During the 1890s in the United States, Midwestern YMCA missionaries challenged the nexus of power between Northeastern Protestant denominations, industrialists, politicians, and the Association's International Committee. Under Kansas YMCA secretary George Fisher, this movement shook the Northeastern alliance's underpinnings, eventually establishing the Gospel Missionary Union. The YMCA and the GMU mutually defined foreign and domestic missionary work discursively. Whereas Fisher's pre-millennial movement promoted world conversion generally, the YMCA primarily reached out to college students in the United States and abroad. Moreover, the GMU challenged social and gender roles among Moroccan Berbers. Fisher's movements have not been historically analyzed since 1975. Missionary Millennium is a reanalysis and critical reading of religious fictions about GMU missionaries, following the organization to its current incarnation as Avant Ministries.

Racial slavery was a critical element in the cultural development of the Choctaws and was a derivative of the peculiar institution in southern states. The idea of genial and hospitable slave owners can no more be conclusively demonstrated for the Choctaws than for the antebellum South. The participation of Choctaws in the Civil War and formal alliance with the Confederacy was dominantly influenced by the slaveholding and a connection with southern identity, but was also influenced by financial concerns and an inability to remain neutral than a protection of the peculiar institution. Had the Civil War not taken place, the rate of Choctaw slave ownership possibly would have reached the level of southern states and the Choctaws would be considered part of the South.

The administration of President George H. W. Bush from 1989 to 1992 saw several firsts in both American foreign policy towards the Middle East, and in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. At the beginning of the Bush Presidency, the intifada was raging in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and by the time it was over negotiations were already in progress for the most comprehensive agreement brokered in the history of the conflict to that point, the Oslo Accords. This paper will serve two purposes. First, it will delineate the relationships between the players in the Middle East and President Bush during the first year of his presidency. It will also explore his foreign policy towards the Middle East, and argue that it was the efforts of George H. W. Bush, and his diplomatic team that enabled the signing of the historic agreement at Oslo.

This abstract is for the thesis on the Cathedral of Hope (CoH). The CoH is currently the largest church in the world with a predominantly gay and lesbian congregation. This work tells the history of the church which is located in Dallas, Texas. The thesis employs over 48 sources to help tell the church's rich history which includes a progressive Christian philosophy, an important contribution to the fight for gay civil rights, and fine examples of courage through social activism. This work makes a contribution to gay history as well as civil rights history. It also adds to the cultural and social history which concentrates on the South and Southwestern regions of the United States.

Texas textile mills comprise an untold part of the modern South. The bulk of Texas mills were built between 1890 and 1925, a compressed period of expansion in contrast to the longer developmental pattern of mills in the rest of the United States. This compression meant that Texas mill owners benefited from knowledge gained from mill expansion elsewhere, and owners ran their mills along the same lines as the dominant southeastern model. Owners veered from the established pattern when conditions warranted. This case study focuses on three mills in Texas that operated both independently and as a corporation for a total of sixty years. One mill in McKinney dominated the economy of a small town and serves as the primary focus of this paper. A second mill in Waco served a diversified economy in the center of the state; and the third mill, built in Dallas was concentrated in a major city in a highly competitive job market. All three of these mills will illuminate the single greatest difference between Texas mills and mills elsewhere, the composition of the labor force. Women did not dominate the mill labor force in Texas nor did children, except in limited cases, make-up a …

This is a study of a ledger written by Andrea di Gherardo Casoli between the years 1387 and 1412. Andrea was a lawyer in the Tuscan city of Arezzo, shortly after the city lost its sovereignty to the expanding Florentine state. While Andrea associated his identity with his legal practice, he engaged in many other, diverse enterprises, such as wine making, livestock commerce, and agricultural management. This thesis systematically examines each major facet of Andrea's life, with a detailed assessment of his involvement in rural commerce. Andrea's actions revolved around a central theme of maintaining and expanding the fortunes, both financial and social, of the Casoli family.