UMD Theses and Dissertations

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

Browse

Filters

2017 - 20193

Settings

Subject: search.filters.subject.Pennsylvania

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    BETWEEN NORTH AND SOUTH, EAST AND WEST: THE ANTI-SLAVERY MOVEMENT IN SOUTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA, 1780-1865
    (2019) Holness, Lucien; Bell, Richard; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This dissertation examines the making of free soil and black freedom, as well as the abolitionist movement in southwestern Pennsylvania. I frame the region as a borderland between the free North and the slave South, where the status of African Americans was somewhere between slavery and freedom, as well as a crossroads between the abolitionist movement in the East and the Old Northwest. By doing so, I hope to understand how geography (physical and political) influenced ideas about race and the types of strategies abolitionists favored in their fight against slavery and for black rights. I argue that the roots of free labor ideology—a belief that emerged in the 1850s that slavery (and, for some whites, free blacks) should be prohibited from western territories in order to allow free white men to earn a living wage—can be traced to the 1780s when southwestern Pennsylvania was one of the first territories opened to westward expansion and where the place of black people in American society remained uncertain. Alongside this nascent idea of free labor emerged an oppositional culture created by African Americans and their white antislavery allies that was shaped by their geographic location, worksites, institutions, and living conditions. This led to the formation of counter ideas about free soil, the west, black freedom, race, and citizenship. Many white southwestern Pennsylvanians adamantly opposed these ideas fearing that interracial social relations, labor competition, and the possible migration of blacks into the region would degrade the economic independence of these households, turning whites into a dependent and degraded class.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Clerical Conduct Related to the Perpetuation of Child Sexual Abuse in Pennsylvania Catholic Dioceses: A Developing Framework
    (2019) Britto, Crystel; Roy, Kevin; Family Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Throughout his papacy, Pope Francis reiterated that clericalism played a major role in the global Catholic sexual abuse crisis. Research has not been able to back this claim due to lack of data on cultural and structural elements that have contributed to the various crises. The present study aims to fill this gap in research by examining narratives regarding clerical sexual abuse and seeks to explore themes contributing to a framework of abuse. Qualitative data analysis was conducted by examining the 40th Statewide Investigating Grand Jury Report of Pennsylvania, focusing on correspondence between various actors regarding 12 priests in Pennsylvania and their involvement in child sexual abuse. Using grounded theory with elements of narrative analysis, the study seeks to explore themes of belief, behavior and emotion of clergy between 1930-2016. The results provide insight into the nature of the Catholic Church’s involvement in the perpetuation of child sexual abuse.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The Long Shot
    (2017) Zitta, Anthony; Norman, Howard; Creative Writing; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The following stories sew together parts and characters of Pennsylvania that can be neighbor to any, and with that, the reminder that family is the one thing everybody has to deal with and adapt to in order to survive.