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The Natchitoches (Louisiana) Art Colony (1921-1937) was recognized as the first art colony of the South. Founded by Irma Sompayrac (Willard) and taught by Newcomb College (New Orleans, Louisiana) Art professors, Ellsworth Woodward and Will Henry Stevens, the colony was part of the movement to produce southern indigenous art. Originally an en plein air landscape school recognized locally, regionally and nationally, an arts and crafts local orientation resulted in the later (Depression) years. The group influenced the development and spread of other southern art colonies (including Melrose (Louisiana) Writers' and Artists' Colony) and established a public awareness and patronage for arts in the South. This is primarily a study of the background of the colony (in the context of the art colony concept) and the colony itself (founders, instructors, students, publicity, history); and not an evaluation of the few paintings (reproductions are included) found / acase@tulane.edu

Muyil, Quintana Roo, Mexico is an ancient Maya site 25 km south of Tulum on the Caribbean east coast. It is 15 km inland from the shore, but with sea access via canals and lagoons. Recent investigations at the site provided architectural and survey data which are analyzed here by two techniques. First, the 69 larger and better preserved structures of 290 mapped structures are analyzed by architectural modes and seriated by means of a computer program written in PROLOG (programming in logic) to build a seriation model for Muyil architecture with possible extensions to other east coast sites. Secondly, the structures are fitted into an architectural typology used by Freidel and Sabloff for the architecture of Cozumel, and extended to include 188 structures of 18 other east coast sites by Sullivan in 1988. The results of the analyses are used to suggest a preliminary culture history for Muyil, and to propose several avenues of new research involving the architecture of the east coast and Coba and future excavation strategies at Muyil / acase@tulane.edu

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

In 1970, the University of California published the second, revised edition of John Leddy Phelan's seminal study, The Millennial Kingdom of the Franciscans in the New World. Since the publication of Phelan's first edition in 1956, most subsequent related historiography has upheld Phelan's implicit argument that a wave of millennial fervor swept the Franciscans of sixteenth-century New Spain. This thesis contends that millennialism was rather an intellectual movement of a small number of friar-historians including Toribio de Benavente 'Motolinia', (1482/91-1569), Geronimo de Mendieta, (1528-1604), Andres de Olmos (d. 1571) and Pedro Oroz (d. 1597). Through the rhetorical tool of a Joachite schema of divine history, the millennialist, most especially Mendieta, protested the policies of the Spanish crown which attacked the power and position of the Franciscan order in the second half of the sixteenth-century. In addition, millennialism was a technique which allowed the Franciscan historians to escape the confining methodologies of scholastic historiography. Finally, by tracing the development of millennial thought in the Franciscan order, this thesis clarifies many terms such as millennialism, Messianic, mystic and millenarianism that authors mistakenly employ interchangeably through most of the historiography / acase@tulane.edu

In recent years, many states have responded to public sentiment with legislation providing court officials greater discretion in remanding juvenile offenders to adult criminal court. In 1994, for example, Louisiana State Legislature approved House Bill 64 which accomplished both a broadening of the adult court's jurisdiction and a lowering of the age at which waiver to the adult court was possible. This study focuses on whether the provisions of House Bill 64 are consistent with New Orleanians' attitudes toward the treatment of juvenile offenders. In a random survey of 212 respondents, New Orleanians' attitudes are found to be based on several jurisdictional elements such as the offender's age and record of prior juvenile detention, the type of weapon used, if any, and the physical assault of the victim. However, several extra-legal variables, such as race, are also significant. In regard to the effects of race, the data reveal that the offenders' race is a significant predictor--the odds that black offenders would elicit feelings that transfer to adult court is appropriate are significantly higher relative to those for white offenders. Further, the analysis reveals that the effect of offender's race is dependent upon his age at the time of the offense and is consistent across categories of respondent's race. Implications for public policy are discussed / acase@tulane.edu

This thesis is on the work and life of the American printmaker, Morris Henry Hobbs. In the 1930s and 1940s, Hobbs received national attention for his print series of Europe, Chicago, New Orleans and nudes as well as miniature prints known as 'postage stamp' etchings. Stylistically, he remained faithful to the representation tradition of the American 'Second Etching Revival' movement Hobbs exhibited regularly in regional and national exhibitions. Twice he had the distinction of having one-man shows at the Smithsonian Institution. His prints appeared in the leading annuals and journals of the day, including Pencil Points, Fine Prints of the Year, Contemporary American Etchers, Print Collector's Quarterly and Prize Winning Prints of the Twentieth Century. Hobbs' prints can be found in the collection of the Carnegie Institute, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Library of Congress, Toledo Museum of Art, Tulane University, The Historic New Orleans Collection and Louisiana State Museum / acase@tulane.edu

This paper is the memoir of a Polish-Jewish survivor of the Holocaust, annotated with historical references and an introduction written by the narrator's daughter. It is based on the narrator's taped recollections, as told to and edited by her daughter. The narrator was born and raised in Siedlce, Poland, a city located fifty miles east of Warsaw. She describes life in Siedlce before World War II and then recounts the events that took place in Siedlce following the German invasion of Poland in September 1939. The narrator and her husband were among the few Jews to survive the liquidation of the community. Fearing denunciation, they assumed false identities and went to Germany to work. She recounts their experiences working in a factory in Kassel and on a farm near Wtirzburg. The memoir depicts their liberation and their life as displaced persons in the American zone of Germany, concluding with their emigration to the United States in 1949 / acase@tulane.edu

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Abstract not available / acase@tulane.edu