PhD Dissertations - DO NOT EDIT
http://hdl.handle.net/10106/25165
2024-03-29T05:54:14ZLa Prensa y El Gran Pueblo Mexicano: A Study of Spanish-language Newspapers in South Texas, 1850-1930
http://hdl.handle.net/10106/31751
La Prensa y El Gran Pueblo Mexicano: A Study of Spanish-language Newspapers in South Texas, 1850-1930
This study focuses on Spanish-language newspapers published by Mexicans in South Texas from 1850 to 1930. These newspapers played a vital role in mobilizing Mexican communities for collective action against anti-Mexican violence, racism, and the segregation of their children in schools. This study also examines the influence of these newspapers on the formation of Mexican American identity. These newspapers connected large groups of people through cultural narratives and contributed to defining concepts like "patria" and "raza", exhibiting many of the qualities Benedict Anderson attributed to print capitalism's role in the act of imagining oneself as part of a community. The research presented here specifically focuses on South Texas due to its significance in the Mexican experience within the United States. Cities like San Antonio and Laredo were hubs of social and political activity in which large Mexican populations participated, especially during the years of the Mexican Revolution. Influential Spanish-language newspapers, such as La Crónica and La Prensa, emerged from this region. These newspapers were widely popular and played a crucial role in mobilizing Mexican communities through their content, strongly influencing group identity and politics among Mexicans in the United States.
2023-08-31T00:00:00ZPearl Chase and Thomas More Storke: Two Community Builders in Twentieth Century Santa Barbara, California
http://hdl.handle.net/10106/31427
Pearl Chase and Thomas More Storke: Two Community Builders in Twentieth Century Santa Barbara, California
**Please note that the full text is embargoed until 5/12/2024** ABSTRACT: Pearl Chase (1888-1979) and Thomas More Storke (1876-1971) are the main protagonists in this dissertation which analyzes Santa Barbara, California, and its twentieth- century development. These two individuals dedicated their lives to improving, maintaining, and preserving their unique city, as they supported—and often led—many architectural, civic, educational, environmental, and infrastructural projects. Chase and Storke were selected to headline this dissertation because they were excellent examples of community builders whose prolific endeavors resulted in many achievements. Some of these accomplishments have become Santa Barbara icons for which the city is known, such as its picturesque architectural style and a University of California campus (UCSB). Chase and Storke were also chosen because their adult lives spanned almost three-quarters of the twentieth century, and thus, this analysis could examine the impact that many of the era’s major events had on the Santa Barbara area. In addition, these two Santa Barbarans offered an opportunity to examine this topic from varying perspectives, due to Chase and Storke’s differences in career, marital and family choices, as well as gender, origin, and heritage.
The results of Chase and Storke’s efforts still exist today—from those projects that can be seen, such as Lake Cachuma or the Santa Barbara Airport, to those ventures that cannot be visible because they were prohibited to exist, like garish commercial signage or an overly industrial economic base. Chase and Storke’s memories in Santa Barbara are also reflected in ways that might expected of such involved citizens, such as awards, honors, and landmarks bearing their names. However, these two dedicated people also left behind a legacy of civic commitment, as they encouraged others by example—and by recruitment—to be community- and philanthropic–minded, qualities that are important elements to the character of Santa Barbara.
2022-05-12T00:00:00ZAdventurers and Autocrats: The Role of Authority in the Making of the English West Indies, 1595-1655
http://hdl.handle.net/10106/30949
Adventurers and Autocrats: The Role of Authority in the Making of the English West Indies, 1595-1655
After Walter Ralegh made his famous journey to the Orinoco in 1595, English adventurers began the haphazard process of colonizing the West Indies. Initially they tried to follow Ralegh’s efforts in Guiana, but their every effort failed because they lacked access to significant investment capital and did not enjoy the full backing of the crown. After several calamities, Englishmen interested in American colonization turned their efforts towards the Caribbean in 1623. Under the rule of Lord Proprietor James Hay, Earl of Carlisle, and his brutal governors English adventurers enjoyed more success. The key difference in Carlisle’s Caribbean and Ralegh’s Guiana is that Carlisle had the unqualified backing of the crown and the authority to govern through a form of martial law. That authority gave Carlisle’s men the ability to use terror and violence to prevent fledgling island colonies from devolving into anarchy. Carlisle was so successful at keeping order in his island colonies of St Christopher, Nevis, Barbados, Antigua, and Montserrat that after his death, the West Indians were able to build local institutions on the foundation that order provided. This happened in Barbados first, after Governor Henry Hawley founded an assembly in 1640 that grew in strength throughout the 1640s until it became the most important feature of Barbadian political life. After that, the Lord Proprietor’s authority ebbed until it was finally extinguished after the death of the king. With the English state in disarray a faction of big planters took control of the assembly, declared Barbados independent, and expelled Parliament’s supporters from the island. Their revolt was unsuccessful, but the English state was never able to assert the same control over Barbados and its sister West Indian colonies again. The West Indian colonies had gone from autocracies built on metropolitan authority to colonial oligarchies that rested on their own power.
2022-08-25T00:00:00ZThe Battle Over Identity: Finnish-Americans and the Finnish Civil War
http://hdl.handle.net/10106/30686
The Battle Over Identity: Finnish-Americans and the Finnish Civil War
Historical research on Finnish migration and Finnish-Americans has, until recently, been carried out by members of the Finnish-American community and as such has written out the role of Finnish-Americans in the radical labor movement, as well as their reactions to the Finnish Civil War. In some regards it could be argued that the Finnish Civil War was also fought in America, with newspapers used in battles instead of guns. Finnish-American workers’ response to the civil war, combined with Finnish-Americans’ involved in the nationalization process of Finland, illustrates the transnational nature of seemingly national events. To help create what Benedict Anderson calls the national “imagined community,” Finns abroad, through agents from Finland such as church representatives and traveling reporters, learned and accepted what it was to be Finnish. The international workers’ movement, meanwhile, led some Finnish-Americans to view themselves within a class framework that put them in opposition to the bourgeois Finnish nation-state. As the workers’ movement disintegrated and the industries Finns were heavily involved in, such as timber, began to falter, they passed away without instilling “Finnishness” into the next generation. It appeared, until quite recently, that their history had died with them.
2020-03-19T00:00:00Z