Theses/Dissertations - History
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Browsing Theses/Dissertations - History by Author "Baylor University. Dept. of History."
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Item American Christianity in the maritime world : challenges to faith in the early national period.(2012-08-08) DeShong, Thomas Allen.; Kidd, Thomas S.; History.; Baylor University. Dept. of History.The stereotypical eighteenth-century sailor was a superstitious man with little concern for Christianity. While it is true that most mariners at this time practiced a syncretic faith, historians have minimized the influence Christianity had. This thesis analyzes various ideological and spiritual challenges unique to American Christians who lived in the maritime world during the early national period (1775-1815). The first chapter examines the relationship between American Christianity and Islam. The focus then shifts to American providentialism, the effort by American Christians to interpret what God’s will was in human affairs. The final chapter explores the roles of naval chaplains and the struggles they faced in fulfilling their spiritual responsibilities. This thesis is an attempt to re-examine sea-faring life through a religious lens. While Christianity certainly survived in this setting, it did not thrive. In many cases, the principles of Christianity were challenged or undermined by maritime culture.Item August Sebelin's Civil War : a German sailor in the Union Navy, 1861-1865.(2011-12-19) Bishop, Ronald R.; Rust, Eric C., 1950-; History.; Baylor University. Dept. of History.From 1861-1865, the United States of America was in the grip of a civil war. It was fought on land and at sea. One participant was August Sebelin, a young German sailor. Sebelin entered the war to enhance his navigational skills in order to to Germany someday and better serve his country. Sebelin's wartime experiences the U.S.S. Connecticut are recorded in a diary he kept while in service. It is observations which are the basis for this study. This thesis examines and analyzes everyday life of this German sailor while operating as a part of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron during America's Civil War.Item Between isolation and engagement : the history of the Dutch Calvinist school movement in the Netherlands, the United States, and Canada.(2010-06-23T12:25:41Z) Sikkema, David A., 1984-; Hankins, Barry, 1956-; History.; Baylor University. Dept. of History.Over 200,000 Dutch immigrants have settled in Canada since the end of World War II. The Dutch Calvinists within this larger body have largely maintained their distinct religious and ethnic identities through the establishment and maintenance of separate civic institutions. The purpose of this thesis is to trace the historic development of one institution in particular, the separate school. The underlying motivations behind the creation of separate schools in Canada are rooted in a century long struggle in the Netherlands known in Dutch parlance as the schoolstrijd where the Dutch fought to set up their own educational institutions and won financial equality with their secular counterparts. This thesis will also discuss two strains of Calvinism that emerged within the Reformed body, each having a significant impact on the schools' identity in the Netherlands, the United States, and Canada. Finally, the thesis will offer a case study of one particular school in Southern Ontario, Canada. As this school emerged from a schism within the church, it provides an opportunity to explore another stage in the development of Dutch Calvinist education.Item Body, soul, and bible : a religious history of nineteenth-century physiological reform.(2013-09-24) Riddle, Jonathan D.; Hankins, Barry, 1956-; History.; Baylor University. Dept. of History.The nineteenth-century American physiological reform movement was deeply religious. While historians have noted the moral or religious imperatives intermingled with reformers’ dietary recommendations, few have examined why and how a movement to reform the body became religious and how that religious impulse manifested itself. This thesis therefore offers a close examination of the religious aspects of physiological reform, arguing first that a holistic or sympathetic theological anthropology undergirded the sacralization of bodily regimen. Second, this thesis demonstrates that physiological reformers relied on the Bible to promote their movement and that the Bible’s dietary teachings were a substantial point of conflict between the reformers and other Americans. Finally, this thesis analyzes the reformers’ hermeneutic, arguing that they read the Bible through the lens of physiology. They therefore clashed with the commonsense literalism with which their contemporaries read the Bible—a hermeneutical conflict the physiological reformers failed to win.Item Caligula in Jerusalem : the hostile relationship between Emperor Gaius and his Jewish subjects.(2012-11-29) Sturdy, Michael C.; Jones, Kenneth R.; History.; Baylor University. Dept. of History.This thesis examines the relationship between Gaius (Caligula) and his Jewish subjects via unrest in Alexandria and the emperor’s decree that the Jerusalem Temple be converted into a pagan shrine. It is concluded that Gaius was a competent leader who intentionally asserted his power over the region of Judea based on his knowledge of the Jewish people based on their history and his relationship with Agrippa I. It is also concluded that the Jewish authors’ view of the emperor was tainted predominately by the Temple incident, which has shaped how historians have studied Gaius by focusing on his madness and immorality.Item Confederate empire and the Indian treaties : Pike, McCulloch, and the Five Civilized Tribes, 1861-1862.(2011-05-12T15:26:14Z) Fisher, Paul Thomas.; Parrish, T. Michael.; History.; Baylor University. Dept. of History.From its beginning, the Confederacy looked to expand in power and territory by courting the Five Civilized Tribes away from the United States. To accomplish this, the Confederacy sent an unlikely pair of ambassadors: lawyer-negotiator Albert Pike and former Indian fighter Benjamin McCulloch. While Pike signed treaties with the tribes, McCulloch began organizing the Indians as Confederate soldiers. Pike took over equipping and training the various Indian units and led them to join the main Confederate army in Arkansas. This army, including Pike's Indians,suffered defeat in the 1862 Battle of Pea Ridge. McCulloch's death in the battle, Pike's forced resignation afterward, and the defeat itself doomed Confederate efforts to dominate the frontier. Despite their substantial help to the Confederates, the Five Tribes received little help from Richmond, and paid a massive price for trying to get out of United States protection in unequal and unjust treaties after the war.Item Crossing the color line.(2011-09-14) Hash, Alisha.; Parrish, T. Michael.; History.; Baylor University. Dept. of History.Miscegenation, a word not coined until the Civil War, has been an intrinsic part of American History. There is a rich field of scholars discussing the experiences of interracial couples from Colonial America through Reconstruction. Historically, most researchers focus on the earliest laws enacted in the colonies and how these laws were adjusted and applied. However, there has been very little work done on specific states with the exception of a few anomalous regions such as Louisiana. Although the contributions that have been made thus far have been invaluable, there is a hole in the research. There has been very little work done on the state of Texas. Only one author, Charles F. Robinson III, has explored the topic in depth, therefore, his work should be examined thoroughly and critically.Item The forest : a history of ideas : the movement for civil rights in suburban Madison, New Jersey 1955-1970.(2013-05-15) Gaither-Çyrs, E.; SoRelle, James M.; History.; Baylor University. Dept. of History.The ideas emergent from the movement for civil rights in the American South transformed suburban Madison, New Jersey, and its nearby townships in the span of one generation. Protests burgeoned from the largely one-dimensional, cyclical indifference, insularism and apathy of Drew University undergraduates in the mid-to-late 1950s, to the variegated prism of social and political interests and involvement of students, administrators, public servants, small business owners and everyday citizens engaging the movement on different fronts, from the early-to-mid 1960s. By the latter half of the decade, Madison activists had prompted the New Jersey Supreme Court to ban the practice of double service standards in places of public accommodation and the disintegration of older organizational allegiances became imminent. New race conscious and political factions eventually emerged to engender a more diverse assembly of voices in concert with and counterpoint to one another than ever in the history of the local community.Item The Freedmen's Bureau schools in McLennan County, Texas.(2011-05-12T15:16:07Z) Akins, Meredith G.; Kellison, Kimberly R.; History.; Baylor University. Dept. of History.The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands was established by the War Department on March 3, 1865, in an effort to provide relief to the 4,000,000 slaves emancipated at the end of the Civil War. From the beginning, the Bureau recognized the importance of establishing and running schools for the freedmen who had never received any type of education and who were mostly illiterate. The first Bureau school in the state of Texas was established in September 1865, and the first Bureau school in McLennan County, Texas, was started in April 1866. Over the next four years, the schools faced enormous challenges, including a lack of funds and hostility from the white population. Despite the defeats that the Freedmen’s Bureau schools in McLennan County faced, they were successful in providing an education to hundreds of freedmen across the area.Item God's army: religious conservatives at the 1992 Republican National Convention.(2006-11-22T13:21:17Z) Ellis, Blake.; Hankins, Barry, 1956-; History.; Baylor University. Dept. of History.Before 1992, religious conservatives had been an important voting bloc for Republican presidential candidates. They provided crucial monetary and organizational support, but they were often dissatisfied with their lack of prominence within the party. The 1992 Republican National Convention marked a turning point for both religious conservatives and the Republican Party. At that convention, the Christian Right demonstrated its power within the party by influencing the platform committee and the tenor of the convention. The convention demonstrated that religious conservatives were no longer outsiders in the party, but were instead important players. The convention marked a watershed event in modern American politics because it ensured the survival of the partnership between religious conservatives and the Republican Party.Item Guatemala's perfect storm : the relationship between General Efraín Ríos Montt, the news media, and the U.S religious right.(2013-09-24) Miles, Katie Ruth Litzell.; Supplee, Joan Ellen, 1951-; History.; Baylor University. Dept. of History.This thesis explores the connections between General Efraín Ríos Montt and the conservative evangelical Christians in the United States through the lens of secular and Protestant media. In order to make sense of the two competing images of Ríos Montt, the secular media used rhetoric to discredit on Ríos Montt’s religious convictions while the religious press cast suspicion on the human rights accusations leveled against him. This thesis will fill this gap in the current discussions of Ríos Montt’s role in Guatemala’s history. By looking in-depth at media coverage of him from not only the Christian press, but also the secular press, this thesis works to advance an understanding of the unlikely alliance between U.S. conservative evangelicals and a Guatemalan dictator.Item Guiana and the shadows of empire : colonial and cultural negotiations at the edge of the world.(2010-06-23T12:21:34Z) Hyles, Joshua R.; Francis, Keith Anthony.; History.; Baylor University. Dept. of History.Nowhere in the world can objective study of colonialism and its effects be more fruitful than in the Guianas, the region of three small states in northeastern South America. The purpose of this thesis is threefold. First, the history of these three Guianas, now known as Guyana, French Guiana, and Suriname, is considered briefly, emphasizing their similarities and regional homogeny when compared to other areas. Second, the study considers the administrative policies of each of the country’s colonizers, Britain, France, and the Netherlands, over the period from settlement to independence. Last, the thesis concentrates on current political and cultural situations in each country, linking these developments to the policies of imperial administrators in the previous decades. By doing so, this thesis hopes to show how an area that should have developed as a single polity could become a region of three very distinct cultures through the altering effects of colonialism.Item He was ours: Lyndon Baines Johnson and American identity.(2006-12-04T20:45:20Z) Briscoe, Dolph, IV.; Parrish, T. Michael.; History.; Baylor University. Dept. of History.President Lyndon B. Johnson challenged his fellow citizens to build a Great Society based on traditional conceptions of American identity. Johnson's cultivation of a personal identity as a Texan, rather than a southerner, strengthened his determination to promote the Great Society as an American policy. A disciple of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, Johnson targeted civil rights, poverty, education, healthcare, and the general quality of life in the Great Society's domestic programs. Such massive liberal reforms proved controversial and divisive. Likewise, the Vietnam War, which Johnson often compared to World War II, provoked divisions and questions over America's true identity and purpose, despite his promotion of the war as an effort to build the Great Society abroad. Those divisions and questions, mirroring the complexities of the 1960s, affect Americans today and burden Lyndon Johnson, the Great Society, and the Vietnam War with complex historical legacies.Item The history of African Americans in Fort Worth, Texas, 1875-1980.(2007-12-04T19:55:19Z) Marvel, Heather M.; SoRelle, James M.; History.; Baylor University. Dept. of History.African American urban histories in the United States typically focus on larger cities in the nation such as Chicago, New York, and Washington, D.C. Despite the low amount of scholarly works looking at Texas cities, the Lone Star State was not a welcoming region for freedmen. This paper adds to the African American historical scholarship by discussing the black Fort Worth urban experience, focusing specifically from post Reconstruction to 1980. As the southern city grew during the late nineteenth century and into the twentieth century, African American residents faced similar prejudices and obstacles as other blacks in larger cities elsewhere in southern and northern regions. This is their story of overcoming these barriers and becoming an integrated part of Fort Worth culture.Item "I only love them" : Dorothy Scarborough and the supernatural in literature.(2010-06-23T12:31:49Z) Fair, Jean M.; Parrish, T. Michael.; History.; Baylor University. Dept. of History.This thesis examines the life and accomplishments of Emily Dorothy Scarborough, graduate of both Baylor University and Columbia University and professor of English, as they relate to her interest in the supernatural. Born on 27 January 1878, Scarborough developed a love of literature at an early age and spent the majority of her childhood at Baylor University. Constant contact with African-American culture became a profound influence on Scarborough's writing, particularly Conjure and other occult traditions. World War I also constituted a significant influence on her work, as well as her views on supernatural literature in general. Although elements of the supernatural are present in all of Scarborough's work, her most famous novel, The Wind, represents her best expression of the subject and had generated the most critical interpretations. Scarborough's simplistic appreciation of the supernatural led to her accurate prediction that public interest in the subject would persist indefinitely.Item Jezebel or servant of God?: how Julie Pennington-Russell became the first female pastor in Texas.(2008-10-01T16:35:42Z) Ramsour, Marly.; Kellison, Kimberly R.; History.; Baylor University. Dept. of History.In 1998 Calvary Baptist Church, in Waco, Texas, appointed Julie Pennington-Russell: the first female Baptist pastor in Texas. This thesis will show the dynamic relationship between the conservative and moderate Baptist groups in Waco, and how each group responded to the question of whether women should be allowed in the pastorate. Many moderate Baptists in Waco came from the local Baylor University, which had a strong influence on the community. The appointment of the first female Baptist pastor in Texas came at a time when the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) was fully in control by fundamentalist leaders, who were against women pastors. The SBC had been controlled by moderates until the late 1970s when fundamentalist Baptists had taken control of the Convention. Pennington-Russell’s appointment shows that not all Baptists were conservative or agreed with the SBC’s interpretation of women in ministry.Item Kirvin and Streetman: a new history of the northwest section of Freestone County, 1900-1950.(2006-12-05T21:20:06Z) Capps, Erin Elizabeth.; Charlton, Thomas L. (Thomas Lee); History.; Baylor University. Dept. of History.A social history of the northwest section of Freestone County, Texas, focusing mainly on the towns of Kirvin and Streetman, 1900–1950, reveals the developments, the tragedies, the stories, and the obvious themes running through these communities' histories. Kirvin and Streetman ultimately became quiet communities, with little to no activity, but they were once vibrant, active places full of people, businesses, and human life. By studying these communities, new insight emerges into how they were similar, different, and how they related to one another.Item Land reform and the fall of the Roman Republic, 133-83 BC.(2006-10-26T19:04:46Z) Hanna, Michael.; Hamilton, J. S., 1955-; History.; Baylor University. Dept. of History.This thesis follows the birth and growth of the land reform movement in Roman politics from the period of 133 - 83 BC. Beginning with Tiberius Gracchus in 133 and moving through the periods of leadership of Gaius Gracchus and Gaius Marius, the thesis will argue that land reform was a keynote issue over a fifty year period of Roman History, during which the land reform movement and its leaders effected great changes in procedures of governance at Rome, the military system of Rome, and Rome's relations to its Allies. As well, the thesis will argue that the land reform movement laid the foundation for the later deconstruction of the republican system at Rome.Item The migration of Chinese-Vietnamese from Vietnam : the Truong Family.(2010-10-08T16:18:35Z) Hoover, Daniel J. (Daniel Jeremy); Mungello, David E, 1943-; History.; Baylor University. Dept. of History.Indochinese refugees inundated Southeast Asian nations in 1978 and 1979. The majority of those leaving Vietnam were of Chinese descent. Though labeled refugees, many if not most of those ethnic Chinese who left Vietnam were more immigrants than true refugees. The first chapter examines the history of the ethnic Chinese and their community in Vietnam. The second chapter examines the reasons why so many ethnic Chinese left Vietnam. Chapter three outlines the means of escape and the incorrect labeling of those leaving Vietnam as refugees. The final chapter examines the ethnic Chinese as they are viewed and dealt with by other nations, especially Hong Kong. By following the Truong family story alongside historical events, this thesis hopes to show how the ethnic Chinese leaving Vietnam were not true refugees, but were willing to accept the label.Item The military and administrative leadership of the Black Prince.(2008-10-28T16:39:33Z) Tidwell, Ashley K.; Hamilton, J. S., 1955-; History.; Baylor University. Dept. of History.Edward of Woodstock, Prince of Wales and Aquitaine (1330-1376), has been analyzed on many different levels for his military genius in battle during the Hundred Years War. Known as the Black Prince, Edward had an effective ruthlessness in battle that has made his military career and his chivalrous nature a subject of interest to historians. However, Edward was more than a military leader; he was a ruler. Becoming Prince of Aquitaine in 1362 after the Peace of Brétigny, Edward had to face a new role many have overlooked in his rather short lifetime: governor and leader of a foreign people. This role tends to be overlooked among the historical community, due in large part to the lack of primary documents. Regardless, this role was an important aspect of the prince’s life for it proved that the Black Prince had both successes and failures throughout his lifetime.