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
A Century of Overproduction in American Agriculture (open access)

A Century of Overproduction in American Agriculture

American agriculture in the twentieth century underwent immense transformations. The triumphs in agriculture are emblematic of post-war American progress and expansion but do not accurately depict the evolution of American agriculture throughout an entire century of agricultural depression and economic failure. Some characteristics of this evolution are unprecedented efficiency in terms of output per capita, rapid industrialization and mechanization, the gradual slip of agriculture's portion of GNP, and an exodus of millions of farmers from agriculture leading to fewer and larger farms. The purpose of this thesis is to provide an environmental history and political ecology of overproduction, which has lead to constant surpluses, federal price and subsidy intervention, and environmental concerns about sustainability and food safety. This project explores the political economy of output maximization during these years, roughly from WWI through the present, studying various environmental, economic, and social effects of overproduction and output maximization. The complex eco system of modern agriculture is heavily impacted by the political and economic systems in which it is intrinsically embedded, obfuscating hopes of food and agricultural reforms on many different levels. Overproduction and surplus are central to modern agriculture and to the food that has fueled American bodies for decades. Studying …
Date: August 2014
Creator: Ruffing, Jason L.
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
Life of the Enlisted Soldier on the Western Frontier, 1815-1845 (open access)

Life of the Enlisted Soldier on the Western Frontier, 1815-1845

In contrast to the relatively rapid changes occurring in the modern American army, the period between the end of the War of 1812 and the beginning of the Mexican War offers a definite period for a study of military life when reform came slowly. During the period of study, leaders made few attempts to reform the general structure of the military institution as a social system. On the other hand, many changes can be discerned which improved weaponry and equipment, tactics, supply and administrative procedures, moral guidance, recreational facilities, and pay.
Date: August 1972
Creator: Graham, Stanley Silton, 1927-
System: The UNT Digital Library
History of Kaufman County, Texas (open access)

History of Kaufman County, Texas

This thesis covers a history of Kaufman County, including information about the geography, the historical background, organization and early history, development, military contributions, and more in depth analysis of the largest cities.
Date: August 1950
Creator: Keller, Mabel Covington
System: The UNT Digital Library
Cowboys, “Queers,” and Community: the AIDS Crisis in Houston and Dallas, 1981-1996 (open access)

Cowboys, “Queers,” and Community: the AIDS Crisis in Houston and Dallas, 1981-1996

This thesis examines the response to the AIDS crisis in Houston and Dallas, two cities in Texas with the most established gay communities highest number of AIDS incidences. Devoting particular attention to the struggles of the Texas’ gay men, this work analyzes the roadblocks to equal and compassionate care for AIDS, including access to affordable treatment, medical insurance, and the closure of the nation’s first AIDS hospital. In addition, this thesis describes the ways in which the peculiar nature of AIDS as an illness transformed the public perception of sickness and infection. This work contributes to the growing study of gay and lesbian history by exploring the transformative effects of AIDS on the gay community in Texas, a location often forgotten within the context of the AIDS epidemic.
Date: August 2014
Creator: Bundschuh, Molly Ellen
System: The UNT Digital Library
US-Japan Relations during the Korean War (open access)

US-Japan Relations during the Korean War

During the Korean War, US-Japan relations changed dramatically from the occupation status into one of a security partnership in Asia. When North Korea invaded South Korea, Washington perceived Japan as the ultimate target. Washington immediately intervened in the Korean peninsula to protect the South on behalf of Japanese security. Japanese security was the most important objective of American policy regarding the Korean War, a reality to which historians have not given legitimate attention. While fighting in Korea, Washington decided to conclude an early peace treaty with Japan to initiate Japanese rearmament. The issue of Japanese rearmament was a focal point in the Japanese peace negotiation. Washington pressed Japan to rearm rapidly, but Tokyo stubbornly opposed. Under pressure from Washington, the Japanese government established the National Police Reserve and had to expand its military forces during the war. When the Korean War ceased in July 1953, Japanese armed forces numbered about 180,000 men. The Korean War also brought a fundamental change to Japanese economic and diplomatic relations in Asia. With a trade embargo on China following the unexpected Chinese intervention in Korea, Washington wanted to forbid Sino-Japanese trade completely. In addition, Washington pressed Tokyo to recognize the Nationalist regime in Taiwan …
Date: May 1995
Creator: Kim, Nam G. (Nam Gyun)
System: The UNT Digital Library
An Uneasy Alliance: the Relationship Between Jefferson and Burr: 1791-1807 (open access)

An Uneasy Alliance: the Relationship Between Jefferson and Burr: 1791-1807

Papers, memoirs, diaries, letters and autobiographies from 1791-1807 are studied to determine the relationship between Jefferson and Burr. A limited examination of congressional records for the same period was made. Monographs and biographies of Jefferson, Burr and their contemporaries were studied. This study shows that the relationship between Jefferson and Burr was one of political expediency and that Jefferson's antipathy toward Burr began in 1791 and not as a result of the House presidential election of 1801. The thesis concludes that Jefferson used Burr's political influence in New England to achieve Democratic -Republican control of the federal government and then used the alleged conspiracy between Burr and the Federalists during the House election of 1801 as an excuse to begin Burr's political destruction.
Date: August 1979
Creator: Helms, Dorcas K.
System: The UNT Digital Library
A History of Smith County, Texas (open access)

A History of Smith County, Texas

This paper explores the history of Smith County in Texas. Smith County is located in the pine and post oak belts of Northeastern Texas and is the fourth county southward from the Oklahoma boundary and the third county westward from the Louisiana state line. It covers its topographical features, early Native American life, its Cherokees occupation along with their expulsion, Smith's County's establishment, it's status as a frontier, its ante-bellum period, it's place in the civil war and during reconstruction, industrial revolution, and its conditions during WWI and WWII.
Date: May 1944
Creator: Ward, William R.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Life in the Early Mining Camps of Colorado (open access)

Life in the Early Mining Camps of Colorado

The story of the advancing American frontier has unending interest. Perhaps one of the most colorful and unusual frontier developments was that of the mining frontier in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. During the years following the discovery of gold in 1858 and the early 1880's occurred an almost unprecedented evolution from a primitive pioneer society to complex industrial development.
Date: August 1954
Creator: Smith, Charles O.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Anthropology as Administrative Tool: the Use of Applied Anthropology by the War Relocation Authority (open access)

Anthropology as Administrative Tool: the Use of Applied Anthropology by the War Relocation Authority

Beginning in the 1930's a debate emerged within the American Anthropological Association over applied versus pure research. With a few exceptions the members refused to endorse or support the attempt to introduce applied anthropology as a discipline recognized by the Association. This refusal resulted in the creation of a separate organization, the Society for Applied Anthropology, in 1941. In order to prove the validity of their discipline the members of the Society needed an opportunity. That opportunity appeared with the signing of Executive Order 9066, which authorized the forced removal of Japanese-Americans from the west coast. Members of the Society believed the employment of applied anthropologists by the War Relocation Authority would demonstrate the value of their discipline. When provided with this opportunity, however, applied anthropology failed.
Date: May 1982
Creator: Minor, David
System: The UNT Digital Library

The Forty-fifth Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment: the Washburne Lead Mine Regiment in the Civil War

Access: Use of this item is restricted to the UNT Community
Of the roughly 3,500 volunteer regiments and batteries organized by the Union army during the American Civil War, only a small fraction has been studied in any scholarly depth. Among those not yet examined by historians was one that typified the western armies commanded by the two greatest Federal generals, Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman. The Forty-fifth Illinois Volunteer Infantry was at Fort Donelson and Shiloh with Grant in 1862, with Grant and Sherman during the long Vicksburg campaign of 1862 and 1863, and with Sherman in the Meridian, Atlanta, Savannah, and Carolinas campaigns in the second half of the war. These Illinois men fought in several of the most important engagements in the western theater of the war and, in the spring of 1865, were present when the last important Confederate army in the east surrendered. The Forty-fifth was also well connected in western politics. Its unofficial name was the “Washburne Lead Mine Regiment,” in honor of U.S Representative Elihu B. Washburne, who used his contacts and influences to arm the regiment with the best weapons and equipment available early in the war. (The Lead Mine designation referred to the mining industry in northern Illinois.) In addition, …
Date: December 2015
Creator: Mack, Thomas B., 1965-
System: The UNT Digital Library
Beyond the Merchants of Death: the Senate Munitions Inquiry of the 1930s and its Role in Twentieth-Century American History (open access)

Beyond the Merchants of Death: the Senate Munitions Inquiry of the 1930s and its Role in Twentieth-Century American History

The Senate Munitions Committee of 1934-1936, chaired by Gerald Nye of North Dakota, provided the first critical examination of America's modern military establishment. The committee approached its task guided by the optimism of the progressive Social Gospel and the idealism of earlier times, but in the middle of the munitions inquiry the nation turned to new values represented in Reinhold Niebuhr's realism and Franklin D. Roosevelt's Second New Deal. By 1936, the committee found its views out of place in a nation pursuing a new course and in a world threatening to break out in war. Realist historians writing in the cold war period (1945-1990) closely linked the munitions inquiry to isolationism and created a one-dimensional history in which the committee chased evil "merchants of death." The only book-length study of the munitions investigation, John Wiltz's In Search of Peace, published in 1963, provided a realist interpretation. The munitions inquiry went beyond the merchants of death in its analysis of the post-World War I American military establishment. A better understanding emerges when the investigation is considered not only within an isolationist framework, but also as part of the intellectual, cultural, and political history of the interwar years. In particular, Franklin …
Date: May 1996
Creator: Coulter, Matthew Ware
System: The UNT Digital Library
Saving Society Through Politics: the Ku Klux Klan in Dallas, Texas in the 1920s (open access)

Saving Society Through Politics: the Ku Klux Klan in Dallas, Texas in the 1920s

This study analyzes the rise of the 1920s Ku Klux Klan in Dallas, Texas, in the context of the national Klan. It looks at the circumstances and people behind the revival of the Klan in 1915. It chronicles the aggressive marketing program that brought the Klan to Dallas and shows how the Dallas Klavern then changed the course of the national Klan with its emphasis on politics. Specifically, this was done through the person of Hiram Wesley Evans, Dallas dentist and aspiring intellectual, who engineered a coup and took over the national Klan operations in 1922. Evans, as did Dallas's local Klavern number 66, emphasized a strong anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic ideology to recruit, motivate, and justify the existence of the Ku Klux Klan. The study finds that, on the local scene, the Dallas Klavern's leadership was composed of middle and upper-middle class businessmen. Under their leadership, the Klan engaged in a variety of fraternal and vigilante activities. Most remarkable, however, were its successful political efforts. Between 1922 and 1924, the Klan overthrew the old political hierarchy and controlled city and county politics to such a degree that only the Dallas school board escaped the Invisible Empire's domination. Klavern 66 also wielded …
Date: December 1997
Creator: Morris, Mark N. (Mark Noland)
System: The UNT Digital Library
Service Honest and Faithful: The Thirty-Third Volunteer Infantry Regiment in the Philippine War, 1899-1901 (open access)

Service Honest and Faithful: The Thirty-Third Volunteer Infantry Regiment in the Philippine War, 1899-1901

This manuscript is a study of the Thirty-Third Infantry, United States Volunteers, a regiment that was recruited in Texas, the South, and the Midwest and was trained by officers experienced from the Indian Wars and the Spanish-American War. This regiment served as a front-line infantry unit and then as a constabulary force during the Philippine War from 1899 until 1901. While famous in the United States as a highly effective infantry regiment during the Philippine War, the unit's fame and the lessons that it offered American war planners faded in time and were overlooked in favor of conventional fighting. In addition, the experiences of the men of the regiment belie the argument that the Philippine War was a brutal and racist imperial conflict akin to later interventions such as the Vietnam War. An examination of the Thirty-Third Infantry thus provides valuable context into a war not often studied in the United States and serves as a successful example of a counterinsurgency.
Date: December 2017
Creator: Andersen, Jack David
System: The UNT Digital Library