Degree Discipline

With their hearts in their hands: Forging a Mexican community in Dallas, 1900-1925. (open access)

With their hearts in their hands: Forging a Mexican community in Dallas, 1900-1925.

Mexican immigration to the United States increased tremendously from 1900-1925 as factors such as the Mexican Revolution and the recruitment of Mexican laborers by American industry drew Mexicans north. A significant number of Mexicans settled in Dallas and in the face of Anglo discrimination and segregation in the workplace, public institutions, and housing, these immigrants forged a community in the city rooted in their Mexican identity and traditions. This research, based heavily on data from the 1900, 1910, and 1920 census enumerations for Dallas and on articles from Dallas Morning News, highlights the agency of the Mexican population - men and women - in Dallas in the first three decades of the twentieth century.
Date: May 2008
Creator: Mercado, Bianca
System: The UNT Digital Library
Restore, Reform, React, Revolt: Leopold II and the Risorgimento in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, 1814-1859 (open access)

Restore, Reform, React, Revolt: Leopold II and the Risorgimento in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, 1814-1859

The Risorgimento or "resurrection" of Italy united a collection of independent Italian kingdoms, duchies, and principalities under the auspices of the Piedmontese House of Savoy. No longer was Italy a mere expression géographique, as Austrian Chancellor Klemens von Metternich snidely remarked in 1847, but a united nation state. Studies of the Risorgimento successfully highlight the role of famous Piedmontese and Italian nationalists in demonstrating the success of the movement. However, the smaller states of the peninsula have largely disappeared from these histories. Among these overlooked states is the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and Tuscany's last grand duke, Leopold II of Habsburg-Lorraine. Both are consistently omitted from broader surveys of the peninsula. In rare situations when Leopold II enters the historical narrative he is dismissed as a reactionary, although he maintained a reputation as an enlightened and relatively liberal ruler for the majority of his rule. Especially in anglophone literature, little to no discussion of his thirty-five-year reign is available. This omission creates an unfortunate lacuna in the historiography of the Risorgimento. It is in studies of these smaller Italian states that the intricacies of statecraft, nationalism, and localism are most visible. To understand the extent of the Risorgimento's success, it …
Date: May 2021
Creator: Parkey, Rachel E.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Luther the Augustinian: Augustine, Pelagianism and Luther's Philosophy of Man (open access)

Luther the Augustinian: Augustine, Pelagianism and Luther's Philosophy of Man

Augustine has had a large influence on the development of western theology, and nowhere is this more obvious that in Martin Luther's understanding of God, humankind and grace. Yet at the same time there are also significant differences in the two churchmen's thought. Sometimes these differences are subtle, such as their views of the state; other times they are not so subtle, such as their positions on free will or their praise of philosophy and its usefulness in sounding the depth of Christianity. In order to best explain these varying views, one must look at Augustine's and Luther's diverging opinions of man's nature where one will see that the dissimilarities are best understood in light of Luther's pessimistic view of humanity.
Date: August 1991
Creator: McGinnis, Jon D. (Jon David)
System: The UNT Digital Library
Charles Beard versus the Founding Fathers: Property Concepts in the Eighteenth Century (open access)

Charles Beard versus the Founding Fathers: Property Concepts in the Eighteenth Century

This thesis deals with the role of property in the formation of the American Constitution and government. Charles Beard's views on property are compared with writings from the eighteenth century. Beard's writings on property and his critics are examined in the first two chapters. Then, the thesis's two historical contexts are evaluated. Concentrating on the Enclosure Acts, the fourth chapter looks at the importance of land to the former Englishmen. The eighteenth century view of property is the focus of the fifth section. The last chapter contrasts the two different views of property. Beard believed that the Constitution was a conservative document that protected the property of the few over the many. The Founding Fathers actually included liberal protections for property in the eighteenth century.
Date: May 1992
Creator: Breaux, Rhonda J. (Rhonda Janise)
System: The UNT Digital Library
Wyatt Cephas Hedrick: Builder of Cities (open access)

Wyatt Cephas Hedrick: Builder of Cities

Wyatt Cephas Hedrick, builder and architect, was born in Virginia in 1888 and came to Texas in 1913. At his death in 1964, Hedrick's companies had managed construction projects worth more than $1.3 billion. Hedrick's architectural business designed and built edifices of all kinds, including educational facilities, hotels, military bases, railroad terminals, courthouses, and road systems. His companies built all over the United States, and in some foreign countries, but primarily in Texas. The purpose of Hedrick's structures and their architectural styles changed to accommodate historical events. This can be seen by examining many of the commissions he received during the 1920s and 1930s. Hedrick had a unique opportunity to participate in years of great change and development in Texas, and he played a vital role in the history of those times. This thesis examines the career of Wyatt C. Hedrick from his beginnings in Virginia through his years in Texas, closing in 1940. As a builder, he played a major role in changing the skylines of Texas cities, especially Fort Worth.
Date: May 2008
Creator: Liles, Deborah M.
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
Ethnogenesis and Captivity: Structuring Transatlantic Difference in the Early Republic, 1776-1823 (open access)

Ethnogenesis and Captivity: Structuring Transatlantic Difference in the Early Republic, 1776-1823

This study seeks to understand the development of early American ideas of race, religion, and gender as reflected in Indian and Barbary captivity narratives (tales of individuals taken captive by privateers in North Africa) and in plays that take American captives as their subject. Writers of both Indian and Barbary captivity narratives used racial and religious language – references to Indians and North Africans as demonic, physically monstrous, and animal – simultaneously to delineate Native American and North African otherness. The narrative writers reserved particular scorn for the figure of the Renegade – the willful cultural convert who chose to live among the Native Americans or adopt Islam and live among his North African captors. The narratives, too, reflect Early American gendered norms by defining the role of men as heads of household and women’s protectors, and by defining women by their status as dutiful wives and mothers. Furthermore, the narratives carefully treat the figure of the female captive with particular care – resisting implications of captive rape, even while describing graphic scenes of physical torture, and denying the possibility of willful transcultural sexual relationships.
Date: August 2013
Creator: Siddiqi, M. Omar
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Anabaptist Purity of Life Ethic (open access)

The Anabaptist Purity of Life Ethic

This dissertation establishes that the Evangelical Anabaptists lived a noticeably distinctive Christian life when compared with their peers, accounts for their committed pursuit of holiness, and describes the outcome of that commitment. The sources used include the arranged archival source material in the Tauferakten, confessions, tracts, letters, debates, martyrologies, miscellaneous writings of the Anabaptists, and subsequent scholarship on the subject.
Date: May 1985
Creator: Dalzell, Timothy Wayne
System: The UNT Digital Library
Dramatizing Lynching and Labor Protest: Case Studies Examining How Theatre Reflected Minority Unrest in the 1920S and 30S (open access)

Dramatizing Lynching and Labor Protest: Case Studies Examining How Theatre Reflected Minority Unrest in the 1920S and 30S

Theatre is widely unrecognized for the compelling influence it has held in society throughout history. In this thesis, I specifically examine the implications surrounding the social protest theatre of black and Jewish American minority communities in the first half of the twentieth century. I discuss how their historical circumstance, culture, and idiosyncratic natures caused them to choose agitated propaganda theatre as an avenue for protest. I delve into the similarities in circumstance, but their theatre case studies separate the two communities in the end. I present case studies of each community, beginning with anti-lynching plays of the 1920s that were written by black American playwrights both in response to white supremacist propaganda theatre and to assert a dignified representation of the black community. However, their plays and protest movement never developed a larger popular following. My next minority theatre case study is an examination of 1930s Jewish labor drama created in protest of popular anti-Semitic theatre and poor labor conditions. The Jewish community differs from the black community in their case because the racist propaganda was produced by a man who was Jewish. Another difference is that their protest theatre was on the commercial stage by this point because of …
Date: December 2013
Creator: Goldmann, Kerry L.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Pocky Wenches Versus La Pauvre Femme: Medical Perceptions of Venereal Disease in Seventeenth-century England and France (open access)

Pocky Wenches Versus La Pauvre Femme: Medical Perceptions of Venereal Disease in Seventeenth-century England and France

In early modern Europe, syphilis tormented individuals regardless of social standing. The various stages of infection rendered individuals with visible chancres or “pocky” marks throughout their body. The tertiary stage signaled the spreading of the disease from the infected parts into the brain and cardiovascular system, eventually leading to dementia and a painful death. Beginning with the initial medical responses to venereal disease in the sixteenth century and throughout the early modern period, medical practitioners attempted to identify the cause of syphilis. During the seventeenth century, English practitioners maintained that women were primarily responsible for both the creation and transmission of syphilis. In England, venereal disease became the physical manifestation of illicit sexual behavior and therefore women with syphilis demonstrated their sexual immorality. Contrastingly, French medical practitioners refrained from placing blame on women for venereal infection. The historiography of early modern discourse on venereal disease fails to account for this discrepancy between English and French perceptions of syphilis in the seventeenth century. This thesis seeks to fill the gap in this historiography and suggest why French practitioners abstained from singling out women as the primary source of venereal infection by suggesting the importance that cultural influences and religious practices had …
Date: December 2013
Creator: Findlater, Michelle J.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Politics and Militarism in Japan (open access)

Politics and Militarism in Japan

This study is a treatment of the conflicts between politics and militarism in Japan from the promulgation of the Constitution in 1889 to December 7, 1941, in four major divisions: (1) organization of the government; (2) the Elder Statesmen in power, 1889-1918; (3) the party politicians in power, 1918-1932; and (4) the militarists in power, 1932-1941.
Date: 1947
Creator: Smith, Cordell A.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Socialist Reaction to Marxism in Late Victorian England (open access)

Socialist Reaction to Marxism in Late Victorian England

One reason for the failure of Marxism to gain a large following in England, not explicitly covered by other writers, is the partial or complete rejection of Marxism by the founders of the modern British socialist movement. This study attempts to explain their reaction to Marxism and to evaluate their criticism. The influence of other thinkers on these men is analyzed when that influence appeared to be significant.
Date: August 1967
Creator: McLendon, Mack Murphy
System: The UNT Digital Library
Jacksonian Democracy and the Electoral College:  Politics and Reform in the Method of Selecting Presidential Electors, 1824-1833 (open access)

Jacksonian Democracy and the Electoral College: Politics and Reform in the Method of Selecting Presidential Electors, 1824-1833

The Electoral College and Jacksonian Democracy are two subjects that have been studied extensively. Taken together, however, little has been written on how the method of choosing presidential electors during the Age of Jackson changed. Although many historians have written on the development of political parties and the increase in voter participation during this time, none have focused on how politicians sought to use the method of selecting electors to further party development in the country. Between 1824 and 1832 twelve states changed their methods of choosing electors. In almost every case, the reason for changing methods was largely political but was promoted in terms of advancing democracy. A careful study of the movement toward selecting electors on a general ticket shows that political considerations in terms of party and/or state power were much more important than promoting democratic ideals. Despite the presence of a few true reformers who consistently pushed for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing that all states used the same method, the conclusion must be that politics and party demanded a change. This study relies heavily on legislative records at both the state and national level and newspapers throughout t the country from the period. Beginning with a …
Date: May 2001
Creator: Thomason, Lisa
System: The UNT Digital Library
Gladstone and the Bank of England: A Study in Mid-Victorian Finance, 1833-1866 (open access)

Gladstone and the Bank of England: A Study in Mid-Victorian Finance, 1833-1866

The topic of this thesis is the confrontations between William Gladstone and the Bank of England. These confrontations have remained a mystery to authors who noted them, but have generally been ignored by others. This thesis demonstrates that Gladstone's measures taken against the Bank were reasonable, intelligent, and important for the development of nineteenth-century British government finance. To accomplish this task, this thesis refutes the opinions of three twentieth-century authors who have claimed that many of Gladstone's measures, as well as his reading, were irrational, ridiculous, and impolitic. My primary sources include the Gladstone Diaries, with special attention to a little-used source, Volume 14, the indexes to the Diaries. The day-to-day Diaries and the indexes show how much Gladstone read about financial matters, and suggest that his actions were based to a large extent upon his reading. In addition, I have used Hansard's Parliamentary Debates and nineteenth-century periodicals and books on banking and finance to understand the political and economic debates of the time.
Date: May 2007
Creator: Caernarven-Smith, Patricia
System: The UNT Digital Library
Humanism and the Council of Florence, 1438-1439 (open access)

Humanism and the Council of Florence, 1438-1439

The study begins with the development of the nature and character of fifteenth century Italian humanism. It then proceeds to delineate the humanist methodological approach to three key areas; rhetoric, grammar, and historical criticism. Having thus laid this necessary foundation, the work examines selected portions of the debates of the council with regard to each of the three key areas, in order to ascertain whether or not a humanistic approach was utilized by the Latin participants in their argumentations. This investigation concludes that the Latin advocates of the council did indeed employ humanist methodology in both the preparation and presentation of their arguments in the debates. Therefore, such evidence strongly suggests that an appreciation and acceptance of the humanist approach to rhetoric, grammar, and textual criticism existed in the church in the early decades of the fifteenth century.
Date: December 1991
Creator: Swisher, Samuel J. (Samuel James)
System: The UNT Digital Library
André Malraux: the Anticolonial and Antifascist Years (open access)

André Malraux: the Anticolonial and Antifascist Years

This dissertation provides an explanation of how André Malraux, a man of great influence on twentieth century European culture, developed his political ideology, first as an anticolonial social reformer in the 1920s, then as an antifascist militant in the 1930s. Almost all of the previous studies of Malraux have focused on his literary life, and most of them are rife with errors. This dissertation focuses on the facts of his life, rather than on a fanciful recreation from his fiction. The major sources consulted are government documents, such as police reports and dispatches, the newspapers that Malraux founded with Paul Monin, other Indochinese and Parisian newspapers, and Malraux's speeches and interviews. Other sources include the memoirs of Clara Malraux, as well as other memoirs and reminiscences from people who knew Andre Malraux during the 1920s and the 1930s. The dissertation begins with a survey of Malraux's early years, followed by a detailed account of his experiences in Indochina. Then there is a survey of the period from 1926 to 1933, when Malraux won renown as a novelist and as a man with special insight into Asian affairs. The dissertation then focuses on Malraux's career as a militant antifascist during the …
Date: May 1996
Creator: Cruz, Richard A. (Richard Alan)
System: The UNT Digital Library
A New Way of Statecraft: The Career of Elton Mayo and the Development of the Social Sciences in America, 1920-1940 (open access)

A New Way of Statecraft: The Career of Elton Mayo and the Development of the Social Sciences in America, 1920-1940

Considered "the father of the science of human relations," Elton Mayo was instrumental in the development of industrial psychology and sociology in America. The career of Elton Mayo and his attraction to influential figures like John D. Rockefeller, Jr., provide a chronological order and interpretive force to understand this development. Mayo's concern about human behavior in the modern industrial world and management's concern over the future of industrial relations, found common ground in their support for the development of a science of human relations. It is not a coincidence then, that the social sciences developed at a time when industrial capitalism shifted its energies from organizing material resources to organizing human resources. The development of modern social science can best be understood, thus, as a phase of the social history of corporate capitalism. The career of Elton Mayo and his attraction to influential figures like John D. Rockefeller, Jr., provide a chronological order and interpretive force to understand this development.
Date: August 1992
Creator: Cullen, David O'Donald, 1951-
System: The UNT Digital Library
Lone Star Insanity: Efforts to Treat the Mentally Ill in Texas, 1861-1929 (open access)

Lone Star Insanity: Efforts to Treat the Mentally Ill in Texas, 1861-1929

During the mid-nineteenth century, the citizens of Texas were forced to keep their mentally disturbed family members at home which caused stress on the caregivers and the further debilitation of the afflicted. To remedy this situation, mental health experts and Texas politicians began to create a system of healing known as state asylums. The purpose of this study is to determine how Texas mental health care came into being, the research and theories behind the prevention and treatment programs that asylum physicians employed to overcome mental illness, in addition to the victories and shortcomings of the system. Through this work, it will be shown that during the 1850s until the 1920s institutions faced difficulty in achieving success from many adverse conditions including, but not limited to, overcrowding, large geographical conditions, poor health practices, faulty construction, insufficient funding, ineffective prevention and treatment methods, disorganization, cases of patient abuse, incompetent employees, prejudice, and legal improprieties. As a result, by 1930, these asylums were merely places to detain the mentally ill in order to rid them from society. This thesis will also confirm that while both Texas politicians and mental health experts desired to address and overcome mental illness in Texas, they were …
Date: December 2015
Creator: Boyd, Dalton T.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Cattle Capitalists: The XIT Empire in Texas and Montana (open access)

Cattle Capitalists: The XIT Empire in Texas and Montana

The Texas Constitution of 1876 set aside three million acres of Texas public land in exchange for construction of the monumental red granite Capitol that continues to house Texas state government today. The Capitol project and the land went to an Illinois syndicate led by men influential in business and politics. Austin's statehouse is a recognizable symbol of Texas around the world. So too, the massive Panhandle tract given in exchange -- what became the "fabulous" XIT Ranch -- has come to, for many, symbolize Texas and its role in the nineteenth century cattle boom. After finding sales prospects for the land, known as the Capitol Reservation, weak at the time, backed by British capital, the Illinois group, often called the Capitol Syndicate, turned their efforts to cattle ranching to satisfy investors until demand for the land increased. The operation included a satellite ranch in Montana to which two-year-old steers from Texas were sent for fattening, often "over the trail" on a route increasingly blocked by people and settlement. Rather than a study focused on ranching operations on the ground -- the roundups, the cattle drives, the cowboys -- this instead uncovers the business and political side of the Syndicate's …
Date: December 2017
Creator: Miller, Michael M.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Charlotte Perkins Gilman: A Humanist Approach to Feminism (open access)

Charlotte Perkins Gilman: A Humanist Approach to Feminism

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935), writer and lecturer, provided philosophical guidance to the feminist movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, During a career spanning the years 1890 to 1935 she published eleven books, wrote articles for popular magazines, and lectured throughout the United States and Europe. Between 1909 and 1916 she wrote, edited, and published a monthly magazine entitled The Forerunner. Gilman's efforts dealt primarily with the status of women, but she described herself as a humanist rather than a feminist. She explained that her interest in women arose from a concern that, as one-half of humanity, their restricted role in society retarded human progress. Thus, Gilman's contribution to feminism must be viewed within the context of her humanist philosophy. Gilman's contribution to feminism lies in her diagnosis of woman's predicament as ideological rather than political and, hence, subject to self-resolution. The uniqueness of Gilman's approach is in the autonomous nature of her solution: Woman, through the full use of her human powers, could achieve the equality that decades of political agitation had failed to accomplish. The rationale for this dissertation lies in the premise that Gilman's humanist approach to feminism made a significant contribution in her own …
Date: December 1976
Creator: Potts, Helen Jo
System: The UNT Digital Library
Fashioning Society in Eighteenth-century British Jamaica (open access)

Fashioning Society in Eighteenth-century British Jamaica

White women who inhabited the West Indies in the eighteenth century fascinated the metropole. In popular prints, novels, and serial publications, these women appeared to stray from “proper” British societal norms. Inhabiting a space dominated by a tropical climate and the presence of a large enslaved African population opened white women to censure. Almost from the moment of colonial encounter, they were perceived not as proper British women but as an imperial “other,” inhabiting a middle space between the ideal woman and the supposed indigenous “savage.” Furthermore, white women seemed to be lacking the sensibility prized in eighteenth-century England. However, the correspondence that survives from white women in Jamaica reveals the language of sensibility. “Creolized” in this imperial landscape, sensibility extended beyond written words to the material objects exchanged during their tenure on these sugar plantations. Although many women who lived in the Caribbean island of Jamaica might have fit the model, extant writings from Ann Brodbelt, Sarah Dwarris, Margaret and Mary Cowper, Lady Maria Nugent, and Ann Appleton Storrow, show a longing to remain connected with metropolitan society and their loved ones separated by the Atlantic. This sensibility and awareness of metropolitan material culture masked a lack of empathy …
Date: December 2015
Creator: Northrop, Chloe Aubra
System: The UNT Digital Library
Humanism in the Middle Ages: Peter Abailard and the Breakdown of Medieval Theology (open access)

Humanism in the Middle Ages: Peter Abailard and the Breakdown of Medieval Theology

Abailard expanded Anselm's sola ratione methodology, and in so doing he anticipated Renaissance humanism. His theory of abstraction justified the use of dialectic in theology, and was the basis for his entire theological system. He distinguished faith from mere belief by the application of dialectic, and created a theology which focused on the individual. The Renaissance humanists emphasized individual moral edification, which was evident in their interest in rhetoric. Abailard anticipated these rhetorical concerns, focusing on the individual's moral life rather than on metaphysical arguments. His logical treatises developed a theory of language as a mediator between reality and the conceptual order, and this argument was further developed in Sic et non. Sic et non was more than a collection of contradictions; it was a comprehensive theory of language as an inexact picture of reality, which forced the individual to reach his own understanding of scripture. Abailard's development of the power of reason anticipated developments in the Renaissance.
Date: December 1991
Creator: Vess, Deborah L. (Deborah Lynn)
System: The UNT Digital Library