The advertisements that appeared in black newspapers for race records in the 1920s were employed to interest the buying public in a new mode of music: the rural blues. Although blues music is characterized by its sadness and despair, these advertisements employed humor and cartoon illustrations in the advertisements. While at first thought, this method of advertising seems inappropriate, further examination of advertisers and the publics perceptions of blues music, as well as some of the qualities of the genre itself illuminate these elaborately drawn advertisements. While older modes of plantation stereotyping informed the advertisers and illustrators producing the ads, many of the more racially offensive qualities associated with previous, antebellum depictions of American-Americans were eliminated because of the black publics emergence as a consumer group. The fact that humor was still used reflects not only the stereotypes that advertisers were working with. It also demonstrates popular perceptions of the blues, which itself frequently incorporated humor and sexual imagery.

For too long standard interwar histories have portrayed the interwar years as a period marked by failure, instability, depression, and volatility. Instead, rising living standards, the narrowing of socioeconomic disparities, expanded avenues of social welfare, increased leisure time, and mass consumerism resulted in an altogether peaceful, healthier, stable, and increasingly affluent England. Out of these rising economic improvements emerged forms of mass entertainment, including popular fiction. Cheaper paper and printing methods, rising literacy, faster distribution methods, new forms of advertising, and the expansion of public libraries led to the creation of a mass readership across England. For the first time, publishers truly had to give the people what they wanted. As such, the proliferation and popularization of genres, both new and old, occurred. Most notably, the detective genre matured and blossomed during this period, which marked its "Golden Age." As its authors' sales depended on popular approval and because of the genre's realistic, conservative nature, detective fiction offers historians an inside look into the conventional morals, attitudes, beliefs, and values of the English interwar public. It was Dame Agatha Christie's fiction that dominated sales both in the detective genre and in popular fiction in general. Throughout her astonishingly successful career, from 1920 until 1976, she always attempted to be as realistic, current, and up-to-date as possible. As such, she left behind a record of the times that she experienced firsthand. As a highly conventional middle-class woman, she mainly wrote for and about the class that guided England's social and cultural life. Her works affirm the reality that interwar England was a nation that still followed and believed in late Victorian and Edwardian morals and values, accepted the existence of hierarchy and class distinctions based primarily on birth, and condoned Britain's role as an imperial nation.

The increased consensus among historians that the emergence of a market revolution engendered widespread economic, political, and social changes throughout the second quarter of nineteenth-century America has brought a number of provocative questions to bear on the antebellum South. Among the most provocative is the assertion that during the 1830s, a strain of reform-minded southern planters took it upon themselves to integrate the regions subsistence farmers into the market economy. The historian Harry Watson has asserted that a small, but influential, group of southern planters sought to confront Dixies dilemma of pursuing a modern economy without cutting ties with the archaic and brutal system of slave labor. For these forward-thinking planters the promotion of internal improvements represented the most logical strategy for accomplishing such disparate goals. Mississippi provides and excellent location to perform a test case. Specifically, this study will examine events in Mississippi beginning 1820, at the time of the state capitols relocation to Jackson, until the economic crash of 1837. My purpose is to seek out attitudes and behaviors found in Watsons study, without overlooking events and circumstances particular to life in Mississippi during the 1820s and 1830s.

The Civil War in the United States was the deadliest conflict faced by Americans during the nineteenth century. The resulting numbers of dead bodies called for a change in both cemetery planning and traditional cemetery use. The Union created what became the National Cemetery System, consisting of standardized, nearly identical cemeteries created throughout the South both during and immediately after the war. This system, controlled by the federal government, sought to honor the loyalty of the Union dead while simultaneously dishonoring the Confederate dead, who could not be buried in national cemeteries. In contrast, southerners formed local organizations, primarily made up of women, to provide burial services for their dead. They also sought to restore honor to the Confederate dead through such methods as the Lost Cause, which provided a southern perspective on the Civil War and proclaimed the Confederate dead to be heroes. Both sides used their respective burial grounds as sites for commemoration, further recognizing the loyalty and heroism of the dead and showing that they could provide proper care for the graves of their fallen soldiers. The states of Virginia and Louisiana both went through the process of cemetery creation and commemoration after the Civil War, but in different ways. Virginia, in the Upper South, was the site of numerous battles, resulting in large numbers of dead and therefore large numbers of burials in the state. The process of cemetery creation as well as commemorative practices in Virginia was competitive between the federal government and southerners, with each side striving to show better care for the dead. In Louisiana, however, fewer battles during the war combined with a Deep South location that limited the number of northerners in the state, resulted in fewer national cemeteries and Confederate burial sites. The process of cemetery creation and the commemoration that followed in Louisiana was therefore not as contentious as the process in Virginia. Together, the history of Civil War cemeteries in Virginia and Louisiana provides a broader understanding of the process of cemetery creation and commemoration that resulted from the Civil War.

In 1922, with the issuance of the Churchill White Paper, the British government committed itself to assuming the responsibilities of the Balfour Declaration and create a bi-national state in the Mandated territory of Palestine. By 1939, the British, represented by the Mandatory Authority, found themselves trapped between a Palestinian-based Zionist movement, itself torn between two competing factions, and a Palestinian Arab nationalist movement whose leadership had collapsed. The internal split between Revisionist Zionism under Zeev Jabotinsky and Mainstream Zionism under Chaim Weizmann and, later, David Ben-Gurion prevented the British government from negotiating with a cohesive Zionist organization. The collapse of the highly centralized Palestinian Arab nationalist resistance, led by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Hajj Amin al-Husseini, in 1937 deprived the British government of a cohesive Arab movement with which they could negotiate. This thesis argues that the factional differences within the broader Arab-Zionist conflict caused the British to fail in accomplishing their goal of a bi-national state in Palestine.

Nineteenth-Century Britain was known for its political and military power â the British Empire â but also for its religious fervor. This religious spirit was prominent in England and throughout the British Empire, through the creation of Protestant mission organizations that sent missionaries throughout the world. China presented a unique mission field for early British missionaries, as it was not a formal part of the British Empire and it had such a large population of people who had never been exposed to Protestant Christianity. The years 1842 to 1866 were the formative period of the British Protestant mission in China. It was during this time that these missionaries first began the task of building the foundation for a Christian mission among the Chinese people. Examining the interactions between the Protestant missionaries and Catholic missionaries â who had been in China since the sixteenth century; interactions between the Protestant missionaries themselves; and between the Protestant missionaries and the Chinese people provides an important insight into the difficulties faced by this early British Protestant mission. These interactions are also important in setting the stage for future missionaries who arrived in China in the latter half of the nineteenth century.

This thesis concerns colonial French Indochina, specifically the area known today as Vietnam. Located south of China and east of India on the southeastern-most peninsula of the Asian continent, Indochina comprises the modern-day countries of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. After European contact, the future country of Vietnam was divided into three main provinces: Tonkin in the north, Annam in the center, and Cochinchina in the south. After their establishment in the Southeast Asian country in the mid-nineteenth century, the French sought to improve existing, and to build new infrastructure to increase the productive capacity of the colony. The more efficient the colonial economy was, the more profit there was for the mother country. Unfortunately, what was good for France was not always good for Indochina. While most scholars focus on other causes of the Vietnam War, they rarely discuss how direct French influence was a prime factor. The purpose of this thesis is to explore how the French attempted to improve the status of their colony and how these improvements affected the lives of the local population, both negatively and positively. Chapter 1 addresses the foundation of the colony from its missionary roots to its final conquest in the latter part of the 1800s. Chapter 2 discusses two important loans granted by the French government in Paris, first in 1898 and then in 1912. The focus is on the second loan of 90 million francs, for colonial officials squandered much of the first loan of 200 million francs. With this new sum, the French planned to establish better irrigation methods, education systems, transportation, and communication. While their intent was to improve the colony for profitable gain, the French emphasized both to the indigenous population and to the population at home that the new infrastructure could greatly benefit the lives of the Indochinese. Chapter 3 discusses how French influence and technology affected the Annamites and why this influence forced them to seek independence. After years of oppression and promises of a better future, the Annamites ultimately lost many of their traditions and customs in trying to become French and moved towards rebellion.

The cult of martyrs existed throughout the Mediterranean world in late antiquity, but local communities venerated the martyrs in their own ways and for their own reasons. During the fourth and fifth centuries, two factions of Christianity existed in North Africa. Catholicism and Donatism competed for the souls of North African Christians, and this competition influenced the development of the cult of martyrs in that region. The sermons on the martyrs by Augustine of Hippo (354-430) illuminate the milieu of North African Christianity's cult of martyrs and demonstrate that Augustine viewed "possessing" the martyrs as a key component in overcoming his ecclesiastical rivals. In order to "reclaim" martyrdom from the Donatists, Augustine reinterpreted martyrdom solely in light of the New Testament concept of bearing witness. This reinterpretation had a number of results. First, focusing on witness bearing gave Augustine the justification for invalidating all forms of voluntary martyrdom, which the Donatists tolerated. Secondly, Augustine taught that Christians must not admire the sufferings of martyrs for their own sakes; they must look past the sufferings to honor the cause of the martyrs, which belonged to the Catholics. Third, Augustine's emphasis on the martyrs' cause over the martyrs' sufferings enabled him to expand the classification of martyr well beyond those who had died violently for the faith. This approach to understanding the cult of martyrs demonstrates the unique manner in which one bishop attempted to make the cult relevant to his local circumstances.

Between 1853 and 1903, approximately five hundred African-Americans left the Chattahoochee Valley of Georgia and Alabama to start new lives in the West African republic of Liberia. Most of the emigrants came from Columbus, Georgia, and Eufaula, Alabama, and departed for Liberia during the uncertainty of the post-Civil War years of 1867 and 1868. Most sought safety and escape from a still intact white supremacist society. The ready availability of land in Liberia also promised greater opportunities for prosperity there than in the South. Black nationalism and evangelical zeal motivated others. Liberia would be their âownâ country and afford an opportunity to spread Christianity throughout Africa. The emigrant group was largely made up of families and included many children; consequently, the group was of a young average age. Most were farmers, but a significant number of tradesmen and clergymen also emigrated. All faced many hardships in Liberia, and some returned to the United States. However, most stayed, and a small number prospered. Thus, although the Chattahoochee Valley emigration to Liberia was a disappointment to many, some resourceful few found what they had sought: escape and safety from a white supremacist society, and their own land in their own country. Although historical sources on this regional migration are limited, the American Colonization Society (ACS), the primary sponsor of the Liberian emigration movement, recorded demographic data on the Chattahoochee Valley emigrants. Some emigrant correspondence was preserved in the journal of the ACS and in local newspapers of the period. From these sources, the history of this movement, the motivations and characteristics of the emigrant group, and the experience of the emigrants in Liberia can be developed.

The French Revolution ushered in a period of political unrest in France which appeared never-ending, even when a seemingly stable government rose to power. After a series of failed Republican governments, Napoleon Bonaparte seized control on 18 Brumaire VIII, promising to uphold the revolutionary ideals that had permeated the nation. As time passed, however, it became clear that he aimed at gathering all political power for himself. With his consular and imperial regimes accepted by French citizens, Napoleon effectively returned the country to autocratic rule. Needing talented officials to serve in his military, ministries, and prefectures, Napoleon enlisted the services of men whose ideologies ranged from Republican, to monarchist, to imperialists. Relying on officials whose political beliefs conflicted with those of the current regime engendered instability within his new government, making it possible for any enterprising political hopeful to strike a devastating blow against the Empire. Throughout the Napoleonic era, many dissidents attempted to overthrow Bonaparteâs regimes, but only one man achieved enough success to unsettle the Emperorâs belief that his government was secure. General Claude-François de Malet was a fervent Republican and despite frequent prison breaks and constant denunciations of Napoleon and his government, few people considered him a serious threat. Opinion would change after the night of 22 October 1812. The event, simply known as the Malet Conspiracy, was the single most successful coup attempted against the Napoleonic regime. During this attempt, Malet successfully deceived several high-ranking military officials, prompting them to place their troops under his control. The readiness with which these men followed Maletâs orders without question speaks to the fragility of Napoleonâs Empire, even among those he considered his most trustworthy devotees. Fearing that his Empire was on the verge of collapse, Napoleon chose to return to Paris from Russia only after hearing of the events set into motion by Malet. After the nearly successful attempt, it became clear to Napoleon that running an imperial government required close, personal supervision, especially in the homeland of liberté, égalité, and fraternité.