Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-11, Section: A, page: 4462. Adviser: James R. Barrett. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 336-369) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

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The San Gabriel Mountains, which frame the Los Angeles skyline and lock in the Los Angeles Basin to the north, provide the most forest land, wilderness area and open space in the Greater Los Angeles region. Since the 1800s, the federal government has managed the area as a reserve, forest and national monument. While most federally-managed lands are not located near a city, the San Gabriels are uniquely situated in close proximity to more than 15 million people. This fact has undeniably influenced the evolution of their management and the federal government's approach. This thesis analyzes the dialogue surrounding the management of the public lands in the San Gabriel Mountains and places it within broader dialogues that have taken place nationwide. Chapter One focuses on this dialogue during the Conservation Era, when the management of the mountains was in its infancy, and Chapter Two focuses on contemporary times and uses President Obama's 2014 national monument designation as a reference point. The thesis concludes that, over time, the management of this region has been crucial in the larger picture of forestry, conservation and environmental politics.

Born on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in 1815, Anna Ella Carroll was the eldest daughter of Maryland Governor Thomas King Carroll. By the early 1850s, she had become a political pamphleteer for the Know-Nothing Party, a nativist and anti-Catholic organization. She wrote a number of books and election pamphlets supporting the presidential candidacy of Millard Fillmore in 1856. In the election of 1860, she promoted the candidacy of John Minor Botts of Virginia, a strong Unionist.;When Civil War began, Carroll worked to support Lincoln's action, and wrote several pamphlets on his behalf. She argues, as did Lincoln, that the President could wield war-making powers to preserve the Union, even if wielding those powers infringed on certain legal rights. A number of politicians acknowledged the value of her arguments supporting the President's position, and one pamphlet was printed by the administration.;Carroll's most famous work came during the fall of 1861, when she visited the Western Theatre of the war and devised a plan to invade the Confederacy by going up the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, instead of down the Mississippi River. Unknown to her, the Union and Confederate forces both were aware of the strategic value of the rivers, and had plans to proceed in the manner she suggested to the War Department. Convinced she had presented a plan that had saved the Union by providing a successful route of invasion, Carroll attempted to convince Congress that she should be generously awarded for her work.;Carroll's cause was adopted by suffragists about 1880. Until the turn of the century, suffragists' organizations and periodicals supported Carroll and her cause as prime examples of man's inhumanity to woman. Carroll's story was revived in the 1940s by various writers. Although her claim to have developed the military strategy used by the Union army in Tennessee had been disproved, it was not until the 1970s that Carroll's other, more substantial work as a constitutional writer and political pamphleteer attracted attention and scholarly examination. This dissertation considers both her life and the methodology she employed that enabled her to work within the political sphere while retaining her connection to the "female sphere.".

The town of Coloma, Montana was settled in the early 1890s as the home of several gold mining companies and their associated employees. Like so many boom towns, the residents had all but abandoned Coloma by 1916. This initial boom phase for Coloma transpired during a critical point in the emergence of modern capitalism, specifically in changing corporate managerial practices. A multi-company open town, Coloma lacked many of the typical characteristics of a paternalistic community, such as scrip and strictly segregated housing. Instead of outright domineering and controlling managerial practices, companies at Coloma manipulated and coerced their work forces through the control of the food provisioning system. This study demonstrates that companies at Coloma dominated the purchase, distribution, and consumption of food through the establishment of a centralized store and company-associated boardinghouses. Companies also offered meals as a type of labor mobilization feast to entice and retain labor populations. to explore the varying degrees of manipulation, this study employs the concept of the system of provision to organize a multi-scalar analysis that addresses the importation, distribution, preparation, and consumption of food products at Coloma. Through the lens of food distribution, this study examines archaeological materials and historical documents to show the extent to which Coloma's companies employed manipulative managerial practices.

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Between 1969 and 2002, three American politicians (Edward Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton) and three ordained clergymen (Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, and Cardinal Bernard Law) made public confessions of wrongdoing to national audiences. These public confessions reveal that Protestant religious culture, particularly the neoevangelical culture of the twentieth century, had changed the expectations of many who did not consider themselves within neoevangelicalism's sphere of influence. By tracing the historical development of public confession from its medieval roots to its use in twentieth-century entertainment programming, this dissertation shows that Protestant confessional practice affected both secular American political discourse and American Catholic expectations. Examination of these six confessions further shows that, in order to survive the ordeal of public confession, leaders must identify themselves with the weak and dispossessed, place themselves on the right side of a holy war against evil, and give followers the power to take part in the cleansing ritual of forgiveness. This study concludes that, by the end of the twentieth century, Americans who were neither Protestant nor neoevangelical had nevertheless come to expect a Protestant ritual of public confession from erring leaders, and also demanded a role in the task of forgiveness and restoration.

The National Park Service's (NPS) George Washington Birthplace National Monument has commemorated Washington and his life for over seventy-five years. For much of that time, the NPS worked closely with the memorial's progenitors, the 'ladies' of the Wakefield National Memorial Association (WNMA). Although equally committed to the preservation of Washington's legacy, these two groups clashed over questions of authenticity, historical authority, and proper commemorative strategy. This dissertation explores their relationship for what it reveals about the rise of public history in this country and Federal involvement therein.;We witness at Washington's birthplace a collision between old-order Colonial Revivalists (led for a time by renowned preservationist Louise DuPont Crowninshield) and a new generation of male museum professionals under NPS Director Horace Albright. The WNMA erected a 'replica' Memorial House atop a site marked in 1815 by George Washington Parke Custis. The NPS determined the Memorial House was neither properly located nor an authentic replica. Still, the WNMA defended the building's veracity. "Birthing Washington" argues that the two groups defined authenticity differently and that those definitions reflected not only gendered difference and political motivation, but also new ways of constituting historical knowledge available during the first half of the twentieth century.;What began as a confused argument about authenticity manifested publicly in decisions made about what kind of objects to display at Washington's birthplace and how to display them. The WNMA preferred charming interiors to the NPS's stark historical realism. Both methods created considerable interpretive possibilities and limitations. Buoyed by national trends, historical realism prevailed at Washington's birthplace. But 'living history' only created new interpretive dilemmas by failing to grapple with old questions about authenticity perpetuated by the Memorial House's ongoing presence. I conclude that sites of public memory cannot help but reify the historical currents of their formative moments and, for that reason, the NPS must challenge itself to interpret the history of commemoration at sites like Washington's birthplace.

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