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History Department Theses
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This collection represents the research of IUPUI history master's degree scholars. Areas of research include United States History, European History, and Public History, as well as dual degree research--combining an M.A. degree in history with a master's degree in either library science or philanthropic studies. Also included is research as part of the Graduate Certificate programs in Museum Studies and Professional Editing.
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Item "One of the Proudest Achievements:" Organized Birth Control in Indiana, 1870s to 1950s(2006) Sorensen, Carrie Louise; Coleman, Annie Gilbert; Marcus, Peter S.; Robertson, Nancy Marie; Schneider, William H.Local birth control advocates often found themselves attempting to open birth control clinics in restrictive climates that did not welcome open discussions of sexuality. To accomplish this, the organizers chose their tactics carefully and followed common strategies. After a few stumbles, organized birth control in many states began in earnest in the 1930s. By 1943, just ten years after its opening, the Indianapolis birth control clinic could boast that it had served 4,531 women and openly solicit funds from the community. The Maternal Health League’s plea on its fundraising brochure assured citizens of their patriotic duty to help. The league reminded Hoosiers, “In War and In Peace a Nation is as Strong as the Health of Its Mothers and Children.” Arguments such as these allowed the clinic to open and assured its existence for many years to come. Indiana birth control organizers relied on specific tactics that allowed them to accomplish their goals in a restrictive Midwestern state. Indiana’s birth control story offers modern-day readers a very different picture than that offered by studies of the national movement of birth control. Indiana offers an account that relies more on cooperation and less on confrontation.Item Indiana's 1988 Gubernatorial Residency Challenge(2007) Hogsett, Joseph Hadden; Barrows, Robert G. (Robert Graham), 1946-; Monroe, Elizabeth Brand; Blomquist, William A.Durational residency requirements as a qualification for holding statewide elected office appear in most state constitutions. These requirements are said to promote legitimate state interests, such as giving voters an extended period of time to get to know the individuals who are interested in holding statewide public office. Indiana is no different. In Article 5, Section 7 of its 1851 constitution, Indiana requires governors to have been “a resident of” the state for five years preceding election. Because no governor’s satisfaction of this requirement had ever been questioned, the constitutional language had never been interpreted – until 1988. In November, 1987, Evan Bayh announced his intention to seek the Democratic Party’s nomination for governor in the 1988 election. However, for approximately thirteen months during the required five year period, Bayh worked in Washington, D.C. As a result, a question arose whether Bayh was “a resident of” Indiana while he lived and worked in Washington. His eligibility to serve as governor, if elected, was formally challenged by leaders of the Indiana Republican Party. Bayh argued that he had been “a resident of” Indiana his entire life even though he had temporarily lived elsewhere. Bayh argued that the constitution does not require physical presence in order to be a resident of the state. Rather, residency was akin to domicile, a legal concept meaning that place which, once established, an individual considers to be his/her permanent home. One’s domicile cannot be terminated absent evidence of a clear intention to do so. Those challenging Bayh maintained that continued physical presence for the entire five years was, in fact, constitutionally required. In the alternative, his opponents argued that the actions taken by Bayh during his time in Washington were sufficient to establish his intent to terminate his residency in Indiana and re-establish it there. For almost eight months, Bayh’s eligibility to serve was a focal point of public attention in the 1988 governor’s race. While Bayh and his opponents pursued answers in several legal forums, they also were competing for advantage in the most important forum of all – the court of public opinion. Finally, on April 28, 1988, the Indiana Supreme Court rendered a decision declaring Bayh eligible to serve, if elected. This thesis considers not only what happened, but why. Were those challenging Bayh’s residency motivated by constitutionalism, partisan advantage or both? What were the political implications of the challenge? What was the significance of the extensive “forum-shopping” in which both sides engaged. In the end, did the attempt to disqualify Bayh actually strengthen his candidacy and help propel him to victory in November, 1988?Item The Impact of Caleb Mills on the Hoosier Education Debate: An Edition of Two Unpublished Addresses(2007) Natali, Bethany Leigh; Wokeck, Marianne SophiaThis thesis examines how the writings of Caleb Mills impacted the development of public education in Indiana and includes an edition of two unpublished addresses by Mills, “A Lecture on Popular Education” and “Knowledge is Power.” The addresses provide a much-needed glimpse of some of Caleb Mills’ efforts other than his famous addresses as “One of the People.” The works demonstrate how the education reformer outlined his views regarding the ideals of proper education found in his much better known “One of the People” addresses and also highlight the education debate that has continued into the early twenty-first century.Item Slave to Freewoman and Back Again: Kitty Payne and Antebellum Kidnapping(2007) Bishop, Meghan Linsley; Robertson, Nancy Marie, 1956-; Monroe, Elizabeth Brand; Gondola, Ch. Didier; McKivigan, John R.In 1843, an African-American woman known as Kitty Payne and her three children arrived in Adams County, Pennsylvania, newly manumitted by their mistress, Mary Maddox of Virginia. Two years later, in July of 1845, a gang of men burst into the Paynes’ home and kidnapped the family, dragging them back south to slavery. The story of Kitty Payne and her children echoed and replayed itself thousands of times in the years before the end of the Civil War. Between 1620 and 1860, a race-based system of slavery developed in America. Not all persons of African descent came to America as slaves, however, and slaves sometimes obtained freedom through manumission or escape. This created opportunities for corrupt individuals to kidnap free black Americans and sell them as slaves, regardless of their previous status. The abduction of free blacks into slavery is an extremely significant and far-reaching part of the antebellum African-American experience that many historians have previously overlooked.Item The Labor Branch of the Office of Strategic Services: An Academic Study from a Public History Perspective(2007) Lynch, Doria Marie; Robbins, Kevin C.; Bingmann, Melissa; Barrows, Robert G.The first chapter of this thesis provides the background of the Labor Branch and the OSS as a whole. From the OSS’s inception in 1942 through its postwar transformation into the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), I cover the evolution of the foreign intelligence community in the United States. This includes sections on the politics within the OSS, the reasons the Labor Branch has not been a focal point of OSS research, and quirks about the Labor Branch that make it stand out from the rest of the OSS. The Labor Branch’s specific role in the infiltration of Germany is also discussed in chapter one. Chapter two is an extension of the materials presented in the first chapter. It focuses on a section of the Labor Branch called Bach Section. This section was devoted to making the infiltration of Germany possible by creating cover stories, forging documents, and preparing agents to go to Germany in the midst of Nazism and be able to survive, gather intelligence, and create resistance networks. The bravery, intelligence, and will of the Bach Section are clear in this chapter, and the reader will recognize that, without the Labor Branch and their colleagues at the Bach Section, no one, be they with the OSS or British intelligence, would have had much success in infiltrating Germany during World War II. My third chapter is a bit more complicated than the first two. In it, I discuss the nuances of writing historical fiction responsibly and as a viable means of public history. As guidance, I undertake a discussion of the OSS in published works of fiction. I give an overview of the way different novelists handle the bureaucracy, agents, accomplishments, and failures of the OSS, revealing what I feel each does effectively and poorly. While discussing each of the potential strengths and pitfalls of historical fiction, especially as seen in the OSS novels, I then provide real examples of how historical fiction might work with a case study involving the OSS Labor Branch. One particular OSS mission, known as the Hammer Mission, serves as my example. I detail different parts of the mission, the men who participated, their training, and the mission itself and discuss how to use these details within a novel.Item Indianapolis Amusement Parks, 1903-1911: Landscapes on the Edge(2007) Zeigler, Connie J.; Coleman, Annie Gilbert; Barrows, Robert G.; Dwyer III, Owen J.In May 1906, Wonderland Amusement Park opened its gates on East Washington Street in Indianapolis to reveal its 125-foot tall “Electric Tower,” a tree-top “Scenic Railway,” and dozens of other thrilling and fantastical attractions. Indianapolis now had a Coney Island of its own. Even more amazing, by the end of the month, two more Coney-Island-style amusement parks had opened in the city. This thesis examines three Indianapolis parks: Wonderland Amusement Park, White City Amusement Park and Riverside Amusement Park and their impacts on the city of Indianapolis in the first years of the twentieth century.Item Three Indiana women's clubs: a study of their patterns of association, study practices, and civic improvement work, 1886-1910(2008) Owen, Mary Elizabeth; Barrows, Robert G. (Robert Graham), 1946-; Robertson, Nancy Marie; Wokeck, Marianne S.Springing up in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Indiana women's study clubs provided generations of women with the opportunity to improve their educations in a friendly environment. They also brought culture to their communities by hosting art exhibits, musical entertainments, and lectures, building libraries and museums, and participating in community improvement endeavors. The activities of urban clubs in big cities have been documented in histories of the women's club movement, but small towns have recieved little attention even through they were vital parts of their communities. This study considers the characteristics, organization, study practices, and civic improvement work of three small-town Indiana women's clubs in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. The Zerelda Reading Club (Warsaw) studied a wide variety of subjects, while the Ladies' Piano Club (Salem) and Florentine Club (Lebanon) limited their studies to art and music, respectively. All three clubs participated in community improvement efforts that helped their towns achieve urban amenities. The Zerelda Reading Club helped to establish a ladies' rest room, the Ladies' Piano Club worked with other community organizations to build a Carnegie public library, and the Florentine Club raised money to beautify Oak Hill Cemetery. Forming in decades of tremendous growth in popularity of club activity, the organization of all three clubs shows influences of those associations already in existence. This study argues that the individual circumstances of members and their communities resulted in the organization of three women's clubs that prospered under the guidance of extant clubs, but served their members and their communities by adapting activities to suit local needs.Item Barred Progress: Indiana Prison Reform, 1880-1920(2008) Clark, Perry R.; Barrows, Robert G. (Robert Graham), 1946-; Coleman, Annie Gilbert; Kelly, Jason M.On January 9, 1821, the Indiana General Assembly passed a bill authorizing the construction of the state’s first prison. Within a century, Indiana’s prison system would transform from a small structure in Jeffersonville holding less than twenty inmates into a multi-institutional network holding thousands. Within that transition, ideas concerning the treatment of criminals shifted significantly from a penology focused on punishment, hard labor, and low cost, to a one based on social science, skill-building, education, and public funding. These new ideas were not always sound, however, and often the implementation of those ideas was either distorted or incomplete. In any case, by the second decade of the twentieth century, Indiana’s prisons had developed into the large, organized, highly-regulated—yet very imperfect—system that it is today. This study focuses on the most intense period of organization and reform during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.Item Infrastructure, Separation, and Inequality: The Streets of Indianapolis Between 1890 and 1930(2008) Reichard, Ruth Diane; Coleman, Annie Gilbert; Barrows, Robert G.; Kelly, Jason M.Between 1890 and 1930 in the city of Indianapolis, people in charge made certain decisions regarding infrastructure—the character and condition of streets and sidewalks, the provision of sewer services and garbage collection, the location of the city’s dump, and the placement of the city’s sewage treatment plant—that resulted in long-term health and safety consequences. In Indianapolis, as in most modern American cities, some neighborhoods are less healthy for their inhabitants than others. The least healthy neighborhoods—those with the highest rates of cancer, for example—are situated on the city’s southwest side. The southwest side of Indianapolis is also the location of the landfill, the sewage treatment plant, and much heavy industry. The entire city is at the mercy of an ill-designed sewer system, a system that taxpayers are spending millions annually to repair. The years from 1890 to 1930 saw the genesis of this state of affairs. In the city of Indianapolis since 1890, infrastructure has separated people from nature and from each other on two levels: its operational level, wherein it was an objective entity that performed according to its design, and its subjective level, where it operated as a social and hygienic barrier. Streets, curbs, sewers, and sidewalks are useful and necessary elements of public health and safety. We both want and need these elements to ensure our separation from things that are dangerous, such as speeding cars and contaminated water. When government officials exercise power to declare what parts of the city street are accessible to whom, or which neighborhoods will have a wastewater treatment plant, a landfill, or heavy industry nearby, infrastructure can work to separate people.Item A View of the Valley: The 1913 Flood in West Indianapolis(2009) Germano, Nancy M.; Scarpino, Philip V.; Coleman, Annie Gilbert; Kelly, Jason M.This study explores the shared history of West Indianapolis and the White River and reveals an interdependent, yet conflicted, relationship between the people and the river. This relationship was part of a broader set of attitudes that natural resources were unlimited and that humans must master the landscape. From the founding of Indianapolis in 1821 until the flood of 1913, a series of uncoordinated human actions related to settlement and growth of the city took place. Despite noble intentions of progress and improvement, the cumulative effect of these actions resulted in unintended and undesired consequences in the form of a flood disaster in 1913, an unhealthy environment in West Indianapolis, and a negative identity for that community. One might argue that these results occurred because nineteenth century settlers in the Indianapolis area lacked an understanding of the nature of rivers or that scientists had not yet proven the germ theory. As shown in this study, however, the historical sources support an argument that the relationship between the people and the river dictated the fate of the river and the community of West Indianapolis, which suffered significant damage when White River overflowed its banks in the “Great Flood” of 1913.