<p>This dissertation compares four programs to create equal employment opportunity on the trans Alaska oil pipeline construction project in order to demonstrate the ruptures and continuities between manpower programs to end poverty and affirmative action to eradicate race and sex discrimination. These four programs posited different subjects and strategies for equal employment opportunity, including a statewide affirmative action plan supporting minority men in the construction industry, federal hiring goals for Alaska Natives, a state "Local Hire" law establishing hiring preference for residents of Alaska, and corporate affirmative action plans for women and minorities. I use archival records and original oral histories with pipeline employees to examine the methods government officials and agencies, corporations, trade unions, social movements, and nongovernmental organizations used to fulfill their visions of equality in employment on the 800-mile long, $8 billion pipeline project. I bridge the gender history of welfare with the history of civil rights in order to show how liberal ideals of economic citizenship in the late 1960s that prioritized creating male workers and breadwinners served as the foundational impetus for equal employment opportunity. I challenge the standard historical narrative of equal employment opportunity in the US, which has attributed affirmative action for women to a logical, if hard won, expansion of positive liberal rights first demanded by the black civil rights struggle, then legislated by the state and implemented by state bureaucrats and corporate personnel. What this narrative does not account for is how the gendered dimensions of liberalism underlying affirmative action for male minorities were able to so abruptly accommodate women as workers and economic citizens by the mid-1970s. I find that, over the course of construction of the pipeline, women in nontraditional jobs on the "Last Frontier" emerged as symbols of the success of equal employment opportunity and the legitimacy of American exceptionalism.</p> / Dissertation

Dans une société américaine multiculturelle et multiraciale, la question de l’identité indienne est aujourd’hui l’objet de beaucoup de contestations et de polémiques. Souvent liées au métissage ou au quantum sanguin des individus, ces contestations poussent les tribus à redéfinir leur identité pour préserver leur souveraineté. Initialement identifiés comme l’une des cinq tribus dites « civilisées » par les Européens, qui jugent leurs efforts d’adaptation et leur recherche d’un consensus comme le signe de leur acculturation fulgurante, les Cherokees se battent au fil des siècles pour sauvegarder l’identité tribale et la souveraineté à laquelle le gouvernement américain a toujours voulu les faire renoncer. Ces attaques les amènent en 2007 à radicaliser les critères d’appartenance à la tribu et à exclure certains membres sur la base de quantums sanguins empruntés aux Européens, et qu’ils étaient jusqu’alors l’une des seules tribus à n’avoir pas adoptés. / Native American identity has always been a highly controversial issue, all the more so in today’s multicultural and multiracial American society. The questions raised are often based on intermarriages, race-mixing or blood quantum, prompting the tribes to redefine their tribal identity to preserve their sovereignty: a high native blood quantum supposedly correlates with cultural authenticity or ethnic identity, while race mixing is inevitably associated with cultural loss. Originally identified as one of the five “civilized” tribes by the Europeans, who regarded their efforts to adapt and reach tribal consensus as a sign of the rapid acculturation of the tribe, the Cherokees have been fighting ever since to preserve their tribal identity and sovereignty. They chose in 2007 to adopt more radical requirements for tribal membership and disenrolled some of their long-time citizens, on an Indian blood quantum basis that they were one of the last tribe not to have considered a valid criterion for identification.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the photographer Edward Sheriff Curtis and his primary photographic body of work, The North American Indian, within the context of the art and visual culture that informed and influenced Curtis in his image making process. Within the history of photography, an understanding of who Curtis was is complex. Depictions of Curtis have included various roles including photographer, businessman, philanthropist, artist, ethnologist, capitalist, and profiteer. Until the last twenty years, much of the scholarship surrounding Curtis was focused on his biography, without consideration to the similarities Curtis's work had to contemporary photographers or to American art depicting Native Americans prior to him. My research will examine this prior scholarship and focus on two different frameworks The North American Indian fits into in terms of how the Native subjects are depicted. The first framework is within the influential artwork of American painters and the Native American as incorporated into American art. I will compare Curtis's depiction of Native Americans to those by Benjamin West, Thomas Cole, and George Catlin. All three of these painters included Native Americans in their work at varying levels and for various purposes. While Curtis was working in a different medium, the ways in which he framed and posed his subjects exhibits his awareness in continuing the expected Native American image. The second framework considers The American Indian and its parallels to missionary albums (used to promote missionary work among non-Christian people) as well as a Carlisle School yearbook (used to promote the school's mission in educating and acclimating its students from tribes across the country). In addition to the three types of objects being created in the first two decades of the twentieth century, they also share a relationship through the use of photographs and words to convey a meaning the images alone could not accomplish. Native Americans have been used to symbolize the American continent since the first Europeans laid claim to the land. Curtis is only one of many artists who turned their attention to native subjects and attempted to create an understanding of who they were. A more nuanced understanding of Curtis and his work surfaces through acknowledging the ways in which The North American Indian functions similarly to other works depicting Native Americans.

The ongoing drought in the US Southwest (SW) has led to particularly large and severe wildfires, tree die-off events, insect outbreaks, and increased forest stress levels. These disturbances underscore the vulnerabilities of SW dry conifer forests to climate change and past land-uses. Climate projections show a clear upward trend in regional temperatures, which will lead to accelerated heat-related stressors and disturbances in the coming decades. Already, more than 20% of the dry conifer forests of the SW have been severely impacted. This number is likely to grow, but we lack a clear picture of where, when, and to what degree other forest areas will be affected. Here, I apply dendroecological methods to evaluate patterns and processes that might determine greater or lesser vulnerability in dry conifer forests. Much of this work stems from critical concerns voiced by the Navajo Forestry Department (NFD). Long-term and representative data are necessary for the NFD, as they are responsible for closely managing over 250,000 hectares of forests and woodlands for the traditional products and ecosystem services that their forests provide for the Navajo people. The first study takes a multi-century perspective on changing fire regimes across Navajo forests, and places current forest structure and recent severe events in a long-term context. We found that surface fires were frequent across the landscape from at least the late-1500s until 1880. Navajo settlement of the area began to affect the fire regimes with added small fires in some areas beginning in 1700. By 1832, the rise of traditional pastoralist practices and transhumant migrations reduced fire activity in areas of greater use. Conditions changed following the establishment of the Navajo reservation in 1868, as livestock herds grew rapidly and initiated a near-synchronous and widespread collapse of fire regimes across the study area by 1880. The legacies of this change in land use are greater forest densities and higher fuel loads in some areas, raising the vulnerability of the forest to more severe fires. The second study assesses one of the most dramatic long-term consequences of recent high-severity fires in the SW, the rapid post-fire transition of dry conifer forest to oak-dominated shrubfields. To assess probable successional trajectories and interactions with climate change of recently converted forests, we reconstructed the age structures and fire regimes of some of the largest and oldest shrubfields in the Jemez Mountains of northern New Mexico. We found that shrubfields are a resilient configuration to drought and fire, historically burning at the same rates and under similar climate as dry conifer forests. Dense shrubfields pose a significant challenge to conifer recruitment from competition effects, with our sites persisting for over 100 years in the absence of burning and through periods of favorable climate to conifers. Given future warming favoring oak over pine, and projected trends in fire activity and high-severity fire behavior, we expect much more forest area to convert to shrubfield, especially in the absence of restoration efforts to reduce crown fire potential.Finally, we evaluate landscape-scale variability in tree growth response to regional climate across the Navajo forest. Projections of climate-induced forest decline often omit upper-elevation and mesic sites because they are not represented in regional tree-ring chronology networks. We found that these stands had much lower response to 20th century droughts than mid to lower elevation stands, and that targeted tree-ring sites are consistently more correlated with regional climate. However, as temperature-driven atmospheric moisture demand has remained above average since ~1997 in the study area, the upper-elevation trees are now nearly as responsive to regional climate as lower elevation xeric sites, probably due to increased moisture limitations. Recent warming has thus synchronized tree growth to an unprecedented extent across this large landscape and regionally.

This dissertation examines the policies pursued by the British Army with respect to Native Americans between 1759 and 1774, when the British Army was in occupation of the colonial American frontier and how and why those policies changed. During this time the army’s policy on Native Americans altered greatly; prior to Pontiac’s War Native American grievances were seen as a low priority by the army, but after that conflict the army started to pay a great deal of attention to Native American concerns. To explain these changes it is necessary to explore the changing conditions on the frontier, the changing relationship between the colonies and Britain, and the differing ideas about Native Americans possessed by General Jeffery Amherst, the commander of the British Army in the colonies at the end of the Seven Years’ War, and his replacement, General Thomas Gage. In particular it is only by examining the very different attitudes towards Native Americans possessed by Amherst and Gage that the changes in British Army policy can be fully explained.

abstract: In this dissertation, I examine the treatment and sentencing of American Indian defendants. This work contributes to research on cumulative disadvantage and the role race and social context play to influence federal sentencing outcomes. Disparities in federal sentencing for racial and ethnic minorities are an important concern to scholars and policy makers. Literature suggests that blacks and Latinos are sentenced more harshly than similarly situated white offenders. These findings are concerning because they suggest that minorities are treated unfairly by the criminal justice system, questions the legitimacy of how offenders are processed and treated, and defendants of color who are meted out tougher punishments face substantial social and economic difficulties thereafter. Although the black-white and Latino-white disparities have been identified and highlighted, less is known about whether disparities extend to other minority groups, and consequently little is known about the treatment of these neglected groups. I investigate whether American Indian defendants experience cumulative disadvantages at multiple decision points, disadvantage over time, and the effect of social context on drawing on American Indian disadvantage, the focal concerns and minority threat perspectives. The focal concerns perspective is used to develop hypotheses about how American Indian defendants will receive harsher punishments at multiple decision points. I also use this perspective to predict that American Indian disadvantages will increase over time. Lastly, I examine social context and its effect on punishment decisions for American Indians using the minority threat perspective. I hypothesize that 
social context impacts how American Indian defendants are sentenced at the federal level. Data come from the Federal Justice Statistics Program Data Series, the US Census, and the Uniform Crime Report, with a focus on data gathered from the Administrative Office of the United States Courts and the United States Sentencing Commission. A range of modeling strategies are used to test the hypotheses including multinomial logistic regression, ordinary least squares regression, and multilevel modeling. The results suggest that cumulative disadvantages against American Indian defendants is pronounced, American Indian disparity over time is significant for certain outcomes, and social context plays a limited role in American Indian sentencing disadvantage. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Criminology and Criminal Justice 2019

This paper focuses on Native American military service in Euro-American Wars. It analyzes their reasons for fighting and compares those reasons to the reasons of other racial and ethnic groups. This paper explores how certain racial and ethnic groups are marginalized and “otherized” and how they occasionally attempt to assimilate into mainstream society through military service. Irish Americans and African Americans viewed the Civil War in this way, while Native Americans hoped they would be able to improve their individual situations. Native Americans fought for purposes of assimilation and citizenship in World War I, and while they were technically granted citizenship their conditions did not improve. Neither military service or various government policies have allowed Native Americans to fully integrate into mainstream society. Today they still suffer because they are seen as “others” and stereotypes.

Indigenous women experience intimate partner violence (IPV) at a disproportionate and epidemic rate. A common thread among indigenous women's experiences is that of colonization, which has been linked to both IPV and other social ills. Many tools of domination and control used throughout colonization to subjugate and oppress indigenous peoples are consistent with the tactics of power and control used in IPV. Given the distinct history of colonization along with the absence of research on indigenous women from the Southeastern portion of the United States, the purpose of this critical ethnography was to understand the culture and context of IPV for women from a Southeastern tribe across the life course. Because they complimented and supplemented each other in their ability to increase understanding about indigenous women' experiences with IPV, critical theory, historical trauma, life course theory, and resilience theory guided this qualitative inquiry. Paulo Freire's vision of critical theory was used to conceptualize this dissertation within the specific historical context. Using Carspecken's critical ethnographic method, the relevant data collected for this study included 28 participant observation sessions with indigenous community members and 28 life histories with indigenous women. Data analysis followed Carpsecken's method of reconstructive analysis. The patterns of power and domination at the societal, community, and interpersonal levels were identified with the broader beliefs that might perpetuate IPV across generations. Results included key factors within the specific historical context of indigenous women that had salient linkage to IPV. The potential symptoms of historical loss and trauma, including alcohol abuse, IPV, and family breakdown, were highlighted. Women's emergent pattern of violence that occurred across the life course was delineated within the culturally specific family structure. Women's perceptions of experiences with the formal and informal support systems were explored. Likewise, the various coping strategies of women who experienced IPV were identified along with the culturally specific protective and risk factors across multiple levels. Women's suggestions for emancipation from oppression were highlighted along with the implications for social work practice and policy.

Since the early nineteenth-century when Americans began recording their short history in earnest, European explorers have held a central role in the nation's historical narrative, standing alongside the Founding Fathers as symbols of American ingenuity, determination, and fortitude. The nineteenth century also saw an explosion in the number of representations of first contacts between native populations and European and Euro-American explorers. These works range from fine art examples to illustrations in the popular media and were produced by artists across the artistic spectrum. Despite the popularity of the First Contact subject and its longevity within American art history, the importance of these images has, as of yet, been unexplored. This dissertation examines First Contact images created in America during the nineteenth and early twentieth-century by artists Robert Walter Weir, George Catlin, Thomas Moran, Albert Bierstadt, and Charles M. Russell. I argue that the subject's popularity can be attributed not just to their importance as depictions of epic moments of transition in national and cultural history, but to the openness, or the mutability, of the subject itself. The first meeting of two people is an event of great possibility and potential, but, as this extended examination of the subject demonstrates, it can also be transformed to communicate vastly different messages at different moments in history. As Americans simultaneously struggled to create a past, understand the present, and visualize the future, the First Contact subject, with its focus on the ambiguous meeting of two cultures, allowed a site in which to grapple with central questions and anxieties of the period, even as it depicted the past. They are thus complicated paintings that speak not to the facts of contact, but to the purposes served by these constructions and corrupted histories. Reading these First Contact paintings can help to illuminate a nineteenth-century understanding of history and also begin to elucidate the troubled legacy of Native/white relations since Columbus first encountered the New World.

Ettore "Ted" De Grazia (1909-1982) spent his artistic life painting the Native American stories and peoples of the Arizona Southwest. His art was touted in the popular press and is still admired by tourists and newcomers to Arizona, but he was not taken seriously by academicians and art critics who refused to grant him artistic enfranchisement. Many labeled his work "kitsch," a term made popular by Clement Greenberg in his 1939 essay, " Avant-Garde and Kitsch." De Grazia's popular whimsical paintings of Native American children were considered too cute to have artistic merit.De Grazia, in spite of criticism to the contrary, did create serious paintings worthy of critical evaluation. The paintings are infused with complex layered meanings relating to Southwest hybridity ---a blending of beliefs and cultural practices as a result of Spanish and later, American colonization. De Grazia was part of the hybrid culture; born of Italian immigrants in the Territory of Arizona, he grew up speaking Italian, Spanish and English. Not only was he exposed to different languages, but also to corresponding cultural and religious practices. This thesis examines the social and economic changes in the United States during De Grazia's lifetime, along with the hybridity of the Southwest in relation to his artistic production. Changes in the world of art along with economic prosperity and the growing interest in tourism in the Southwest after World War II intersected with the art of Ted De Grazia. His relationship with Arizona Highways magazine, published by the Arizona Highway Department to entice travelers to visit Arizona, contributed to his success. De Grazia's contribution in the arena of Southwest hybridity can be seen in paintings that are in the formal collection of his work in his Gallery of the Sun in Tucson, Arizona. The blending of religions, or syncretism, that Arizona tribes practice demonstrates a deep mysticism, profoundly influenced by the Spanish, but uniquely practiced in tribal ceremony and tradition. De Grazia's work makes a unique artistic contribution by illustrating the religious syncretism that was, and remains, an integral part of the Native American tribes in the Southwest.