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 …

In 1879 Congress created the Mississippi River Commission (MRC) to develop and coordinate federal flood control policy for the Lower Mississippi River. Through 1927, that Commission clung stubbornly to a "levees-only" policy that was based on the mistaken belief that levees alone could be effective in controlling the flood waters of the Mississippi River. When the levees failed--and they occasionally did--the MRC responded by raising and strengthening the system but refused to adopt a more comprehensive program, one which would include outlets and reservoirs. Finally, a disastrous flood in 1927 forced the abandonment of levees-only and the adoption of a comprehensive plan for the Lower Mississippi River. Predictably, the MRC faced heavy criticism following the failure of its highly-touted levee system in 1927. While certainly the Commission was culpable, there was plenty of fault to go around and a plethora of mitigating circumstances. Developing a plan for achieving adequate flood control along the lower Mississippi River constituted what was probably the most difficult and complex engineering problem ever undertaken by the U. S. Government. Additionally, there were innumerable political and financial constraints that worked to shape MRC policy. This study will endeavor to tell the story of the MRC from …

This study examines the five American Legion battalions of the Canadian Expeditionary Force formed in 1915 specifically to recruit American volunteers for the Canadian overseas contingent of the First World War. This study reviews the organization of Canada's militia and Anglo-American relations before examining the formation of the American Legion, the background of its men, and the diplomatic repercussions it sparked. This study is based largely on material in the Public Archives of Canada including war records and the personal papers of several participants. During its brief existence, the American Legion precipitated constitutional, diplomatic, and political problems. The issues the American Legion raised were mostly solved by America's entry in the war. The episode hastened the maturity of Canada as a nation.

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 …

Castilian law developed during the Reconquest of Spain. Women received certain legal rights to persuade them to move to the villages on the expanding frontier. These legal rights were codified in Las Siete Partidas, the monumental work of Castilian law, compiled in the thirteenth century. Under Queen Isabella, Castilian law became the law of all Spain. As Spain discovered, explored, and colonized the New World, Castilian law spread. The Recopilacidn de Los Leyes de Las Indias complied the laws for all the colonies. Texas, as the last area in North America settled by Spain, retained Castilian law. Case law from the Bexar Archives proves this for the Villa of San Fernando(present-day San Antonio). Castilian laws and customs persisted even on the Texas frontier.

John Hancock was a Texas Unionist. After the Civil War, he became an opponent of the Radical Republicans. He was elected to Congress in 1871 and had some success working on issues important to Texas. As the state was redeemed from Radical Republican rule, Hancock was increasingly attacked for his Unionism. This led to a tough fight for renomination in 1874, and losses in races for the U.S. Senate and renomination in 1876. He was an unsuccessful congressional candidate in 1878, but was elected again in 1882. By then his political influence had waned and he did not seek renomination in 1884. Hancock had the potential to be a major political leader, but lingering resentment to his Unionism hampered his political career.