Degree Discipline

Quest for Equality: An Historical Overview of Women's Rights Activism in Texas, 1890-1975 (open access)

Quest for Equality: An Historical Overview of Women's Rights Activism in Texas, 1890-1975

This study presents a chronological examination of women's rights activism. The first three chapters cover the origin, growth, and success of the Texas woman suffrage movement. Chapter Four examines the issues of interest to Texas women after the right to vote was achieved, including birth control, better working conditions, unionization, jury duty, and married women's property rights. The last chapters explore the origins, growth, and success of the movement to secure an Equal Legal Rights Amendment to the state constitution, and its immediate aftermath. Sources include manuscript collections, interviews, newspaper and magazine accounts, and government documents.
Date: August 1982
Creator: Gammage, Judie Walton
System: The UNT Digital Library
Black Opposition to Participation in American Military Engagements from the American Revolution to Vietnam (open access)

Black Opposition to Participation in American Military Engagements from the American Revolution to Vietnam

This thesis includes two background chapters based largely on secondary works; Chapters I and II trace the historiography of black participation in American military engagements from the American Revolution through the Korean conflict. Chapter III, based largely on primary sources, places emphasis on black resistance and attitudes toward the Vietnam crisis. Evidence indicates that the Vietnam era of black protest was not unique but was an evolutionary process that had its roots in other periods in American history. Some blacks questioned their involvement in each American military conflict from the American Revolution to Vietnam.
Date: August 1976
Creator: Alexander, Vern L.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Livestock Legacy: A History of the Fort Worth Stockyards Company 1893-1982 (open access)

Livestock Legacy: A History of the Fort Worth Stockyards Company 1893-1982

This dissertation outlines the creation and history of the Fort Worth Stockyards Company from its conception to the time of this dissertation's publication. The Fort Worth Stockyards Company was created by Greenleif W. Simpson and Louville V. Niles. This company would soon cement Fort Worth as the premier livestock producer in America, soon surpassing Chicago.
Date: August 1982
Creator: Pate, J'Nell L.
System: The UNT Digital Library
"Sorrow Whispers in the Winds" : the Republic of Texas's Commanche Indian Policy, 1836-1846 (open access)

"Sorrow Whispers in the Winds" : the Republic of Texas's Commanche Indian Policy, 1836-1846

The Comanche Indians presented a major challenge to the Republic of Texas throughout its nine-year history. The presence of the Comanches greatly slowed the westward advancement of the Texas frontier, just as it had hindered the advancing frontiers of the Spaniards and Mexicans who colonized Texas before the creation of the Republic. The Indian policy of the Republic of Texas was inconsistent. Changes in leadership brought drastic alterations in the policy pursued toward the Comanche nation. The author examines the Indian policy of the Republic, how the Comanches responded to that policy, and the impact of Texan-Comanche relations on both parties.
Date: December 1994
Creator: Lipscomb, Carol A.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Ready to Run: Fort Worth's Mexicans in Search of Representation, 1960-2000 (open access)

Ready to Run: Fort Worth's Mexicans in Search of Representation, 1960-2000

This dissertation analyzes Fort Worth's Mexican community from 1960 to 2000 while considering the idea of citizenship through representation in education and politics. After establishing an introductory chapter that places the research in context with traditional Chicano scholarship while utilizing prominent ideas and theories that exist within Modern Imperial studies, the ensuing chapter looks into the rise of Fort Worth's Mexican population over the last four decades of the twentieth century. Thereafter, this work brings the attention to Mexican education in Fort Worth beginning in the 1960s and going through the end of the twentieth century. This research shows some of the struggles Mexicans encountered as they sought increased representation in the classroom, on the school board, and within other areas of the Fort Worth Independent School District. Meanwhile, Mexicans were in direct competition with African Americans who also sought increased representation while simultaneously pushing for more aggressive integration efforts against the wishes of Mexican leadership. Subsequently, this research moves the attention to political power in Fort Worth, primarily focusing on the Fort Worth city council. Again, this dissertation begins in the 1960s after the Fort Worth opened the election of the mayor to the people of Fort Worth. No …
Date: August 2017
Creator: Martínez, Peter Charles
System: The UNT Digital Library
Service Honest and Faithful: The Thirty-Third Volunteer Infantry Regiment in the Philippine War, 1899-1901 (open access)

Service Honest and Faithful: The Thirty-Third Volunteer Infantry Regiment in the Philippine War, 1899-1901

This manuscript is a study of the Thirty-Third Infantry, United States Volunteers, a regiment that was recruited in Texas, the South, and the Midwest and was trained by officers experienced from the Indian Wars and the Spanish-American War. This regiment served as a front-line infantry unit and then as a constabulary force during the Philippine War from 1899 until 1901. While famous in the United States as a highly effective infantry regiment during the Philippine War, the unit's fame and the lessons that it offered American war planners faded in time and were overlooked in favor of conventional fighting. In addition, the experiences of the men of the regiment belie the argument that the Philippine War was a brutal and racist imperial conflict akin to later interventions such as the Vietnam War. An examination of the Thirty-Third Infantry thus provides valuable context into a war not often studied in the United States and serves as a successful example of a counterinsurgency.
Date: December 2017
Creator: Andersen, Jack David
System: The UNT Digital Library
Statesman from Texas, Roger Q. Mills (open access)

Statesman from Texas, Roger Q. Mills

This is a biography of Roger Quarles Mills and his contributions to Texas history.
Date: August 1954
Creator: Purifoy, Russell Albritton, Jr.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Indians of Southeast Texas (open access)

Indians of Southeast Texas

The following account is written to give the history of the Indians who have at one time inhabited southeast Texas, and of those who still inhabit it. The account begins with the history of each tribe as far back as any facts can be found concerning them and continues through their stay in Texas.
Date: August 1939
Creator: Carlton, Lessie
System: The UNT Digital Library
"On the Precipice in the Dark": Maryland in the Secession Crisis, 1860-1861 (open access)

"On the Precipice in the Dark": Maryland in the Secession Crisis, 1860-1861

This dissertation is a study of the State of Maryland in the secession crisis of 1860-1861. Previous historians have emphasized economic, political, societal, and geographical considerations as the reasons Maryland remained loyal to the Union. However, not adequately considered is the manner in which Maryland understood and reacted to the secession of the Lower South. Historians have tended to portray Maryland's inaction as inevitable and reasonable. This study offers another reason for Maryland's inaction by placing the state in time and space, following where the sources lead, and allowing for contingency. No one in Maryland could have known that their state would not secede in 1860-61. Seeing the crisis through their eyes is instructive. It becomes clear that Maryland was a state on the brink of secession, but its resentment, suspicion, and anger toward the Lower South isolated it from the larger secession movement. Marylanders regarded the Lower South's rush to separate as precipitous, dangerous, and coercive to the Old Line State. A focus on a single state like Maryland allows a deeper, richer understanding of the dynamics, forces, and characteristics of the secession movement and the federal government's response to it. It cuts through the larger debates about the …
Date: May 2017
Creator: Hamilton, Matthew K.
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Development of the Textile Industry in Texas (open access)

The Development of the Textile Industry in Texas

"At the present time the textile industry in Texas is seeking to normalize itself after running at a peak production for the last ten years. It is one of the most competitive of our industries. The mills in Texas have always had to compete with the large mills located in the Eastern states, which have many advantages over the Texas mills. ... It has been only recently since the manufacture of synthetic fibers began in Texas, and it has not yet been fully completed. At the present time only the ingredients for synthetic fibers are produced in Texas. ... Cotton and wool manufacturing may develop gradually, but in the field of synthetics appears the greatest opportunity for a future textile industry in Texas."
Date: June 1950
Creator: Droze, Wilmon H.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Early Development of Robertson County (open access)

Early Development of Robertson County

This thesis includes information on the topography, historical background, military contribution after statehood, social history, economic development, government organization, and early towns and settlements of Roberson County.
Date: January 1954
Creator: Carson, Ivory Freeman
System: The UNT Digital Library
The History of Education in Texas During the Reconstruction Period (open access)

The History of Education in Texas During the Reconstruction Period

This thesis covers the history of education in Reconstruction Period Texas.
Date: August 1953
Creator: Wheeler, Guy H., Jr.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Tinstar and Redcoat: A Comparative Study of History, Literature and Motion Pictures Through the Dramatization of Violence in the Settlement of the Western Frontier Regions of the United States and Canada (open access)

Tinstar and Redcoat: A Comparative Study of History, Literature and Motion Pictures Through the Dramatization of Violence in the Settlement of the Western Frontier Regions of the United States and Canada

The Western settlement era is only one part of United States national history, but for many Americans it remains the most significant cultural influence. Conversely, the settlement of Canada's western territory is generally treated as a significant phase of national development, but not the defining phase. Because both nations view the frontier experience differently, they also have distinct perceptions of the role violence played in the settlement process, distinctions reflected in the historical record, literature, and films of each country. This study will look at the historical evidence and works of the imagination for both the American and Canadian frontier experience, focusing on the years between 1870 and 1930, and will examine the part that violence played in the development of each national character. The discussion will also illustrate the difference between the historical reality and the mythic version portrayed in popular literature and films by demonstrating the effects of the depiction of violence on the perception of American and Canadian history.
Date: August 1999
Creator: Lester, Carole N., 1946-
System: The UNT Digital Library
Establishing the American Way of Death: World War I and the Foundation of the United States’ Policy Toward the Repatriation and Burial of Its Battlefield Dead (open access)

Establishing the American Way of Death: World War I and the Foundation of the United States’ Policy Toward the Repatriation and Burial of Its Battlefield Dead

This thesis examines the policies and procedures created during and after the First World War that provided the foundation for how the United States commemorated its war dead for the next century. Many of the techniques used in modern times date back to the Great War. However, one hundred years earlier, America possessed very few methods or even ideas about how to locate, identify, repatriate, and honor its military personnel that died during foreign conflicts. These ideas were not conceived in the halls of government buildings. On the contrary, concerned citizens originated many of the concepts later codified by the American government. This paper draws extensively upon archival documents, newspapers, and published primary sources to trace the history of America’s burial and repatriation policies, the Army Graves Registration Services, and how American dead came to permanently rest in military cemeteries on the continent of Europe. The unprecedented dilemma of over 80,000 American soldiers buried in France and surrounding countries at the conclusion of the First World War in 1918 propelled the United States to solve many social, political, and military problems that arose over the final disposition of those remains. The solutions to those problems became the foundation for how …
Date: August 2015
Creator: Hatzinger, Kyle J.
System: The UNT Digital Library
A History of Dallas Newspapers (open access)

A History of Dallas Newspapers

"The development of newspapers in Dallas can be classified into certain definite dates: 1849-1865---the founding of the first newspaper to the Reconstruction period following the Civil War; 1865-1885--the postwar period and the expansion of newspapers; 1885-1906--the development of the present newspapers, the Dallas Morning News and the Dallas Times Herald, and others; 1906-1942--the advent of sensational journalism and the emergence of the newspaper as big business; and 1942 to the present--a decade of unprecedented growth and entrenchment."--leaf iv.
Date: June 1952
Creator: Maranto, Samuel Paul
System: The UNT Digital Library
American Prisoners in the Barbary Nations, 1784-1816 (open access)

American Prisoners in the Barbary Nations, 1784-1816

Between 1784 and I8l6, all four Barbary nations had captured and enslaved Americans. Generally the pirates treated the imprisoned Americans harshly, but the aid the United States forwarded to them alleviated much of their suffering. During this period the prisoner issue played an important role in formulating American foreign policy in the Mediterranean because of America's keen commercial interest in that region and its benevolent attitude toward its own citizens. In return, those captive Americans in North Africa supplied their government with valuable intelligence, and, after liberation, some continued to serve their country in the Mediterranean area.
Date: May 1979
Creator: Wilson, Gary Edward
System: The UNT Digital Library
Beyond the Merchants of Death: the Senate Munitions Inquiry of the 1930s and its Role in Twentieth-Century American History (open access)

Beyond the Merchants of Death: the Senate Munitions Inquiry of the 1930s and its Role in Twentieth-Century American History

The Senate Munitions Committee of 1934-1936, chaired by Gerald Nye of North Dakota, provided the first critical examination of America's modern military establishment. The committee approached its task guided by the optimism of the progressive Social Gospel and the idealism of earlier times, but in the middle of the munitions inquiry the nation turned to new values represented in Reinhold Niebuhr's realism and Franklin D. Roosevelt's Second New Deal. By 1936, the committee found its views out of place in a nation pursuing a new course and in a world threatening to break out in war. Realist historians writing in the cold war period (1945-1990) closely linked the munitions inquiry to isolationism and created a one-dimensional history in which the committee chased evil "merchants of death." The only book-length study of the munitions investigation, John Wiltz's In Search of Peace, published in 1963, provided a realist interpretation. The munitions inquiry went beyond the merchants of death in its analysis of the post-World War I American military establishment. A better understanding emerges when the investigation is considered not only within an isolationist framework, but also as part of the intellectual, cultural, and political history of the interwar years. In particular, Franklin …
Date: May 1996
Creator: Coulter, Matthew Ware
System: The UNT Digital Library
Whig Influence Among the Texas Redeemers 1874-1895 (open access)

Whig Influence Among the Texas Redeemers 1874-1895

"This study is interested primarily in the political and economic philosophies which motivated the men who came to power in Texas following the overthrow of the Reconstruction regime, and which dominated the public affairs of the state during those years. It approaches the problem from the viewpoint of the positions of various individuals regarding the more prominent issues of the day, both state and national. The concentrates on the administrations of five governors of Texas and the tenures of five members of Congress. These men are viewed in relation to the times, and Texas is observed in light of its peculiar problems and its relation to the United States as a whole." -- leaf iv.
Date: August 1969
Creator: McLeod, Joseph A.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Reconstruction in Collin County, Texas, 1865-1876 (open access)

Reconstruction in Collin County, Texas, 1865-1876

This is a work of local history examining the course of Reconstruction in Collin County, Texas. National and state level surveys of Reconstruction often overlook the experiences of communities in favor of simpler, broader narratives. The work proceeds chronologically, beginning with the close of the Civil War, and tells the story of Collin County as national Reconstruction progressed and relies on works of professional and non-academic historians, oral histories, census data, and newspapers to present a coherent picture of local life, work, and politics. The results exemplify the value of local history, as local conditions influenced the course of events in Collin County as much as those in Austin and Washington D.C. The story of Reconstruction in Collin County is one of anomalous political views resulting from geographical exclusion from the cotton culture of Texas followed by a steady convergence. As Reconstruction progressed, Collin County began to show solidarity with more solidly conservative Texas Counties. The arrival of railroads allowed farmers to move from subsistence agriculture to cash crop production. This further altered local attitudes toward government, labor, voting rights, and education for Freedmen. By the end of Reconstruction, Collin County had all but abandoned their contrarian social and political …
Date: August 2015
Creator: Thompson, Jesse R.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Saving Society Through Politics: the Ku Klux Klan in Dallas, Texas in the 1920s (open access)

Saving Society Through Politics: the Ku Klux Klan in Dallas, Texas in the 1920s

This study analyzes the rise of the 1920s Ku Klux Klan in Dallas, Texas, in the context of the national Klan. It looks at the circumstances and people behind the revival of the Klan in 1915. It chronicles the aggressive marketing program that brought the Klan to Dallas and shows how the Dallas Klavern then changed the course of the national Klan with its emphasis on politics. Specifically, this was done through the person of Hiram Wesley Evans, Dallas dentist and aspiring intellectual, who engineered a coup and took over the national Klan operations in 1922. Evans, as did Dallas's local Klavern number 66, emphasized a strong anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic ideology to recruit, motivate, and justify the existence of the Ku Klux Klan. The study finds that, on the local scene, the Dallas Klavern's leadership was composed of middle and upper-middle class businessmen. Under their leadership, the Klan engaged in a variety of fraternal and vigilante activities. Most remarkable, however, were its successful political efforts. Between 1922 and 1924, the Klan overthrew the old political hierarchy and controlled city and county politics to such a degree that only the Dallas school board escaped the Invisible Empire's domination. Klavern 66 also wielded …
Date: December 1997
Creator: Morris, Mark N. (Mark Noland)
System: The UNT Digital Library
United States Army Scouts: the Southwestern Experience, 1886-1890 (open access)

United States Army Scouts: the Southwestern Experience, 1886-1890

In the post-Civil War Southwest, the United States Army utilized civilians and Indians as scouts. As the mainstay of the reconnaissance force, enlisted Indians excelled as trackers, guides, and fighters. General George Crook became the foremost advocate of this service. A little-known aspect of the era was the international controversy created by the activities of native trackers under the 1882 reciprocal hot pursuit agreement between Mexico and the United States. Providing valuable information on Army scouts are numerous government records which include the Annual Report of the Secretary of War from 1866 to 1896 and Foreign Relations of the United States for 1883 and 1886. Memoirs, biographies, and articles in regional and national historical journals supplement government documents.
Date: May 1975
Creator: Nance, Carol Conley
System: The UNT Digital Library
Bread, Bullets, and Brotherhood: Masculine Ideologies in the Mid-Century Black Freedom Struggle, 1950-1975 (open access)

Bread, Bullets, and Brotherhood: Masculine Ideologies in the Mid-Century Black Freedom Struggle, 1950-1975

This thesis examines the ways that African Americans in the mid-twentieth century thought about and practiced masculinity. Important contemporary events such as the struggle for civil rights and the Vietnam War influenced the ways that black Americans sought not only to construct masculine identities, but to use these identities to achieve a higher social purpose. The thesis argues that while mainstream American society had specific prescriptions for how men should behave, black Americans were able to select which of these prescriptions they valued and wanted to pursue while simultaneously rejecting those that they found untenable. Masculinity in the mid-century was not based on one thing, but rather was an amalgamation of different ideals that black men (and women) sought to utilize to achieve communal goals of equality, opportunity, and family.
Date: August 2018
Creator: Harvey, Matt
System: The UNT Digital Library
Mercenaries in Service to America: The "More Flags" Foreign Policy of the United States (open access)

Mercenaries in Service to America: The "More Flags" Foreign Policy of the United States

On 23 April 1964, five months after assuming the office of President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson launched the "More Flags" program as United States policy. While the publicly stated purpose of.the "More Flags" program was to obtain as much non-military free world aid for the Republic of Vietnam as possible, the program's principle goal centered around Lyndon Johnson's desire to obtain an international consensus for America's policies toward Vietnam and Southeast Asia. The "More Flags" program continued to serve both goals for the remainder of Johnson's presidency. Although started with high expectations of success, the "More Flags" program never succeeded in achieving the levels of international cooperation Lyndon Johnson desired. In fact, the program's significant lack of success necessitated a number of changes, during the program's first year, in both its stated goals and in the methods used to prosecute it's implementation. The most important of these changes would be Washington's use of the program's beneficent objectives to mask it's use as the means through which the United States would purchase mercenary troops to fight in South Vietnam. "Mercenaries in Service to America: The 'More Flags' Foreign Policy of the United States," presents the available history of …
Date: August 1992
Creator: Blackburn, Robert M. (Robert Michael)
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Public Lands of Texas and Their Use for the Benefit of Education (open access)

The Public Lands of Texas and Their Use for the Benefit of Education

When a new government is established, sovereign and national in its character, all of the land within its jurisdiction belongs to the people, not as individuals, but as a whole, except that which may have been theretofore acquired by individuals under such rights as may be respected by the new government. The land which has not been acquired by individuals is known as the public domain, and is subject to such disposition as the new government might determine. This thesis will review the public lands of Texas and how those lands have been used with a strong focus on the endowment of these lands to the public education system.
Date: August 1949
Creator: Webb, John W., Jr.
System: The UNT Digital Library