that the messages in Army television advertising helped change the Army from a vital national institution into just another employer making a basic job offer in the audience’s mind while doing little to reform the Army’s public image. The ads did not appeal to America’s youth to commit themselves to national service. Rather, the ads promised to help individuals realize their wishes and dreams by focusing on the economic and educational advantages that the Army could deliver. Consequently, the ads cast the Army as a sort of trade school willing to provide young people with marketable skills, educational opportunities and enlistment bonuses in return for a short stint in the service. Public service and duty to the nation were rarely mentioned. The ads portrayed the Army as willing to strike deals with recruits to advance their personal goals and enrichment while demanding little in return.

Master of Arts / Department of History / Sue Zschoche / This thesis explores the development of Derby, Kansas, from the arrival of its first settlers in 1869 through the early 1970s. During its first seventy-five years, Derby never grew beyond its origins as a tiny trade center for local farmers, its economic growth constantly stymied and overshadowed by the often explosive growth of Wichita, twelve miles to the north. Derby might have met the fate of so many other Kansas farming communities that did not survive developments in industrialized agricultural and transportation in post-World War II America. With the beginning of the Cold War, however, the federal government began pouring money into the Midwest and West, building up existing, and constructing new, military installations. In addition, federal spending spurred massive new defense industries, creating growth around the cites of what some historians have called “Gunbelt America.” Wichita was one such city. Derby’s proximity to Wichita finally worked to its advantage, and the small town experienced its own boom as it became a residential community inhabited by affluent commuters to the job opportunities nearby. In addition, Derby’s racial homogeneity, its relative affluence, and the deliberate attempts of its boosters to portray it as a “family friendly,” that is, as a white, middle-class, community, further spurred its growth as Wichita went through the turmoil of school desegregation in the 1960s and early 1970s. Derby, Kansas, illustrates a distinct category in the development of the new Gunbelt West, a community that flourished both because of its proximity to a larger city as well as its distance from the perceived turmoil of that urban center.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of History / James E. Sherow / During the period between 1848 and 1938, a combination of land-use changes and regional climatic alterations caused changes in the physical structure of the Canadian River. The Canadian River begins in the southern Rocky Mountains and flows south and then northeast across the High Plains of New Mexico and Texas. The Comanche Indians used the river as a transportation corridor, as a winter shelter for themselves and for their horse herds, as well as hunting the bison that visited the valley. The Comanches also valued the spiritual power, puha, found in the running water and on the mesas within the river’s lowlands. After the defeat of the Comanches in the Red River Wars and the destruction of the bison herds, New Mexican Hispanos moved their flocks of sheep into the valley and established settlements along the tributary streams. These settlers practiced “extensive” land use, drawing from a broad array of the valley’s resources and using them comparatively lightly in ways that drew from older Spanish laws and customs. The enclosure of parts of the valley by Anglo-Texan ranchers drove the Hispanos out of the Canadian watershed in Texas, although access to the open range in New Mexico allowed other Hispanos to retain their settlements. Corporations including the Capitol Lands Syndicate and Prairie Cattle Company introduced large numbers of cattle to the region at the same time that regional rainfall patterns shifted. This combination of heavy grazing and altered precipitation patterns led to erosion in the uplands that caused changes in the physical structure of the Canadian River. After 1903, the arrival of railroads into eastern New Mexico accelerated the development of dry-land farms in both states. Increasing calls for damming and controlling the Canadian led to the first interstate Canadian River Compact in 1928. The advent of a severe drought in the 1930s and the Great Depression led to federal resources becoming available and the first dam was built on the stream, ending the era of the free-flowing river and again starting physical changes to the Canadian.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of History / Jack M. Holl / Donald J. Mrozek / General Walter Bedell Smith is the subject of this dissertation. It examines his career as Eisenhower's chief of staff from a functionalist perspective. Functionalism as a school of thought emphasizes the organic nature of social institutions, the importance of improvisation while framing solutions to problems, and the necessity of producing predictable results. In practice, the US Army and Smith applied functionalism in a restricted way, but conceived of the General Staff as the "brain of the army." While working for General Marshall in the War Department General Staff and later as General Eisenhower's chief of staff, General Smith met his responsibilities with respect to order, cohesion and objectives. Two general conditions complicated Smith's role at Eisenhower's headquarters: first, the burgeoning size of the staff made it difficult for Smith to manage by means of direct supervision and still preserve a measure of initiative among staff members; second, Smith's poor health and choler sometimes hindered his ability to adopt means that were consistent with the organic aspect of functionalism. In Washington, Algiers and London, Bedell Smith gained notoriety as a "hatchetman" who did his superior's dirty work. His ugly reputation was fitting in some ways, but undeserved in others. His achievements have been underestimated. Smith was the firm defender of the Eisenhower's prerogatives. Among British colleagues, he was a disciple of cooperation and diplomacy. He was intelligent, orderly and functionalist in the sense that his decisiveness and willingness to accept responsibility achieved quick and predictable results. Smith's understanding of principal issues and his grasp of details earned the trust and respect of colleagues. He acted out of duty, not "natural" meanness. The traits of a "hatchetman" - feared and detested by some - were the distinguishing features that won favor from his superiors, Marshall and Eisenhower.

<p> This is a history between 1960 and 2000 of asylums operated in the United States for children labeled as &ldquo;severely or profoundly mentally retarded,&rdquo; and &ldquo;emotionally and behaviorally disturbed.&rdquo; I use one primary case study of the Willowbrook State School in Staten Island, New York. Willowbrook has already received some focus in the works of David and Shelia Rothman as well as Drs. David Goode, Darryl Hill, and William Bronston, and Geraldo Rivera&rsquo;s newscast in 1972. Primary focus has been given to it because it is both unique and indicative of asylums across the U.S. during the mid 20th Century. It was unique in some of the severity of treatment, which its residents experienced, but overall mirrors national trends in brutal and neglectful living conditions. It also signals larger national trends in the mid to late 70s, which carry over into the 80s and early 90s as part of the deinstitutionalization movement. I find that this movement was largely a response to the conditions for which Willowbrook became a national symbol. Furthermore, even in the wake of the deinstitutionalization movement, there are many problems with federal and state policy that disproportionately disaffect people of color as well as poor people. Finally, I argue that the historical canon must expand somewhat to take into account Deleuze and Guattari&rsquo;s ideas about Societies of Control. Many scholars, such as the Rothman, Tonya Titchkosky, Kim E. Nielsen, and others base their work on the Foucault&rsquo;s notion of a &lsquo;disciplinary&rsquo; society. But Deleuze (sometimes with Guattari) offers a sympathetic critique of Foucault&rsquo;s understanding of discipline that adds a great deal of depth to the study of asylums and deinstitutionalization in the mid to late 20th Century.</p>

Because of the removal policy of the American government, Indian Territory was made the new home of over thirty Indian nations, including the Five Civilized Tribes of the Southeast. In an effort to stabilize and maintain peaceful and helpful relations between these immigrant nations over fifty international councils were called throughout the history of this territory. During the 1870's, the delegates of the nations attending the Okmulgee Council also attempted to form a confederacy. These circumstances provide an excellent microcosm of Native American internationalism, and by analyzing the nature of the diplomacy that occurred among these nations this thesis will propose a pattern or model that will hopefully be useful in understanding the international relations that occurred between the indigenous nations over the last 500 years.