Degree Level

George S. Patton Jr. and the Lost Cause Legacy (open access)

George S. Patton Jr. and the Lost Cause Legacy

Historians have done their duty in commemorating an individual who was, as Sidney Hook’s Hero in History would describe, an “event making-man.” A myriad of works focused on understanding the martial effort behind George S. Patton Jr. from his ancestral lineage rooted in military tradition to his triumph during the Second World War. What is yet to be understood about Patton, however, is the role that the Civil War played in his transformation into one of America’s iconic generals. For Patton, the Lost Cause legacy, one that idealized the image of the Confederate soldier in terms of personal honor, courage, and duty, became the seed for his preoccupation for glory.
Date: August 2014
Creator: Rodriguez, Ismael
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Volunteer Handbook: Denton County Office of History & Culture (open access)

Volunteer Handbook: Denton County Office of History & Culture

Document describing various options to volunteer in Denton County at museums or other institutions.
Date: 2016~
Creator: Denton County (Tex.). Office of History & Culture.
Object Type: Pamphlet
System: The Portal to Texas History
Hauntology Man (open access)

Hauntology Man

Hauntology Man, a 48-minute documentary, follows former UNT Professor, Dr. Shaun Treat, as he leads a walking ghost tour of downtown Denton, Texas. As the expedition moves from storefront to storefront, each stop elicits a new tale. But, as Dr. Treat points out, the uncertainties of history are the real ghosts. That is, rather than simply presenting a "haunted history" of Denton, it's more accurate to say this movie's center resides at the precipice of a "haunting history." Not all ghost stories need spectres. Sometimes not knowing is ghost enough.
Date: May 2018
Creator: Wright, Adam Michael
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
U.S. – Mexican War Veterans and the Congressional Pension Fight (open access)

U.S. – Mexican War Veterans and the Congressional Pension Fight

A draft of an article published in the journal Military History of the West about the challenges U.S. - Mexican War veterans faced receiving their pensions after the Civil War.
Date: August 24, 2010
Creator: Van Wagenen, Michael Scott
Object Type: Article
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.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
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
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library

Small Town America in World War II: War Stories From Wrightsville, Pennsylvania

Access: Use of this item is restricted to the UNT Community
Historians acknowledge that World War II touched every man, woman, and child in the United States. In Small Town America in World War II, Ronald E. Marcello uses oral history interviews with civilians and veterans to explore how the citizens of Wrightsville, Pennsylvania, responded to the war effort. Interviews with citizens and veterans are organized in sections on the home front; the North African-Italian, European, and Pacific theatres; stateside military service; and occupation in Germany. Throughout Marcello provides introductions and contextual narrative on World War II as well as annotations for events and military terms. Overseas the citizens of Wrightsville turned into soldiers. A veteran of the Battle of the Bulge, Edward Reisinger, remembered, “Replacements had little chance of surviving. They were sent to the front one day, and the next day they were coming back with mattress covers over them.” Tanker Mervin Haugh recalls, “The next thing we knew, the German tanks attacked us. They knocked out five of our tanks quickly, and they all burned up in flames.”
Date: April 2014
Creator: Marcello, Ronald E.
Object Type: Book
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Cleburne Eagle News (Cleburne, Tex.), Ed. 1 Thursday, May 15, 2014 (open access)

The Cleburne Eagle News (Cleburne, Tex.), Ed. 1 Thursday, May 15, 2014

Weekly newspaper from Cleburne, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.
Date: May 15, 2014
Creator: Oaks, Judy & Oaks, Kelly
Object Type: Newspaper
System: The Portal to Texas History
Birthday of the Klan: The Tulsa Outrage of 1917 (open access)

Birthday of the Klan: The Tulsa Outrage of 1917

Article describes the events that led to the Tulsa Outrage of 1917, including the emergence of the "Knights of Liberty" a vigilante group grown from the Tulsa Council of Defense which persecuted members of labor organizations and whose actions foreshadowed later violence committed by the Ku Klux Klan.
Date: Winter 2019
Creator: Hopkins, Randy
Object Type: Article
System: The Gateway to Oklahoma History
Chronicles of Oklahoma, Volume 91, Number 1, Spring 2013 (open access)

Chronicles of Oklahoma, Volume 91, Number 1, Spring 2013

Quarterly publication containing articles, book reviews, photographs, illustrations, and other works documenting Oklahoma history and preservation.
Date: Spring 2013
Creator: Oklahoma Historical Society
Object Type: Journal/Magazine/Newsletter
System: The Gateway to Oklahoma History
The Albany News (Albany, Tex.), Vol. 136, No. 4, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 16, 2011 (open access)

The Albany News (Albany, Tex.), Vol. 136, No. 4, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 16, 2011

Weekly newspaper from Albany, Texas that includes local, county, and state news along with extensive advertising.
Date: June 16, 2011
Creator: Lucas, Melinda L.
Object Type: Newspaper
System: The Portal to Texas History
Vernon's Civil Statutes (open access)

Vernon's Civil Statutes

Text of Texas's code of Vernon Civil Statutes.
Date: December 2, 2014
Creator: Texas. Legislature. Legislative Council.
Object Type: Text
System: The Portal to Texas History