Degree Department

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
Schools and Schoolmen: Chapters in Texas Education, 1870-1900 (open access)

Schools and Schoolmen: Chapters in Texas Education, 1870-1900

This study examines neglected aspects of the educational history of Texas. Although much emphasis has been placed on the western, frontier aspects of the state in the years after Appomattox, this study assumes that Texas remained primarily a southern state until 1900, and its economic, political, social, and educational development followed the patterns of the other ex-Confederate states as outlined by C. Vann Woodward in his Origins of the New South. This study of the educational history of Texas should aid in understanding such developments for the South as a whole. For the purposes of this study, "education" is defined in terms of institutions specifically created for the formal education of the young. Additionally, the terms "public education" and "private education" are used extensively. It is a contention of this study that the obvious differences between public and private schools in the last half of the twentieth century were not so obvious in the last half of the nineteenth, at least in Texas. Finally, an attempt has been made to confine the study to those areas of formal schooling which are today commonly called primary and secondary, although this was difficult because of the lack of definition used in naming …
Date: May 1974
Creator: Smith, Stewart D.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Portrait of an Age: The Political Career of Stephen W. Dorsey, 1868-1889 (open access)

Portrait of an Age: The Political Career of Stephen W. Dorsey, 1868-1889

This study traces the public life of Stephen Dorsey chronologically from his service in the Civil War to the end of his political career, which came with his failure to have a friend appointed governor of New Mexico Territory in 1889. Traditional interpretations of Dorsey are based on a combination of scant evidence, carpetbagger stereotypes, and the assumption that he was guilty of masterminding the monumental swindle of the Star Route Frauds. Closer examination of Dorsey's public life, however, reveals that this traditional view is distorted. A major conclusion of this study is that the assumption on which most traditional views of Dorsey are based, that he was the mastermind behind the Star Route Frauds, is not supported by the evidence. This study shows that it is impossible to study a Gilded Age political figure without also considering his business interests. Many of Dorsey's political activities, for example his involvement in the Compromise of 1877, can be traced to his business enterprises. Although Dorsey was not entirely innocent in the frauds, he was not guilty of the crimes with which the government charged him. This study also concludes that Dorsey was left vulnerable to the prosecution which ended his career …
Date: May 1980
Creator: Lowry, Sharon K.
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Old Alcalde: Oran Milo Roberts, Texas's Forgotten Fire-Eater (open access)

The Old Alcalde: Oran Milo Roberts, Texas's Forgotten Fire-Eater

Oran Milo Roberts was at the center of every important event in Texas between 1857 and 1883. He served on the state supreme court on three separate occasions, twice as chief justice. As president of the 1861 Secession Convention he was instrumental in leading Texas out of the Union. He then raised and commanded an infantry regiment in the Confederate Army. After the Civil War, Roberts was a delegate to the 1866 Constitutional Convention and was elected by the state legislature to the United States Senate, though Republicans in Congress refused to seat him. He served two terms as governor from 1879 to 1883. Despite being a major figure in Texas history, there are no published biographies of Roberts. This dissertation seeks to examine Roberts's place in Texas history and analyze the factors that drove him to seek power. It will also explore the major events in which he participated and determine his historical legacy to the state.
Date: May 2016
Creator: Yancey, William C.
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Tennessee Valley Authority as a Regional Planning Project (open access)

The Tennessee Valley Authority as a Regional Planning Project

This thesis discusses the history of the Tennessee Valley Authority as a regional planning project.
Date: 1956
Creator: Smallwood, J. B.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Jane McManus Storm Cazneau (1807-1878): A Biography (open access)

Jane McManus Storm Cazneau (1807-1878): A Biography

Jane Maria Eliza McManus, born near Troy, New York, educated at Emma Willard's Troy Female Seminary, promoted the American maritime frontier and wrote on Mexican, Central American, and Caribbean affairs. Called a "terror with her pen," under the pen name of Cora Montgomery, she published 100 columns in 6 newspapers, 20 journal articles and book reviews, 15 books and pamphlets, and edited 5 newspapers and journals between 1839 and 1878.
Date: May 1999
Creator: Hudson, Linda Sybert
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
History and Expansion of Bus and Truck Traffic in the United States (open access)

History and Expansion of Bus and Truck Traffic in the United States

This is a study of the beginning and growth of automotive transportation, the development of transportation of merchandise by means of motor trucks, the development of passenger traffic of motor busses, the co-ordination of railroad and highway transportation, and the state and federal efforts to regulate the trucking industry.
Date: 1951
Creator: Rutherford, Robert B.
System: The UNT Digital Library
The United States-Mexico Oil Relations (open access)

The United States-Mexico Oil Relations

This thesis presents a brief history of oil drilling and the oil industry in the United States and in Mexico, and the diplomatic and political challenges that arose between the two nations as the industry grew.
Date: 1943
Creator: Watkins, Carrie May
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Kentucky Resolutions : A Re-examination (open access)

The Kentucky Resolutions : A Re-examination

To obtain the most complete picture of the Kentucky Resolutions, and the times which produced them, a careful study was made of contemporary newspapers for the period from March, 1798, to December, 1799.
Date: August 1966
Creator: Morris, C. Gwin
System: The UNT Digital Library
Social Reform Movements of the 1830's and the 1930's: a Comparative Study (open access)

Social Reform Movements of the 1830's and the 1930's: a Comparative Study

This thesis discusses the social reforms of the 1830s and 1930s with regards to spiritual and humanitarian movements, as well as militants and other social reformers.
Date: 1941
Creator: Attebery, Wilma Pace
System: The UNT Digital Library
Medgar Evers (1925-1963) and the Mississippi Press (open access)

Medgar Evers (1925-1963) and the Mississippi Press

Medgar Evers was gunned down in front of his home in June 1963, a murder that went unpunished for almost thirty years. Assassinated at the height of the civil rights movement, Evers is a relatively untreated figure in either popular or academic writing. This dissertation includes three themes. Evers's death defined his life, particularly his public role. The other two themes define his relationship with the press in Mississippi (and its structure), and his relationship to the various civil rights organizations, including his employer, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Was the newspaper press, both state and national, fair in its treatment of Evers? Did the press use Evers to further the civil rights agenda or to retard that movement, and was Evers able to employ the press as a public relations tool in promoting the NAACP agenda? The obvious answers have been that the Mississippi press editors and publishers defended segregation and that Evers played a minor role in the civil rights movement. Most newspaper publishers and editorial writers slanted the news to promote segregation but not all newspapers editors. The Carters of Greenville, J. Oliver Emmerich of McComb and weekly editors Ira Harkey and Hazel …
Date: December 1996
Creator: Tisdale, John Rochelle, 1958-
System: The UNT Digital Library
India's Nonalignment Policy and the American Response, 1947-1960 (open access)

India's Nonalignment Policy and the American Response, 1947-1960

India's nonalignment policy attracted the attention of many newly independent countries for it provided an alternative to the existing American and Russian views of the world. This dissertation is an examination of both India's nonalignment policy and the official American reaction to it during the Truman-Eisenhower years. Indian nonalignment should be defined as a policy of noncommitment towards rival power blocs adopted with a view of retaining freedom of action in international affairs and thereby influencing the issue of war and peace to India's advantage. India maintained that the Cold War was essentially a European problem. Adherence to military allliances , it believed, would increase domestic tensions and add to chances of involvement in international war, thus destroying hopes of socio-economic reconstruction of India. The official American reaction was not consistent. It varied from president to president, from issue to issue, and from time to time. India's stand on various issues of international import and interest to the United States such as recognition of the People's Republic of China, the Korean War, the Japanese peace treaty of 1951, and the Hungarian revolt of 1956, increased American concern about and dislike of nonalignment. Many Americans in high places regraded India's nonalignment …
Date: May 1987
Creator: Georgekutty, Thadathil V. (Thadathil Varghese)
System: The UNT Digital Library
American Public Opinion During Crises in Japanese-American Relations in the Early Twentieth Century (open access)

American Public Opinion During Crises in Japanese-American Relations in the Early Twentieth Century

Throughout the period following Pearl Harbor, as one crisis in Japanese-American relations followed another, the American public opinion was divided. Some newspapers and personalities feared that there would be war over the San Francisco school board crisis, while others believed that talk of war was ridiculous. Partisan politics often affected the course of affairs on the Japanese question.
Date: August 1968
Creator: Nelson, Donald Fowler.
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Historical Development of Fine Arts in Texas (open access)

The Historical Development of Fine Arts in Texas

The purpose of this study is to give a historical account of the development of fine arts in Texas including music, dramatic arts, paintings and sculptures.
Date: August 1949
Creator: Hastings, Catherine Troxell
System: The UNT Digital Library
Cracking the Closed Society: James W. Silver and the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi (open access)

Cracking the Closed Society: James W. Silver and the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi

This thesis examines the life of James Wesley Silver, a professor of history at the University of Mississippi for twenty-six years and author of Mississippi: The Closed Society, a scathing attack on the Magnolia State's history of racial oppression. In 1962, Silver witnessed the campus riot resulting from James Meredith's enrollment as the first black student at the state's hallowed public university and claims this was the catalyst for writing his book. However, by examining James Silver's personal and professional activities and comparing them with the political, cultural, and social events taking place concurrently, this paper demonstrates that his entire life, the gamut of his experiences, culminated in the creation of his own rebel yell, Mississippi: The Closed Society. Chapter 1 establishes Silver's environment by exploring the history and sociology of the South during the years of his residency. Chapter 2 discusses Silver's background and early years, culminating with his appointment as a faculty member of the University of Mississippi in 1936. Chapter 3 reveals Silver's personal and professional life during the 1940s, as well as the era's notable historical events. The decade of the 1950s is discussed in chapter 4, particularly the civil rights movement, Silver's response to these …
Date: May 2010
Creator: Fox, Lisa Ann
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
The Godly Populists: Protestantism in the Farmer's Alliance and the People's Party of Texas (open access)

The Godly Populists: Protestantism in the Farmer's Alliance and the People's Party of Texas

This paper discusses the influence of religious aspects in rural thought and how they played in the activities of agrarian movements and farm protest movements. The religious orientations of major agrarian reformers in Texas is discussed, as well as the similarities between Protestant religious institutions and agrarian institutions, specifically the Farmers' Alliance and People's Party of Texas.
Date: August 1968
Creator: McMath, Robert C., 1944-
System: The UNT Digital Library
Federal Occupation and Administration of Texas, 1865-1870 (open access)

Federal Occupation and Administration of Texas, 1865-1870

The scope of this study is limited to Federal military occupation during the five years from 1865 to 1870. Only the interior counties, where a dense Negro population required the exercise of political and social responsibilities, will be considered in detail. A line from Wise through Bosque, Travis, Wilson, Karnes, and Goliad Counties to the coastal town of Corpus Christi would roughly separate interior from frontier posts.
Date: August 1970
Creator: Shook, Robert W. (Robert Walter)
System: The UNT Digital Library
A Place to Call Home: A Study of the Self-Segregated Community of Tatums, Oklahoma, 1894-1970 (open access)

A Place to Call Home: A Study of the Self-Segregated Community of Tatums, Oklahoma, 1894-1970

This study examines Tatums, Oklahoma, under the assumption that the historically black towns (HBT) developed as a response to conditions in the South. This community provides a rich example of the apparent anomalies that the environment of self-segregation created. Despite the widespread violence of the Klan, the residents of the HBTs were not the targets of lynching or mob violence. During the years after World War II, Tatums residents enjoyed the greatest prosperity. The final chapter looks at the battle Tatums' residents fought to keep their school from being closed after the state of Oklahoma began to enforce the Brown v. Board of Education decisions in the 1960s. Their solidarity during the desegregation transition remained powerful enough for them to negotiate compromises regarding the fair treatment of their children in a world that was integrating around them.
Date: August 2005
Creator: Ragsdale, Rhonda M.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Slavery and the Federalist Party, 1789-1808 (open access)

Slavery and the Federalist Party, 1789-1808

The growth of antislavery sentiment during this era had origins traceable to several aspects of life in revolutionary America. The two most important were the philosophical basis of the revolution and the evolving economic situation, both of which worked together to destroy slavery in the northern and middle states and to restrict it in the South.
Date: August 1966
Creator: Smith, Stewart D.
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Enlightenment Legacy of David Hume (open access)

The Enlightenment Legacy of David Hume

Although many historians assert the unity of the Enlightenment, their histories essentially belie this notion. Consequently, Enlightenment history is confused and meaningless, urging the reader to believe that diversity is similarity and faction is unity. Fundamental among the common denominators of these various interpretations, however, are the scientific method and empirical observation, as introduced by Newton. These, historians acclaim as the turning point when mankind escaped the ignorance of superstition and the oppression of the church, and embarked upon the modern secular age. The Enlightenment, however, founders immediately upon its own standards of empiricism and demonstrable philosophical tenets, with the exception of David Hume. As the most consistent and fearless empiricist of the era, Hume's is by far the most "legitimate" philosophy of the Enlightenment, but it starkly contrasts the rhetoric and ideology of the philosophe community, and, therefore, defies attempts by historians to incorporate it into the traditional Enlightenment picture. Hume, then, exposes the Enlightenment dilemma: either the Enlightenment is not empirical, but rather the new Age of Faith Carl Becker proclaimed it, or Enlightenment philosophy is that of Hume. This study presents the historical characterization of major Enlightenment themes, such as method, reason, religion, morality, and politics, then …
Date: December 1989
Creator: Jenkins, Joan (Joan Elizabeth)
System: The UNT Digital Library
American Ambassadorial Representation to England from John Adams to Charles Francis Adams (open access)

American Ambassadorial Representation to England from John Adams to Charles Francis Adams

This thesis outlines the history of American ambassadorial representation in England through 1868.
Date: 1945
Creator: Parker, Mary Lois
System: The UNT Digital Library
The British Occupation of Southern Nigeria, 1851-1906 (open access)

The British Occupation of Southern Nigeria, 1851-1906

The study indicates that the motives which impelled the creation of the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria were complex, variable, and sometimes contradictory. Many Englishmen within and without the government, indeed, advocated the occupation of the area to suppress the slave trade, but this humanitarian ambition, on balance, was not as significant as political and economic interests. The importance of the Niger waterway, rivalry with France and other maritime nations, andmissionary work, all led Britain to adopt a policy of aggrandizement and to proclaim a protectorate over the Niger districts, thereby laying the foundation for modern Nigeria. The London government acquired territory through negotiating treaties with the native chiefs, conquest, and purchase. British policy and consular rule between 1851 and 1906 was characterized by gunboat diplomacy, brutality, and flagrant disregard for treaty rights; nonetheless, the British presence has made a positive impact on Nigeria's historical, political, economic, intellectual, and cultural development.
Date: December 1979
Creator: Igbineweka, Andrew O.
System: The UNT Digital Library