During the first half of the twentieth century Europe, Asia, and the United States faced many political/social changes and challenges amid both ideological wars and revolutions. This research paper works to analyze films from this era in order to convey the somewhat unorthodox, yet nonetheless influential and compelling, relationship between the arts and politics and how...
In the late 18th to mid-19th centuries, hundreds of white settlers were taken captive by Native American groups across the Old Northwest Territory. Reasons for their capture varied from revenge to adoption, however, the treatment they received greatly depended on the captive’s gender. While females were more likely to be kept alive and better-taken care of, males faced a greater...
During the mid to late nineteenth century, psychiatrists increasingly focused on women’s sexual deviance. Nymphomania was a diagnosis that emerged from existing scientific and popular understandings of sex and gender differences, sexual appropriateness, and morality of domestic relationships. Medical journals and popular conceptions of female sexuality are indicators of how this...
This paper covers how the substance and meaning of liberty changed during the ending years of the Gilded Age (1870-1900) through the beginning ages of the Civil Rights Movement (1954-1968). Economic liberty took shape in the cases Allegeyer v. Louisiana (1897) and Lochner v. New York (1905). Civil liberties would take several more years to come into the Supreme Court’s...
There were no haphazard decisions made by the Soviet Union when it came to choosing the first man to be sent to space. Months of training, careful planning, and well-hidden secrets eventually led to the decision of Yuri Gagarin. This led to the mass production of propaganda to spread, from Yuri Gagarin touring around the world to music being written about him, all centered around...
In the United States’ Declaration of Independence it articulates, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Walter Johnson’s book Soul by Soul delves deep into the “Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market.” The...
The Great War of 1914-1918 saw the internment of hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war, captured and maintained by the hand of their enemy. Allegations and accounts of ill-treatment under the enemy’s care abounded during and after the war. Leading up to the Peace Conference of 1919, negotiators chose to account for the suffering of these prisoners in their demands for...
The Nobel Prize. Alfred Nobel created the prize in 1901, and it has grown into one of the most coveted and awards in most fields of scholarly research. Many consider it to be the most prestigious form of recognition someone can receive for their work, often making it the pinnacle of someone’s career.1 The Nobel Prize is awarded annually in Stockholm, Sweden to researchers who...
In 1818, Mary Shelley created the story of Frankenstein. The name that is so familiar to the world today began as an expression of Shelley’s thoughts and her response to the developing world around her. This novel speaks boldly of human right to intellect, appropriate experimental creation, and social acceptance. Two hundred years after its publication Shelley’s novel is still...
When the United States entered the Second World War on December 8, 1941, Purdue University – a land grant university – adapted to serve a nation in need of manpower and resources. All throughout campus, Purdue trained men and women for the war effort, ranging from pilots to firemen, and from officer cadets to future engineers. The curriculum at the school were also revised to...
The American Southwest to this day conjures images of burly pioneers and freedom beyond the bounds of established civilization, a unique spirit that harkens back to the era of the Lone Star Republic of Texas. Not only was the state once its own sovereign nation, it gained independence from Mexico through raising a true civilian army compromised overwhelmingly of the classic...
By Jackie Krogmeier, Published on 09/13/17
Arguments surrounding American Imperialism focus heavily on the 1890s and after, but preceding actions by the United States in the process of continental expansion present an image of imperialism in the first half of the nineteenth century. This paper examines the annexation of Florida, Texas, and the rest of the American Southwest through the lens of Mexican-American relations...
By Jackie Krogmeier, Published on 09/13/17
From King Andrew I to Old Hickory, Andrew Jackson had no shortage of nicknames symbolic of the opposing opinions of the president responsible for the forced removal of all Native peoples from the American South. While on its face the Indian Removal Act of 1830 appears to be little more than a racist executive order purporting large-scale land theft, the Act was also a...
The impact of the natural world on an infamous era of maritime history, the Golden Age of Piracy, is immense, yet often overlooked. Piracy at the time was exacerbated by the dichotomy between rich and poor, where pirates fought for a life without the pressures of European Colonial powers. The New World was ripe for the picking, and pirates used any means possible to increase...
In the early same-sex marriage debates advocates and opponents of marriage equality often relied upon comparing mixed-race marriage jurisprudence and the Loving v Virginia decision in order to conceptualize same-sex marriage cases. Liberal commentators relied upon the analogy between the Loving decision in order to carve out space for the protection of same-sex marriage rights...
In colonial America, there was one resource that settlers were thirsty for and only Native Americans could provide: land. Europeans were interested in gaining possession of Native land via whatever methods would place the fertile soil into their greedy palms the fastest. As a result, they turned to a familiar practice to establish ownership – the written word, more specifically...
This paper examines the work of Paul Cadmus from 1930 to 1948. Over the span of nearly three decades, Cadmus's art evolved from covert depictions of queer culture to an explicit depiction of the politics of queerness in immediate postwar America. Cadmus’s legacy is unique because his art documents the shifting conceptualizations of gender and sexuality in the first half of the...
The American Southwest to this day conjures images of burly pioneers and freedom beyond the bounds of established civilization, a unique spirit that harkens back to the era of the Lone Star Republic of Texas. Not only was the state once its own sovereign nation, it gained independence from Mexico through raising a true civilian army compromised overwhelmingly of the classic...
This paper explores the role of mathematical formalism in physics theories through an analysis of the work of physicists Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell in the field of electromagnetism. After a brief description of the educational backgrounds of each scientist, their views on the nature of physics theory and its relationship to mathematics are contrasted. Faraday sought...
In spite of the hardships of World War I, women volunteered as nurses out of patriotism and because of their desire to fulfill their traditional roles as caregivers. Due to the thousands of women who volunteered as nurses throughout the war, the idea that war was primarily a male experience was challenged. Many women made a conscious effort to support the war, and they pushed for...
Al Jazeera’s coverage of the United States’ wars in the Middle East was controversial and attracted American accusations of propaganda. It is argued in this essay that Al Jazeera reporting was, in fact, more accurate and reliable than American media outlets during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Using the incident of Private Jessica Lynch’s 2003 capture in Iraq, examination of...
