Thesis advisor: Seth Jacobs / The most decisive campaign of the American Civil War was waged in neither Virginia, nor Pennsylvania, nor along the Mississippi River, but rather in Great Britain. Northern military advantages in the prosecution of the war effort could have been completely negated by a serious diplomatic setback in Great Britain. In order to win the Civil War, the North had to prevent Great Britain from entering the conflict. British intervention (which would have also included France), whether in the form of actually entering the war on the side of the South, official recognition of the Confederacy, foreign mediation, or a call for an armistice followed by peace negotiations, would have been a diplomatic disaster for the North and a fatal blow in its attempt to re-unify the nation. Military setbacks on the battlefield were not nearly as threatening as diplomatic setbacks abroad. The North had greater manpower, a stronger and more balanced economy, an industrial infrastructure, and a better equipped army; yet, in order for these advantages to translate into military victory at home, the North first needed to ensure that the domestic conflict did not spread to an international war. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2003. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

This dissertation examines the origins and impact of student activism on southern college campuses during the 1960s. Southern students of the sixties joined their colleagues in other parts of the nation in addressing the major social and political questions of the day, but the political mobilization of these students has received scant attention from historians. When a student-led sit-in movement against segregated public establishments swept the South in 1960 and 1961, it initiated a new era in the region's political history and in the history of southern higher education. The sit-ins provided new precedents for southern students as political actors while they simultaneously exposed limitations on academic freedom. On this foundation, southern students built a student movement that challenged not only the racial discrimination in the region but also inadequacies in the region's higher-education system. The escalation of American military involvement in Vietnam intensified this movement in the late 1960s. At the same time, the emergence of black-power rhetoric signaled a rise in militance among the region's black students and raised questions about the meaning of integration in formerly segregated colleges and universities. In 1969 and 1970, campuses throughout the region experienced unprecedented demonstrations. Nevertheless, faced with strong resistance and beset by internal weaknesses, the southern student movement soon lost momentum Based on research conducted at a variety of institutions throughout the region, this dissertation differs from most previous studies of the student movement of the sixties by adopting a biracial focus. Historically black institutions and predominantly white campuses provided different contexts for the emergence of a student movement. But despite the differences, the clashes on black and white campuses were part of one movement---a movement that sought to remake southern higher education and, in the process, southern society / acase@tulane.edu

'Heathenish Combination': The Natives of the North American Southeast During the Era of the Yamasee War examines the significance of the Yamasee Indian war against South Carolina in 1715 from a native American perspective. Chapter one presents a portrait of the Southeast as it appeared just prior to the war. It discusses the various Indian nations engaged in trade with South Carolina, including information on their location and the state of their relations with English traders. Chapter two deals with the origins of the war. The author suggests that market relations with South Carolina destabilized native society in a number of ways, which forced southeastern Indians to take up arms in an effort to control the terms of their involvement in the Atlantic economy. Chapter three provides a narrative account of the war, while chapter four assesses the war's consequences for native political organization. The author argues that the war facilitated the formation of the Creek Confederacy and the Catawba Nation. The issue of Indian slavery is addressed in chapter five. A comprehensive statistical study, utilizing probate records in the South Carolina Department of Archives and History, describes the demographic structures which shaped the experience of slavery for native Americans between 1690 and 1740 / acase@tulane.edu

The 1984 Louisiana World Exposition in New Orleans was an important historical and cultural event. Unfortunately, the principal private and public sector parties involved had conflicting expectations as to its anticipated results A number of external and internal factors limited full achievement of all goals and there was a considerable financial deficit. Early financial difficulties and other problems caused a negative public relations image of the Fair during its 184 day run, and management was not successful in promoting it. Attendance was far short of that expected. A recession, political problems, demographics and certain strategic decisions based on faulty original data also contributed to the shortfall To what level it can be said to be successful can only be determined in a relative way to how it met its stated and implied goals of being a great show, drawing twelve million visitors, being self liquidating, being an economic development catalyst, and leaving something behind of value. However, there are certain residual tangible and intangible benefits which the area realized by hosting the Fair / acase@tulane.edu

This is an ethnohistorical and literary biography of Olivia Ward Bush (Banks), 1869-1944, an Afro-American/Native American poet, playwright, teacher, and journalist. From her birth in Sag Harbor, New York to her residence in Providence, Boston, Chicago, and New York, the work explores Bush's aesthetic response to events such as the accommodationist-integrationist controversy, the Great Migrations, provitivism, Negritude, and the Great Depression. The sources consulted include Bush's published and unpublished works and memorabilia, studies in linguistics, anthropology, literature, and interviews with Bush's family and with Native Americans. One concludes Bush concurrently adhered to a Montauk and Afro-American identity and contributed to the Negro Renaissance movement of the 1920's-1930's. Her life was a microcosm of America's change from a rural to urban industrial society at the turn of the century / acase@tulane.edu

This study examines the mobilizing of southern workers for the Second World War, and how the mobilization process exposed regional anxieties over race and labor relations. With the expanded federal presence in the South during the war, the process of state-building and economic development remained fraught with tension. As the experiences of the War Manpower Commission (WMC), the U.S. Employment Service (USES) and the Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC) illustrate, southern economic boosters hoped to achieve the economic benefits of industrial modernization, while co-opting federal agencies to serve their conservative interests Within this context of state-building and economic development during the war, historians have failed to acknowledge adequately the key role that federal manpower agencies played in transforming southern and national labor markets. Paradoxically, the War Manpower Commission often hindered the utilization of black industrial labor on the southern home-front, while exporting southern black workers to defense industries in other regions. This manpower policy reinforced migration trails out of the South, and hence, left a permanent imprint on national race relations. For southern employers, this policy illustrated the limits of their power to control local labor markets. For all southern workers, and especially African-Americans, these WMC inter-regional recruitment networks to the West and the North provided new opportunities for economic and geographic mobility / acase@tulane.edu

The Mexican War was one of the most significant events in American history, but only recently have historians begun to examine the men who fought it. Building on the pioneering work of these social, cultural, and intellectual historians, this study furthers our understanding of the participants in the Mexican War. By combining elements of the new military history and studies of Jacksonian America this dissertation focuses new light on why men volunteered for service, and how their understanding of that service changed over time Beginning with an examination of how and why Americans volunteered for the war, the dissertation then takes a detailed look at what these men believed they knew about Mexico. The study makes use of many of the most popular books written about Mexico that were available to the potential recruits, and determines that their views of the nation were deeply shaped by these works. From there the dissertation examines what Americans believed they were fighting for once they arrived in Mexico. Influenced by their own society, volunteers believed that they were crusaders for republicanism. Their goal was to turn Mexico into a nation more in step with the United States. The dissertation concludes by following the volunteers back to America after the war. By looking at their memoirs, and other writings, it is clear that the hope to spread republicanism was generally left in Mexico / acase@tulane.edu

Who were the southern antisuffragists? Why would these women oppose their own enfranchisement? How did they differ from 'northern' antisuffragists? Did they differ in same fashion from their opponents in the southern suffrage movement? These are the primary considerations of this monograph. An examination of these questions not only brings into the light a group of previously ignored women, it also helps to inform our understanding of some of the forces at work in the southern suffrage movement as well. Suffragists and antisuffragists were locked in something resembling an organizational ping-pong game: each was forced to respond to actions by the other. To understand completely the strategies and activities of the suffragists, we must look simultaneously at the activities of their opponents (and vice-versa). Therefore southern suffragists appear as prominent actors in an account of the antisuffragists This dissertation examines the prosopography, the ideology, and the organizational activities of the southern antisuffragists. It concludes that, in contradiction to past assumptions, suffragists and antisuffragists did not come from the same social and economic class, nor did they have similar experiences of 'social feminism.' Instead, their backgrounds and experiences differed significantly, the product of their differing economic positions Southern antisuffragists created a conservative countermovement intended to prevent the changes which they contended woman suffrage would impose upon the family structure, class relations, gender roles, and racial settlement of the South at the end of the Nineteenth Century. Southern ' antis' believed that they benefitted the most from contemporary race, class, and gender constructs and would consequently suffer the most as a result of any tampering with the status quo A final chapter gives separate treatment to the 'states' rights' faction of the southern suffrage movement. By opposing the federal woman suffrage amendment, the states' rights suffragists effectively became allies of the antisuffragists at times. The emergence of the states' rights faction meant that the southern suffrage campaigns were three-sided, which not only complicated the suffrage contests in the South, but also has hindered historians' efforts to analyze and interpret the southern suffrage movement / acase@tulane.edu

This dissertation explores the development of the apparel industry in the southern United States from 1937 to 1980. The apparel industry has received scant attention from historians, especially when compared to the numerous influential works examining the southern textile industry. The history of the southern clothing industry and its workers merits individual attention, for it yields its own distinctive story By virtue of its size, its reliance upon female labor, and its broad geographic scope, the southern apparel industry provides an opportunity to connect the often disparate concerns of southern cultural history, labor history, and women's history. This study examines the essential features of the apparel industry in the South and the varied experiences of clothing workers during the industry's great expansion from the late 1930s until the demise of the southern branch of the industry in the 1980s. The scope of the inquiry is broad, encompassing the role of organized labor, the changing racial composition of the industry's work force, the creation of a feminine work culture and its As companies relocated their manufacturing facilities in the South, they capitulated to the system of racial segregation. After the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 the whiteness of occupations within the apparel industry declined and the racial and ethnic diversity of the industry increased. African American and Latina women workers accounted for a large percentage of what was once a predominantly white industry. And as the ethnic and racial diversity of the southern clothing industry increased, organizing efforts were more successful. The influential union label and boycott strategies of the clothing industry provide an important perspective on the place of women workers in southern culture and the labor movement. The role of women as the primary consumers of the family placed them in a critical position to influence the success or failure of boycotts, union label programs and, ultimately, solidarity. But as the United States apparel industry collapse began in the 1960s, apparel unions chose to rely on 'Buy American' boycott campaigns that pitted them against the very workers they had hoped to organize / acase@tulane.edu

This dissertation examines the public life of Sarah Towles Reed, a teacher in the Orleans Parish public schools from 1910 to 1951. Reed was a founding member of the New Orleans Public School Teachers Association and the New Orleans Classroom Teachers' Federation, Local 353, of the American Federation of Teachers, AFL Reed's major accomplishments included securing equal pay for women teachers, the employment of married women in the public school system, teacher tenure and sabbaticals. Twice during her career she publicly defended teachers' academic freedom, risking her job and reputation for a cause that was central to her political philosophy In taking an active role in public life, Reed helped to redefine public behavior for southern women as she defied the strictures of ladyhood, speaking her mind and defending her rights in the male world of school administration and politics. Reed's commitment to progressive educational pedagogy and her belief in democratic education frequently brought her into conflict with school authorities and conservative elements in the New Orleans community. Nevertheless, she continued to adhere to the teachings of John Dewey and other progressive educators Like many liberals of her generation, Reed was less effective in dealing with racial issues than with other educational and political concerns. Although she helped organize the first black teachers' union in New Orleans and worked closely with African-American colleagues during the 1930s and 1940s, she was unable fully to support federally mandated school desegregation. When the national AFT required its locals to integrate following the Brown v. Board of Education decision, 353 voted to maintain its segregated membership. Reed requested an extension of the AFT deadline in an attempt to preserve her union, but the national refused and revoked the local's charter Reed's life and work illuminate some of the most significant struggles of the twentieth century: women's rights, academic freedom, and racial justice. Her successes as well as her failures shed light on how southerners engaged these concerns on a local level, and her life presents a revealing case study of the strengths and weaknesses of liberalism in the twentieth-century South / acase@tulane.edu