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The sudden death of George Washington at his home at Mount Vernon, Virginia, on December 14, 1799, plunged America into a prolonged period of national mourning. It is the central argument of this study that, although often overlooked by historians, the national mourning for George Washington from December 14, 1799 through February 22, 1800, represented a major event in the civic culture of the Early Republic that consolidated and crystallized the image of Washington and shaped him into an enduring symbol of the nation that was to become central to the American memory. The study compiles a comprehensive history of the national mourning for Washington by documenting over 400 funeral processions and memorial services held around the nation during the winter of 1799--1800. These public mourning rituals are also analyzed in terms of cultural performance in their social, political, and religious contexts. In addition, one of the products of the study is a contemporary biographical sketch of the character and achievements of Washington compiled from the prose portraits of him that were central to nearly all the eulogies delivered during the period of national mourning. The study is based on an extensive examination of printed materials from the mourning period. Nearly 300 Washington funeral eulogies delivered throughout the country were located. The second major source of printed materials for this history of the national mourning for Washington was found in the complete runs of 42 American newspapers published between December 1799 through the national day of mourning proclaimed by President John Adams for February 22, 1800, the sixty-eighth anniversary of Washington's birth. During the national mourning for Washington in 1799--1800, vast numbers of Americans of all classes and regions, under the aegis of national, state, and local authorities, participated in official activities designed to mark his passing. Through such commemorative events, they paid tribute to Washington, expressed gratitude for his services, and acknowledged and submitted to God's will in the death of their beloved and venerated hero. They also pursued secular agendas as clergymen, Freemasons, the Society of the Cincinnati, military officers, and Federalist political elites all vied for key roles in shaping and directing the national mourning for Washington.

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This study investigates the role played by the rivalry between English Carolina and Spanish Florida in the history of the colonial Southeast from the mid-seventeenth century through the 1720s. It contends that, from standpoint of the local inhabitants, Native American and European, both the perceived and the actual threat that Spanish Florida and Carolina posed to one another was the dominant concern and motivation of the actions of both during the roughly fifty year period from the founding of Charleston to the final events of the Yamassee War. at the local level, government officials, Indian traders, Franciscan missionaries, the various Indian tribes, runaway slaves, and all others living in this borderland region contended daily with the rivalry between Carolina and Spanish Florida. Only with the resolution of this threat could Carolina and thus the British emerge as the dominant colonial power in the Southeast. The dissertation seeks to reanalyze the events of this period within the framework of this rivalry and to do so by blending comprehensive research in the available documentary evidence available for both South Carolina and Spanish Florida.

This dissertation charts the publishing history, marketing, packaging, authorship, and reviewing of WWII personal narratives, explores connections between wartime narratives and issues of censorship, rationing, and the use of books as propaganda, and closely examines the main themes of twenty-five of the nearly two hundred written between 1942 and 1945. The books being assayed offered an insider's view of combat from every theater of war and every branch of the service as well as the Merchant Marines.;An offshoot of the documentary impulse of the Thirties, the personal narrative became an American publishing phenomenon during the next decade's war. In general, the fundamental character of the American white male hero was portrayed in the trials and triumphs of the citizen-soldier of democracy. Narratives celebrated the transformation of the Thirties "common man" into the "giant in the earth" figure, cast simultaneously in an ordinary and epical mold.;In each decade, monumental challenges galvanized witnesses to provide insightful information about events which affected millions. to serve a different set of war-related needs, however, the WWII books recruited new writers, acquired new commercial sponsors, and drew upon Hemingway's concrete renditions of war. In order to sustain morale on the home front and in the armed forces, civilians obtained these war narratives (GI's received a different set of Armed Services Editions). For the publishers of personal narratives, patriotism and profits went hand in hand.;The war narratives performed crucial ideological work. They engaged issues that touched deep anxieties in the public. Amidst a vast military effort that mobilized millions for a far-flung international conflict, these books personalized the soldier thereby keeping alive the American ideal of the heroic individual, full of "can-do" spirit, committed to democracy, ready to sacrifice his life for a return to an American way of an American way of life. Romanticizing the individual, they reinforced deep-seated national myths.