This thesis examines the life and political career of Henry Toole Clark, the second of North Carolina?s three Civil War governors. Clark served one term as the state?s chief executive from July 1861 to September 1862, a crucial period in which North Carolina established itself as a constituent member of the Confederate States and first suffered the hardships of war. As the leader of the state in that formative period, he mobilized thousands of troops for the Southern cause, established the first, and only, Confederate prison in North Carolina, arranged the production of salt for the war effort, created European purchasing connections, and built a successful and important gunpowder mill. Clark, however, found more success as an administrator than as a political figure. The Edgecombe County planter devoted over twenty years to the service of the Democratic Party at the local, state, and national levels, and over ten years as a state senator. As governor, he was unable to maneuver in the new political world ushered in by the Civil War, and he retired abruptly from public service at the end of his term. Clark?s life and career offer insight into the larger world of the antebellum planter-politician, that dominant group of southern leaders who led the region into dependence upon slavery and, ultimately, to war. Though the planter class was diverted from power for a brief time during Reconstruction, the political and racial ideology of that class would shape conservative white southern thought for the next hundred years.

My thesis focuses on post-World War II eugenics, specifically revolving around the well-known geneticist and eugenicist, Hermann J. Muller. By the 1950s, academic support for eugenics had faded. Refinements in genetics, new sociological and anthropological theories, and reaction to eugenic atrocities significantly undermined the feasibility or acceptability of eugenic programs, particularly in the United States. However, during the 1950s and into the mid-1960s, Hermann J. Muller and other prominent geneticists continued to promote eugenic principles. I posit that previous histories of post-World War II eugenics have inadequately explained the significance of H. J. Muller?s eugenics. The rapid progress during the first half of the twentieth century and advances such as the discovery of DNA caused scientific optimism to flourish during the 1950s. Rather than racism or bigotry, scientific optimism motivated H. J. Muller and others to offer eugenics as a viable option for human betterment. Muller and his supporters maintained a strong belief in the power of the gene. Their crucial role in defining the gene, its heredity capacity, and its very conceptual nature, reinforced the belief that the gene was the basis of all life, and at some level, represented the root of all biological and psychological expressions. To Muller and his supporters, the deterministic nature of the gene allowed them to believe that ultimately, if one could manipulate the gene, then one could alter the direction of human evolution, while remaining true to progressive ideals.

The end of the eighteen and the beginning of the nineteen centuries represented a period of national renaissance for the Romanian population within the Great Principality of Transylvania. The nation, within a span of under fifty years, documented its Latin origins, rewrote its history, language, and grammar, and attempted to educate and gain political rights for its members within the Habsburg Empire?s family of nations. Four Romanian intellectuals led this enormous endeavor and left their philosophical imprint on the politics and social structure of the newly forged nation: Samuil Micu, Gheorghe ªincai, Petru Maior, and Ion-Budai Deleanu. Together they formed a school of thought called the Transylvanian School. Micu, Maior, and ªincai (at least early in his career), under the inspiration of the ideas of enlightened absolutism reflected in the reign of Joseph II, advocated and worked tirelessly to introduce reforms from above as a means for national education and emancipation. Deleanu, fully influenced by a combination of ideas emanating from French Enlightenment and French revolutionary sources, argued that the Romanian population of Transylvania could achieve social and political rights only if they were willing to fight for them.

The purpose of this research has been to analyze the social relationships that developed during the formative years of East Indian indenture system in the Trinidad. This work is an attempt to explore how the East Indian indentured immigrants in Trinidad individually and collectively navigated through the experience of servitude to form a collective identity and become established in a foreign land as they evolved from transient laborers to permanent settlers. Without the Indian laborers the sugar industry and the islandâs prosperity faced ruin while the perceived prosperity of the Indians inspired resentment. Caught between the worlds of freedom and unfreedom, the Indians sought to establish themselves within Trinidadâs society.

The Roman Aqaba Project, an archaeological investigation of a Roman port on the Red Sea in southern Jordan, recovered over 500 sherds of Egyptian Red Slip Ware (ERS). This included both ERS A (presumably from the Aswan region of Upper Egypt) and ERS B (from various production centers along the Nile valley). ERS was the second most common imported fine ware found at Aila from the Late Roman and Byzantine periods (3rd through early 7th centuries A.D.), trailing far behind African Red Slip Ware (from Tunisia) but easily exceeding imports of Cypriote Red Slip and Phocaean Red Slip (from the Aegean). The most striking fact about the ERS at Aila is its chronological distribution. In most parts of Palestine and Jordan ERS appears in quantity only in the late 6th and 7th centuries. But at Aila both ERS A and ERS B wares begin appearing in securely attested 3rd century contexts and are most common in the 4th century, long before their appearance in the remainder of the Levant, generally in late 6th and 7th centuries.

Utilizing aspects of social, cultural, political, military and environmental history, this thesis details the cycles of possession and dispossession of the lands of Seneca County, New York. It explores both the changes in the people who claimed the land, and the changes in the natural landscape. Seneca County, a region forged in the fires of war, continues to be a region influenced by the relics and echoes of military and political conflict. Since the closing of the Seneca Army Depot at the end of the Cold War, the current residents of Seneca County have engaged in a fierce debate over the future of the former Depot lands. Whoever wrests ownership of this landscape will determine its future use and influence how its past will be celebrated and remembered.

From 1961 to 1963, the administration of President John F. Kennedy attempted to create a vast network of public and private fallout shelters across the United States. The North Carolina Civil Defense Agency (NCCD) during this period focused instead on emergency preparedness. Fallout shelters were a façade, providing funding that allowed the NCCD to quietly focus its efforts on emergency preparedness. While the state managed to provide fallout shelters for only eight percent of the population, this failure was not as damning as most scholars have assumed. In fact, the state agency used available federal funding to prepare the state for natural disasters and isolated, minor emergencies. State civil defense officials implemented improvements in communication networks, emergency rescue squads, and the professionalizing of fire and police departments state-wide. Citizens did not criticize the civil defense agency in North Carolina; following the Cuban Missile Crisis, there was no public backlash against the state agency. The crisis, on the contrary, validated the stateâs approach to civil defense. By focusing on emergency preparedness instead of investing in fallout shelters, local civil defense agencies were able to operate in accordance with the specific demographic, geographic, and financial needs of the county residents. Most people assume that the fading yellow and black âFallout Shelterâ signs are the only residue of the civil defense program in North Carolina. In fact, the professional development of the stateâs rescue squads, police and fire departments harkens back to the efforts of civil defense offices in the early 1960s.

Throughout the last century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli?s influence and reputation as an imperialist has been praised, demonized, and denied. Though always a target of considerable political criticism, Disraeli?s advancement and, some might even say, invention of British imperial nationalism was celebrated by contemporary politicians, academics, and the general population who considered him ?inextricably entwined? with the notion of empire. However, twentieth century historiography largely downplayed and discounted Disraeli?s influence on late nineteenth century imperial British expansion by focusing not on imperialism as an ideology, but as a phenomenon of economics and power; aligning its genesis with the Industrial Revolution, and the socio-economic theories of Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and John Atkinson Hobson. But, since the publication of Edward Said?s Orientalism in 1978, which reevaluated the cultural and social relationships between the East and the West, Disraeli?s impact on Britain?s colonial century has yet again come to the forefront of imperial British historiography. Disraeli?s rhetoric and political acumen regarding Britain?s eastern empire directly (through the proclamation of Victoria?s title Empress of India in 1876) and indirectly (through his assertion of Conservative Principles at the Crystal Palace in 1872) established a significant hierarchical social structure and consciousness that still pervades British culture today.

This thesis describes the early development of the Suffrage Movement in North Carolina and the political and social challenges addressed throughout the movement?s history. It describes the leadership within both the suffragist and the antisuffragist groups in the state. Also addressed are the roles of gender, race, and politics in suffrage and antisuffrage literature. Special attention will be given to the important role of the state?s industrialists in opposing woman suffrage, and their motivation for doing so. Research includes the use of both suffrage and antisuffrage records and publications, as well as numerous newspaper articles, editorials, and letters to gauge contemporary public opinion.

Previous discussions of the development of French racial stereotyping of the Arabs and Kabyles in Algeria overlook the continuities upon which these stereotypes were built. The archetype of the Noble Savage, particularly as inspired by the Amerindians of New France, played a critical role in the evolution of French perceptions of the Arabs. The Noble Savage influenced French perceptions of the Arabs during the Napoleonic conquest of Egypt, but his influence gained momentum during the French colonization of Algeria. Although the Arabs did not conform completely to the image of the Noble Savage, the indigenous Kabyles of Algeria appeared to be his embodiment. The French had encountered the Noble Savage in New France and his image had been disseminated further through the popular travel accounts and the ?natural man? of French intellectuals such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In discovering the Kabyles, the French discovered the perfect Noble Savage. The valorization of the Kabyles as Noble Savages resulted in the demonization of the Arabs as barbaric and ignorant. This led to a division in French attitudes between the ?good? Kabyle and the ?bad? Arab. Although French colonial and imperial interests in Algeria contributed to the formulation and perpetuation of this division, the long-standing and pervasive French understanding of and sympathy for the Noble Savage significantly facilitated its development.