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 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 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.Item The Americanization of the Virgin Islands, 1917-1946: Politics and Class Struggle During the First Thirty Years of American Rule(1992) La Motta, Gregory R.; Wright, Winthrop; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)This study describes how the interaction between Virgin Islanders and their new American rulers shaped the political relationship between the Virgin Islands and the United States. Once control of the islands had passed from Denmark to the United states, Virgin Islanders forced American Officials to take sides in local political struggles. These struggles pitted a mostly white upper class of merchants and planters against a black middle and working class alliance that had just recently won some important victories. After 1917, both sides appealed to the American administrators for assistance. over the course of the next thirty years, the middle and working classes achieved greater success than the planter and merchant elite in obtaining American support. The middle and working classes gained this support by emphasizing their loyalty to the United States, and imploring the Americans to extend to Virgin Islanders the same rights enjoyed by U.S. citizens on the mainland. By same rights enjoyed by U.S. citizens on the mainland. By the end of the Second World War, black Virgin Islanders had not only gained control of the insular political system but also had convinced federal officials to extend substantial economic aid programs to the colony. Whatever success the elite enjoyed resulted largely from appealing to the Americans from the common ground of race. These appeals worked fairly well for the first fourteen years of American rule, when the Department of the Navy administered the islands. Cooperation between Navy officials and the local elite prevented political reforms that would have granted greater political power to middle and lower class islanders. However, numerous protests by black islanders, along with the Navy's inability to fashion an economic recovery, forced the federal government to transfer responsibility for the islands to the Department of the Interior. Less racially prejudiced than their Navy predecessors, the new civilian administrators realized that cooperation with black islanders was necessary to implement an economic recovery program. This cooperation formed the basis for the a lasting political relationship between the United States and the Virgin Islands.Item Autonomy and Opportunity: Carrollton Manor Tenants, 1734-1790(1999) Jeske, Mary Clement; Hoffman, Ronald; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)This dissertation is a study of tenants who rented land on the Carroll family's western Maryland estate, Carrollton Manor, beginning with the settlement of the manor in 1734 and continuing through the era of the American Revolution. Carrollton, located in the fertile Monocacy Valley of Frederick County, offers an ideal opportunity for a case study of tenancy. The area was a crossroads of Maryland, where tobacco and slaves from the tidewater Chesapeake met German grain and livestock farmers from southeastern Pennsylvania. Both of these influences successively permeated the manor. English tenants, tobacco, and slaves initially predominated there, but these later gave way to Germans, the cultivation of wheat, and the employment of free labor. Historians have often assumed tenants to have been poor farmers on the margins of colonial society, and tenancy as evidence of increasing inequality and a lack of economic opportunity. This study demonstrates, however, that tenancy could benefit tenant as well as landlord. Tenancy was a long-term strategy that required many years to produce significant returns, but it ultimately rewarded the Carrolls with a substantial, annual income from the manor. But the tenants benefitted as well, and many individuals, even those with other options, chose to rent land on Carrollton. The tenants were free to manage their plantations with little interference from the Carrolls. They decided what crops to grow on their manor tracts and how to market them, what labor to use, and how to allocate their resources. Although most tenants rented at the will of the landlord without written lease agreements, the Carrolls recognized their right to transfer their tenements to kin or sell their improvements to new entrants. Rents were affordable, and generally tenants were able to keep up with their payments. Most importantly, tenancy gave non-landowners access to land and the ability to become autonomous householders who were able to exercise control over their lives. Tenancy on the manor was variegated, and tenants ranged from the very poor to exceedingly wealthy land- and slaveowners, but on the whole the tenants were remarkably well off. Most never became landowners, but rents on the manor were low compared to the value of the land, and some who could have acquired freeholds instead opted to invest their resources in other ways, especially in the purchase of slave laborers. Not all Carrollton tenants were successful, but those who remained in the vicinity until their death were generally more prosperous than decedents elsewhere in the Chesapeake and, over time they became increasingly affluent.Item "Sisters of the Capital": White Women in Richmond, Virginia, 1860-1880(1997) Barber, Edna Susan; Gullickson, Gay L.; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)This dissertation examines the effects of the Civil War and Reconstruction on elite, middle-, and working-class white women in Richmond, Virginia. Anne Firer Scott has written that the Civil War was a historical watershed that enabled southern women's movement into broader social, economic, and political roles in southern society. Suzanne Lebsock and George Rable have observed that claims about white Southern women's gains must be measured against the conservatism of Southern society as the patriarchy reasserted itself in the postwar decades. This study addresses this historiographical debate by examining changes in white Richmond women's roles in the workforce, in organizational politics, and the churches. It also analyzes the war's impact on marriage and family relations. Civil War Richmond represented a two-edged sword to its white female population. As the Confederate capital, it provided them with employment opportunities that were impossible before the war began. By 1863, however, Richmond's population more than doubled as southerners emigrated to the city in search of work or to escape Union armies. This expanding population created extreme shortages in food and housing; it also triggered the largest bread riot in the confederacy. With Confederate defeat, many wartime occupations disappeared, although the need for work did not. Widespread postwar poverty led to the emergence of different occupations. Women had formed a number of charitable organizations before the war began. During the war, they developed new associations that stressed women's patriotism rather than their maternity. In the churches, women's wartime work led to the emergence of independent missionary associations that often were in conflict with male-dominated foreign mission boards. Although change occurred, this study concludes that white women's experiences of the Civil War and Reconstruction in Richmond, Virginia, were far more complex than Scott's notion of a historical watershed indicates. The wartime transformation in women's lives was often fraught with irony. Many changes were neither sought nor anticipated by Richmond women. Several came precisely as a direct result of Confederate defeat. Others tended to reinforce patriarchal notions about white women's subordinate status in Southern society.