History Theses and Dissertations
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Item Riots and Revolution: Food Riots in the Department of the Seine-et-Oise, 1789-1795(1994) Sanyal, Sukla; Cockburn, James; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)This dissertation is a diachronic study of the food riots that broke out in the department of the Seine-et-Oise from 1789 through 1795. The purpose of the dissertation is to study one of the most common forms of popular protest in France in all its complexity. This study traces the riots downs the years and situates them within a specific political and economic context. It argues that as the Political and economic circumstances changed, the riots changed in form and content from market riots to stoppages of convoys to invasions into the homes of farmers. The dissertation also examines how the Revolution affected the rioters, not only in their material lives, but in their thinking and ideology as well. Chapter II traces the breadth and scope of the riots. Chapter III is a study of the connections between the policies of the revolutionary governments towards the commerce of foodstuff and the outbreak of the riots. It is shown that the riots changed in form over the years as the rioters sought to deal with the consequences of governmental legislation at different periods. Chapter IV examines the causes of the riots. It studies the long term and short term causes of the riots as well as the immediate causes. In this context, the chapter examines the social structure of the Seine-et-Oise , the effects of the policy of liberalization of the commerce of foodstuff and the effects of war. Chapter V studies the motivations, the organization and the composition of the riot groups. It argues that the Revolution had a direct impact on the mentalities of the rioters. As the years progressed the outlook of the rioters became steadily more radical, and they came to believe that political rights, and a Constitution which protected their interests, would alone solve the problem of subsistence in France. The sources for this study are the administrative records, police records, judicial records, legislative edicts, price lists and propaganda pamphlets found in the Archives Nationales at Paris, the Departmental Archives at Yvelines and Corbeil-Essonnes and the Bibliotheque de la Ville de Paris.Item "The Quiet Battles of the Home Front War": Civil War Bread Riots and the Development of a Confederate Welfare System(1986) Barber, Edna Susan; Grimsted, David A.; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)During the American Civil War, more than a dozen food riots erupted in a number of Southern cities. Planned and executed largely by women, these riots were precipitated by extreme food shortages and high market prices, both the result of impressment activity and widespread speculation in foodstuffs. Although several scholars have examined the largest riot which occurred in Richmond, Virginia, in 1863, none have studied them collectively to determine the impact all of these riots exerted on the Confederate war effort or on the roles of Southern women in wartime. Nor has any attempt been made to place these riots in the context of American and European patterns of rioting. In response to riots or as attempts to prevent riots from occurring, a number of state and local governments moved to establish welfare programs to aid the women left destitute by the war. In cities, this took the form of free markets which distributed commodities donated by local farmers. In areas where the population was more dispersed, county or state relief agencies performed a similar function. Women who received supplies had to meet specific requirements to qualify for aid, and, at least in Richmond, the female rioters were excluded from the welfare program because their behavior violated traditional behavioral norms. As the war neared its conclusion, however, this type of riotous activity by Southern women ceased, and the women returned to their more traditional roles in nineteenth-century Southern society. When examined as a group, these riots tend to conform to traditional European food riot patterns such as those described by E.P. Thompson and Louise Tilly, thus giving the women's activities a broader and deeper historical context than they otherwise would have had.Item Deferred Mission, The Josephites and the Struggle for Black Catholic Priests, 1871 - 1960(1985) Ochs, Stephen J.; Olson, Keith W.; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)During the last quarter of the nineteenth, and well into the twentieth century, St. Joseph's Society of the Sacred Heart (Josephites) carried the main burden of the Roman Catholic Church's meagre efforts among black Americans. The Josephites built churches and schools throughout the South and, more dramatically, pioneered in the ordination of black Catholic priests in the United States. The exclusion of all but a handful of black men from the Catholic priesthood had both symbolized and helped to perpetuate the second class status of blacks within the Catholic Church. Under their first American Superior General, the dynamic John R. Slattery (1893-1904), the Josephites defied prevailing racist ideology. They accepted blacks into their minor and major seminaries and raised three of them to the priesthood between 1891 and 1907. Unfortunately, however, the Josephites could not sustain their pioneering endeavors on behalf of a black clergy in the midst of deteriorating race relations in the United States after the turn of the century. Southern bishops refused to accept black Josephites into their dioceses. Slattery's successors as Superior General, especially Louis B. Pastorelli (1918-1942 ), lacked his faith in black leadership, shared some of the racist assumptions of American society, and found themselves dependent upon the support of southern bishops. They accomodated their ecclesiatical superiors and effectively closed the Josephite college and seminary to all but an occasional mulatto, thereby forfeiting credibility among an important segment of black Catholics. Leadership in the struggle for black priests passed to the missionaries of the Society of the Divine Word. Not until the election of Edward V. Casserly as Superior General (1942-1948), did the Josephites return to their original policy of recruiting black men for St. Joseph's Society. The struggle of the Josephites over the issue of black priests illustrated the depth of the institutional racism that pervaded the Catholic Church, the tendency of the Church to accomodate itself to prevailing regional and national cultures, the limits of Vatican influence over the American Church on sensitive social issues like race, and the determination of black Catholics to secure their own priestly spokesmen within the clerically dominated Catholic Church.Item THE INTELLECTUAL CONSTRUCTION OF AMERICA AND THE EXPANSION OF FEMALE EDUCATION IN THE EARLY REPUBLIC, 1780-1810.(1998) Dunlap Radigan, Patricia Annette; Lyons, Clare; History; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD); University of Maryland (College Park, MD)Since the early 1980s, women's historians have worked to uncover the causes behind the expansion of educational opportunities for women in the early American Republic. Their work delineated how constructs about motherhood, wifehood, religion, and social status influenced the expansion of female education in the late eighteenthcentury. This research adds another powerful construct to the list: the civilization construct. Of all the constructs present in early American thought, beliefs about the meaning of civilization were among the most powerful. Inherited from European perspectives about the nature of civilized human societies, and modified by the American experience, the desire to join the ranks of "civilized" nations permanently changed educational practices. In 1996, a search for evidence of republic motherhood ideology in the records of the Young Ladies' Academy of Philadelphia laid the groundwork for this thesis. I expected repeated references to motherhood. I was struck by the virtual lack of motherhood rhetoric. Instead, the trustees and students repeatedly cited the needs of their "civilization." Further research showed that civilization was cited by others, too. Ina deliberate search for more references to civilization, writings by Benjamin Rush, Thomas Jefferson, Noah Webster, Samuel Smith, Robert Coram and others were examined. Beliefs about civilization continually appeared in rhetoric surrounding education reform: in advertisements and prospectuses, poems, songs, essays, and speeches. I searched newspapers, magazines, private correspondence, records of public forums, and reprints of commencement speeches. It was everywhere. The legacy of the civilization construct and its affect on female education is traced here.Item The Library of Charles Carroll of Carollton(1990) Parker, Michael T.; Evans, Emory; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)Charles Carroll of Carrollton was a pivotal leader in revolutionary Maryland and the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence. This thesis attempts to set forth Carroll's intellectual life through an examination of the Carroll correspondence and the Antilon-First Citizen letters, and more important, by reconstructing the Carroll library as it existed during the years of the American Revolution. The reconstruction is based on five book lists that were made between 1759 and 1767, and on a catalogue made of the library in 1864 prior to its being sold at auction. The reconstruction is only an approximation of the Carroll library due to the following methodological limitations. First, not all the books that Carroll mentions in his correspondence are included on any of the book lists or in the auction catalogue. Second, after the death of his father Carroll undoubtedly merged his books with the family library. Third, only those books in the catalogue with a publication date prior to 1783 are included, thus including some and excluding others that Carroll may or may not have had during the Revolution. By the nature of the books in the library and from numerous hints in the Carroll correspondence, it is concluded that Carroll attempted to create an ideal libra ry. Therefore, because Carroll was one of the most erudite political participants of his time, this library is not only a reflection of Carroll's mind, but a map to the intellectual landscape of revolutionary America.Item Integrating Baltimore: Protest and Accommodation, 1945-1963(1991) Horn, Vernon Edward; Harlan, Louis R .; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)After the Second World War, non-violent direct action protest became the tool of choice for civil rights workers. During the war democratic rhetoric and extended interracial contact inspired many blacks and some whites to work for racial justice. This thesis deals with the efforts of some blacks and whites to integrate parts of Baltimore, and follows community response. Specifically, Chapter One deals with early efforts of the Progressive Party and its supporters to integrate city operated park facilities. Chapter Two follows the integration of Baltimore City schools in the fall of 1954, and the complete integration of city park s in 1956. School integration caused some violent community reaction, which the authorities suppressed. The final chapter explores the origins of the public accommodations movement. As early as 1951 students at Morgan State protested against segregated theaters, stores and restaurants. After 1953 the students members of the Baltimore Committee of Racial Equality and a some other liberal whites sometimes worked with the students. The Morgan students' experiences before 1960 were crucial to their emergence as leaders of the civil rights movement after 1960.Item Trade and Economic Growth in the Eighteenth Century Chesapeake(1999) Hardy, Stephen Gregg; Olson, Alison G.; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)This dissertation explores the growth of the economy of Maryland and Virginia from the late 1600s to 1775 using the Naval Officer Shipping Lists for these colonies. These records contain complete cargo and ship information for almost 40,000 ship entrances and clearances. By the eve of the American Revolution, Chesapeake colonists enjoyed a level of income from this external trad that was unmatched in the preceding century. The pattern of growth, however, was not steadily upward. From 1665 to the 1680s, earning from trade declined, as did the price of tobacco and the terms of trade. From 1690 to 1705, trade and the terms of trade improved, only to decline and stagnate from 1705 to the 1740s. From the 1740s to 1775, there was a rapid but variable growth in both export earnings and terms of trade affording unprecedented levels of income and comfort. This growth did not mainly come from improvements in shipping efficiency, as suggested by James Shepard and Gary Walton. Before the 1740s, freight rates declined significantly because of advances in tobacco packing. only after the 1740s did shipping industry efficiency increase. However, the decline in freight rates in this period was slight, so the increased efficiency was not responsible for the rapid growth of the 1740s. Diversification in the Chesapeake economy was. From the 1740s to 1775, however, Maryland and Virginia colonists ran chronic trade deficits. But, their economies remained stable and even grew rapidly. British capital made up the trade deficits, and much of this capital was invested in productive enterprise, not just in increased levels of consumption.Item The MAORT Operation: A History of the Standard Oil Company (New Jersey) in Hungary 1938-1948(1984) Kissh, Bela; Yaney, George L.; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)A multinational American company discovered oil in Hungary on November 20, 1937. The flowing wells produced crude for Hungary; 13ter, they supplied some of the military needs of Germany and the demands of the Soviet Red Army after World War II. On September 20, 1948, a newly formed Communist Hungarian government nationalized the company, claiming that some American and Hungarian managers had sabotaged production. The decade-long operation of the Hungarian-American Oil Company, whose Hungarian acronym was MAORT, left behind intermittent, yet discernible trails in company , state, military and diplomatic records. In the aggregate, these documents preserved the history of MAORT, which exploited the Transdanubian oil fields in peace, in war, and under a socialist order. Discovery of crude deposits, attainment of national self-sufficiency in refined oil products, and friendly cooperation between state and company hallmarked the fir st half of MAORT's history . During the war, the state sequestered the company and ruinously accelerated exploitation of the fields; still, Hungary relinquished less oil to Germany than was demanded. After the war, the Red Army came to occupy the fields and held the oil complex as a war trophy until 1947, when a peace treaty was signed. By the time the American managers had regained control over their company, the Hungarian government was in the midst of expropriating private enterprises. To allow, in the presence of massive Soviet arms, a vital segment in the nation's new socialist economy to remain in private foreign hands, was inadmissible. A criminal trial, in which the state's case rested on confessions of industrial sabotage, provided the means and justification for the expulsion of the American managers, the sentencing to prison terms or death of the Hungarian managers, and the nationalization of MAORT in 1948. The company began by serving Hungarian interests, but in its later years it became a pawn in German and Soviet hands.Item Climate and the Soviet Grain Crisis of 1928(1995) Welker, Jean Edward; Foust, Clifford; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)This dissertation test the premise that peasant hoarding of surplus grain to state procurement apparatus during the late New Economic Policy period, caused the Grain Crisis of 1928. The peasants' reluctance to sell grain and claims of peasant hoarding could only occur if sufficient grain surpluses existed during this period. The existence of these assumed grain surpluses is show to be highly improbable. First, the large but inconsistent body of 1920s grain statistics was evaluated per se and related to two periods of pre-WWI data, the Witte and Stolypin years, on a practical comparison whenever possible. For both these pre-World War I periods, intensive links between rapid industrialization and agriculture had been established similar to the conditions of the 1920s. The climatic conditions of the two imperial and one Soviet period in the 1920s, especially drought in 1927, was analyzed, and its impact on grain production estimated and interpreted. The conclusion was reached that the cause of drop in grain production in 1927 was due to long-term and persistent trend of regional drought affecting spring wheat yields, especially in the areas of the Middle Volga and Kazakhstan. Second, the resultant conclusion was reached that there was insufficient bread grain on a national basis in the 1927 to meet the essential needs of the rural peasants, much less the increasing demands of the government procurements. Third, the government's 1917 policy of monopolizing all available "surpluses" on the grain market under the false assumption that these surpluses were abundant, demonstrated either naivete and incompetence, or political expediency. This monopolization contributed to a breakdown in the marketing distribution of available grain, and generally exacerbated the poor procurement situation which was publically and incorrectly blamed on the peasants' hoarding.Item "THE WORLD WILL LITTLE NOTE NOR LONG REMEMBER": WOMEN AND GENDER IN THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG(1996) Ericson, Christina Lynn; Muncy, Robyn L.; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)This thesis is a gender analysis of the experiences of women in and around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, during the Civil War battle in 1863. It examines ten eyewitness accounts written by these women to assess the impact of both the battle and the war upon them. It concludes that neither the battle nor the war was a "watershed" for these women. Gettysburg women appear to have more similarities with Southern women than other Northern women due to experiences including dealing with the realities of men's absence, military occupation, and battle. The most striking difference between the women of Gettysburg and other Northern women is the absence of a "second generation" of benevolent ideology. Instead of subscribing to the "new" efficient view of benevolence, Gettysburg women retained a sentimental, localized and much less structured form of charity. This thesis explores image versus reality. Personas and images of the Battle of Gettysburg that persist in popular memory often are not, and indeed never were, an accurate picture of contemporary gender relations. Realities of individuals were often modified to reinforce existing gender roles. Traditional images of Gettysburg women as passive witnesses to the battle are an example of this. Female eyewitness accounts of the battle actually revealed fluctuations in acceptable "manly" and "womanly" behavior. Though these women did not "seize" the opportunities of their non-traditional service during the battle, the significance of these experiences should not be overlooked.