This thesis studies a group of Poles embroiled in the American Civil War. They span three generations and share culture, nationality and devotion to their ideals. The common thread running through their lives is that they came from a country that had basically disintegrated at the end of the previous century, yet they carried the concepts of freedom that they inherited from their forefathers with them to America. Their ancestral Poland had been openly democratic and deemed dangerous to the autocratic imperial neighbours that partitioned it. These men came to a new country, then exercised their “Polishness” as they became embroiled in the great American upheaval, the Civil War. Of the nine of them examined, four sided with the North and four with the South. Another began in the Confederate cavalry and finished with the Union. In a war commonly categorized as a struggle between two American regions, there has not been significant attention devoted to Poles and foreigners in general. These men carried their belief in democratic liberalism with them from Europe in to the American War. Whether fighting to keep a Union together or to establish the new Confederacy, they held to their ideals and made a significant contribution.

Esta tese estuda a produção de história local por historiadores amadores e historiadores profissionais. As principais fontes para este estudo foram os anais dos eventos Raízes e Marcas do tempo, que ocorreram entre 1990 e 2010 no Litoral Norte do Rio Grande do Sul. Inicialmente será apresentada a criação dos encontros de história local, sua organização, os diversos tipos de autores que participaram destes projetos e suas vinculações com os poderes públicos municipais. A partir desta contextualização será abordada a organização dos intelectuais locais em redes de sociabilidades que se empenharam na produção de história e cultura locais no Litoral Norte/RS. Serão apresentadas as mediações culturais constituídas entre os intelectuais locais e suas estratégias de legitimação internas e externas. Por fim, através da análise das “marcas de historicidade” presentes nos textos publicados pelos intelectuais locais nos anais do Raízes e Marcas do tempo, iremos estabelecer uma discussão sobre a produção de História fora do ambiente universitário e as relações entre História, Memória e Identidade apresentadas nestas produções. Com isso pretendemos contribuir para as reflexões sobre o Ofício do Historiador. / This thesis’ goal is study the production of local History by amateur historians and professional historians. The main sources of this study were the annals of the event called Raízes and Marcas do Tempo which occurred from 1990 to 2010 at the North Coast of Rio Grande do Sul. Firstly it will be introduced how these local History meetings were created, its organization, the diversification of authors that participated in these projects and their links with Municipality Public Power. Within this contextualization, the thesis will approach the organization of these local intellectuals in sociability networks that put their efforts into producing local History and Culture at the North Coast of Rio Grande do Sul. Cultural mediation built among local intellectuals and the strategies of internal and external legitimating will be shown. Finally, by analyzing the "marks of historicity" present in published texts by the local intellectuals on the annals of Raízes e Marcas do Tempo, we will establish a discussion on the production of History outside of the academic environment as well as the relation between History, Memory and Identidy introduced in these works. Therefore, we intend to contribute to reflections concerning the Historian's Occupation.

This thesis provides a specific insight into the previously unexplored subject of the black fair in Macon, Georgia from 1906 to 1930. It draws on archives, government papers, newspaper reports, and the correspondence of black leaders in order to create a localised study documenting the attempts of Georgia‘s African Americans to further themselves and to improve race relations within their community. Subsequently, the fair creates a microcosm of wider efforts of black uplift and racial politics in the South during this period. The fair reveals the work of Richard Wright, a figure who demonstrated how local African American leaders often straddled the doctrines of W. E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington, and adapted their philosophies within everyday life. The fair is also illustrative of how leaders such as Washington also cultivated relationships with black community leaders and fellow educators, while also connecting to the black masses. Similarly the celebration and appearance of national black political figures, such as James Napier, encouraged black pride and determination. Furthermore, such exhibits created powerful symbols which connected black political success with economic wealth. The thesis thereby situates the black fair and its organisers within a significant period of black political development, one which contributed to the later Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Institutions such as the African American fair were vital spaces which fostered a sense of black community, economics and autonomy. This thesis helps draw attention to the importance of such recreational spaces, repositioning them within the political and social studies of black southerners during the early twentieth century.

This dissertation examines the relationship between human societies and natural landscape in the Songpan region of northern Sichuan, China from 1800 to 2005. It seeks to achieve three goals. First, it seeks to complicate our understanding of China's modern political transformation from dynastic state to republic and socialist state by adding an environmental perspective to these changes. Second, it seeks to complicate existing understanding of China's environmental history, which is largely concerned with developments in "China proper," by focusing on an isolated and historically autonomous locality in western China. Finally, this dissertation seeks to understand the historical processes that led to the region's gradual incorporation into the Chinese state in terms of changing patterns of land use, resource management, and how a variety of local actors interacted with one another to produce these changes. To achieve these goals, the dissertation explores and analyzes the various ways that indigenous communities, largely Tibetan, and successive Chinese states have inhabited the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau and how their socio-economic structures, land use strategies, political ideologies, and technologies combined with environmental factors to shape the world around them. This program of research contributes a local environmental and socio-economic dimension to existing political and religious histories of the Sino-Tibetan borderlands. No separate study has analyzed the social, political, economic and environmental encounters in the late imperial, Republican, and modern periods as a whole in western China. In order to analyze the dynamics of local socio-economic and environmental change, this dissertation de-centers China geographically and socially in order to look at an "exceptional typical" periphery. In the process, it challenges common and ideological historical chronologies of social and political development in western China. By analyzing Tibetan-Chinese political, social and market relations, it also adds to the literature of local elite and state patterns of dominance in twentieth century China. Finally, it contributes to a growing literature on Chinese environmental history by analyzing the role of changing systems of resource use and development in western China while revealing the often complex and dialectical ways that human societies and environmental factors have interacted in western China.

This dissertation examines the relationship between human societies and natural landscape in the Songpan region of northern Sichuan, China from 1800 to 2005. It seeks to achieve three goals. First, it seeks to complicate our understanding of China's modern political transformation from dynastic state to republic and socialist state by adding an environmental perspective to these changes. Second, it seeks to complicate existing understanding of China's environmental history, which is largely concerned with developments in "China proper," by focusing on an isolated and historically autonomous locality in western China. Finally, this dissertation seeks to understand the historical processes that led to the region's gradual incorporation into the Chinese state in terms of changing patterns of land use, resource management, and how a variety of local actors interacted with one another to produce these changes. To achieve these goals, the dissertation explores and analyzes the various ways that indigenous communities, largely Tibetan, and successive Chinese states have inhabited the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau and how their socio-economic structures, land use strategies, political ideologies, and technologies combined with environmental factors to shape the world around them. This program of research contributes a local environmental and socio-economic dimension to existing political and religious histories of the Sino-Tibetan borderlands. No separate study has analyzed the social, political, economic and environmental encounters in the late imperial, Republican, and modern periods as a whole in western China. In order to analyze the dynamics of local socio-economic and environmental change, this dissertation de-centers China geographically and socially in order to look at an "exceptional typical" periphery. In the process, it challenges common and ideological historical chronologies of social and political development in western China. By analyzing Tibetan-Chinese political, social and market relations, it also adds to the literature of local elite and state patterns of dominance in twentieth century China. Finally, it contributes to a growing literature on Chinese environmental history by analyzing the role of changing systems of resource use and development in western China while revealing the often complex and dialectical ways that human societies and environmental factors have interacted in western China.

This thesis explores the significance of courtship and love in the lives of the enslaved men and women in antebellum North Carolina. It underlines how the current historiography concerning the enslaved has largely neglected the emotional terrain and dynamics of enslaved life and argues that the existing historiography of courtship and love has similarly marginalized the experiences of the enslaved. Whilst more recent research has focussed upon enslaved familial and personal relationships, there still remains the need for a more in-depth and sustained consideration of the meaning and importance of courtship and love in the lives of the enslaved. This thesis will attend to these gaps in historical scholarship by considering how the enslaved established and managed their courting relationships. It considers the practicalities of courtship for the enslaved as they mediated their own emotional needs and desires with the demands of the slave system and the slave-owner. it also examines the factors defining the shape of these relationships, including the opportunites available for the enslaved to establish courtships and the geographical and temporal spaces in which this could occur. It situates courtship within a narrative of resistance, illustrating the fact that courtship represented a significant social space for the enslaved through which they were able to resist and renegotiate the mechanisms of control and regulation embedded in the system of slavery. The majority of source material for this research derives from the Works Progress Administration (WPA) narratives. These narratives of formerly enslaved men and women reveal much to the historian interested in slavery and the psychology of the enslaved in the American South. As well as the WPA narratives this thesis draws attention to the folklore tale as an aspect of enslaved culture that can reveal much regarding the norms, values and ideals that structured the private and personal world of the enslaved.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2009. / Open access. Includes bibliographical references (p. 152-161).

Thesis (D.A.)--Illinois State University, 1994. / Title from title page screen, viewed April 4, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Lawrence W. McBride (chair), M. Paul Holsinger, Mark A. Plummer, Jo Ann Rayfield, Joseph A. Braun, Jr. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 155-166) and abstract. Also available in print.

The ways in which English men and women used numbers underwent a transformation during the last half of the sixteenth century and first half of the seventeenth century. This dissertation analyses the changes in how ordinary, non university-educated, people encountered, perceived and employed numbers in their lives. It argues that as a result of this greater engagement with the ‘new’ Hindu- Arabic number system there was an increased sense of number awareness within the population as a whole and in Kent in particular. At the beginning of the sixteenth century most English men and women expressed numerical concepts through a combination of performative and object-based systems, such as finger methods, tally sticks and counting tables. Those who used written systems relied primarily on number words and Roman numerals. From 1539 onwards with the publication of an ever-increasing number of vernacular arithmetic textbooks, together with rising literacy rates and increased educational opportunity, the number of people using Hindu-Arabic numerals increased. By the mid seventeenth century both Roman numerals and Hindu- Arabic were used interchangeably and by the late seventeenth century Hindu-Arabic numerals became dominant. During this same period people increasingly used numbers to interpret the world around them as trade, exploration and scientific advances required a more numerate population. Mathematical texts and teachers stressed the utility of numbers. Almanacs became ubiquitous and provide an insight into the rate at which the ‘new’ number system spread throughout society. By examining a diverse array of sources and placing a case study of Kent within the wider national framework, this dissertation considers the ways in which increased educational opportunities led to the development of numeracy within the populace. It asserts that literacy is the key driver for numeracy and hence educational opportunity is inextricably linked to the development of numeracy.

Esta tese estuda a produção de história local por historiadores amadores e historiadores profissionais. As principais fontes para este estudo foram os anais dos eventos Raízes e Marcas do tempo, que ocorreram entre 1990 e 2010 no Litoral Norte do Rio Grande do Sul. Inicialmente será apresentada a criação dos encontros de história local, sua organização, os diversos tipos de autores que participaram destes projetos e suas vinculações com os poderes públicos municipais. A partir desta contextualização será abordada a organização dos intelectuais locais em redes de sociabilidades que se empenharam na produção de história e cultura locais no Litoral Norte/RS. Serão apresentadas as mediações culturais constituídas entre os intelectuais locais e suas estratégias de legitimação internas e externas. Por fim, através da análise das “marcas de historicidade” presentes nos textos publicados pelos intelectuais locais nos anais do Raízes e Marcas do tempo, iremos estabelecer uma discussão sobre a produção de História fora do ambiente universitário e as relações entre História, Memória e Identidade apresentadas nestas produções. Com isso pretendemos contribuir para as reflexões sobre o Ofício do Historiador. / This thesis’ goal is study the production of local History by amateur historians and professional historians. The main sources of this study were the annals of the event called Raízes and Marcas do Tempo which occurred from 1990 to 2010 at the North Coast of Rio Grande do Sul. Firstly it will be introduced how these local History meetings were created, its organization, the diversification of authors that participated in these projects and their links with Municipality Public Power. Within this contextualization, the thesis will approach the organization of these local intellectuals in sociability networks that put their efforts into producing local History and Culture at the North Coast of Rio Grande do Sul. Cultural mediation built among local intellectuals and the strategies of internal and external legitimating will be shown. Finally, by analyzing the "marks of historicity" present in published texts by the local intellectuals on the annals of Raízes e Marcas do Tempo, we will establish a discussion on the production of History outside of the academic environment as well as the relation between History, Memory and Identidy introduced in these works. Therefore, we intend to contribute to reflections concerning the Historian's Occupation.