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Victorian Ideology and British Children's Literature 1830-1914
This dissertation shows the ideas of Victorian England, 1850-1914, as reflected in Victorian children's literature. To establish the validity of studying children's literature as a guide to the Victorian age, it was necessary first to show that children's literature in those years reflected and promoted adult ideals. Sources used include not only works by established authors but also children's periodicals and transient writings like "penny dreadfuls." There are four background chapters: an introduction, a brief social history, a history of publishing for children, and an examination of Victorian children's authors. Six chapters examine Victorian children's literature in relation to specific historical themes: class structure; the social problems of poverty; temperance; morality, manners, religion, and science; patriotism; and natives, slavery, and missionaries in relation to imperialism. Many findings support accepted historical theories. Attitudes on social class revealed definite class separations, mobility, and obligations. Stories on poverty and child labor show Victorian concern, but suggest few solutions other than charity. Literary items on religion and morality reflect a dominance of evangelical values. There was a morality separate from religion, and it was not threatened by the new developing science; indeed, the materials examined reveal how Victorians tried to reconcile the new science …
Date:
December 1984
Creator:
Ackerman, Ann Trugman
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Victorian Ideology and British Children's Literature, 1870-1914
In many nations, children's literature is a propaganda element for society. The structure of society, both real and imagined, and the composition of the immature mind make children's literature, both good and bad, a method by which to shape future citizens. Through studying the literature of a particular period and in one country, the relationship between children's literature and the history of the times and the ideals of the adults of that age is made clearer. Literature for the young is a record of the spirit of the times.
Date:
August 1969
Creator:
Trugman, Ann
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Healing Miracles in Ancient Jewish and Early Christian Literature
Jesus was a healer, but what may not be as obvious is that he started a legacy of healing. He passed on his skills and abilities to his followers at least three times. Though not as frequently, they continued to heal through the Book of Acts. The legacy continued in the Apocryphal Acts and other apocryphal materials spanning the early centuries of the common era. Secondary literature looks at modern scholarship and leans heavily into Rabbinic literature. Up to this point, other English-language works in healing have sorely lacked luster in providing. The exploration of the healing legacy of Jesus shifted to meet the skills and needs of the healers, patients, and communities involved. Further, the healings had a substantive resultant impact on various levels of socioeconomics for the parties, which is explored by reexamining each group type of healings, from lameness and paralytics to possession and resurrection, and more. The hope is that taking a holistic approach to these healings as possible will allow readers a new way of experiencing the early common era and these events that permeated everyone's lives at one time or another.
Date:
May 2023
Creator:
Tompkins, Lora E.
System:
The UNT Digital Library
British and Indian Influences in the Identities and Literature of Mark Tully and Ruskin Bond
With globalization and modernization, increasingly people are influenced by multiple cultures. This paper examines the case of two authors, Mark Tully and Ruskin Bond, who were born in India shortly before India's Independence (1947). Both had British parents, but one considers himself Indian while the other has retained his British identity. The focus of this paper is how and why this difference has occurred and how it has influenced their writing. Both Tully and Bond write short stories about India and Indians, particularly the small towns and villages. Their reasons for writing, however, are very different. Tully writes to achieve social change, while Bond writes because he loves to write.
Date:
August 2003
Creator:
Lakhani, Brenda
System:
The UNT Digital Library
White Creole Women in the British West Indies: From Stereotype to Caricature
Many researchers of gender studies and colonial history ignore the lives of European women in the British West Indies. The scarcity of written information combined with preconceived notions about the character of the women inhabiting the islands make this the "final frontier" in colonial studies on women. Over the long eighteenth century, travel literature by men reduced creole white women to a stereotype that endured in literature and visual representations. The writings of female authors, who also visited the plantation islands, display their opinions on the creole white women through their letters, diaries and journals. Male authors were preoccupied with the sexual morality of the women, whereas the female authors focus on the temperate lifestyles of the local females. The popular perceptions of the creole white women seen in periodicals, literature, and caricatures in Britain seem to follow this trend, taking for their sources the travel histories.
Date:
December 2010
Creator:
Northrop, Chloe Aubra
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Beyond Moses, Circumcision, and Pork: What Romans Knew about Jews and How That Knowledge Shaped Imperial Rule
Previous researchers of Jewish history in the Roman Empire have imperfectly employed Greco-Roman sources to describe Roman perceptions of Jews and Judaism by relying on a handful of Greek and Latin written and visual components without attempting to quantify or comprehensively explore this abundant material. Utilizing both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, this dissertation analyzes the vast array of Greco-Roman written and visual sources about Jews and Judaism from the first century BCE to the end of the third century CE. While qualitative reviews of Greek and Latin texts help eliminate potential inconsistencies in the data, computational tools like text-mining analysis quantify the information into calculable results. The addition of visual source material into the framework helps further refine the quantified textual material. Reviews of this data reveal the general traits imperial leaders within the Roman Empire knew about the geography and history of Judaea, Jewish religious beliefs and cultural practices, and Jewish communities in general. Further reviews of the data note regional and, more importantly, temporal variations connecting them to changes both in imperial rule and Judaism. This process presents a more detailed and coherent conception of Roman knowledge of Jews and Judaism than scholars have previously recognized. In addition …
Date:
May 2023
Creator:
Bocchine, Kristin Ann
System:
The UNT Digital Library
When "The Lie Becomes Truth": Four Historiographic Novels of the Twentieth Century
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Use of this item is restricted to the UNT Community
This dissertation is an exploration of relationships between fiction and history as illuminated by historiographic fiction in general and the historiographic novel in particular. Here the term historiography is employed particularly in several of its many meanings: as the study of the materials and techniques of history, the study of what it means to be a historian, and the study of the philosophy of history. All of these are comprehended in the larger definition of issues pertaining to the writing of history. Four twentieth-century novels are presented and analyzed as historiographic novels. The common element in analysis of all the novels is the examination of historiographic material encoded in narrative, plot, characters, theme, structure or style. Each analysis focuses on one historiographic assumption or problem and brings in perspectives of historians or theorists of history as well as non-novelistic, critical perspectives of the authors themselves. E. M. Forster's Howards End (1910) is analyzed as an imaginative exposé of causality in historical thinking. All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren (1946) is presented as a gloss on Isaiah Berlin's critique of Leo Tolstoy's second epilogue to War and Peace. Several essays by philosopher Eric Voegelin provide the theoretical framework for …
Date:
December 1999
Creator:
Detels, Polly Elizabeth
System:
The UNT Digital Library
The Influence of Pragmatism in the Essays of Randolph Bourne
This study traces the influence of the American philosophy of pragmatism in the writing of the Progressive Era intellectual Randolph Bourne (1886-1918),. In courses with John Dewey at Columbia University and through the books of William James, pragmatism became a major intellectual factor in Bourne's social and cultural criticism. The philosophy remained so to the end of his brief career. From pragmatism, Bourne learned a method of challenging a restrictive status quo. In his essays, Bourne sought harmony between analytical reasoning and the imagination in order to promote self-growth along with the creation of a more humane society. Bourne promoted individualism and the need for transcendent values in modern industrial society.
Date:
May 1993
Creator:
Brown, Byron D. (Byron Delano)
System:
The UNT Digital Library
The Southern Local Colorists and the New South Ideology: a Study in Literary Transition
A school of fiction known as local color emerged following the Civil War. It reached its peak of productivity during the 1880's, and faded at the turn of the century. The purpose of this study is to illuminate the Southern authors of this school, giving major emphasis to their genre in relation to their significance for Southern history. The main sources for this study come from the novels and short stories of the authors themselves. Also found valuable to this study were the numerous books, articles and criticisms of the authors by their contemporary critics. The Southern local color school, although it did not produce any major literary figures, contained many bright minor writers. As a group they reflected and shaped much of the thinking of their age. They also provide a connecting link between pre-war romanticism and the realism of the twentieth century.
Date:
May 1975
Creator:
Morris, Linda Kay
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Las Cantigas de Santa Maria: Thirteenth-Century Popular Culture and Acts of Subversion
Across medieval Europe, the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela in Spain traced a lattice web of popular culture. From the lowest peasant to the greatest king and churchmen, the devout walked pathways that created an economy and contributed to a social and political climate of change. Central to this impulse of piety and wanderlust was the veneration of the Virgin Mary. She was, however, not the iconic Mother of the New Testament whose character, actions, and very name are nearly absent from that first-century compilation of texts. As characterized in the words of popular songs and tales, the mariales, she was a robust saint who performed acts of healing that exceeded those miracles of Jesus described in the Bible. Unafraid and authoritative, she confronted demons and provided judgement that reached beyond the understanding and mercy of medieval codes of law. Holding out the promise of protection from physical and spiritual harm, she attracted denizens of admirers who included poets, minstrels, and troubadours like Nigel of Canterbury, John of Garland, Gonzalo de Berceo, and Gautier de Coinci. They popularized her cult across Europe; pilgrims sang their songs and celebrated the new attributes of Mary. This dissertation uses the greatest collection …
Date:
August 2016
Creator:
Coats, Jerry Brian
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Gerhart Hauptmann: Germany throught the Eyes of the Artist
Born in 1862, Gerhart Hauptmann witnessed the creation of the German Empire, the Great War, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, and World War II before his death in 1946. Through his works as Germany's premier playwright, Hauptmann traces and exemplifies Germany's social, cultural, and political history during the late-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries, and comments on the social and political climate of each era. Hauptmann wrote more than forty plays, twenty novels, hundreds of poems, and numerous journal articles that reveal his ideas on politics and society. His ideas are reinforced in the hundreds of unpublished volumes of his diary and his copious letters preserved in the Prussian Staatsbibliothek, Berlin. In the 1960s, Germans celebrated Hauptmann's centenary as authors who had known or admired Hauptmann published biographies that chronicled his life but revealed little of his private thoughts. This dissertation examines Hauptmann's life from his early childhood through his adult life with emphasis on social and political commentaries found in his works, diaries, and letters. Hauptmann told of the social problems alcohol and greed created and used historical events to express his concern about Germany's labor and social conditions. He also used historical events to address the political problems that …
Date:
December 1996
Creator:
Igo, William Scott
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Competing Models of Hegemonic Masculinity in English Civil War Memoirs by Women
This thesis examines the descriptions of Royalist and Parliamentarian masculinity in English Civil War memoirs by women through a close reading of three biographical memoirs written by Margaret Cavendish, duchess of Newcastle; Lady Ann Fanshawe; and Lucy Hutchinson. Descriptions of masculinity are evaluated through the lens of Raewyn Connell's theory of hegemonic masculinity to understand the impact two competing models of masculinity had on the social and political culture of the period. The prevailing Parliamentarian hegemonic masculinity in English Civil War memoirs is traced to its origins before the English Civil War to demonstrate how hegemonic masculinity changes over time. The thesis argues that these memoirs provide evidence of two competing models of Royalist and Parliamentarian masculinities during the Civil War that date back to changes in the Puritan meaning of the phrase “man of merit”, which influenced the development of a Parliamentarian model of masculinity.
Date:
December 2015
Creator:
Du Bon-Atmai, Evelyn
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Dr. Richard Price, the Marquis de Condorcet, and the Political Culture of Friendship in the Late Enlightenment
The eighteenth century saw many innovations in political culture including the rise of the public sphere where political ideas were freely and openly discussed and criticized. The new public sphere arose within the institutions of private life such as the Republic of Letters and salons, so the modes of behavior in private life were important influences on the new political culture of the public sphere. By studying the lives and careers of Richard Price and the Marquis de Condorcet, I examine the role that the private institution of friendship played in the new political culture of the late Enlightenment. During the 1780s, friendship became an important political symbol that represented the enlightened ideals of equality, reciprocity, liberty, and humanitarianism.
Date:
August 2001
Creator:
Kruckeberg, Robert Dale
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Professor Carl A. Helmecke and Nazism: A Case Study of German-American Assimilation
Carl A. Helmecke, like many German Americans marginalized by the anti-Germanism of the First World War and interwar period, believed that democracy had failed him. A professor with a doctoral degree in social philosophy, he regularly wrote newsletter columns declaring that the emphasis on individualism in the United States had allowed antidemocratic forces to corrupt the government, oppress citizens, and politicize schools and institutions for propaganda purposes. Moreover, widespread hunger and unemployment during the Great Depression added to the long list of failures attributable to democracy. What the United States needed, Helmecke thought, was political change, and he believed that the Nazi regime in his homeland, albeit flawed, had much to offer. In 1937, he went on a teaching sabbatical to Nazi Germany to study the Third Reich's education and social programs. When he returned to the United States, he began promoting Nazi ideals about education and labor camps. Although Hitler's 1939 invasion of Poland, followed by the United States entry into World War II, brought his fascist illusions for political change in the United States to an abrupt end, his belief in the correctness of an autocratic system of governance for Germany rather than that of the western democracies …
Date:
December 2022
Creator:
Collins, Steven Morris
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Machiavelli and Myth
This work presented the question: to what extent did each period and its events have on the development of the various schools of thought concerning Niccolo Machiavelli. The age of Reformation in its quest for theological purity gave birth to the myth of the evil Machiavelli. The Enlightenment, a period which sought reason and science, founded the myth of the scientific Machiavelli. The eruption of nationalism in the nineteenth century created Machiavelli, the patriot, and this was quickly followed in the twentieth century, an age of unrest, by the rebirth of all previous interpretations. These schools of thought developed as much from the changing tide of events as from the scholarly research of the writers. One of the reasons for the diversity of the Machiavellian literature was that each writer sought his antecedents on the basis of myth rather than where it might realistically be found. Machiavelli and Machiavellianism were abused and misused because modern man did not know himself. He viewed his origin incorrectly and thus could rest on no one explanation for himself or -Machiavelli. Machiavellianism developed from a collection of myths, each started in an attempt to explain the unexplainable, man. Not Machiavelli's politics, but what man …
Date:
December 1975
Creator:
Hunt, Melanie
System:
The UNT Digital Library
The Politics of Expansion: Texas as an Issue in National Politics, 1819-1845
The American movement to acquire the region known as Texas has "been the subject of countless monographs and journal articles. Although the literature on the Texas movement is voluminous, no historian has produced an interpretive synthesis based on that literature and the extant documentary sources. This work is intended "to fill that void "by offering speculative analysis as well as a chronological narrative on the total movement. The scope of this work is comprehensive. It traces the American government's handling of the Texas issue from 1819—-the year President James Monroe agreed to drop the American claim to Texas in the Adams-Onis treaty—through 1845—the year President James K. Polk signed a congressional resolution granting Texas statehood. Throughout these years the countervailing political forces of antebellum America had more influence on the government's Texas position than did diplomatic considerations. Consequently, the theme of this dissertation is that the American movement to acquire Texas was primarily a political movement. Indeed, the Texas Republic became an American state only when the annexation issue became inextricably linked with the party trammels and political philosophies of Jacksonian America.
Date:
May 1979
Creator:
Saxon, Gerald D.
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Weapons of Mass Deception: Opacity and the Israeli Nuclear Program
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Use of this item is restricted to the UNT Community
Access to nuclear technology and growing concern over the spread of nuclear weapons triggered an international debate in the 1960s that led to the creation of the Nonproliferation Treaty. Ratified in 1970, NPT was designed to prevent the horizontal spread of nuclear weapons and limit destructive uses of nuclear energy. At the same time, it also normalized the arsenals of existing nuclear states and encouraged exchanges of nuclear information, technology, and materials for peaceful purposes. Nonproliferation policy relies on a theory of the development process that identifies a nuclear frontier to locate evidence of nuclear capabilities. Absent from the proliferation model, however, are cases of covert nuclear weapons programs. For almost 50 years, it has been generally accepted that Israel is a nuclear weapon state, yet Israeli officials have never confirmed nor denied the possession of nuclear weapons. Israel has not signed NPT and has not appeared to conduct a nuclear test, in effect absolving the nuclear program's main reactor from international inspections. Uncertainty surrounding the Israeli program stems from a tradition of deliberate secrecy and deception that constitutes a national policy of opacity. This study argues that opacity has armed Israel with the privilege of nuclear immunity, exempting its …
Date:
August 2019
Creator:
Beattie, Kathleen E
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Goethe and the Classical Ideal
This thesis was written to examine Goethe's efforts to emulate the Greeks and write in their spirit. Works most helpful in the study were Humphry Trevelyan's Goethe and the Greeks, Kenry Hatfield's Aesthetic Paganism in German Literature, Eliza Butler's The Tyranny of Greece over Germany, and the works of Goethe which show his relationship with the Greeks.
Date:
May 1973
Creator:
Eakin, Charles
System:
The UNT Digital Library
California-ko Ostatuak: a History of California's Basque Hotels
The history of California's Basque boardinghouses, or ostatuak, is the subject of this dissertation. To date, scholarly literature on ethnic boardinghouses is minimal and even less has been written on the Basque "hotels" of the American West. As a result, conclusions in this study rely upon interviews, census records, local directories, early maps, and newspapers. The first Basque boardinghouses in the United States appeared in California in the decade following the gold rush and tended to be outposts along travel routes used by Basque miners and sheepmen. As more Basques migrated to the United States, clusters of ostatuak sprang up in communities where Basque colonies had formed, particularly in Los Angeles and San Francisco during the late nineteenth century. In the years between 1890 and 1940, the ostatuak reached their zenith as Basques spread throughout the state and took their boardinghouses with them. This study outlines the earliest appearances of the Basque ostatuak, charts their expansion, and describes their present state of demise. The role of the ostatuak within Basque-American culture and a description of how they operated is another important aspect of this dissertation. Information from interviews supports the claim that the ostatua was the most important social institution …
Date:
May 1988
Creator:
Echeverría, Jerónima, 1946-
System:
The UNT Digital Library
The Multigenerational Development of Oklahoma City's African American Community as an Urban Ethnic Enclave
This dissertation examines the history and importance of Oklahoma City's Black Ethnic Enclave. It focuses on how this community developed over generations and the role of its leaders in shaping its identity, despite facing segregation. The settlement in this region began in 1889 when unassigned lands in central Indian Territory were opened for homesteaders by the US government. As a result, Oklahoma City became one of the major towns and eventually the state's capital. Most historical accounts primarily focus on the viewpoint of the white founders of the city, ignoring the experiences of minority residents and the urban aspects of the city. This study takes an interdisciplinary approach, combining historical analysis, urban studies, and sociocultural perspectives. It aims to understand the complex relationship between racial dynamics, urban development, and identity formation. By thoroughly examining primary and secondary sources like archival records, oral histories, and scholarly literature, the research uncovers the struggles, achievements, and cultural contributions of the community builders who overcame systemic barriers to create a thriving enclave within Oklahoma City. By highlighting their stories, this research enriches our understanding of the city's history and the diverse urban experiences it encompasses.
Date:
July 2023
Creator:
Ritt-Coulter, Edith Mae
System:
The UNT Digital Library
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
Medicine in Tudor and Stuart England: a Study in Social History
Prior to the sixteenth century very little progress had been made in the science of medicine since the Galenic age in Greece. The advent of the Renaissance with its revival of learning produced far-reaching changes in all branches of knowledge. In medicine and science the impact of the new forces was particularly significant. This thesis shows the development of medicine during this time period.
Date:
August 1954
Creator:
Reinmiller, Elinor C.
System:
The UNT Digital Library
The Concept of Purgatory in England
It is not the purpose of this dissertation to present a history of Purgatory; rather, it is to show through the history the influence of purgatorial doctrine on the English lay community and the need of that community for this doctrine. Having established the importance this doctrine held for so many in England, with an examination of the chantry institution in England, this study then examines how this doctrine was stripped away from the laity by political and religious reformers during the sixteenth century. Purgatorial belief was adversely affected when chantries were closed in execution of the chantry acts under Henry VIII and Edward VI. These chantries were vital to the laity and not moribund institutions. Purgatorial doctrine greatly influenced the development and concept of the medieval English community. Always seen to be tightly knit, this community had a transgenerational quality, a spiritual and congregational quality, and a quality extending beyond the grave. The Catholic Church was central to this definition of community, distributing apotropaic powers, enhancing the congregational aspects, and brokering the relationship with the dead. The elements of the Roman liturgy were essential to community cohesiveness, as were the material and ritual supports for this liturgy. The need …
Date:
August 2010
Creator:
Machen, Chase E.
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Joseph Wood Krutch's Intellectual Quest
Joseph Wood Krutch, literary critic, biographer, and naturalist, played an important role in twentieth-century American intellectual thought. As a drama critic at The Nation in the 1920's, he was disturbed by his fellow intellectuals' wholehearted acceptance of the verdict of science on modern man. Krutch believed that science lessened the stature of man when it refused to see men as anything but animals. Thus, the modern intellectuals subjected themselves to an attempt by communists and common men to overthrow western culture. The 1930's saw a concerted effort to defend communism by intellectuals, ironically, Krutch believed, at their own peril. Krutch's bitter argument with Marxists eventually forced him to nurture Thoreauvian individualism which culminated in a move to Arizona and a new career as a naturalist. He embraced a pantheistic philosophy. His search for order in a chaotic world made Krutch an interesting figure in American intellectual life.
Date:
December 1980
Creator:
Forst, Eugene R.
System:
The UNT Digital Library