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published_or_final_version / Chinese Historical Studies / Master / Master of Arts

M.Litt. et Phil. / Please refer to full text to view abstract

This project addresses how residential segregation have stymied home ownership and wealth in the black community; inhibiting true housing equity. This thesis project will attempt to use design as a means to help address past and continuing discrimination. Accessibility, affordability and accountability are central to this goal, which will be addressed in the project. The site chosen for this project is the St. Luke’s Building located in Richmond, VA. This building was home to the Independent Order of St. Luke, a fraternal and cooperative insurance society for blacks. It also housed the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank which was founded in 1903 by Maggie Walker. Walker was the first woman to charter a bank in the United States.

Abstract not available

Throughout the 1950s, U.S. policymakers actively encouraged Americans to participate in civil defense through a variety of policies. In 1958, amidst confusion concerning which of these policies were most efficient, President Eisenhower established the National Shelter Plan and a new civil defense agency titled The Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization. This agency urged homeowners to build private fallout shelters through print media. In response, Americans used newspapers, magazines, and science fiction novels to contest civil defense and the foreign and domestic policies that it was based upon, including nuclear strategy. Many Americans remained unconvinced of the viability of civil defense or feared its psychological impacts on society. Eventually, these criticisms were able to weaken civil defense efforts and even alter nuclear defense strategy and missile defense technology.

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published_or_final_version / History / Master / Master of Philosophy

In 1917, a mere thirty years before India gained independence from Britain, Indians were alIowed into the officer corps of the colonial Indian Army, thus initiating its " Indianization ". Yet, as an issue of British military policy, Indianization had been debated for a hundred years before 1917. This thesis delineates the contours of that debate, the myriad schemes for Indianization that it engendered, the reasons for the faHure of each of these, as weIl as the reasons why the bar on Indians in the Indian Army's officer corps was finally broken. In analysing the debate, attention will be paid to factors that influenced and channelled the discussions. The most important of these were: Anglo-Indian strategies of Imperial politics, such as the need to seek out and collaborate with certain sections of Indian society as a means of holding India to the Empire; British ideological and intellectual formulations, such as the "Gentleman-Ideal" and the Martial Races theory; and Indian political developments, such as the emergence of Indian public opinion and nationalism .

Ahmednagar District, in Bombay Presidency, was affected - along with much of South India - by a major drought in 1876-78, leading to famine relief by the Government of Bombay and considerable emigration and mortality. Recent literature, however, has suggested that famine is a complex, human and long-drawn-out process, rather than a sudden, natural phenomenon. This thesis seeks to identify that process among poor peasants in Ahmednagar between 1870 and 1884. It does so by examining their factors of production - land, capital and, to a lesser extent, labour - as well as markets in credit and the cheap foodgrains they produced, in order to locate both their chronic food insecurity and forces increasing their vulnerability over time. In this context, emphasis is given to the relationship of the British colonial state to the peasantry. The agrarian policies and agendas of the Government of Bombay are explored with regard to peasant vulnerability. It is argued that it failed to invest in production and infrastructure, while forcing peasants into competitive markets in which they were ill-equipped to compete. Despite a laissez-faire philosophy, it intervened to first promote, then penalise, usurious moneylenders, reducing the availability of credit. It also taxed peasants directly through the inflexible ryotwari land revenue system. In the crisis, peasants were not treated as famine victims and discouraged from accepting relief. The state can therefore be said to have contributed to the process of famine. It is argued that the propriety of colonial famine policies - and especially of other policies in the agricultural sector that undermined peasant food security - was widely discussed at different levels within the British state, from assistant collectors in Ahmednagar to secretaries of state in London. Attention is given to the way these debates were conducted and the process of policy-making analysed, concluding that the colonial hierarchy made it difficult for officers to be responsive to local problems.