Following the German occupation of Denmark on April 9th 1940 Danish representatives were left to their own devices and their positions in their respective host-countries became very much dependent upon the goodwill shown to them by their host-governments and, in the case of the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland, the governments and officials of the occupying forces. With their connections with the Government in Copenhagen severed the main task of the Danish representatives was to secure Danish interests in the North Atlantic Territories as well as elsewhere. The fact that Denmark had not put up a fight to defend her neutrality and the subsequent collaboration of the Danish Government with the German occupiers counted against the Danish representatives abroad. However, the Danes were able to exercise a remarkable level of influence on the British and Americans with regard to their policies towards the North Atlantic Area. The extent of influence was mainly due to the entrepreneurship of each individual, the constitutional status of the territory as part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and also due to strategic importance attached by the occupying forces' governments to the occupied territories in question. This latter point became especially apparent in the power struggle amongst the Danish representatives that emerged from the lack of a Danish Government in exile. It became important to the British and the Americans that it was the Danish representative in their country, who emerged as the victor of this power struggle, because that would help to secure their future interests in the North Atlantic territories. The Danish representatives were thus in some cases shown more goodwill and attention than their Norwegian colleagues, although the Norwegians had put up a brave fight against the Germans and had joined the allied side. The North Atlantic area proved very important to the general war policy of the British and Americans during Second World War. British policies were much dependent upon the Americans and Greenland and Iceland became instrumental in the increased involvement of the Americans in the war.

Master of Arts / Department of History / Donald J. Mrozek / On 16 January 1991, a coalition of nations led by the United States launched a series of air strikes against Iraq to force that country to withdraw from Kuwait. What followed was an intense aerial bombardment of Iraqi military and civilian infrastructure which lasted until 24 February when the coalition began a ground offensive. After four days of ground fighting Iraq withdrew from Kuwait. American pictorial print media created a historical interpretation of the 1991 Persian Gulf War in the sense that selected images were immediately published to a broad audience and these images provided an acceptable story of the war. Perceptions of an Air Campaign examines the cultural meanings of the air war and how these meanings took shape in the narrative pictorial print media produced. The narrative is intricately related to the legacy of the Vietnam War. For generations, Americans viewed contemporary war, politics, foreign affairs, and culture through their memories of the U.S. defeat in Vietnam. President George H.W. Bush guaranteed the U.S. public that the Gulf War was consciously being constructed to avoid a conflict similar to Vietnam. According to the president, the United States was going to war with enough resources for a swift and decisive victory, thereby avoiding the Vietnam pitfall of an open-ended conflict. Pictorial print media articulated a narrative displaying U.S. military strength and dominance that fulfilled Bush’s promise.

Master of Arts / Department of History / Michael A. Ramsay / In 1989, the United States Marine Corps published the document Fleet Marine Force Manual 1, Warfighting. Its appearance signaled the official adoption of maneuver warfare as the Corps's organizational philosophy and the basis of its doctrine for preparing and conducting operations. The decade of debate and experimentation that preceded the publication of Warfighting has not received detailed examination, but merits such for the insights it can provide to understanding intellectual change and military reform. Beginning in 1979, Marine Corps officers engaged in an intraservice debate over the issue of maneuver warfare, a new concept that began to circulate among military reformers in the latter half of the 1970s. A group of Marine officers known as "maneuverists" began meeting in unofficial seminars to study, refine, and promote the idea. Maneuverists believed that maneuver warfare was a more fluid and dynamic way of fighting because it stressed flexibility, creativity, and a focus on enemy behavior. They also thought the new idea offered a more effective alternative for fighting war than contemporary practices, which they thought focused too much on rigid application of standardized procedures and methods of existing manuals. The intellectual transformation of the Marine Corps involved three main mechanisms. The first was a theoretical mechanism centered on public debate in the pages of Marine Corps Gazette to introduce and defend maneuver warfare to Marine audience. The second was a functional/practical mechanism that involved educational and training initiatives at the Amphibious Warfare School and Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. The third mechanism was the use of institutional authority made possible with the appointment of General Alfred M. Gray, a senior and vocal maneuver warfare champion, to the position Commandant of the Marine Corps. Using the authority of his office, Gray directed the writing of a doctrinal manual encapsulating the ideas of maneuver warfare to provide the Corps organizational focus and direction. The resulting manual FMFM 1, Warfighting, officially adopted maneuver warfare as service doctrine and organizational warfighting philosophy.

The United States entered World War I without a policy governing the burial of its overseas dead. Armed only with institutional knowledge from the Spanish-American War twenty years prior, the Army struggled to create a policy amidst social turmoil in the United States and political tension between France and the United States.

In this thesis I look at the Arkansas Project and more specifically the racial dynamics within the project and the surrounding communities in Arkansas where SNCC engaged to assist the residents fight for their civil rights. In addition, I analyze how the differences in the urban and rural communities were affected by the racial dynamics of the project's leadership. The Arkansas project was led by William Hansen, a white man, which made him and the project unique from not only other SNCC projects, but other civil rights organizations. This distinction made the strategy that had to be implemented with the project staff internally and also externally in the Arkansas communities different because his race had to be taken into consideration for all purposes. Another aspect that came into play in Arkansas was the fact that some of their activities occurred in urban communities and others occurred in rural communities. These difference in communities affected not only how the local blacks received the SNCC volunteers, but also affected how local whites received the SNCC volunteers. Although the fact that the Arkansas Project had a white field director made it unique and the racial dynamics worthy of scholarly investigation, Bill Hansen's racial identity was far from the only reason that the organization's work in Arkansas is historically significant. This thesis also looks at the important activities in which SNCC engaged and impacted because of their presence in Arkansas. Of those activities, SNCC impacted the creation of several local groups where local citizens helped to fight for their civil rights, in fighting for their civil rights, those groups engaged in sit-ins, protests, and fighting legal battles in court where some of their cases made it all the way to the United States Supreme Court and impacted the civil rights movement in the south. Two important legal cases that had ramifications for the civil rights movement beyond the state that originated in Arkansas. The cases of Lupper v. State of Arkansas and Raney v. Board of Education made it all the way to the United States Supreme Court out of Arkansas. They helped shape the civil rights movement because Lupper helped clarify sit-in cases and the constitutionality of the arrests. The arrests were deemed unconstitutional because the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbade discrimination in places of public accommodation and allowed peaceful attempts to be served like any other member of the public from punishable activities in spite of the fact the activities occurred prior to the date of its enactment. In addition, Raney helped define desegregation efforts in the south as many states attempted to avoid the Brown v. Board of Education decision by implementing "freedom of choice plans." Freedom of choice plans were state attempts to circumvent the Brown decision by making the students and their family choose which school they would attend. These cases helped shape the civil rights movement and dealt with sit ins and integrating schools. This thesis provides an important addition to the scholarship about SNCC and SNCC's Arkansas Project.

Margaret Bayard Harrison Smith was a prominent member of early Washington City society from the time she and her husband, Samuel Harrison Smith, moved to the blossoming capital in 1800 until her death in 1844. As a longtime resident of Washington, Margaret spent most of her adult life navigating the unique socio-political waters of the capital and developing friendships with many of the most prominent politicians of her time. Mrs. Smith's writings provide firsthand accounts of several important political events including Congress' role in the election of 1800, Jefferson's first inauguration, Madison's first inauguration, and the destruction left by the British after the siege of Washington. Her writings also provide a picture of early undeveloped Washington City, where grand public buildings were largely surrounded by wilderness and connected by muddy roads. While this work looks at the social and political environment that Margaret Smith experienced, it also examines many of the personal concerns that frequented Mrs. Smith's writings. Margaret's views on educating her children, interacting with servants, interacting with the enslaved population of Washington, and dealing with feelings of isolation, due to the distance from her family, are frequently addressed in her letters. Focusing on these aspects of Mrs. Smith's writings allows for a greater examination of the societal norms of her day about gender, class, and race. While Margaret's letters and commonplace books have often been used to examine Washington society and the lives of her prominent friends, there is no biography of Mrs. Smith herself. This dissertation provides the first biography of Margaret Bayard Harrison Smith from her birth until the end of the War of 1812.

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