Out of the politically charged atmosphere of the 1960s and 1970s emerged a migration to "the land" and communes, which popularly became known as the back-to-the-land movement. This migration occurred throughout the United States, as well as many other countries, and included clusters of land based communities in southern Oregon. Within these clusters, lesbian feminist women created lesbian separatist lands and communes. These women were well educated, and politically active in movements such as the New Left, Civil Rights, Women's Liberation, and Gay Liberation. These lands or communes functioned together as a community network that developed and commodified lesbian art, which impacted and influenced the development of lesbian art over time. In Oregon, as of 2011, at least ten known lesbian lands still existed. This cluster belonged to an extended community that stretched down into California and over into New Mexico. Over a two-year period I collected, transcribed, and studied the oral histories of eight of the elders of the women's land movement in southern Oregon. The purpose of this study is to better understand this movement of lesbian feminists the development of lesbian art and culture over time. The lesbian feminist back-to-the-land movement made the conscious choice to disengage from the patriarchal mainstream rather than continue participation in their own oppression. They viewed lesbian feminist separatism and the creation of safe lesbian land as a way to reconstruct their self-identity and influence the continued self-perception of lesbians the world over through art and literature. Based on these oral histories and archival materials, it became evident that the women within the lesbian land communities developed and maintained land on which they could re-examine who they were, re-educate themselves and each other, learn practical skills, construct new identities, create art, and broadcast their creations out into the world through organized media networks. One of the key features of this construction of lesbian land culture was the desire to share--share power, share money, share responsibilities, share knowledge, share land, share lovers. On the one hand, ownership was eschewed as elitist and patriarchal, while simultaneously important to the continuity of women's land and its protection from what could be described as patriarchal profit motives. They developed infrastructure, altered language, created a spiritual practice, and made art. The material and artistic culture was created in concert with modes or mediums of transmission, casting it out to a much wider audience. These creative activities influenced and impacted women beyond Oregon, beyond the lesbian land communities, and beyond the 1970s. By examining the lesbian land movement in southern Oregon, we can better understand the impact on LGBTQ culture, and the continued albeit unintentional impact on the questioning of the gender binary and sexual identity. In other words, the feminist and queer questioning of identity construction and symbolic language began here.

This thesis examines seven crises at the Oregon State Penitentiary between 1866 and 1968 which are symptomatic of a larger pathology of power at play at the institution. These prison crises brought the pathology of power out from behind the thick grey walls of the institution and to the eyes and ears of an uninformed public. This arousal of such attention forced the prison to re-evaluate its penal model, enact half-hearted reforms, but then resume to the institution's traditional pattern and style of punishment. This inability to address the crises or resolve the immediate problem points to a larger problem-namely a pathology of power. The pathology of power is evident in the prison administration's abuse of the political, financial, and physical power that the prison offers. This pathology is innate to the philosophy of the institution, regardless of the penal model then in application (rehabilitative or disciplinary).

The history of the United States Marine Corps in Oregon, and of the many Oregonians who have served as Marines, is a unique story which has never been told. This thesis examines United States Marines from the state of Oregon and activities by Marines in the state. It covers the Oregon Marine experience from its start in 1841 through the Gulf War conflict of 1991 to the present. From 1838 to 1842, Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, United States Navy, led a remarkable exploration and scientific expedition around the world. In 1841, Wilkes visited the Pacific Northwest, and accompanying him aboard his flagship, the ll.S.S. Vincennes, was Quartermaster Sergeant Marion A. Stearns and thirty-two other United States Marines. Steams set a sound leadership example for both his Marines and those of the future as he landed from the sea and explored inland territory ranging from Puget Sound, to the Cascades, the Columbia River, and the Willamette Valley. Stearns' Marine detachment from the 11.SS Peacock even managed to survive their shipwreck upon the Columbia River bar. Oregon had thus begun her unique military heritage with respect to the United States Marine Corps. From this event in 1841, the one hundred and fifty year history of United States Marines in Oregon continued. In 1846, on the eve of the Mexican War, a Marine officer, First Lieutenant Archibald H. Gillespie, delivered a secret presidential message from James K. Polk to explorer John C. Fremont at Klamath Lake. Later, Marines from Union warship detachments visited Astoria and Portland during the Civil War. In 1898, at the Battle of Manila Bay, Private Charles C. Schroeder of Oak Grove, fought aboard the ll.S.S. Olympia with Commodore George Dewey. World War I and World War II found Oregon contributing a diverse and dedicated group of Marines who served valiantly in combat against German and Japanese forces. During the long Cold War with the Soviet Union, the wars in Korea and Vietnam exhibited a continuation of faithful Marine service by Oregonians. And in Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm of 1991, Marines from Oregon continued as their forefathers had before them to honorably serve, sacrifice, and quietly return home. Their record of courage and professionalism are an important but little known part of Oregon's rich history.

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The gravemarkers of the Aurora Colony Cemetery offer a means of examining identity and change within this early Oregon utopian community. Led by charismatic Wilhelm Keil and composed predominantly of people of German heritage, the members of the Aurora Colony sought to distance themselves from worldly influences through emigration to the Willamette Valley. In existence from 1856 to 1883, they sought to maintain shared cultural practices while, as farmers and artisans, relying simultaneously upon inclusive commerce with the outside world. Contextual analysis of this mortuaryscape provides a venue for understanding the interplay of separatist ideology and extralocal forces among Colony members and the following generation of their descendants. Artifactual data from relationships found among their mortuary objects reflects patterns of change in material, typology, composition, and language spanning the years 1862-1920. Subsequently, such objects express the tide of acculturation and dissolution experienced within the Colony.

The author employs research skills from law, history and religion in order to present an account of the relations of law and religion in Oregon's history from its earliest days to the present.

The early 1920s are generally described as a period of transition for American society. Many forces of change collided to create an unsettled atmosphere that appeared to threaten traditional American ideas and values. After World War I, the United States fostered a climate of anti-Catholicism and nativism out of fear that foreign ideas spelled the demise of traditional American values. These ideas were certainly not new to American culture as anti-Catholic sentiments figured prominently throughout the founding of the nation. During the early 1920s, however, a resurrected Ku Klux Klan promoted itself as the protector of American institutions. It won recruits with an identity as a secret society for white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant citizens. The organization also exploited the political issues of the day to ingratiate itself within communities across the nation.

This thesis conveys the history of reproductive politics in Oregon through the life of Dr. Jessie Laird Brodie (1898-1990). Brodie was a key figure in this history from the 1930's until the 1970's, mainly through the establishment of family planning programs through social and medical channels in Oregon and throughout Latin America. Oregon's reproductive legislation walked a fine line between conservatism and progressivism, but in general supported reproductive healthcare as a whole in comparison to the rest of the United States and Latin America. The state passed controversial contraceptive legislation in 1935 that benefited public health, but also passed eugenic laws, specifically a 1938 marriage bill, that attempted to limit specific population's reproductive control. By the time family planning was solidly rooted in the national and international sociopolitical discourse in the 1960's, due to the advent of the "pill," population control rhetoric, and the Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) Supreme Court decision, eugenic laws were virtually obsolete. Portland's history suggests that leaders in local reproductive politics sought to appeal to a diverse clientele but were restricted to the confines of federal funding mandates, specifically the war on poverty, that were fueled by postwar liberalism in an increasingly global age. The first chapter concentrates on the history of women's health and reproduction in Oregon prior to the 1960's. Dr. Jessie Laird Brodie's experiences with families in poverty during medical school in the 1920's disheartened her and motivated her to seek ways for these women to efficiently and affordably access birth control information. In response to public health concerns, she helped get positive contraception legislation passed in Oregon in the 1930's that set guidelines and restrictions for manufacture of contraceptives. This law was the first of its kind in the country and set a precedent for other states to follow. Brodie also supported a marriage bill in the 1930's that mandated premarital syphilis and psychological testing, in the hopes that it would lead couples to seek contraceptive, or "hygienic," advice from their physicians as efforts to establish a birth control clinic had failed up to this point. The second chapter focuses on Brodie's continued involvement in Oregon in the 1940's and 1950's, a period marked by a high tide of pronatalism in the U.S., and how she took Oregon's vision for women to a national and international level. Locally, she was involved with the E.C. Brown Trust, an organization dedicated to sex education, and was the President for the Pacific Northwest Conference on Family Relations, a group focused on the postwar family adjustments of higher divorce rates and juvenile delinquency. In 1947, Brodie was one of the founding members of the Pan-American Medical Women's Alliance, an organization created to provide a professional arena for women physicians throughout the Americas to discuss problems specific to women and children. Involvement with these groups helped her gain recognition nationally and in the late 1950's she served as President, and then Executive Director, of the American Medical Women's Association. Lastly, the third chapter looks at the establishment and growth of Planned Parenthood Association of Oregon (PPAO) in the 1960's under Brodie's leadership and her foray into the international establishment of family planning programs through the Boston-based Pathfinder Fund, an organization whose mission involved bringing effective reproductive healthcare to developing countries. Brodie acted as Executive Director for PPAO, where she was able to use her medical expertise and connections to bring the new organization credibility and respect throughout Oregon that they lacked before her involvement because the board was mainly comprised of a younger generation on the brink of second-wave feminism and the sexual revolution. In her career with Pathfinder she assessed the needs for family planning in Latin American and Caribbean countries and facilitated the establishment of programs in the region, largely in cooperation with the U.S. federal government and the Population Council. The conclusion offers a brief history of Dr. Brodie's continued involvement in the local and international communities beyond 1975 and the awards she received highlighting her career in the battle for effective healthcare for all women. In short, this thesis argues that legal and rights-based contestations that were prevalent in other regions of the U.S. and throughout the world were not characteristic of Oregon, allowing Brodie and PPAO to bring birth control to the state with relatively limited opposition.

Analyzing the crimes of women murderers and how they fared in the criminal justice system demonstrates that though perceptions of gender evolved, resistance to sentencing women to death often persisted. The nature of homicides committed by women in Oregon set them apart from their male counterparts. Women were, and are, more likely to commit domestic homicides -- murders that involve a family member or partner. These crimes are typically not equated with crimes that warrant capital punishment. As a result, no woman has been subjected to the death penalty in the state. This thesis analyzes the twenty-five women who were convicted of homicide in Oregon between 1854 and 1950. During these years the majority faced all-male court and penal systems. As such, they were handled differently in accordance with various social, cultural, and legislative shifts relating to women's roles as citizens. Through an examination of contemporary newspaper articles, inmate case files, and other Oregon State Penitentiary records, this thesis studies three distinct periods relating to these shifts: 1854-1900, 1901-1935 and 1936-1950. The assumption that it was impossible for a woman to commit murder linked claims of insanity with criminality. The six women defendants between 1854 and 1900 were either deemed insane and transferred to the asylum or quickly released from prison to avoid potential controversy or additional expense. The twelve women convicted of homicide between 1901 and 1935 all received manslaughter convictions, an occurrence unique to this era. Following the Progressive Era, sentimental juries felt more comfortable convicting women of manslaughter. Many received indeterminate sentences of one to fifteen years and were released on parole. The initial first-degree murder charges between 1936 and 1950 signaled a new period in the treatment of women charged with homicide. After gaining the right to vote and serve on juries, women began to be viewed more equally in the eyes of the law. During these years there was a more even distribution of manslaughter, second-degree murder, and first-degree murder convictions for the seven women defendants. This is due in part to women's growing presence in the public sphere. In conclusion, the idea that women were submissive creatures that required the authority and protection of men in the courtroom began to fade by 1950. Each period of study demonstrates how the contemporary perception of women and their roles as citizens affected trial outcomes. However, even when women were charged with first-degree murder they were not sentenced to the death penalty -- likely due to the domestic nature of their crimes.

Food and Females, The Taming of the Oregon Palate? is a study of the variations i n the preparation and consumption of food as reflected in the changes in the roles of women during the hundred years between the settlement of the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Vancouver and 1920 , which marks the beginning of modern times.