This dissertation explores the contest for the Lower Mississippi Valley from 1765 to 1800. During this era, Spain held Louisiana. Conflict over the Lower Mississippi Valley has been characterized as a competition among empires for territory. Close scrutiny, however, reveals a far more complicated and contingent story about a region significantly contested by multiple empires and occupied by a dynamic and diverse population. Borderlanders, that diversity of indigenous, colonial, and immigrant groups actually occupying the contested space in and around Spanish Louisiana, in fact, played an instrumental role in the competition between empires for territory, alliance, and commerce in the Lower Mississippi Valley. Once we examine the Lower Mississippi River Valley as a space of competition between border designers and borderlanders, it becomes clear that Spain did attempt to incorporate Louisiana into its empire, specifically as a border colony. When the fluidity that had long characterized life in the Lower Mississippi Valley became threatened by new imperial policies, Indians, settlers, and slaves responded with a mix of adaptive and resistant practices. Particularly they employed networks of trade, alliance, and kinship that facilitated the crossing of imperial borders or resistance to the dictates of imperial policies.

In 1914, a group of professionals chartered the American Social Hygiene Association (ASHA), a private reform agency dedicated to the eradication of venereal disease. Over the next several years, the ASHA formed partnerships with other reform organizations and championed education and legal reform. In 1917, during World War I, the ASHA partnered with the federal government to set standards of sexual health for all American citizens. Chapter One explores the origins of the ASHA, focusing on the organizations attention to international issues surrounding prostitution as well as its organizational partnerships with like-minded domestic reform agencies. By placing itself in dialogue with other organizations, the ASHA identified its allies and pursued its goal of eliminating venereal disease (and associated evils such as prostitution) via educational campaigns and legal reform. Chapter Two examines the ASHAs educational and legal strategies, which included reaching out to parents, educators, children, and the public. Contributors to ASHA publications--the Journal of Social Hygiene and American Social Hygiene Association Bulletin--included many of the foremost doctors, lawyers, and social workers in the country. The ASHA used films, traveling exhibits, lecturers, pamphlets, billboards, and signs in public restrooms. Its legal reforms included abolishing segregated vice districts, supporting age-of-consent laws, and prohibiting the advertisement of quack cures. Chapter Three details the ASHAs partnership with the federal government once America entered World War One. High rates of venereal infection among enlisted men translated to a loss of manpower. With both government and private support, ASHA helped set up a series of isolation camps and hospitals to remove women from the training camp environs where servicemen risked exposure. Using its already established message of education and legal reform, the ASHA enlisted support across the country for the eradication of venereal disease as essential to the protection of democracy. The conclusion describes the influence of the ASHA throughout the twentieth century to showcase its continuing influence in partnership with the federal government. The conclusion also examines the increasing role the federal government has played in policing citizens sexual health via the eugenics movement and restrictions on reproductive rights.

This dissertation studies the Northeastern region of Brazil by contemplating its interactions with the world around it. It sets out from the assumption that Northeastern regional identity is in constant transformation due to its embeddedness in the world around it. By analyzing a variety of sources from intellectuals, the press, and popular arts, I explore how ideas about the region and its meaning circulated among social groups and changed over time. Through key moments of international interaction, I trace how these sources present changes in the use of the term "Nordeste" in the delineation of the borders of the Northeast, in the meaning of belonging within the Northeast, and in the relationship between the Northeast, the nation, and the world. I demonstrate that what being Northeastern meant was discussed across social classes, depended to a surprising degree on international attention and activity in the region, and was constructed as much through contestation as agreement. In doing so, I argue that regional and national identity, at their very essence, are intertwined, heterogeneous, multivalent, and unfinished projects. The international interactions presented in this dissertation include: the Regionalist Conference of Recife, organized by Gilberto Freyre; an Orson Welles movie on a protest in the form of a two-month voyage by sailboat from Fortaleza to Rio de Janeiro; allegorical representations of the presence of U.S. military bases in the Northeast during World War II; the transformation of the Northeast into a region of "resistance" often represented by the bandit figure; a campaign to bring a World Cup event to Recife and representations of World Cup soccer in art; and local, state, and international beauty pageants that included Northeastern women. Each chapter presents how Northeasterners from several walks of life discuss the meaning of the Northeast in the nation and the world, emphasizing brief moments of consensus in which the Northeast was transformed from a meteorological designation into a place of rustic stoicism, from rustic stoicism to naiveté and abandon, and from abandon to resistance. In the end, the conversation on the region centered on the notions of drought, poverty, inferiority, and potential for rebellion.

This study analyzes the early life and career of King Richard III of England. Richard III is arguably the most controversial monarch in English history and the recent discovery of Richard IIIs burial and remains place has revitalized the debate, both in academia and in popular culture, over his reputation and character. Was he a villain or a maligned king? This study argues that an examination of Richards character and total contributions to English history must concentrate on his career as Lord of the North during the reign of King Edward, not on his short reign as king of England. The result of such an examination presents Richard as the model of a good medieval lord, a capable general and a loyal brother to the king. This study will also address the debate over the location of his reburial and argue that, based on Richards affiliations with the north and close relationship with the city of York, Richard should be reinterred in Yorkminster Cathedral in York.

Although this work must of course be judged as an entity, it is perhaps best to state that it has been intended as a part of a greater work. This will explain why certain subjects have not been dealt with in the following pages and why the bibliography does not list some material which would certainly have to be consulted in a general study of the introduction of machinery during the Industrial Revolution. This thesis deals with the period 1760-1810. In the greater work, the thesis presented here will be preceded with a discussion of machinery introduced in England before the Industrial Revolution, and followed with discussions on the Luddite disturbances, the introduction of agricultural machinery and of the power loom, and the impact of machinery on politics, on early socialist thought and on economic theory.

This study examines the early works of Hermann Hesse in the historical context of early twentieth-century Germany. While Hesses literary career spans over six decades, most scholarship focuses only on a brief period. Historians study his Weimar novels, as psychologically penetrating pieces that offer insights into this fascinating and chaotic era of German history. Yet, Hesses early works have not received due attention in historical scholarship. This situation is unfortunate because Hesses prewar writings provide interesting and relevant commentary on life in fin de siècle Germany. Hesses early writings offer unique insights into aspects of German culture and society, specifically regarding nature, education, cultural pessimism, and the Great War. As industrial society increasingly encroached upon middle-class life and the natural world, Hesse implored people to slow this destruction and love nature. Even though the German educational system became world famous, Hesse worried that its rigors often crushed the creativity and individuality of young men and women. In such a fast-changing world, many intellectuals pessimistically viewed progress and thought that society was in decline, but Hesse advised against such radical ideas. Finally, Hesse became an outsider during the Great War, as his pacifist commentary stood in contrast to widespread nationalism. This studys close look at Hesses early works will demonstrate that the Weimar image of the author does not allow for a complete picture of the writer or his relevance to German history. When Hesses prewar writings are better understood, we will gain insights into the struggles faced by middle-class Wilhelmine society, in a time of drastic change, through the eyes of one lonely romantic and individualistic outsider.

1. This paper explores the connections between Bourbon Royalism and the death of paternalism during the Restoration Era and the July Monarchy in Martinique. Martinican planter Pierre Dessalles meticulously recorded his opinions on slavery and French and Martinican politics in his journal from 1811 to 1856. One of the many things that make his journal distinctive was his annual commemorations of Louis XVIs execution by French revolutionaries. This paper explores why Dessalles mourned Louis XVIs death and why he idealized the ancien régime as an era of political stability, while Frenchmen rejected absolutism in favor of republicanism. I argue that, with the execution of the paternalist Louis XVI, Dessalles could no longer claim to be a paternalist master to his slaves. This loss of power was exacerbated by slaves, inspired by the Haitian Revolution, who poisoned their masters livestock in the 1820s. By examining the politics of elite whites, scholars can better understand not only the impact of the Haitian and French Revolutions, but also differences in colonial and metropolitan politics. 2. This paper examines the travel diaries and sketches of four Germans who traveled to the United States in the nineteenth century: Paul Wilhelm, Duke of Württemberg (1822-1824); Frederick Julius Gustorf (1835-1836); Albert C. Koch (1844-1846); and Rudolph Friedrich Kurz (1846-1852). Each man observed the peoples, particularly Native Americans, and the natural landscape of America with the ultimate aim of presenting the results of their studies to the general German public in the form of published travel narratives. Many historians overlook German efforts to explore the New World, instead focusing their energy on nations with formal colonies in the Americas, such as France, England, and Spain. Analysis of these four travel narratives, however, demonstrates that this trend is unwarranted in the larger historiography of exploration and expansion into the Americas. These four Germans were actively involved in exploring the North American continent, even if they did not formally possess colonies or hope to establish a New Germany in North America. The absence of formal colonial possessions does not preclude a nation from participating in a broader discourse on exploration or scientific discoveries.

This paper examines the travel diaries and sketches of four Germans who traveled to the United States in the nineteenth century: Paul Wilhelm, Duke of Württemberg (1822-1824); Frederick Julius Gustorf (1835-1836); Albert C. Koch (1844-1846); and Rudolph Friedrich Kurz (1846-1852). Each man observed the peoples, particularly Native Americans, and the natural landscape of America with the ultimate aim of presenting the results of their studies to the general German public in the form of published travel narratives. Many historians overlook German efforts to explore the New World, instead focusing their energy on nations with formal colonies in the Americas, such as France, England, and Spain. Analysis of these four travel narratives, however, demonstrates that this trend is unwarranted in the larger historiography of exploration and expansion into the Americas. These four Germans were actively involved in exploring the North American continent, even if they did not formally possess colonies or hope to establish a New Germany in North America. The absence of formal colonial possessions does not preclude a nation from participating in a broader discourse on exploration or scientific discoveries.

This dissertation, Gods on our Side, Today: Lived Theology in the Civil Rights Movement in Americus, Georgia, 1942-1976, explores the theological elements embedded within the conflict over civil rights in the American South. Whether in the traditional sanctuaries of the major white Protestant denominations, in the mass meetings in black churches, or in Christian expressions of interracialism, Southerners resisted, pursued, and questioned racial change within various theological traditions. In examining the post-World War II South, I argue that certain religious strains contributed both to the theological power of the civil rights movement as well as to the staunch opposition it encountered. Uncovering these theological elements clarifies not only the passion and virulence felt during the civil rights conflict of the1960s, but also offers insight into the rise of the Religious Right and the continually vexing relationship between race and religion. By applying the notion of lived theology to the civil rights struggle in Americus, Georgia, this dissertation examines how different groups in the civil rights movement all could claim that God was on their side.

In 1632 Canada, having been under English control since 1629, was returned to France by the terms of the treaty of St. Germain- en-Laye. For the next thirty-five years the French were far too occupied, first by the Thirty Years War then by the civil turmoil of the Fronde, to pay much attention to the affairs of a handful of settlers in the New World. The Company of One Hundred Associates had been granted a monopoly on the colony's trade and charged with its administration but it had shown a marked lack of initiative and administrative ability.