RSS 1.0History Electronic Theses and Dissertations (UMKC)
The items in this collection are the theses and dissertations written by students of the Department of History. Some items may be viewed only by members of the University of Missouri System and/or University of Missouri-Kansas City. Click on one of the browse buttons above for a complete listing of the works.
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Recent Submissions
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Great Expectations: Women's Help Wanted Ads In Kansas City, 1920-1936
(2021)The question of the nature of women’s paid work has been a frequent point of historical inquiry. Using a source previously only tapped quantitatively, this paper seeks to expand our understanding of how women’s employment ... -
Strategic Mourning: America's Journey After the Death of George Washington
(2020)This thesis examines the eulogies delivered after the death of George Washington in 1799, identifying themes in the texts and motivations of the authors. The death of the first president occurred during a series of national ... -
Income Inequality, Household Borrowing, and the Business Cycle
(2020)Over the thirty years preceding 2008, the United States has experienced increasing income inequality while transitioning to a consumption-led economy. This dissertation investigates the foundations of the 2008 recession ... -
Eleanor of Provence: Virago
(2020)Queen Eleanor of Provence, wife to King III and mother to King Edward I lived and reigned in the thirteenth century. Contemporary chroniclers maligned her as both a foreign presence in England and a controlling wife who ... -
A Glittering Hope at the Darkest Time: Refugees and the Western Sanitary Commission During the Civil War
(2020)By 1864, refugees from the South and the Western Border flooded into St. Louis and adjacent towns in unprecedented numbers. This influx of destitute people required aid and relief organizations in Missouri to broaden their ... -
From the King’s Will to the Law of the Land: English Forest Litigation in the Curia Regis Rolls, 1199-1243
(2019)While regulations governing the use of Medieval English land and game previously existed, William I implemented a distinct Anglo-Norman version of forest law after the Norman Conquest in 1066. Forests as a legal term, ... -
Narrative as a Critical Component for Violent Weaker Actor Success
(2020)Conflicts exist within a narrative about a society, a government, and the people’s place within it that they use to make sense of their world. Since 1945, conventionally weaker military actors have had increasing success ... -
Making the Frontier’s Anatomical Engineers: Osteopathy, A. T. Still (1828–1917), his Acolytes and Patients
(2020)This project seeks to understand osteopathy as patients, students, and doctors did during the late nineteenth century. A. T. Still’s osteopathic medical theories proclaimed manual therapeutics to treat disease. Still’s ... -
Whitewashing or amnesia: a study of the construction of race in two Midwestern counties
(2019)This inter-disciplinary dissertation utilizes sociological and historical research methods for a critical comparative analysis of the material culture as reproduced through murals and monuments located in two counties in ... -
The Lieber Codes Effectiveness in Jackson County, Missouri
(2019)This thesis is a case study that examines the problems the US Army encountered in the implementation of the Lieber Code in 1863 Jackson County, Missouri. My arguments are largely based on manuscript sources and microfilmed ... -
The United States of Embarrassment: How Concerns about the World’s View of America Propelled Justice Department Action in Civil Rights
(University of Missouri -- Kansas City, 2019)In the infancy of the Cold War, the Department of Justice submitted a series of amicus curiae briefs to the Supreme Court in support of civil rights for the first time in history. Curiously, these amicus briefs were ... -
O, Beastly Jew!: Allegorical Anti-Judaism in Thirteenth Century English Bestiaries
(University of Missouri -- Kansas City, 2019)This thesis outlines the traditional anti-Judaic allegories found in the medieval bestiary genre, demonstrates the transformations of these allegories within the English scriptoria, and examines how these allegories ... -
Living in Fear: An Analysis of Writings by Elizabeth Tudor, 1544-1565
(University of Missouri -- Kansas City, 2019)The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the writings of Elizabeth Tudor and determine whether she was aware of the instability of her position in her formative years. I analyze how Elizabeth used language to both ... -
La France au bord de l’Amérique (France on the edge of America): Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Twentieth Century
(University of Missouri -- Kansas City, 2019)Historians of Empire have overwhelmingly turned their attention to the study of peoples who, once oppressed by their imperial ruler, have achieved emancipation. Rarely do they examine the peoples who did not demand ... -
Access to Nature, Access to Health: The Government Free Bathhouse at Hot Springs National Park, 1877 to 1922
(University of Missouri -- Kansas City, 2019)Scholars of environmental history have written extensively about the role of federal control of public lands. In the past few decades, others have begun to explore connections between the natural environment and health. ... -
Margaret Roper and Mary Basset: The Influence of Christian Humanism on the Education of Thomas More's Daughter and Granddaughter
(University of Missouri -- Kansas City, 2019)Margaret Roper's schooling reflected the standards of early sixteenth century English humanist views on education, while her daughter Mary Basset's education was a continuation of the pedagogical tradition that Margaret ... -
The Work and the Glory: Historical Fiction and Cultural Narrative in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
(University of Missouri -- Kansas City, 2019)In October 1838, Governor Lilburn Boggs of Missouri sanctioned the extermination of the “Mormon” settlers who had been pouring into the state beginning in 1831. His infamous “Extermination Order” quickly put an end to ... -
Constructing Comanche: Imperialism, Print Culture, and the Creation of the Most Dangerous Indian in Antebellum America
(University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2018)Anglo-American print sources during the antebellum era framed the Comanche as “the most powerful” or “the most dreaded” Indian whom settlers encountered on the frontier. This research examines the pivotal role that ... -
When Cultures Collide: How Primitive Masculinity and Class Conflict Derailed the Patrick J. Hurley Diplomatic Mission to China, 1944-1945
(University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2018)Historians often criticize Patrick J. Hurley for the failure of his diplomatic mission to China in 1944-1945. Instead of acting as an impartial mediator during the negotiations between the Guomindang (GMD) and Chinese ... -
From Pop Culture to Nuclear Debate: The Impact of The Day After in Lawrence and Kansas City
(University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2017)This thesis examines the creation and response in America to the 1983 nuclear disaster film The Day After. Fueled by renewed nuclear buildup of the 1980s Cold War, the release of the movie became a worldwide sensation, ...