Anglo-American Relations and the Problems of a Jewish State, 1945- 1948 (open access)

Anglo-American Relations and the Problems of a Jewish State, 1945- 1948

This thesis is concerned with determining the effect of the establishment of a Jewish state on Anglo-American relations and the policies of their governments. This work covers the period from the awarding of the Palestine Mandate to Great Britain, through World War II, and concentrates on the post-war events up to the foundation of the state of Israel. It uses major governmental documents, as well as those of the United Nations, the archival materials at the Harry S. Truman Library, and the memoirs of the major participants in the Palestine drama. This study concludes that, while the Palestine problem presented ample opportunities for disunity, the Anglo-American relationship suffered no permanently damaging effects.
Date: May 1987
Creator: Peterson, Jody L.
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Effect of the Assimilation of the La Reunion Colonists on the Development of Dallas and Dallas County (open access)

The Effect of the Assimilation of the La Reunion Colonists on the Development of Dallas and Dallas County

This study examines the impact of the citizens of the La Reunion colony on the development of Dallas and Dallas County. The French, Belgian, and Swiss families that formed the utopian colony broughta blend of European culture and education to the Texas frontier in 1853. The founding of La Reunion and a record of its short existence is covered briefly in the first two chapters. The major part of the research, however, deals with the colonists who remained in Dallas County after the colony failed in 1856. Chapters three and four make use of city, county, and state records along with personal collections from the Dallas Historical Society Archives and the Dallas Public Library to examine the colonists effect on the government and business community. Chapter five explores the cultural development of the area through city and county records and personal collections.
Date: December 1986
Creator: Sandell, Velma Irene
System: The UNT Digital Library
Texas and the CCC: A Case Study in the Successful Administration of a Confederated State and Federal Program (open access)

Texas and the CCC: A Case Study in the Successful Administration of a Confederated State and Federal Program

Reacting to the Great Depression, Texans abandoned the philosophy of rugged individualism and turned to their state and federal governments for leadership. Texas's Governor Miriam Ferguson resultantly created the state's first relief agency, which administered all programs including those federally funded. Because the Roosevelt administration ordered state participation in and immediate implementation of the CCC, a multi-governmental, multi-departmental administrative alliance involving state and federal efforts resulted, which, because of scholars' preferences for research at the federal level, often is mistakenly described as a decentralized administration riddled with bureaucratic shortcomings. CCC operations within Texas, however, revealed that this complicated administrative structure embodied the reasons for the CCC's well-documented success.
Date: December 1989
Creator: Wellborn, Mark Alan
System: The UNT Digital Library
Louis XI and the Feudality of France 1461-1483 (open access)

Louis XI and the Feudality of France 1461-1483

This thesis examines the struggle between King Louis XI and the great feudal houses of the fifteenth century such as Burgundy, Brittany, Anjou, Armagnac, Bourbon, and Foix. It attempts to provide a detailed narrative based on the primary sources and the excellent studies on individual feudal princes produced by a number of French historians, supplemented by a critical analysis of the traditional view of Louis XI as the "vainquer de la grande féodalité."
Date: December 1984
Creator: Spencer, Mark B. (Mark Benner)
System: The UNT Digital Library
Slavery in the Republic of Texas (open access)

Slavery in the Republic of Texas

Slavery was established in Texas with the first Anglo-American settlement in 1822. The constitution of the Republic of Texas protected slavery as did laws passed by the legislature from 1836 to 1846, and the institution of slavery grew throughout the period. Slaves were given adequate food, clothing, and shelter for survival, and they also managed to develop a separate culture. Masters believed that slaves received humane treatment but nevertheless worried constantly about runaways and slave revolts. The Republic's foreign relations and the annexation question were significantly affected by the institution of slavery. The most important primary sources are compilations of the laws of Texas, tax rolls, and traveler's accounts. The most informative secondary source is Abigail Curlee's unpublished doctoral dissertation, "A Study of Texas Slave Plantations, 1822 to 1865" written at the University of Texas in 1932.
Date: May 1982
Creator: Purcell, Linda Myers
System: The UNT Digital Library
John Calvin: Cultural Revolutionary (open access)

John Calvin: Cultural Revolutionary

The theology of John Calvin, while not differing primarily in substance from traditional Reformation thought, was revolutionary in its impact on the cultural life of the believer. For Calvin, Christ was the Cosmic Redeemer through whom all of life was effected. Nothing in the life of the believer therefore was secular. Society, as a whole, was but a reflection of the grace of God and hence was an arena of concern for all people. Consequently, Calvin, the man, and Calvinists, later took an active role in the temporal life of man, concerning themselves with the governing of the state as well as the church, and the propagation of the arts and sciences.
Date: August 1983
Creator: Urie, Dale Marie
System: The UNT Digital Library
Mathematical Messiah: Robert Recorde and the Popularization of Mathematics in the Sixteenth Century (open access)

Mathematical Messiah: Robert Recorde and the Popularization of Mathematics in the Sixteenth Century

Robert Recorde (c. 1510-1557) was a pioneer in the teaching of mathematics in the English language. His attempt to popularize mathematics, in fact, was without precedent in any language. Mathematics in the 1500s was still exclusively reserved for mathematicians, and people in general had no interest in the subject. Within a hundred years after Recorde had popularized mathematics, however, this situation had changed. The scientific revolution of the seventeenth centuty occurred and mathematics became an indispensible aspect of man's knowledge. This thesis examines the background and development of Recorde's attempt to popularize mathematics and evaluates that attempt in terms of its relation to the position of science in the modern world.
Date: August 1980
Creator: Thavit Sukhabanij
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Texas Press and the Filibusters of the 1850s: Lopez, Carvajal, and Walker (open access)

The Texas Press and the Filibusters of the 1850s: Lopez, Carvajal, and Walker

The decade of the 1850s saw the Texas press separate into two opposing groups on the issue of filibustering. The basis for this division was the personal beliefs of the editors regarding the role filibustering should have in society. Although a lust for wealth drove most filibusters, the press justified territorial expansion along altruistic lines. By 1858, however, a few newspapers discarded this argument and condemned filibusters as lawless bands of ruffians plundering peaceful neighbors. Throughout the decade, the papers gradually drifted from a consensus in 1850 to discord by the date of William Walker's third attempt on Nicaragua in 1858.
Date: May 1983
Creator: Zemler, Jeffrey A. (Jeffrey Allen)
System: The UNT Digital Library
Wawrzyniec Goslicki: The Counsellor (open access)

Wawrzyniec Goslicki: The Counsellor

Wawrzyniec Goslicki's De optimo Senatore was published in Venice in 1568. Subsequent translations of the work had an impact on political thought in England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Goslicki's work has received little attention since, and this paper is an effort to restore to Goslicki his place of importance in Polish history and western political thought. The paper provides a brief biography of Goslicki; an account of the English translations and historiography surrounding De optimo Senatore; an analysis of Goslicki' s political thought; and, an explanation of his influence on William Shakespeare.
Date: December 1980
Creator: Sharp, Betty C.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Hannah Arendt: The Philosopher in History (open access)

Hannah Arendt: The Philosopher in History

This paper explores the major historical interpretations of Hannah Arendt and analyzes her philosophy of history. Chapter One includes an introduction and a brief survey of the life of Hannah Arendt. Chapters Two and Three examine The Origins of Totalitarianism. The discussion concludes that Arendt's loose use of terms and some of her evidence can be called into question. Nevertheless, her work contains original insights about modern European political history. Chapter Four, a discussion of Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, emphasizes her portrait of Adolph Eichmann as a shallow, Nazi bureaucrat. Although the work is flawed with inaccuracies, her portrait of Eichmann as a prototypical bureaucratic killer is thought provoking. Chapter Five, an analysis of Arendt's philosophy of history, concludes that Arendt understood the pitfalls of theories of historical causality.
Date: December 1986
Creator: Cruz, Richard A. (Richard Alan)
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Jay Treaty: Ratification and Response (open access)

The Jay Treaty: Ratification and Response

This study focuses on the reaction in the United States to Jay's Treaty, 1794-96. Though crucial in the development of American diplomacy, the treaty's greatest impact was on the domestic politics of the young nation. The most important sources were the correspondence of the participants. Other materials include newspapers, diaries, government documents, and secondary sources. The thesis argues that the treaty was in the best interests of the United States, and the nation was fortunate to be led at this time by the Federalist party.
Date: May 1980
Creator: Wilkin, Mark
System: The UNT Digital Library
Joseph Wood Krutch's Intellectual Quest (open access)

Joseph Wood Krutch's Intellectual Quest

Joseph Wood Krutch, literary critic, biographer, and naturalist, played an important role in twentieth-century American intellectual thought. As a drama critic at The Nation in the 1920's, he was disturbed by his fellow intellectuals' wholehearted acceptance of the verdict of science on modern man. Krutch believed that science lessened the stature of man when it refused to see men as anything but animals. Thus, the modern intellectuals subjected themselves to an attempt by communists and common men to overthrow western culture. The 1930's saw a concerted effort to defend communism by intellectuals, ironically, Krutch believed, at their own peril. Krutch's bitter argument with Marxists eventually forced him to nurture Thoreauvian individualism which culminated in a move to Arizona and a new career as a naturalist. He embraced a pantheistic philosophy. His search for order in a chaotic world made Krutch an interesting figure in American intellectual life.
Date: December 1980
Creator: Forst, Eugene R.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Girolamo Savonarola and the Problem of Humanist Reform in Florence (open access)

Girolamo Savonarola and the Problem of Humanist Reform in Florence

Girolamo Savonarola lived at the apex of the Renaissance, but most of his biographers regard him as an anachronism or a precursor of the Reformation. Savonarola, however, was influenced by the entire milieu of Renaissance Florence, including its humanism. Savonarola's major work, Triumph of the Cross, is a synthesis of humanism, neo-Thomism and mysticism. His political reforms were routed in both the millennialist dreams of Florence and the goals of civic humanism. Hoping to translate the abstract humanist life of virtue into the concrete, he ultimately failed, not because the Renaissance was rejecting the Middle Ages, but because the former was reacting against itself. Florence, for all its claims of being the center of the Renaissance, was not willing to make humanist reform a reality.
Date: August 1988
Creator: Norred, Patricia A.
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Slave Trade Question in Anglo-French Diplomacy, 1830-1845 (open access)

The Slave Trade Question in Anglo-French Diplomacy, 1830-1845

This thesis concludes that (1) Immediately following the July Revolution, the Paris government refused to concede the right of search to British commanders. (2) Due to France's isolation in 1831-1833, she sought British support by negotiating the conventions of 1831 and 1833. (3) In response to Palmerston's insistence and to preserve France's influence Sdbastiani signed the protocol of a five-power accord to suppress the slave trade. Guizot accepted the Quintuple Treaty to facilitate an Anglo-French rapprochement. (4) Opposition encouraged by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, however, forced Guizot to repudiate this new agreement. (5) As a concession to Guizot,Aberdeen dropped the demand for a mutual right of search and negotiated the Convention of 1845, establishing a system of joint-cruising.
Date: August 1983
Creator: Wood, Ronnie P.
System: The UNT Digital Library