This dissertation analyzes Fort Worth's Mexican community from 1960 to 2000 while considering the idea of citizenship through representation in education and politics. After establishing an introductory chapter that places the research in context with traditional Chicano scholarship while utilizing prominent ideas and theories that exist within Modern Imperial studies, the ensuing chapter looks into the rise of Fort Worth's Mexican population over the last four decades of the twentieth century. Thereafter, this work brings the attention to Mexican education in Fort Worth beginning in the 1960s and going through the end of the twentieth century. This research shows some of the struggles Mexicans encountered as they sought increased representation in the classroom, on the school board, and within other areas of the Fort Worth Independent School District. Meanwhile, Mexicans were in direct competition with African Americans who also sought increased representation while simultaneously pushing for more aggressive integration efforts against the wishes of Mexican leadership. Subsequently, this research moves the attention to political power in Fort Worth, primarily focusing on the Fort Worth city council. Again, this dissertation begins in the 1960s after the Fort Worth opened the election of the mayor to the people of Fort Worth. No Mexican was ever elected to city council prior to the rise of single-member districts despite several efforts by various community leaders. Chapter V thus culminates with the rise of single-member districts in 1977 which transitions the research to chapter VI when Mexicans were finally successful in garnering political representation on the city council. Finally, Chapter VII concludes the twentieth century beginning with the rapid rise and fall of an organization called Hispanic 2000, an organization that sought increased Mexican representation but soon fell apart because of differences of opinion. In concluding the research, the final chapter provides an evaluation of the lack of Mexican representation both in Fort Worth education and in the political realm. Furthermore, the finishing chapter places Fort Worth's Mexican situation within the context of both Chicano history as well as identify some key aspects of the history of modern empire. This investigation poses pertinent questions regarding the lack of Mexican representation while African Americans end the century well-represented on the school board, in education jobs, and on the city council.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / After governing Indiana during the Civil War, Oliver P. Morton acquired great national influence as a Senator from 1867 to 1877 during Reconstruction. He advocated for African American suffrage and proper remembrance of the Union cause. When he died in 1877, political colleagues, family members, and many Union veterans recalled Morton’s messages and used the occasion to reflect on the nation’s memories of the Civil War and Reconstruction. This thesis examines Indiana’s Governor and Senator Oliver P. Morton, using his postwar speeches, public commentary during and after his life, and the public testimonials and monuments erected in his memory to analyze his role in defining Indiana’s historical memories of the Civil War and Reconstruction from 1865 to 1907. The eulogies and monument commemoration ceremonies reveal the important reciprocal relationship between Morton and Union veterans, especially Indiana members of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). As the GAR’s influence increased during the nineteenth century, Indiana members used Morton’s legacy and image to promote messages of patriotism, national unity, and Union pride. The monuments erected in Indianapolis and Washington, D. C., reflect Indiana funders’ desire to remember Morton as a Civil War Governor and to use his image to reinforce viewers’ awareness of the sacrifices and results of the war. This thesis explores how Morton’s friends, family, political colleagues, and influential members of the GAR emphasized Morton’s governorship to use his legacy as a rallying point for curating and promoting partisan memories of the Civil War and, to a lesser extent, Reconstruction, in Indiana.

This dissertation explores how colonial administrators on each side of the Atlantic used the British Survey of North America to serve their governments’ as well as their personal objectives. Specifically, it connects the execution and oversight of the General Survey in the northern and southern theatres, along with the intelligence it provided, with the actions of key decision-makers and influencers, including the Presidents of the Board of Trade (latterly, the Secretaries of the American Department) and key provincial governors. Having abandoned their posture of ‘Salutary Neglect’ towards colonial affairs in favour of one that proactively and more centrally sought ways to develop and exploit their North American assets following the Severn Years’ War, the British needed better geographic information to guide their decision making. Thus, the General Survey of British North America, under the umbrella of the Board of Trade, was conceived. Officially sponsored from 1764-1775, the programme aimed to survey and analyse the attributes and economic potential of Britain’s newly acquired regions in North America, leading to an accurate general map of their North American empire when joined to other regional mapping programmes. The onset of the American Revolution brought an inevitable end to the General Survey before a connected map could be completed. Under the excellent leadership of Samuel Holland, the surveyor general of the Northern District, however, the British administration received surveys and reports that were of great relevance to high-level administration. In the Southern District, Holland’s counterpart, the mercurial William Gerard De Brahm, while producing reports of high quality, was less able to juggle the often conflicting priorities of provincial and London-based stakeholders. Consequently, results were less successful. De Brahm was recalled in 1771, leaving others to complete the work.

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This thesis examines the ways that African Americans in the mid-twentieth century thought about and practiced masculinity. Important contemporary events such as the struggle for civil rights and the Vietnam War influenced the ways that black Americans sought not only to construct masculine identities, but to use these identities to achieve a higher social purpose. The thesis argues that while mainstream American society had specific prescriptions for how men should behave, black Americans were able to select which of these prescriptions they valued and wanted to pursue while simultaneously rejecting those that they found untenable. Masculinity in the mid-century was not based on one thing, but rather was an amalgamation of different ideals that black men (and women) sought to utilize to achieve communal goals of equality, opportunity, and family.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This thesis will look at the various images of the American Far West presented by the Saturday Evening Post during the 1920s under the editorship of George Horace Lorimer, and will examine his editorial strategy that promoted the Far West as a last land of opportunity while also recognizing and weighing in on the challenges of that region.