Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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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 give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item The Comedy Propaganda Machine: The Soldier Sketch Writing Contest of World War II(2022) Demmy, Tara Noelle; Hildy, Franklin J; Theatre; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In 1941, the U.S. military faced the challenge of preparing to fight a war on two fronts (thousands of miles away against formidable foes) and finding comedy scripts to entertain soldiers. Wait, what? It is true, “comedy” was on the country’s long and complicated to-do list for World War II, in addition to recruiting millions of people and producing ships, aircraft, artillery, tanks, food, and ammunition. The army’s soldier show program included contests, quizzes, one-act plays, musicals, vaudeville acts, minstrel shows, and radio comedy. Military manuals detailed how to act, direct, write, and build props and costumes. The goal was to provide soldiers with the skills to self-entertain, no matter the conditions. Soldier entertainment during World War II was expansive, including Entertainment Units and USO shows, but this study focuses on informal shows, performed for and by troops in combat zones overseas. Two organizations led this effort: the Special Service, a branch of the U.S. Army, which facilitated all leisure and recreation programs for GIs, including dances, camp newspapers, music, educational programs, and sports; and the Writers’ War Board, a propaganda agency run by celebrity writers. Funded administratively by the U.S. Government’s Office of War Information (OWI), the Writers’ War Board sought to rectify the mistakes of state-run propaganda campaigns of World War I, aiming to integrate pro-war sentiment into American’s daily entertainment streams. The Special Service made the argument to commanding officers that participation in comedy would make men into better soldiers. They believed that comedy would promote and maintain what they termed “combat morale,” or the will to kill / be killed on behalf of the organization and its objectives. Using comedy to convince men to risk their lives and take the lives of others, does indeed feel like an act of propaganda. Using research from five archival collections, this dissertation asks: How did sketch comedy promote and maintain combat morale during World War II? Or in other words, how did sketch comedy function as propaganda, convincing men to risk everything? Soldier shows improved the combat efficiency of the soldier through the development of individuality, development of leadership, development of esprit de corps, and provided a means of relaxation from mental stress. The 1944 sketch writing contest for the armed services, the pinnacle collaboration between the Writers’ War Board and the Special Service, serves as the through line of this dissertation. This contest, culminating in the published booklet titled GI Prize Winning Blackouts (1944), features short funny scenes about army life. Present-day military veterans participated in workshops where they read the World War II sketches aloud and discussed them in relation to their own service. Each chapter includes embedded audio files and direct quotes, centering their perspectives as credible experts. War, like comedy, often holds multiple, even contradictory meanings. Tensions are explored within each chapter, adding complexity to my understanding of the relationship between comedy, morale, propaganda. Comedy, despite its “entertaining” nature, needs to be critically engaged, especially during periods of crisis, when audiences are most vulnerable. As during a pandemic, or war, comedy audiences (of social media, performance, and everyday joking) must be aware of their desperate need for connection and therefore their vulnerability to consciously or unconsciously be convinced to join a group and act on behalf of it. The Special Service and Writers’ War Board worked together to turn a group of civilians into effective combat soldiers, willing to risk their lives in battle. This case study speaks to the power of comedy as propaganda at a time when the stakes were incredibly high.Item THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR: A NEW INSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION OF THE SOCIAL ORDER AND MILITARY FACTIONS DURING THE SECOND REPUBLIC (1931-1939)(2014) La Parra Perez, Alvaro; Wallis, John J; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation presents a new view that emphasizes the role of intra-elite fights in understanding the failure to consolidate democracy during the Second Spanish Republic. The two traditional explanations have emphasized the action of "blocks" and often reflect the ideological tensions behind the interpretation of the Second Republic. Rather than seeing elites as blocks or focusing on ideological divisions, my view focuses on the heterogeneity of interests within elites and how the redistribution of political and economic rents during the Republic relates to the support or animosity of elite factions vis-à-vis the republican government. I apply my view to one specific Spanish elite -the Army- showing that, contrary to traditional interpretations, the military was a non-monolithic organization that was divided into different factions with conflicting interests. I explore the impact that factional military interests had on officers' chosen side (rebel or loyal) during the Spanish Civil War that ended the Republic. The econometric analysis uses a new data set that identifies officers' sides and uses information from military yearbooks to follow officers' individual histories between 1910 and 1936. The results confirm that the Army was a non-monolithic organization where factions behaved differently and responded to the impact from republican military reforms. Officers in favored corps and those that enjoyed greater promotions between 1931 and 1936 were more likely to support the republican regime. I also explore the effect of hierarchy on officers' choice. Results show that subordinates tended to follow the side chosen by their senior officers.Item Military Fathers and Families: Experiences Across Contexts, Space, and Time(2013) Jones, Nicolle Buckmiller; Roy, Kevin M; Family Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)There are approximately 1.8 million U.S. children with at least one parent in the military (Department of Defense, 2010). Maintaining an all-volunteer military force has led to an increase in older, career military members that are more likely to have children (RAND, 2010). Due to extended military commitments and recent deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, the need to understand the impact of deployment and military work commitments on children and family relationships has come to the forefront. While a number of studies have explored the influence of deployment and a military lifestyle on children and families, few have explored the impact of military employment and deployment on father-child relationships from the perspective of fathers. This study explored the experiences of fathers as they negotiated the contexts of family and military life, created relationships with their children across physical spaces and over time, and strategized how to foster nurturant father-child relationships. Qualitative interviews with 23 Active Duty, National Guard, and Reserve Army fathers were used to address these exploratory areas. Among these fathers, 15 were from the enlisted ranks and 8 were officers. Fathers varied in terms of age, race, and socio-economic status but in order to better capture strategies, challenges, and fathering experiences, military fathers had at least one child during at least one deployment, had been deployed at least once, and were married or had been in a committed relationship. Approximately 90-minute interviews were used to capture and explore father's experiences, as well as field notes of observations detailing site visits and interactions with staff serving military fathers and families. The discussion of the resulting themes explores the relationship between work and family roles and identity and fathering, expands the view of how Army fathers manage mental health needs through compartmentalization and decompression and personal intervention as well as by being attentive to family needs, and emphasizes how Army fathers may be doing more than simply "making up for" implications related to their deployment but deliberately designing fathering to address the needs of their children in response to deployment and occupational demands. The theoretical lenses of situated fathering and symbolic interactionism are used to frame and interpret the recorded experiences of military fathers as they navigated the fields of fatherhood and military. The theoretical concepts of ambiguous loss, ambiguous presence, and ambiguous absence are also used to connect the theories of situated fathering and symbolic interactionism, and enhance the exploration of military men's fathering.Item Basic(2008-05-19) Newman, Anne; Feitell, Merrill; Creative Writing; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Basic is a collection of interrelated short stories which follow Sylvia Jones' progress through Army Basic Training. The stories track Sylvia's struggle to find her place both within the Army and within the family she has left behind. Numerous physical and emotional trials force Sylvia to confront her choice to join the Army. As her understanding of her fellow soldiers deepens, she begins to understand more about who she has been and who she is becoming.Item Transformation Plans for Optimizing Military Vehicle Testing(2007-05-15) Hoy, Timothy W; Herrmann, Jeffrey W; Mechanical Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The U.S. Army Aberdeen Test Center is a leading Department of Defense developmental test center and test range. A majority of the testing conducted at the Aberdeen Test Center is automotive in nature. Due to recent conflicts around the world, the U.S. Armed Services need to field new armored systems rapidly. The rapid deployment of automotive systems has caused the Department of Defense test community and the Aberdeen Test Center in particular to reevaluate and redefine traditional test plans and practices in order to maximize the amount of valid and pertinent data obtained from shortened test schedules. As a result, this thesis studies new transformation plans to provide ways to optimize military test plans. These transformation plans take into account existing military vehicle data from multiple sources including the Aberdeen Test Center's automotive road courses. These transformation plans are not only useful for shortened military tests, but can also be easily employed in developing test plans for private industry customers as well as long term test projects. The benefits in all cases are the same: an optimized test plan for automotive endurance operations.