Masters Theses

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Browsing Masters Theses by Department "History"
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    A Forgotten Appalachia: The Graham Farm of Alabama's Paint Rock Valley
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2016-10-26) Eatherly, Jay Bradley ; West, Carroll ; Pruitt, Lisa ; History
    Scholars have often studied Appalachia. To many, Appalachia ends in Tennessee, North Carolina, and perhaps, the northern tip of Georgia. However, the Appalachian range sees its southern most mountains terminate in north Alabama. The Paint Rock Valley, which sits within the larger Tennessee River Valley, is home to a small community of Appalachian farmers, of which many have deep familial roots. The physical landscape is beautiful but can be harsh, which dictates the type of farming allowed within the region. Despite the difficulties, families have been adopting and practicing progressive farming techniques for well over a century. The cultural landscape shares similarities with other Appalachian regions while maintaining its own unique differences.
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    A Peculiar Beat: St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Decatur, Illinois: A Microcosm of Traditioned Innovation and Adaptive Change in American Protestantism
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2017-04-05) Browning, Robert Michael ; Polk, Andrew ; McCusker, Kristine ; History
    ABSTRACT
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    A Queer Past: The Emergence of LGBT+ Student Organizations in Middle Tennessee
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2020) Odom, Quinlan Day ; Norkunas, Martha ; Holloway, Pippa ; History
    In 1979, Middle Tennessee saw the formation of the Student Coalition for Gay Rights (SCGR) at Austin Peay State University (APSU). The Student Coalition for Gay Rights became the first LGBT+ student organization to receive official recognition at a public institution in Tennessee. Almost ten years later, MT Lambda emerged at Middle Tennessee State University. In my thesis, I look at the history of both organizations and examine the processes they went through to enact change on their campuses. I rely on student newspapers, university documents, and legal records to better understand how these two organizations formed, the arguments used to invalidate their existence, and the ways the SCGR and MT Lambda pushed back. Both organizations were fighting for visibility within their own communities, much like LGBT+ student organizations across the United States.
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    ALABAMA CONFEDERATE BATTLE FLAGS: HISTORY, PRESERVATION, AND INTERPRETATION
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2018) Hutson, Stanley Allen ; History
    This thesis focuses on the preservation and interpretation of Alabama Confederate battle flags, mainly those at the Alabama Department of Archives and History. I study the complex history of Confederate flags, along with the now almost singularly known ‘Rebel flag’, in order to better understand modern day preservation and interpretation attempts both at the ADAH and other historic venues across the United States. This thesis explores the society that existed before the Civil War in the southern United States and how that unique culture was eventually tangibly embodied within those flags. I also research the wartime use of Confederate flags to understand what they meant in the context of those times and how they were used as utilitarian military objects in combat, but took on greater meaning and developed in to a source of pride for the men who fought under them. I then explore the post war history of the flags, from their repatriation to archival repositories across the South, to their use by the KKK, and their place in Southern culture. Finally, I briefly explore contemporary issues concerning the flags and how those factors influence their preservation and interpretation. Lastly, I discuss the latest trends at the ADAH concerning the preservation and interpretation of Alabama Confederate flags.
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    An African American Oral History Narrative: Labor, Race, Class, and Gender in a Coal Mining Community
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2016-03-18) Whitley, Lindsey Robinette ; Norkunas, Martha ; Holloway, Pippa ; Beeby, James ; Eller, Jackie ; History
    ABSTRACT
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    Battles on the Homefront: Battlefield Reclamation and Interpretive Challenges at Civil War Historic Sites
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2013-03-29) Finch, Rachael ; West, Carroll ; Van Zelm, Antoinette ; History
    This thesis examines the twenty-first-century push for battlefield reclamation in the context of the broader historic preservation movement, discusses new avenues for present and future battlefield reclamation activities, and reviews decision processes and strategies with the central focus placed on interpretive issues at Civil War historic sites. Public and private partnerships, formed between historical and heritage organizations, allow cities and state entities to determine the issues of urban encroachment, funding, interpretation and the scope of the landscape to be preserved. These challenges for the twenty-first century battlefield reclamation may be solved through strong, viable partnerships that serve as the catalyst for local preservation efforts to continue.
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    Behind the Scenes: Corporations, the Moviegoing Experience, and the Preservation of Tennessee's Small-Town Theaters
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2014-01-13) Bennett, Cassandra ; West, Carroll ; Myers-Shirk, Susan ; History
    Historical scholarship about twentieth century movies and America is rich but narrow. Scholars have looked at urban movie palaces at length but neglected small-town theaters, except for those "new cinema history" scholars who have looked some to the moviegoing experience in the United States. The Crescent Amusement Company's network of 132 mostly small-town southern theaters provides a valuable case study to help remedy these scholarly gaps. Centered in Tennessee, the regional chain monopolized small-town exhibition sites. About two-thirds of the chain's theaters were located in towns with fewer than 10,000 people; these numbers mirror national trends. By 1930, Crescent's network was the largest unaffiliated chain in the nation. Therefore, Crescent serves as a microcosm of the national film and exhibition industry. Within the regional chain, the Park Theatre, in McKenzie, Tennessee, provides a more focused study of mid-twentieth century small-town theaters. An examination of this theater yields insights into the industry, the moviegoing experience, and the promise of historic preservation today. By examining the Crescent network's history alongside the critical preservation issues presented by small-town theaters, this study illuminates the role these buildings played and can still play in the economic and social wellbeing of their towns.
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    THE BERLIN MOMENT IN AN AGE OF PERIL: AMERICAN PRESS COVERAGE OF THE 1958 BERLIN CRISIS
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2015-04-09) Curtis, Shannon Elizabeth ; Baran, Emily ; McCusker, Kristine ; History
    U.S. press coverage of the 1958 Berlin Crisis through Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's 1959 visit to the United States reveals the extent to which American newsprint reinforced President Eisenhower's image as he changed his approach to foreign policy. The press helped Eisenhower maintain his reputation of strength and the support of the American public as he abandoned his hardliner platform in favor of peaceful negotiations with the Soviet Union. The structure and language used by journalists and editors involved in Eisenhower's covert propaganda initiative, Operation Candor, placed Americans and Berliners in solidarity and reinforced the implications of a military conflict over Berlin. Moreover, American newsprint laid the groundwork for resolution of the crisis and relief of tension through diplomatic rather than military action. Shifting the tone from aggressive rollback to strength through peace, the media helped Eisenhower transform his foreign policy while maintaining his steadfast reputation. Likewise, American newsprint alternated its depiction of Khrushchev between a belligerent boogey-man and a bluffing buffoon, fostering fear at times and mockery at others. Rather than characterize it as a sign of weakness or submission, the media reported favorably on Eisenhower's invitation to Khrushchev to visit the United States and to talk informally about the German question. The result was a propagandistic picture of Eisenhower as both a cold warrior and a brilliant strategist for peace who called the bluff of the Soviet leader.
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    Braided Channels: Negotiations Spaces Within the New Deal Landscape of Fort Peck Reservation Montana, 1933-1941
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2018) Teal, Sherry ; History
    Between 1933 and 1941, there was no place an indigenous person living on Fort Peck Reservation, Montana could turn and not see symbols of federal government control carved into the landscape through the execution of an engineer’s schematic. While the Assiniboine, Sioux, and Chippewa navigated the complexity of New Deal social programs’ effects upon their society, hundreds of white government workers from various agencies amassed on the reservation, building dams, reservoirs, wells, and irrigation works upon the traditional cultural landscape. Within the context of the federal assimilation programs targeting Native peoples in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, control of natural resources is a seldom discussed component in the narrative. This thesis examines the connections between end of allotment, federal water projects, and the ways the Native peoples of Fort Peck persisted through the changes to their traditional cultural landscape.
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    Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary: A Historic Landscape of Incarceration
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2018) Gibson, Kelli ; History
    This thesis explores the history of Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary and its role in shaping the cultural and physical landscapes of Morgan County, Tennessee. It begins with the historic prison's origins and traces its development into a twentieth century state penitentiary. Considering the impact of both historic and contemporary practices of incarceration on the region, the thesis argues that Morgan County's history of imprisonment had a profound and persisting impact on local identity. The thesis then considers the adaptive reuse of former prisons, using the current tourism redevelopment of Brushy Mountain as a case study highlighting the ways in which imprisonment continues to shape the region's legacy.
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    Built for the Living: African American Funeral Homes on the Tennessee Landscape
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2015-08-19) Miller, Brad Reed ; West, Carroll ; McCusker, Kristine ; History
    African American funeral homes are an understudied part of the historic built environment that provide a unique window into the African American experience from Reconstruction to the present. The extant funeral homes of Tennessee today emerged on the landscape following World War One, but stem from a longer history of professionalization in the funeral business starting in the 1880s. African American funeral homes were expressions of entrepreneurial spirit and cultural responsibility forged in the midst of Jim Crow segregation to serve communities in their toughest times of loss.
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    Can You Hear Me?: Sound-Capturing Technology and the Problem of Obsolescence
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2013-10-29) Adkins, Heather Michelle ; Kolar, Kelly ; Hoffschwelle, Mary ; History
    This thesis examines technological obsolescence in archival record-keeping. In part a material culture study of the Gray Audograph, a dictation machine popular from the 1940s to its discontinuation in the 1970s, and in part a case study of Tennessee's legislative recording program, the thesis explores the complex relationship archives have with technology. It investigates the inevitable truth that technology will become obsolete, resulting in dire repercussions in record-keeping institutions. As such, the thesis is also a discussion of record migration and other tactics invoked by record-keepers to permanently sustain audio formats, and ultimately questions whether permanence, sustainability, and stability are achievable.
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    “CASTLES MADE OF SAND”: MUSICIANS WITH COMPLEX RACIAL IDENTIFICATIONS IN MID-TWENTIETH CENTURY AMERICAN SOCIETY
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2018) Schaefer, Samuel Frederic Heutte ; History
    In the mid-twentieth century, musicians with complex racial identification due to family backgrounds of multiple ethnicities and apparent racial ambiguity did not fit neatly into the existing racial power structure. As time progressed, the rising power of social movements, especially the Civil Rights and Black Power movements as well as an entertainment market of increasing complexity and reach, gave these musicians increased opportunities to wield their complexity as a tool for more expansive artistic expression and social critique. They also struggled, however, with the pressures that came with the exoticization and commodification of their personas. How these musicians dealt with these forces is suggestive about transformations in the racial order and entertainment market of the United States.
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    Changed By Time: The Olive Hill Community In Tennessee
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2013-03-26) Schumann, Keith Patrick ; West, Carroll ; Hoffschwelle, Mary ; History
    The following work evaluates the impact that state and federally funded highway projects have had, and are continuing to have, on the small rural community of Olive Hill in West Tennessee. Located in Hardin County, Olive Hill's history spans almost two centuries from 1817 to the present and the changes in the community during that period are inextricably linked to the transportation corridor that crosses through it. The history of Olive Hill is connected to each stage of transportation development in the rural South from dirt roads built for horse and wagon to four-lane divided highways built for modern automobiles. During each phase of transportation improvement Olive Hill was affected in both positive and negative ways. However, improvements in modern transportation have been the most detrimental to the community and a current highway project will destroy the community altogether. To preserve this history, the purpose of this thesis is to document the community and place those transportation developments in a historical context.
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    Changing Interpretations: The Homes of Tennessee's Presidents and the Issue of Slavery
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2013-10-25) Baud, Lauren ; Martin, Christopher ; Norkunas, Martha ; History
    Historic sites in the Southeast region of the United States have long struggled with slavery, a topic that is often ignored or marginalized in site interpretation. At a time when more and more sites are looking toward long-term sustainability and building audiences, this issue is pertinent. This thesis discusses how Tennessee's three presidential sites handled the issue of slavery in the past, how they handle it currently, and how it could be improved. All three either have at one point struggled or continue to struggle with the issue of slavery, like so many other historic house museums in the Southeast. It also details the importance of the inclusion of this story in site interpretation at the three homes in question as evidenced by the opinions of visitors to the sites and the opinions of historians who have studied these three sites and other eighteenth and nineteenth century presidential sites.
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    Coats of Many Colors: The Colonial Revival and the Pursuit of Accuracy through Architectural Finishes
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2018) Hayes, Annabeth ; History
    Since the mid-twentieth century, historians have studied the Colonial Revival, often emphasizing its origins in the nineteenth century, influential figures like Wallace Nutting and Fiske Kimball, and the style’s lasting popularity and culture influence in the United States. Colonial Williamsburg has been a popular focus for scholars of the Colonial Revival because its restoration of eighteenth century buildings and its impact on architecture and middle-class culture. Although the Colonial Revival remains a well-researched discipline, scholars have yet to fully explore the significance of the architectural finishes of Williamsburg and their multiple incarnations since the first work done by the Perry, Shaw, and Hepburn architectural firm and designer Susan Higginson Nash. What is a historically correct architectural finish has fluctuated from the nineteenth century to the twenty-first century, particularly as white middle class Americans reimagined early American history to fit their romanticized ancestry. This fluctuation is reflected in the changing interpretations of historic interiors like the Thomas Everard House and Wetherburn’s Tavern at Colonial Williamsburg.
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    Cold Spring Farm: A Place Over Time
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2012-11-30) Bandel, Jessica ; West, Carroll ; Holloway, Pippa ; History
    The history of Cold Spring Farm in Sumner County, Tennessee, is a case study of how public historians must decode the layers of history within a place to understand its significance. The farm's 600 acres has three significant layers of history all anchored by two natural features: Cold and Pied Springs. Human activity at the springs is traced through the material record to the Paleo-Indian Period, roughly 13,000 years ago. Native American habitation and hunting in the area around the springs continued nearly uninterrupted until the end of the prehistoric age (1,700 AD). The farm's second period of significance is the Civil War. Six thousand Confederate soldiers used the springs from June to October 1861 when Confederate command transformed the farm into a camp of instruction. Finally, Cold Spring Farm's landscape reflects 150 years of agricultural history in Middle Tennessee, and many of the buildings and structures related to this aspect of the farm's history remain to document this layer of history.
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    CONSTRUCTING TRADITIONS: ARCHITECTURE, MATERIAL CULTURE, AND THE HIGHER EDUCATION EXPERIENCE AT SPELMAN COLLEGE, 1850 - 1925
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2019) Momon, Tiffany Nicole ; West, Carroll V. ; Sikes, Kathryn ; Woods, Louis ; de Gregory, Crystal ; History
    ABSTRACT When the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary, later known as Spelman College, opened its doors on April 11, 1881, in the basement of Friendship Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, the objects that made up the materiality of the seminary consisted of two Bibles, two notebooks, and two pencils. By 1886 with the opening of the seminary’s landmark Rockefeller Hall, the materiality of Spelman had grown to six times its original size, and that growth led to the donation and inclusion of objects that reflected the beliefs of Spelman’s founders, Sophia Packard and Harriet Giles, and its primary benefactor John D. Rockefeller. With the passage of time, those objects continued to not only reflect the seminary’s mission and goals, but they also began to reflect paternalism, the tenets of segregation, and the promises of the New South. The outlines of Spelman’s institutional history are known. This study uses that scholarship as a foundation for a different query: how three characteristics of campus development (material, architectural, and educational) created and contributed to a distinct culture of refined African American womanhood on the campus of Spelman College. Emphasizing the role of architecture and objects in creating culture, this study considers how that culture manifested itself through the behavior of the college’s administrators and the ultimate submission of the students.
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    Countering the Lost Cause: Examining Civil War Commemoration in Murfreesboro, Tennessee
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2020) Kane, Alissa ; Norkunas, Martha ; Fialka, Andrew ; History
    The history of the Civil War has been a point of contention across the nation and in academia, regarding how it is remembered as well as who controlled this memory in years past. This thesis utilizes frameworks from regionalized studies of Civil War commemoration and applies it to a local scope, specifically Murfreesboro, Tennessee. How was Murfreesboro affected by the Civil War, and how might this have informed the way it was remembered on the landscape? How did Confederate groups affect Civil War memory and commemoration in Murfreesboro? Finally, how has the physical manifestation of this memory affected southern communities? The final chapter of this thesis focuses on African American commemoration in Murfreesboro, and how the African American Heritage Society of Rutherford County (AAHSRC) has worked to balance the narrative on the landscape. This thesis also explores a public history project with the AAHSRC which explores representing unmarked African American stories in digital form.
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    A Decisive Level of Command: Brigade Leadership in the Army of the Cumberland, 1861-1864
    (Middle Tennessee State University, 2014-01-08) White Jr., Paul Richard ; Hunt, Robert ; Haas, Louis ; Beeby, James ; History
    The American Civil War is too often studied from the top down, focusing on the lives of army commanders and politicians. More recent scholarship has focused on the men in the ranks and their view of the war. Left out in this are the contributions made by mid-level brigade commanders. These men represented the core of the Civil War army's command structure. Brigades were large enough to act on their own and contained enough power and force to determine the outcome of engagements. This thesis focuses on four brigade commanders -