No description available.

Thesis (Honors)--College of William and Mary, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 101-105). Also available via the World Wide Web.

No description available.

Thesis (M.A.)--Baylor University, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 77-81).

This thesis explores the burgeoning musical commerce industry in Williamsburg, Virginia between approximately 1716 to 1775. It especially focuses on the gentrification of this industry and the ways in which elite Virginians made use of music to establish themselves as inheritors of British culture and musical entertainment. A diversity of musical businesses appeared in Williamsburg during the eighteenth century, including instrument sellers, music and dancing teachers, and two theaters utilized by theatrical troupes, to name a few. Drawing on evidence from the Virginia Gazette, as well as journals, letters, playhouse reports, and account books, the thesis concludes that music provided an important means for the formation of an elite colonial identity in a time and place heavily influenced by an American consumer revolution and a desire for refinement.

"The Enchanted Plantation: Literature, Speculation, and the Credit Economy in Virginia, 1688-1754" examines the beginnings of a regionally-based literary culture in colonial Virginia and focuses specifically on texts that either originate from, or have close ties to, the colony's political and administrative capital at Williamsburg. The dissertation argues that literary practices and literary production in Virginia at this time were crucial to the imagination and material construction of Virginia's unevenly-developed plantation landscape, specifically as this plantation landscape arose within the new speculative and financial markets of the early eighteenth century. Individual chapters demonstrate how reading, writing, and publishing--practices that enabled, and were enabled by, a transatlantic empire built upon speculation and credit--were increasingly tied to land speculation and a managerial ethos of plantation administration. While surveying and bringing to light the many genres and writers associated with Virginia and its capital during this period (including financial literature by government officials, public oratory and ballads in Williamsburg, quitrent poetry, the periodical culture of the Virginia Gazette, and William Byrd II's historical narratives), the dissertation analyzes how Virginia's early literary culture assisted in both creating and managing the Virginia plantation as a slave society, a colonial contact zone, and a scene of financial investment.

Master of Arts / This thesis suggests how studying material culture can yield important insight into the lives of 18th-century craftswomen in scholarship and at public history sites, where they have historically been minimally interpreted. Objects and their physical features reveal important insights that go beyond existing written records, especially for populations that have been excluded from or misrepresented in historical records. This research utilizes The Virginia Gazette, a newspaper produced by Clementina Rind before the Revolutionary War, to show her involvement in early American discussions and events. It also addresses how material culture can be used to teach visitors about the 18th-century women who labored in other non-domestic trades, including blacksmiths, bookbinders, silversmiths, and carpenters. Applying these methods can help scholars and public history audiences think more critically about diverse perspectives within and contributions to early American history.

A disassembling of the Virginia Theatre Machine (VTM), LLC and its annual restaging of an adaption of Charles Dickens’ novella, A Christmas Carol. The VTM is a custom-built trailer theater that combines the performance energy of street theater with the magic and wonder of a fully designed theatrical production. I provide a historical context for this 21st century revising of mobile theater that switches the paradigm of the traditional theater experience by bringing the stage to audiences, for free. I draw from critical social and cultural theory to make sense of the audience impact in public and private outdoor spaces. I examine how each new performance environment brings its own resonance to bear on the wonder of the presentation at hand. I present the VTM as an alternative business model and form of theater outreach to inspire a new generation of theater-makers to rethink the traditional constraints of producing theatre.

Presents information on the capture of Fort Niagara on Dec. 18, 1813 during the War of 1812. Includes links to features on the War of 1812, the city of Niagara, and Niagara Falls. Also presents information on the opening of the Williamsburg Bridge on December 19, 1903. Provides links to information on the bridge, including films by James Blair Smith and Blair Blitzer on the opening of the bridge, and features on New York City. / Title from HTML header (viewed Nov. 12, 2002; last updated Dec. 2001). Illustrated by digitized items from the American Memory historic collections compiled by the National Digital Library Program of the Library of Congress.

The author's thesis, first issued on microfilm in 1954, now brought up to date. / Includes bibliography.