This dissertation seeks to answer two primary questions stemming from the war between the United States and Mexico: 1) What methods did the United States Army Quartermaster Department employ during the war to achieve their goals of supporting armies in the field? 2) In executing these methods, what lasting impact did the presence of the Quartermaster Department leave on the Lower Río Grande borderland, specifically South Texas during the interwar period from 1848-1860? In order to obtain a complete understanding of what the Department did during the war, a discussion of the creation, evolution, and methodology of the Quartermaster Department lays the foundation for effective analysis of the department's wartime methods and post-war influence. It is equally essential to understand the history of South Texas prior to the Mexican War under the successive control of Spain, Mexico and the United States and how that shaped the wartime situation. The wartime discussion of Department operations is divided into three chapters, reflecting each of the main theaters and illustrating the respective methods and influence within each area. The final two chapters address the impact of the war on South Texas and how the presence of the Quartermaster Department on the Río Grande served as a catalyst for economic, social, and political changes in this borderland region. Combining primary source analysis of wartime logistics with a synthesis of divergent military and social histories of the Lower Río Grande borderland demonstrates the influence of the Department on South Texas during the mid-nineteenth century. The presence of the Quartermaster Department created an economic environment that favored Anglo-American entrepreneurs, allowing them to grow in wealth and begin to supplant the traditional Tejano/Mexican-American power structure in South Texas. Despite remaining an ethnic minority, Anglos used this situational advantage to dominate the region politically. This outcome shaped South Texas for decades to follow.

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.

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This dissertation analyzes the life of Czech traveler Čeněk Paclt (1813 - 1887), who was born in the town of Turnov. Čeněk Paclt belongs to the most famous Czech travelers. He is also the first Czech, who has provably traveled through all five inhabited continents and has left written evidence about his journeys. Fundamental part of this thesis is focusing on his life and describes his adventures, which he had come across on the five continents. The thesis is written in historical, and employs historical anthropology, which focuses on a single individual in the course of human events, as one of the main methodological approaches. Secondarily, this thesis elaborates Paclt's personality and his view on aboriginal cultures, which he encountered during his travels, and Paclt's relationship towards his hometown is also mentioned. Furthermore, the dissertation touches upon traveling background in Czech nation during 19th century.

The work examines the antislavery writings of Francis Wayland (1796-1865). Wayland pastored churches in Boston and Providence, but he left his indelible mark as the fourth and twenty-eight year president of Brown University (1827-1855). The author of numerous works on moral science, economics, philosophy, education, and the Baptist denomination, his administration marked a transitional stage in the emergence of American colleges from a classically oriented curriculum to an educational philosophy based on science and modern languages. Wayland left an enduring legacy at Brown, but it was his antislavery writings that brought him the most notoriety and controversy. Developed throughout his writings, rather than systematically in a major work, his antislavery views were shaped and tested in the political and intellectual climate of the antebellum world in which he lived. First developed in The Elements of Moral Science (1835), he tested the boundaries of activism in The Limitations of Human Responsibility (1838), and publicly debated antislavery in Domestic Slavery Considered as a Scriptural Institution (1845). The political crisis from the Mexican-American War through the Kansas-Nebraska Act heightened Wayland’s activism as delineated in The Duty of Obedience to the Civil Magistrate (1847), his noncompliance with the Fugitive Slave Law, and his public address on the Kansas-Nebraska Bill (1854). In 1861 he became a committed Unionist. I argue that Francis Wayland was a mediating figure in the controversy between abolitionists and proslavery apologists and that his life was a microcosm of the transition that many individuals made from moderate antislavery to abolitionism. Wayland proved unique in that he was heavily coveted by Northern abolitionists who sought his unconditional support and yet he was respected by Southerners who appreciated his uncondemning attitude toward slaveholders even while he opposed slavery. I argue that Wayland’s transition from reluctant critic to public activist was not solely due to the political sweep of events, but that his latter activism was already marked in his earlier work. Most importantly, his life demonstrated both the limits and possibilities in the history of American antislavery.

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