This study examines NACA's organization in the light of Alfred D. Chandler's <i>Strategy and Structure</i>. It analyzes the agency's administration. NACA's strategy of maximizing existing technology and its committee's structure were the key elements in its failure to develop jet propulsion in the early 1940s. We will focus first on NACA and its organization. The second chapter will describe jet propulsion, particularly the acquisition of a Whittle engine from England and General Arnold 's role in keeping NACA out of the development of the Whittle engine in the United States. The third chapter will concentrate on the reasons that combined and led to the difficulties of NACA in the mid-forties and the 1950s. That chapter will look at the rise of the aviation industry, the criticism it expressed against NACA, and finally NACA's strategy as one of the causes of failure. / Master of Arts

Master of Science

Airpower developed significantly during the First World War while leaders adapted to integrate it into the constantly evolving combined arms system. First World War airpower is often viewed as insignificant in relation to the wider conflict. This generally stems from the perception that airplanes fought in a parallel air war or failed to achieve "decisive" air-to-ground results. These conceptions oversimplify the impact of pursuit and bomber aviation and ignore the monumental role of aerial observation and overall battlefield integration. The true impact of airpower during the war is revealed through the lens of combined arms operations rather than through the examination of airpower as a singular weapon. This study utilizes a layered approach analyzing the ideas, organization, planning, and battlefield execution to assess the integration of airpower into the combined arms systems for the French, British, and American forces on the Western Front in 1918. Each of these armies led an Allied force in a critical battle during the summer of 1918: the Second Battle of the Marne, the Battle of Amiens, and the Battle of Saint-Mihiel. This study chronologically flows through these three battles and reveals that the air element emerged as increasingly synthesized into the modern combined arms systems of 1918.

During the Revolutionary War, many key Patriot leaders believed that militia were untrustworthy and useless in battle. After the American victory, many of the same men proclaimed their support for the militia as the foundation of the new nation's defense. The debate on the efficacy of Patriot militia continues into modern scholarship; some historians credit the militia with an important strategic role in the war, while others consider them a mere footnote in a conflict that was truly won by the Continental Army. This series of case studies examines four American expeditionary militia units to assess their level of military competence and professionalism. The results show that militia units were far from amateur, and many conducted their operations in a professional military manner. This supports a conclusion that militia both contributed to the American victory and remained a practical means of defense for the young nation.

Master of Arts / Department of History / Charles W. Sanders / On September 13, 1950, in a culmination of three years of efforts by organizations and individuals inside and outside the Harry S. Truman administration, 69 captured battle flags from the Mexican-American War were formally returned to the Mexican government at a ceremony in Mexico City. The events surrounding the return of flags to Mexico occurred in two distinct phases. The first was a small, secretive, and largely symbolic return of three flags conceived and carried out by high-ranking U.S. government officials in June 1947. The second large-scale, public return of the remaining flags in the custody of the War Department was initiated by the American Legion and enacted by the United States Congress. Despite their differences, both returns were heavily influenced by contemporary events, primarily the presidential election of 1948 and the escalation of the Cold War. Also, although the second return was much more extensive than the President originally intended, it was only through his full support that either return was accomplished. In the decades since 1950, historians have either ignored the return of Mexican battle flags or focused instead on Truman’s wreath laying at the monument to the niños héroes in Mexico City in March 1947. This study, for the first time, provides an in-depth description of the efforts to return captured Mexican battle flags and explains why these war trophies were returned while others have remained in the United States. The goal of this investigation is to present the efforts of the Truman administration for what they truly were: an unprecedented act of international friendship. Although the actions of the U.S. government and private organizations were partially influenced by self-interest and Cold War fears, their primary motivation was a sincere desire to erase the painful memories surrounding the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848 in an effort to improve future relations between the two countries. Many historians point to the Truman administration as the end of the Good Neighbor Policy toward Latin America. This study, however, argues that the return of captured Mexican battle flags represents the true pinnacle of the United States’ Good Neighbor Policy toward its southern neighbor.

Master of Arts / Department of History / Donald J. Mrozek / In the 1960s, modernization theory became an important analytical tool to conceptualize change in the Third World. As opposed to rebuilding societies that had already attained industrialization as was done with the Marshall Plan, modernization theorists focused on creating a total theory that encapsulated the entire arc of development from a traditional agricultural society to a modern industrial society. Aware that a colonial relationship subordinating nations on the periphery to the West was impossible, modernization theorists sought to create an amicable bond based on consent. Modernization theory served as the underlying logic of the Alliance for Progress, Peace Corps, and the Strategic Hamlet Program in Vietnam. This thesis argues that although modernization theory certainly had novel aspects, notably its social and psychological elements, much of the theory simply consisted of the coalesced logic, assumptions, and methods acquired from three previous American experiences with development, particularly the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), Point Four Program, and occupation of Japan after World War II. I argue that thought concerning development from the 1930s through the 1960s should be seen as a continuum rather than view modernization theory in the 1950s and 1960s as completely novel. Modernization theorists both intentionally and unknowingly incorporated into modernization theory the logic, assumptions, and methods developed in previous development schemes. Chapter Two examines how the democratic decentralized structure of the TVA became embedded in post-World War II thought about development as an alternative to communist models of development. The chapter also explores TVA director David Lilienthal’s and modernization theorists’ emphasis on technology as both harbingers of modernization and evidence of modernity. Chapter Three investigates how Chester Bowles, the director of the Point Four Program in India, and modernization theorists used Keynesian economics in their development model, arguing that modernization could be induced by government spending in agriculture, education, infrastructure, and health and sanitation. Chapter Three also explores how Bowles and modernization theorists used an evolutionary theory of development derived from America’s past to guide their development in the Third World. Chapter Four examines the similarity between what officials of the Japanese occupation and modernization theorists considered traditional and modern. The chapter also explains that both groups believed in the universal applicability of the principles of American society.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of History / Sue Zschoche / Despite an impressive history of woman-friendly legislation, Kansans tend to be socially conservative. The Equal Rights Amendment, first proposed in 1923, was the culmination of over a century's worth of women's activism attempting to remove the strictures of coverture and to recognize women as citizens in their own right, not as wives or as mothers of male citizens. After largely ignoring the amendment for fifty years, Congress finally passed the ERA in 1972 and submitted it to the states for ratification. Almost immediately, the real and imagined consequences of the legislation provoked a passionate debate among mostly middle-class white women about the meaning of American womanhood. Liberals hoped that the ERA would remove existing barriers to women's educational and professional life; conservatives feared that the ERA would cause women to focus on selfish interests outside of their households, rotting the foundations of family life and American strength. In Kansas, women from both camps converged to discuss the future of the ERA at the feminist-organized Kansas Women's Weekend of July 15-17, 1977, resulting in Kansas sending a conservative faction to the federally funded National Women's Conference later that year. Conservatives failed to derail the convention's feminist agenda, nor were they able to enact a rescission of Kansas' ratification, but in the long run they succeeded in creating widespread uneasiness about the social consequences of the ERA. The vitriolic anti-ERA campaign demonstrated the extent to which female dependency still defined both male and female conservatives' views on the interrelatedness of family, religion, manliness, and national strength. This dissertation explores a volume of letters to Kansas legislators expressing anti-ERA sentiment. The letters provide a unique lens through which to examine the passions aroused by the ERA among grassroots conservatives. Contextualizing this issue are other conservative reactions to feminist activity from the Revolution onward that consistently demonstrate how conservatives valorize female dependency. Although the liberal position regarding women's rights has changed significantly over two hundred years, conservative reaction has invariably embraced and elevated the patriarchal family as proper and necessary to the smooth functioning of a Christian republic.

Master of Arts / Department of History / Louise A. Breen / The land west of the Alleghany Mountains and along the Ohio River and Great Lakes was an area of hotly contested land and sovereignty claims during the colonial period, complete with shifting loyalties and highly factionalized alliances. Warfare and diplomacy in the western territories often hinged on the actions of just one man or a small group of people, with consequences that could cause the collapse of entire empires. The long-standing battle for land and power throughout the Ohio Valley has been called the Long War because once conflict began between the French, British, and Indians in 1754, no one power was truly able to claim the land and its people until the British were forced out of their Great Lakes forts in 1815. George Rogers Clark uniquely united these groups for a short moment in history. A feat made all the more impressive when we consider how long the region remained contested ground between empires. These factions united only once prior the era of American control. During the expedition of George Rogers Clark in 1778, backcountry settlers, French habitants, Indian chiefs, and Spanish officials all united during a small window of time to overthrow British control of the Illinois Country. He moved freely from the top political circles of Virginia to the remote frontier outposts of the Illinois Country. This thesis argues that George Rogers Clark was especially successful at gaining the cooperation of diverse groups of populations and coordinating those groups to work together towards his own goals. Clark certainly owes part of his success to being the right man in the right place at the right time, but it must be remembered that he was the only man to ever bring all of these factionalized groups together.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of History / Mark P. Parillo / The Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line, a key program under President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “New Look” policy, prepared the United States defense posture for “the long haul” in the Cold War. Eisenhower wanted to prevent the escalation of military costs while still providing an adequate defense. Eisenhower emphasized a retaliatory capability and improved continental defenses, the so-called “sword and shield,” which are key features of the New Look. The DEW Line would prove to be a vital component of both. Whereas the initial emphasis of the DEW Line was to warn against attack providing for both active and passive defense measures, soon there was a definite “counter-offensive” role for the DEW Line as well—the protection of the primary retaliatory capability of the United States: the Strategic Air Command (SAC). The place of the DEW Line in the history of the Cold War has been an under appreciated topic. With the exception of the scholarship from the 1950s and early 1960s, only recently have continental defense and particularly the DEW Line been removed from the shadows of other Cold War events, strategies, and military programs. This doctoral thesis is an account of the DEW Line’s conception, implementation, and position in Eisenhower’s New Look and deterrent strategy. The DEW Line proved to be a cardinal feature of Eisenhower’s New Look strategy: it strengthened overall U.S. defenses and defense posture as the one element of U.S. defense policy (“New Look”) that improved and connected both the active and passive measures of continental defense by providing early warning against manned bombers flying over the polar region; it bolstered the deterrent value of SAC; and it was instrumental in developing closer peacetime military cooperation between the United States and Canada. In fact, U.S.- Canadian diplomacy during the 1950s offers an important case study in “superpowermiddle power” interaction. However, despite the asymmetry in their relationship, U.S.- Canadian defense policies proved to be analogous. All of these objectives could not have been accomplished without the technological and logistical abilities necessary to construct successfully the DEW Line.

Master of Arts / Department of Communication Studies, Theatre, and Dance / Charles J. Griffin / This rhetorical history study attempts to refocus the narrow debate on the concept of the “Separation of Church and State.” Most scholars and popular organizations primarily focus their determination of the original intent of the Establishment Clause on the views of James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Virginia. However, according to the United States Constitution it takes three-fourths of the states and two-thirds of Congress to ratify an amendment. As a result, most arguments on this topic center on an extremely small minority of evidence: one of fourteen states, and only one of eighty-one members of Congress to determine the Founders’ original intent. This study reverses this trend and consults evidence from all the states involved as well as the records of Congress. Since comparable documents are vital to understanding history, all the state constitutions, state bills of rights, and state proposed amendments to the Federal Constitution are consulted as evidence at the beginning of this study. Additionally, every reference of religion in the above documents are individually presented in order to alleviate concerns of potential evidence manipulation. Further, the debates in Congress and the multiple drafts of the Establishment Clause are evaluated in the process of determining the Founders’ original intent. Throughout the study, several useful tables have been constructed in order to facilitate the processing and evaluation of such a large base of evidence. The results of this study indicate a lack of evidence for the contemporary view that the Founders’ intent was to create a total separation between church and state. From the specific religious concerns voiced in the state ratification debates of the Constitution, what religious limits were written into state constitutions/bills of rights, and the amendments that states proposed concerning religion; it becomes evident that the Founders’ intention was only to prevent a particular Christian denomination from becoming the established "National American Church.”