History
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/11274/15806
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Browsing History by Author "Blosser, Jacob"
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Item An inferno of anxiety: How narratives surrounding the North Texas fires of 1860 ignited paranoia and distrust in Texas prior to secession(May-23) Hustoft, Stefanie 01/26/1997-; Blosser, Jacob; Parker, James; Van Erve, WouterThe purpose of this thesis was to examine the impact of the 1860 North Texas fires on Texas’ decision to secede. This research project looks at the various factors of these events. Chapter one looks at the environment of North Texas and how the dry conditions combined with white settlement practices created conditions that helped the summer fires spread. This chapter also analyzes Donald E. Reynolds’ prairie match, which claims that the North Texas fires of 1860 were caused by matches combusting from the summer heat. Chapter two looks at the animosity Texans had against northerners. A specific focus of this section is Texans’ assumption that all northerners were abolitionists who wanted to harm southerners and take away their slaves. The third chapter analyzes Texas coverage of the North Texas fires and how the narratives were manipulated to accuse abolitionists of setting fires across the region. The chapter also introduces how other southern states influenced Texas to secede during the state convention of 1861.Item An inferno of anxiety: How narratives surrounding the North Texas fires of 1860 ignited paranoia and distrust in Texas prior to secession(May-23) Hustoft, Stefanie 01/26/1997-; Blosser, Jacob; Parker, James; Van Erve, WouterThe purpose of this thesis was to examine the impact of the 1860 North Texas fires on Texas’ decision to secede. This research project looks at the various factors of these events. Chapter one looks at the environment of North Texas and how the dry conditions combined with white settlement practices created conditions that helped the summer fires spread. This chapter also analyzes Donald E. Reynolds’ prairie match, which claims that the North Texas fires of 1860 were caused by matches combusting from the summer heat. Chapter two looks at the animosity Texans had against northerners. A specific focus of this section is Texans’ assumption that all northerners were abolitionists who wanted to harm southerners and take away their slaves. The third chapter analyzes Texas coverage of the North Texas fires and how the narratives were manipulated to accuse abolitionists of setting fires across the region. The chapter also introduces how other southern states influenced Texas to secede during the state convention of 1861.Item Lost in translation? Orthodoxy and ontology in the transatlantic world of the Jesuits(2012-05) Michna, Gregory A.; Blosser, Jacob; Hodges, Lybeth; Travis, Paul D.This thesis is an examination of the attempts of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, to maintain orthodoxy in practices during their early missionary activity in New France. Close study is given to the founding documents of the order and the influence of the principal founder, Ignatius of Loyola, as well as the framework of Jesuit education found in the Ratio Studiorum. Jesuit education was fundamental in the development of ontological perceptions of sin and human nature, which the Jesuits imported to New France as missionaries. Once they arrived in the New World, Jesuits faced the daunting challenge of communicating inherently abstract concepts in Catholic practices such as the nature of the Trinity, Baptism, and the Eucharist across linguistic and ontological barriers, and recorded these struggles in the form of Relations that were published in Europe. Through these records Jesuit cultural sensitivity can be identified.Item The Old Woman: Evangelical manners and late Georgian respectability(12/31/2016) Waynen, Kaitlyn; Blosser, Jacob; Hodges, Lybeth; Lanndeck, KatherineThis thesis examines the advice given to young women by an anonymous contributor to the popular late Georgian women’s magazine the Lady’s Monthly Museum. The advice columnist, who used the pen name the Old Woman, gave advice to readers who were concerned with what constituted proper female education, how they should spend their leisure time, and how to act during courtship and marriage. The advice this columnist gave her predominantly middle class readership mirrored attitudes held by prominent evangelicals of the period who sought to inculcate their morality on the English middle class. This revolution of manners, led by evangelical leaders, came to shape female behavior for decades. Examination of the Old Woman’s column adds important insight into the late Georgian period and the lives of middle class women.Item The possible effects of John Adams's decade in Europe on his policies as vice president and president(2008-12) Giffin, Kenna S.; Presnall, Barbara; Belfiglio, Valentine; Blosser, JacobJohn Adams was comfortable with the fact that the American colonies were governed by a monarch living several thousand miles away, as long as the monarch governed through the colonial legislative bodies. When the British Parliament imposed taxes on the colonies, however, Adams knew it was time to fight, first for the colonists' rights as British citizens, and later for America's sovereignty. Adams was instrumental in planning the break from Britain, in negotiating the peace treaty with Great Britain, in negotiating commercial treaties with the Netherlands, Great Britain, France, and other countries, and as the first minister plenipotentiary from the United States to Great Britain. Adams had a decade in which to listen, observe, ask questions, read papers, and generally absorb the essence of French and British thinking, so that during his vice presidency and presidency, as America teetered on the brink of war with France and Great Britain, Adams was uniquely able to lead his country to peace and security by insisting on neutrality.Item "Stranger than fiction": Anglo-American-German relations and rivalries through invasion literature: 1890-1914(2012-12) Stewart, Michael; Travis, Paul D.; Blosser, JacobThe speculative literature of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are usually considered escapist fiction and not germane to historical study. This paper proposes that by studying the sub-genre of literature called "Invasion Literature." This paper postulates that one can understand the mindset of a nation's people during the time period the story is written in. Such stories not only influenced public mood but in turn were influenced by this mood, as their popularity during this time period reveals. This paper considers the Invasion Literature of three nations; the United States, Great Britain, and Germany. All three nations were under increasing pressure to either maintain their world power (in the case of Great Britain) or in the case of the United States and Germany, to increase their national power. This competition would result first in a naval arms race and eventually the First World War.Item Thomas Shepard: From Nonconformist to Orthodox to persecutor; Shepard's role in the Antinomian controversy(5/30/2012) Chance, Melba; Blosser, Jacob; Travis, Paul D.; Kessler, MarkWhile traditional history paints Anne Hutchinson as the central cause of the Antinomian Controversy, this paper explores the role of Thomas Shepard as the controversy's central figure. It traces Shepard's role as a Puritan Nonconformist in England, to his role in establishing Puritan Orthodoxy in New England, to his role as chief persecutor of New England dissidents, chiefly Anne Hutchinson. I will show, through Shepard's autobiography, journal, and other sources that Shepard, persecuted by Archbishop Laud for conscientious dissent became New England's "Laud" by persecuting others for their own conscientious dissent. While historiography has blamed the victim, Anne Hutchinson, for the Massachusetts Bay crisis, I will show that Thomas Shepard—out of his desire to bring all others into conformity to his theological interpretations—not Hutchinson, was the chief instigator of the Antinomian Controversy.Item Through a paper looking glass: Reality and mythology in the personal identities of pioneer women, 1860–1930(8/30/2012) Fogle, Mary Kathryn; Travis, Paul D.; Travis, Paul D.; Blosser, Jacob; Kessler, MarkThe purpose of this study was to analyze the identities and perceptions of pioneer women in the West between 1860 and 1930; specifically, this study addresses the Anglo women who settled in Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, North Dakota and South Dakota. This thesis examines western women's reactions to the landscape of the West, the problems and successes of western marriages, the ability of western women to procure financial or political independence, and addresses the similarities and differences between the experiences of western civilian women and military officers' wives in the West. This work utilizes a wide array of primary and secondary source literature, including the Western History Archives at the University of Oklahoma and published diaries and memoirs, to show the transformation of women on the western frontier from a group governed by the rules of the Cult of True Womanhood into a group of independent, decisive, active women.Item Under two flags: Rapprochement and the American Hospital Ship Maine(12/30/2014) Thurmond, Aubri; Travis, Paul D.; Blosser, Jacob; Hoye, TimothyThis thesis is an examination of the creation and mission of the American Hospital Ship Maine by twenty American women living in England during the Boer War. Attention is given to the funding, outfitting, and staffing of the Maine as well as the work of the Maine on its first voyage to South Africa. Due to the patriarchal time in which they lived, the identities of many of the American women behind the Maine were till this time unknown. With much effort, biographical information had been recovered and is included here. This study builds upon existing rapprochement scholarship to demonstrate the ways in which the Maine corresponds to British-American relations at the end of the nineteenth century, therefore highlighting the international importance of the American Hospital Ship Maine.