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 Inter-Ethnic Relations on New England's Frontier: A Survey of the Formative Period(1969) Cole, Robert A.; Van Ness, James S.; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)In many respects, the form and progression of the New England frontier reflects a collision, of sorts, between two disparate peoples and their two divergent cultures. As the European confronted the native American in the wilderness setting, it soon became apparent that the demise of the Indian culture was inevitable, the only salient question being as to the nature of its decline. A close examination of early Seventeenth Century relations shows the English as ambitious and militant expansionists who not only rejected the idea of cultural coexistence, but, in regarding the Indian solely from a European frame of reference, failed to make any substantial progress toward a theory of toleration. The English were highly organized, strongly motivated, and eminently successful in their pursuit of the long range goals of settlement; and it is the very cohesiveness of the Puritan frontier which best illuminates the fateful dilemma of the indigenous population. While fragmented by tribal particularism and internecine warfare, the native New Englanders were beset on all sides by enemies, European and Indian. Though willing, at first, to contest a permanent European colonial effort, their cultural resiliency was undermined by disease, and a multiplicity of negative factors which developed as their relationships with the English settlements moved toward interdependency. As the confrontation moved into the climactic period following the Pequot War, the weight of the English presence had already brought about irreversible trends in the Indian way of life. With his lands diminishing under the pressure of two converging lines of frontier settlement, he was finally left, with two impractical options, acculturation or resistance. Both charted a course to futility.Item Slaveholding and Indentured Servitude in Seventeenth Century Maryland, 1674-1699(1968) Payne, Philip Marshall; Land, Aubrey C.This thesis is concerned with the characteristics of slaveholding and indentured servitude in seventeenth century Maryland, so far as these can be delineated from quantitative data. on the basis of a quantitative analysis of personal estates in the Inventories and Accounts of the Probate Court, several conclusions are apparent . These can best be stated in summary form in six propositions . First, estates with bond labor (slaves and/or servants) decreased from 36 per cent of the total number of estates during the period 1674 to 1679 to 24 per cent in 1695 to 1699. Second, the percentage of estates with slaves (slaves only or slaves and servants) increased from 24 per cent of those estates with bond labor in the period 1674 to 1679 to 72 per cent in 1695 to 1699. Third, the average number of slaves per estate (of those estates holding slaves) increased from 2.89 in the period 1674 to 1679 to 5.50 in 1695 to 1699. The average number of servants per estate (of those holding servants) decreased from 2.88 in the period 1674 to 1679 to 2.15 in 1695 to 1699. Fourth, those who invested 0 to 20 per cent of their total income in bond labor decreased, while those who invested 21 to 40 per cent of their total income in bond labor remained fairly constant. Those who invested 41 to 70 per cent of their total income in slaves and/or servants increased during the twenty-six year period. Fifth, there appeared to be a concentration of slaves in the hands of the wealthy. over the twenty-six year period, 17.6 per cent of the estates with bond labor held 52.2 per cent of the total number of slaves. Sixth, the average value of male slaves during the period was between L21 and L25; the average value of a female slave was Ll6 to L20 for the first several decades and L21 to L25 for the last decade. The average value for servants ranged from Ll to LlO, with the value increasing as the time of service increased.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 A Force for Reform: The American Presbyterian Mission Press in China, 1836-1870(1977) Dove, Kay Lee; Folsom, Kenneth E.; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)The American Presbyterian Mission Press (PMP) was a vital, if indirect, force in stimulating intellectual reform in China. During its early years, 1836-1870, the PMP developed technological innovations in the printing of the Chinese language that led to the modernization of the Chinese printing industry, which, in turn, provided textbooks for modern education and periodical literature for the development of public opinion. At the same time, the Press trained a corps of Chinese in modern printing technology, which was then able to apply this training in Chinese private and governmental printing offices. The PMP worked with Chinese printing establishments, selling them Chinese type and assisting them to purchase printing presses and other equipment which was necessary for use with metal movable type. Before the 19th century Chinese printing had become a finely developed art, but by this time, printing technology in Europe and America had modernized, and it was more efficient and less expensive. Type founders and missionaries in Europe and Asia reduced the 40,000-character Chinese language to amanageable number by determining which characters were necessary for printing Christian literature. Then they mass-produced them in metal movable type. The PMP was the pioneer that succeeded in this effort, thereby modernizing China's printing industry and promoting the massive introduction of Western secular as well as religious thought. The modernization of China in general rests upon the modernization of the printing industry, for this development preceded and made possible the reforms which followed it.Item Clio at College Park: The Teaching of History at the University of Maryland, 1859-1968(1978) Ross, Martha Jackson; Rundell, Walter Jr; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)The evolution of the teaching of history at the University of Maryland reflects both the changing role of history as a course of study and the altered status of history as a scholarly discipline. After a succession of history teachers with degrees in English or political science, the first professor with a history Ph.D., Hayes Baker-Crothers, came to Maryland in 1925. Other trained historians followed, but growth was slow. In 1940, President H.C. Byrd hired Wesley M. Gewehr to head the History Department. In the wake of stresses of World War II, dissension between Byrd and Gewehr caused even more neglect than might otherwise have accrued to a "service" department. History appointments, salaries, and facilities all suffered from Byrd's hostility throughout his administration. Four years after Byrd resigned in 1954, Gewehr retired, leaving to his successor, Aubrey C. Land, the task of developing a true university department with the support of the new president, Wilson H. Elkins. With worthwhile objectives but an abrasive manner, Land alienated a significant number of his senior faculty, especially those who had been close to Gewehr. Eventually, Land lost the confidence and support of the administration and withdrew as department head. An interim committee administered the department under the direction of Dean Charles Manning until a new chairman, David A. Shannon, was chosen in 1965. A recognized scholar, Shannon attracted a number of distinguished historians in a variety of scholarly fields before departing after three years. With a faculty of achievement and promise, the University of Maryland moved to capitalize on its advantageous location near the nation's capital to establish a History Department of the first rank.Item Henry Theodore Tuckerman as Revealed in his Published Works(1959) Ellsworth, Richard Grant; Beall, Otho T.; American Civilization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)Henry Theodore Tuckerman, as revealed in his published works, was, in many ways, a model of the mid-nineteenth century American. In his travel accounts, his historical and biographical scholarship, his social and political attitudes, his artistic and literary criteria, is revealed his sincere allegiance to the Romantic Idealism which dominated his day. This allegiance is shown in his belief in the fundamental goodness and inevitable progress of mankind; in his basic individualism, an almost transcendental egocentrism, which mystically identified the human soul with God, and interpreted self-reliance in terms of intuitional supranatural apprehension; in his dichotomization of his realities, separating the Ideal from the practical, the intuitive from the reasonable, the commonplace from the beautiful, the here and now from the distant and the past; in his acceptance of Nature as the representation of the Ideal, and of the feminine as the symbol of the Beautiful; in his fealty to emotion and sympathy as the mystical keys to all human relationships; in his strict and didactic morality; and in his professed national ism and proclamation of divine purpose and destiny in America . Yet, he was conservative in his personal refusal to become involved in reformism, in either outright abolitionism or feminism; in his determined and maintained attitude of Brahmin aloofness from "the herd" and "the multitude"; in his willingness to submit himself to governmental mandate, to support, at least nominally, what was legal and generally accepted; and in his overly-developed and almost unnatural reticence which prevented his from ever achieving that intense ego-exploration imperative within the Romantic philosophy. His published works reveal him to have been profoundly influenced by three major factors in his private live: his mother's death, his Italian residence, and his deep aversion for the commercial life. Possibly, in his need for social (and, especially, feminine) acceptability, his adoration of the ideal woman, and, perhaps, his easy acceptance of the sentimental and the emotional. His Italian travels and residence introduced him to the artistic experience and instilled in him a determination to devote his life to the Beautiful and to the encouragement of its creation and appreciation. And His aversion to the common precepts and standards demanded by American commercialistic enterprise influenced this decision, and shaped his life philosophy in its declaration of an over-stressed materiality in American life, and consequent under-development of the spiritual and the intellectual. With the exception of some of his better poems, Tuckerman's travel accounts best reveal his personal attitutdes and feelings toward his time and his world. As a scholar, Tuckerman read widely, but not deeply. His recorded perceptions almost always appear to be reflections of the parallel conclusions of his greater contemporaries. But he considered his theories his own, and, although he often documented a though or a conclusion, he never admitted to an intellectual debt or spiritual guidance. Tuckerman's greatest significance is in his constant effort to popularize the Beautiful, and thus to enrich American life. He sought always to broaden the public perceptions, to increase American aesthetic appreciation, to combat American reoccupation with commercialism. He was ever the propagandizer for good taste and cultural cultivation. His published works all evidence this. As a recorder of travels, he encouraged an appreciation for European cultural achievement. As a historian and biographer, he was narrative and moralistic. As a literary and art critic, he ever diligently encouraged the writer and the artist, and always sympathetically explained and interpreted to their audience. As a poet and author in his own right, although he often proved sympathetic with the sentimental demands of his age, he, nevertheless, in spite of such lapses, always strove to broaden the public outlook toward the Beautiful and the Cultural as he perceived them to be. That his audience appreciated his effort is readily apparent in his evident contemporary popularity. But his death and the end of his social influence, the broad standard and contemporary nature of his appeal , and the swiftly changing public interest, all combined to prove his fame ephemeral, and to banish him to a modern obscurity unworthy of his sincere intent and effort, and obvious contemporary accomplishment. Henry Theodore Tuckerman deserves to be remembered not only for his yet-standard biographical scholarship, and his service as a historian of art and artists in America, but also for his exemplary thought and attitude, the cultured reflections of the literary and artistic standards of mid-nineteenth century America.