Degree Discipline

Forging Their Legacy: Cooperation and Accommodation in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, 1848-1870 (open access)

Forging Their Legacy: Cooperation and Accommodation in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, 1848-1870

Forging Their Legacy: Cooperation and Accommodation in the Lower Rio Grande Valley is an examination of the relationships created during the mid-nineteenth century between Anglo and Tejano elites in the five counties that make up the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Conducted through a quantitative lens, the five-chapter study seeks to demonstrate that, although the period between 1848 and 1870 was fraught with conflict and violence, the Anglo and Tejano elite of the Lower Rio Grande Valley came together in cooperation in order not only to survive these troubling times but to prosper. The thesis begins by identifying and analyzing the economic and political elite in the Lower Rio Grande Valley during the 1850s. A new crop of Anglo immigrants arrived with the Mexican-American War, but only a small number willing to assimilate to local Tejano culture were able to leave their mark on the Lower Valley. Chapter 4 relates the effect of the Civil War on the elite of the Lower Valley. It explores the profitable cotton trade during the war and the struggle that both Anglo and Tejano elites faced during Reconstruction. The thesis concludes with a macro-analysis of the twenty-two-year period from 1848-1870. It summarizes overall trends found …
Date: December 2018
Creator: Ballesteros, Nicholas A.
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Present Conditions in Germany as an Effect of the Treaty of Versailles (open access)

The Present Conditions in Germany as an Effect of the Treaty of Versailles

This is a study of the causes of the rise of the Third Reich, and its attitude toward the Treaty of Versailles.
Date: May 1939
Creator: Schmidt, Jess Edwin
System: The UNT Digital Library

The "Sixties" Come to North Texas State University, 1968-1972

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North Texas State University and the surrounding Denton community enjoyed a quiet college atmosphere throughout most of the 1960s. With the retirement of President J. C. Matthews in 1968, however, North Texas began witnessing the issues most commonly associated with the turbulent decade, such as the struggle for civil rights, the anti-Vietnam War movement, the fight for student rights on campus, and the emergence of the Counterculture. Over the last two years of the decade, North Texas State University and the surrounding community dealt directly with the 1960s and, under the astute leadership of President John J. Kamerick, successfully endured trying times.
Date: December 2004
Creator: Phelps, Wesley Gordon
System: The UNT Digital Library

III Corps during the Surge Campaign: Operational Art and Counterinsurgency Myths

The role of Odierno's III Corps as MNC-I has failed to receive sufficient attention from studies of the 2007-2008 surge of U.S. forces in Iraq. However, was Odierno's employment of military force in time, space, and purpose based on the logic of conventional military operations that laid the groundwork for the successes gained in 2007 and 2008. III Corps's achievements as an operational headquarters were rooted in the successful application of operational art. Operational art is a way to conceptualize how to fight wars using campaigns of multiple, simultaneous, and successive operations across a theater of operations to achieve a unifying goal. While neither downplaying nor minimizing the importance of Army COIN principles, a study of MNC-I's December 2006-February 2008 campaign in Iraq through the neglected prism of operational art suggests that the campaign's success was due to the successful application of already established operational principles rather than from a revolution in the profession of arms.
Date: December 2022
Creator: Blythe, Wilson Clinton, Jr.
System: The UNT Digital Library

The Confederate Pension Systems in Texas, Georgia, and Virginia: The Programs and the People

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The United States government began paying pensions to disabled Union veterans before the Civil War ended in April 1865. By 1890 its pension programs included any Union veteran who had fought in the Civil War, regardless of his financial means, as well as surviving family members, including mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters. Union veterans did not hesitate to "wave the bloody shirt" in their attempts to liberalize pension laws. Pension programs for Confederate veterans were much slower to develop. Lacking any higher organization, each southern state assumed the responsibility of caring for disabled and/or indigent Confederate veterans and widows. Texas began paying Confederate pensions in 1899, Georgia in 1888 and Virginia in 1889. Unlike Texas, Georgia and Virginia provided artificial limbs for their veterans long before they started paying pensions. At the time of his enlistment in the 1860s, the typical future pensioner was twenty-five years of age, and fewer than half were married heads of households. Very few could be considered wealthy and most were employed in agriculture. The pensioners of Georgia, Texas, and Virginia were remarkably similar, although there were some differences in nativity and marital status. They were all elderly and needy by the time they asked …
Date: December 2004
Creator: Wilson, Mary L.
System: The UNT Digital Library

Victims of Hope: Explaining Jewish Behavior in the Treblinka, Sobibór and Birkenau Extermination Camps

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I analyze the behavior of Jews imprisoned in the Treblinka, Sobibór, and Birkenau extermination camps in order to illustrate a systematic process of deception and psychological conditioning, which the Nazis employed during World War II to preclude Jewish resistance to the Final Solution. In Chapter I, I present resistance historiography as it has developed since the end of the war. In Chapter II, I delineate my own argument on Jewish behavior during the Final Solution, limiting my definition of resistance and the applicability of my thesis to behavior in the extermination camp, or closed, environment. In Chapters III, IV, and V, I present a detailed narrative of the Treblinka, Sobibór, and Birkenau revolts using secondary sources and selected survivor testimony. Finally, in Chapter VI, I isolate select parts of the previous narratives and apply my argument to demonstrate its validity as an explanation for Jewish behavior.
Date: August 2000
Creator: Motl, Kevin C.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Military Reconstruction in District Five (open access)

Military Reconstruction in District Five

"As the American Civil War was brought to a close in April, 1865, the entire nation was plunged into an era which was characterized by unrest and turmoil. The North had before it the task of reconstructing the former Confederate states so that they would be able to resume their former positions in national councils, while the South was called on to adjust to a way of life which was drastically different. In military District Five, formed as a result of congressional control, as in the rest of the South, continued post-war controversy has tended to becloud appraisals of the period of military reconstruction. A fair evaluation requires examination of the primary sources inasmuch as secondary works on the era have continued to reflect sectional viewpoints. Such an evaluation reveals the need for a comprehensive re-interpretation of the entire era of military control of reconstruction under the congressional plan. This analysis of military government in District Five represents such a re-interpretation of one area of the post-war South."-- leaf iii.
Date: August 1959
Creator: Estell, Dora Lucile
System: The UNT Digital Library
May 1856: Southern Reaction to Conflict in Kansas and Congress (open access)

May 1856: Southern Reaction to Conflict in Kansas and Congress

This thesis examines southern reactions to events that occurred in May 1856: the outbreak of civil war in Kansas and the caning of Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts. I researched two newspapers from the upper South state of Virginia, the Richmond Enquirer and the Richmond Daily Whig, and two newspapers from the lower South state of Louisiana, the New Orleans Times-Picayune and the New Orleans Bee to determine the extent to which political party sentiment and/or geographic location affected southern opinion towards the two events. Political party ties influenced the material each newspaper printed. Each newspaper worried that these events endangered the Union. Some, however, believed the Union could be saved while others argued that it was only a matter of time before the South seceded.
Date: May 2007
Creator: Fossett, Victoria Lea
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Way of Change and Surprise: A Strategic Cultural Analysis of China's South China Sea Policies from the 1930s to 2010s (open access)

The Way of Change and Surprise: A Strategic Cultural Analysis of China's South China Sea Policies from the 1930s to 2010s

This dissertation aims to discover the hidden pattern and rationales behind China's South China Sea policies over the last one hundred years from the perspective of Chinese strategic culture. A historical-cultural approach is a powerful tool in uncovering deeper understandings of the Chinese way of policy making and strategy on issues such as the South China Sea. The key research questions include: first, is there any historical legitimacy in China's sovereignty claim over the South China Sea islands? Second, do Beijing's South China Sea policies in various periods have any regularity or pattern, and how did they serve China's grand strategies at the time? By utilizing extensive Chinese and English primary sources and other sources, this study conducts a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the South China Sea issue from the framework of Chinese strategic culture.
Date: May 2023
Creator: Zhong, Wenrui
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
East is East and West is West: Philadelphia Newspaper Coverage of the East-West Divide in Early America (open access)

East is East and West is West: Philadelphia Newspaper Coverage of the East-West Divide in Early America

The prominent division in early America between the established eastern populations and communities in the West is evident when viewed through the lens of eighteenth-century Philadelphia newspapers, which themselves employed an East-West paradigm to interpret four events: the Paxton Boys Incident, Regulator Rebellion, Shays's Rebellion, and Constitutional Convention. Through the choices of what words to use to describe these clashes, through oversights, omissions, and misrepresentations, and sometimes through more direct tactics, Philadelphia newspapermen revealed a persistent cultural bias against and rivalry with western communities. This study illustrates how pervasive this contrast between East and West was in the minds of easterners; how central a feature of early American culture they considered it to be.
Date: December 2007
Creator: Leath, Susan Elizabeth
System: The UNT Digital Library
Space Race: African American Newspapers Respond to Sputnik and Apollo 11 (open access)

Space Race: African American Newspapers Respond to Sputnik and Apollo 11

Using African American newspapers, this study examines the consensual opinion of articles and editorials regarding two events associated with the space race. One event is the Soviet launch of Sputnik on October 4, 1957. The second is the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20, 1969. Space Race investigates how two scientific accomplishments achieved during the Cold War and the civil rights movement stimulated debate within the newspapers, and that ultimately centered around two questions: why the Soviets were successful in launching a satellite before the US, and what benefits could come from landing on the moon. Anti-intellectualism, inferior public schools, and a lack of commitment on the part of the US government are arguments offered for analysis by black writers in the two years studied. This topic involves the social conditions of African Americans living within the United States during an era when major civil rights objectives were achieved. Also included are considerations of how living in a "space age" contributed to thoughts about civil rights, as African Americans were now living during a period in which science fiction was becoming reality. In addition, this thesis examines how two scientific accomplishments achieved during this time affected ideas about education, …
Date: December 2007
Creator: Thompson, Mark A.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Principle or Political Expediency: The Progressive Republicans, 1910-1916 (open access)

Principle or Political Expediency: The Progressive Republicans, 1910-1916

Progressivism, which had invaded the conservative-controlled Republican party, provoked a split that affected local politics as well as the party's national leadership. The rebellion engulfing the party demanded that each Republican clearly define his position.... The available choices, ranging from reaction to insurgency, required that the professional Republican politician be painfully specific. The dilemma faced by these politicians, particularly those of the rank and file who were sympathetic with progressive ideals, is the major concern of this study.
Date: January 1966
Creator: Eubanks, Richard K.
System: The UNT Digital Library
School Spirit or School Hate: The Confederate Battle Flag, Texas High Schools, and Memory, 1953-2002 (open access)

School Spirit or School Hate: The Confederate Battle Flag, Texas High Schools, and Memory, 1953-2002

The debate over the display of the Confederate battle flag in public places throughout the South focus on the flag's display by state governments such South Carolina and Mississippi. The state of Texas is rarely placed in this debate, and neither has the debate adequately explore the role of high schools' use of Confederate symbols. Schools represent the community and serve as a symbol of its values. A school represented by Confederate symbols can communicate a message of intolerance to a rival community or opposing school during sports contests. Within the community, conflict arose when an opposition group to the symbols formed and asked for the symbols' removal in favor of symbols that were seen more acceptable by outside observers. Many times, an outside party needed to step in to resolve the conflict. In Texas, the conflict between those in favor and those oppose centered on the Confederate battle flag, and the memory each side associated with the flag. Anglos saw the flag as their school spirit. African Americans saw hatred.
Date: December 2006
Creator: Dirickson, Perry
System: The UNT Digital Library
Gladstone, Egypt, and the Sudan, 1880-1885 (open access)

Gladstone, Egypt, and the Sudan, 1880-1885

This thesis examines the Egyptian and Sudanese policy of Gladstone's Second Ministry. Sources include microfilms of letters from the prime ministers to the Queen, and Cabinet papers. Essential were Hansard, The Times, and Herslet, as well as biographical and autobiographical studies of the persons involved. The thesis narrates the Egyptian events preceding the formation of Gladstone's Ministry. It then discusses the revolt in Egypt, which resulted in British occupation, and the Mahdi's rebellion in the Sudan, which led to the fall of Khartoum. The thesis concludes that Gladstone failed because he did not want Britain to be in Egypt or the Sudan. Therefore, there was no consistent policy, and his failures were among the elements that led to the fall of his Government.
Date: May 1975
Creator: Hammonds, Nancy Jones
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Persistence of Antebellum Planter Families in Postbellum East Texas (open access)

The Persistence of Antebellum Planter Families in Postbellum East Texas

The effect of the Civil War and Reconstruction on the southern planter elite remains a topic of interest to historians. Did the war ruin the planter class? Or, did they maintain economic, geographic, or social persistence? This study focuses on the persistence from 1850 to 1880 of five East Texas large planter families who owned one hundred or more slaves in 1860. An analysis of data primarily from county, state, and federal records formthe basis of this study. Four families persisted as wealthy influential members of their postbellum communities. One family remained geographically persistent but not wealthy. The experiences of these families suggest that large East Texas planter families found it possible to persist in spite of the Civil War and Reconstruction.
Date: May 1998
Creator: Newland, Linda Sue
System: The UNT Digital Library
Southern Roots, Western Foundations: the Peculiar Institution and the Livestock Industry on the Northwestern Frontier of Texas, 1846-1864 (open access)

Southern Roots, Western Foundations: the Peculiar Institution and the Livestock Industry on the Northwestern Frontier of Texas, 1846-1864

This dissertation challenges Charles W. Ramsdell's needless war theory, which argued that profitable slavery would not have existed west of the 98th meridian and that slavery would have died a natural death. It uses statistical information that is mined from the county tax records to show how slave-owners on the northwestern frontier of Texas raised livestock rather than market crops, before and during the Civil War. This enterprise was so strong that it not only continued to expand throughout this period, but it also became the foundation for the recovery of the Texas economy after the war.
Date: August 2013
Creator: Liles, Deborah Marie
System: The UNT Digital Library
Presidential Reconstruction in Texas 1865-1867 (open access)

Presidential Reconstruction in Texas 1865-1867

Presidential reconstruction in Texas proceeded under the direction of provisional governor Andrew Jackson Hamilton, a Texas Unionist. Texas Unionists had deep political roots in pre-war politics and sought to reconstruct along moderate lines. Following the constitutional convention of 1866, conservative James Webb Throckmorton won the gubernatorial race against Unionist Elisha Marshall Pease. Throckmorton's administration did very little to curb the intense violence directed at Unionists in Texas, and the conservative legislature passed legislation repressive to blacks. Texas Unionists grew increasingly radical, and Throckmorton clashed with the federal military over the question of authority. After the Radicals in Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts, Throckmorton was removed as governor, and E.M. Pease was appointed in his place, ending presidential reconstruction in Texas.
Date: December 1979
Creator: Chapin, Walter T.
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Forging of a Nation: Cultural and Political Scottish Unity in the Time of Robert the Bruce (open access)

The Forging of a Nation: Cultural and Political Scottish Unity in the Time of Robert the Bruce

While Scotland was politically unified before the First Scottish War of Independence (1296-1328), it was only nominally so. Scotland shared a rich cultural unity amongst the clans, and it was only through the invasion from England, and the war that followed, that Scotland found a true political unity under King Robert the Bruce. This thesis argues that Scotland had a shared cultural identity, including the way it waged war, and how it came to be united under one king who brought a sense of nationalism to Scotland.
Date: August 2020
Creator: Lowrey, Brian
System: The UNT Digital Library

Richard Thompson Archer and the Burdens of Proprietorship: The Life of a Natchez District Planter

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In 1824 a young Virginia aristocrat named Richard Thompson Archer migrated to Mississippi. Joining in the boom years of expansion in the Magnolia State in the 1830s, Archer built a vast cotton empire. He and his wife, Ann Barnes, raised a large family at Anchuca, their home plantation in Claiborne County, Mississippi. From there Richard Archer ruled a domain that included more than 500 slaves and 13,000 acres of land. On the eve of the Civil War he was one of the wealthiest men in the South. This work examines the life of Richard Archer from his origins in Amelia County, Virginia, to his death in Mississippi in 1867. It takes as its thesis the theme of Archer's life: his burdens as proprietor of a vast cotton empire and as father figure and provider for a large extended family. This theme weaves together the strands of Archer's life, including his rise to the position of great planter, his duties as husband and father, and his political beliefs and activities. Archer's story is told against the background of the history of Mississippi and of the South, from their antebellum heyday, through the Civil War, and into the early years of Reconstruction. …
Date: December 2001
Creator: Hammond, Carol D.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Testing the Narrative of Prussian Decline: 1778-1806 (open access)

Testing the Narrative of Prussian Decline: 1778-1806

The story of Prussia's defeat at the Battles of Jena and Auerstedt and subsequent reform has dominated the historiography of Napoleonic Prussia. While Napoleon has received the vast majority of historical attention, those who have written on Prussia have focused on the Prussian reform movement or the Prussian army's campaigns against Napoleon. These historians present the Prussian army before 1807 as an ossified relic, a hopelessly backward and rigid army commanded by a series of septuagenarians. Apart from the 1806 campaign, these scholars scarcely address the field operations of the Prussian army during the French Wars (1792-1801). This thesis seeks to prove that the Prussian army during the War of the Bavarian Succession and the War of the First Coalition was still an effective fighting force by examining the field operation of the Prussian army from 1778-1793 and the reactions of Prussian thinkers to it. The history of the Prussian army from 1778-1806 challenges the narrative of the army as a force in decline. The Prussian army struggled in the War of the Bavarian Succession, and the war revealed two of its weaknesses, the lack of light troops and an uncoordinated strategic approach. However, many of the problems of the …
Date: December 2020
Creator: Soefje, Ethan K
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Walling Family of Nineteenth-Century Texas: An Examination of Movement and Opportunity on the Texas Frontier (open access)

The Walling Family of Nineteenth-Century Texas: An Examination of Movement and Opportunity on the Texas Frontier

The Walling Family of Nineteenth-Century Texas recounts the actions of the first four generations of the John Walling family. Through a heavily quantitative study, the study focuses on the patterns of movement, service, and seizing opportunity demonstrated by the family as they took full advantage of the benefits of frontier expansion in the Old South and particularly Texas. In doing so, it chronicles the role of a relatively unknown family in many of the most defining events of the nineteenth-century Texas experience such as the Texas Revolution, Mexican War, Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Close of the Frontier. Based on extensive research in census, tax, election, land, military, family paper, newspaper, and existing genealogical records; the study documents the contributions of family members to the settlement of more than forty counties while, at the same time, noting its less positive behaviors such as its open hostility to American Indians, and significant slave ownership. This study seeks to extend the work of other quantitative studies that looked at movement and political influence in the Old South, Texas, and specific communities to the microcosm of a single extended family. As a result, it should be of use to those wanting a greater …
Date: December 2016
Creator: Cure, Stephen
System: The UNT Digital Library
Politics in Reconstruction: a Study of the Political Aspects of Presidential Reconstruction (open access)

Politics in Reconstruction: a Study of the Political Aspects of Presidential Reconstruction

The purpose of this thesis is to examine Presidential Reconstruction and try to determine the part that politics played in Andrew Johnson's plan of restoration and in his war with Congress.
Date: August 1965
Creator: Pierce, Michael D.
System: The UNT Digital Library
George Washington's Development as an Espionage Chief (open access)

George Washington's Development as an Espionage Chief

The American Revolution was a war of movement over great distances. Timely intelligence regarding the strength and location of the enemy was vital to the commanders on both sides. Washington gained his early experience in intelligence gathering in the wilderness during the French and Indian War. By the end of the American Revolution, Washington had become a skilled manager of intelligence. He sent agents behind enemy lines, recruited tory intelligence sources, questioned travelers for information, and initiated numerous espionage missions. Many heroic patriots gathered the intelligence that helped win the War for Independence. Their duties required many of them to pose as one of the enemy, and often incur the hatred of friends and neighbors. Some gave their lives in helping to establish the new American nation. It is possible that without Washington's intelligence service, American independence might not have been won.
Date: May 1993
Creator: Ritchey, David (David Benjamin
System: The UNT Digital Library