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Title: THE OSI AND THE NAZIS: AMERICA'S STRUGGLE TO EXPEL NAZI WAR CRIMINALS AND THEIR ALLIES DECADES AFTER THE SECOND WORLD WAR.
Creator: Murray, Evan S, Lyons, Amelia, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: This thesis examines the history of the Office of Special Investigations' campaign to identify, denaturalize, and deport Nazis and Nazi collaborators. By analyzing documents from the work of the Office's predecessor, the Special Litigations Unit, in 1977, up to and including the case of George Lindert in 1995, this research aims to provide an understanding of the Office's origins, methods, and motivations. This work was done through the consultation of court records, internal memos, letters,...
Show moreThis thesis examines the history of the Office of Special Investigations' campaign to identify, denaturalize, and deport Nazis and Nazi collaborators. By analyzing documents from the work of the Office's predecessor, the Special Litigations Unit, in 1977, up to and including the case of George Lindert in 1995, this research aims to provide an understanding of the Office's origins, methods, and motivations. This work was done through the consultation of court records, internal memos, letters, an official government report on the Office's activities, other literature written on this topic, and interviews conducted by the author with two former members of the Office of Special Investigations. This paper finds that while the Office did manage to bring numerous persecutors to justice, and greatly contributed to the broader understanding of the inner-workings of the Holocaust, the long delay before the United States undertook these proceedings, the lack of clarity in the law regarding the subject, and the highly political nature of this public effort all resulted in inconsistent and sometimes questionable outcomes. Going forward, proactive investigations and clear legislation could aid in avoiding such difficulties in the future.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: CFH2000552, ucf:45650
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH2000552

Title: FEMALE COLLABORATORS AND RESISTERS IN VICHY FRANCE: INDIVIDUAL MEMORY, COLLECTIVE IMAGE.
Creator: Thurlow, Katherine, Lyons, Amelia, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Women in Vichy and Nazi Occupied France often found themselves facing situations in which their societal gender roles greatly influenced not only the choices that they made but also how their actions were perceived within society. Many women acted as either collaborators, resisters, or both to maintain their livelihood. How they were perceived was based in large part by how they fit into their prescribed social roles, in particular that of the self-sacrificing mother. Women who participated...
Show moreWomen in Vichy and Nazi Occupied France often found themselves facing situations in which their societal gender roles greatly influenced not only the choices that they made but also how their actions were perceived within society. Many women acted as either collaborators, resisters, or both to maintain their livelihood. How they were perceived was based in large part by how they fit into their prescribed social roles, in particular that of the self-sacrificing mother. Women who participated on both sides were often following their social expectations and obligations. Following the decline of Vichy and the end of the Occupation, however, there was an immense shift in perception that determined what a good mother was. During the Vichy regime, collaboration with both the regime was highly encouraged and expected. Thus, women collaborating during the Vichy regime were praised, only to be condemned after the occupation. Women who resisted Vichy and the Nazis were scorned, only to be glorified after. It is clear that women in both of these categories had similar motivations, but a drastic shift in public opinion made these women appear in a different light. There were only slight differences that separated many of the women who were judged based on how they adhered to their female roles within society, whether that society be under Vichy or after its decline, often without considering the difficult situations that women lived in.
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Date Issued: 2013
Identifier: CFH0004482, ucf:45061
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH0004482

Title: LEGITIMIZING THE "REPUBLICAN MONARCH": A REEXAMINATION OF FRENCH FOREIGN POLICY IN THE ATLANTIC ALLIANCE, 1958-1960.
Creator: Fedorka, Drew, Lyons, Amelia, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: This thesis focuses on the role foreign policy played in legitimizing the early French Fifth Republic from 1958 to 1960. I argue that President Charles de Gaulle employed foreign policy in the service of gaining public support for his new government and the new republic. Many historians have argued previously that his foreign policy of grandeur, as it came to be called, was used to recast international politics and France's role in them. My work diverges from these previous interpretations by...
Show moreThis thesis focuses on the role foreign policy played in legitimizing the early French Fifth Republic from 1958 to 1960. I argue that President Charles de Gaulle employed foreign policy in the service of gaining public support for his new government and the new republic. Many historians have argued previously that his foreign policy of grandeur, as it came to be called, was used to recast international politics and France's role in them. My work diverges from these previous interpretations by arguing that Gaullist foreign policy served, in many instances, overarching domestic goals, not French international interests. I see foreign policy as inseparable from the broader domestic ambition to craft a persuasive narrative of renewal and national unity under Gaullist stewardship. In the process, my study puts de Gaulle's foreign policy into the context of his larger aspiration to precipitate constitutional reform and, thereafter, ensure popular support. De Gaulle exploited opportunities to use foreign policy in order to shape public opinion, both domestically and internationally. These efforts, as my research reflects, helped foster public support for the new regime and, by portraying national renewal, further discredited the preceding Fourth Republic.
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Date Issued: 2012
Identifier: CFH0004236, ucf:44906
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH0004236

Title: CIVILIZING THE METROPOLE: THE ROLE OF COLONIAL EXHIBITIONS IN UNIVERSAL AND COLONIAL EXPOSITIONS IN CREATING GREATER FRANCE, 1889-1922.
Creator: Brooks, Michael, Lyons, Amelia, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: During the era of New Imperialism, the French state had the daunting task of convincing the French public of the need to support and to sustain an overseas empire. Stemming from its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War and hoping to regain its erstwhile global position, the French state set out to demonstrate the importance of maintaining an empire. Since the vast majority of the French people were apathetic towards colonial ventures, the French state used the 1889 Parisian Universal Exposition...
Show moreDuring the era of New Imperialism, the French state had the daunting task of convincing the French public of the need to support and to sustain an overseas empire. Stemming from its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War and hoping to regain its erstwhile global position, the French state set out to demonstrate the importance of maintaining an empire. Since the vast majority of the French people were apathetic towards colonial ventures, the French state used the 1889 Parisian Universal Exposition and the 1906 and 1922 Colonial Expositions in Marseille not only to educate the French about the economic benefits of the empire, but to entertain them simultaneously so that they unwittingly began to accept the notion of an interconnected Greater France. Each of these expositions contained a group of colonial exhibits in which indigenous colonial subjects, whom the expositions' organizers handpicked to come to France, displayed their daily routines and interacted with the visiting public. Visitors witnessed the lifestyles of indigenous cultures and took away from the exhibits a greater understanding of those who lived in the colonies. However, the vast majority of the French public who visited the expositions did not experience a shift in their mindset favoring the continuance of a colonial empire until after World War One. Until they could personally see an impact of the colonies onto their daily lives, the French public remained indifferent toward the French state's colonial ventures.
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Date Issued: 2012
Identifier: CFH0004154, ucf:44816
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH0004154

Title: HOLOCAUST DIARIES: BEARING WITNESS TO EXPERIENCE IN POLAND, THE NETHERLANDS, AND FRANCE.
Creator: Oldham, Jessica, Lyons, Amelia, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Most of the Holocaust's victims were never able to tell their stories, and of the millions of victims, only a few hundred were able to write about their experiences. This makes surviving personal testimonies precious in many ways. They provide a rich resource for understanding both individual experience, as well as the ways in which the socio-historical context (i.e. region, gender, and class) greatly influenced each distinctive experience. This study examines six Holocaust diaries, of Jewish...
Show moreMost of the Holocaust's victims were never able to tell their stories, and of the millions of victims, only a few hundred were able to write about their experiences. This makes surviving personal testimonies precious in many ways. They provide a rich resource for understanding both individual experience, as well as the ways in which the socio-historical context (i.e. region, gender, and class) greatly influenced each distinctive experience. This study examines six Holocaust diaries, of Jewish victims, taken from three different parts of occupied Europe: from Poland, Janusz Korczak's Ghetto Diary and Chaim Kaplan's The Scroll of Agony; from Holland, Etty Hillesum's An Interupted Life:the Diaries, 1941-1943 and Letters from Westerbork and Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl; and lastly, from France, Helene Berr's Journal of Helene Berr and Raymond Raoul Lambert's Diary of a Witness, 1940-1943. Through an examination of these six diaries, this project analyzes how the personal experience of individuals who witnessed the period and chronicled its events helps us understand both the nature of the Holocaust experience and the specific local political, social, and economic contexts. This project argues that an examination of these texts, when studied alongside the histories of their specific local contexts, can reveal both what all victims shared, throughout Europe during the period, as well as what was localized- how the different horrors experienced, by the victims, created different versions of the same hell.
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Date Issued: 2011
Identifier: CFH0003849, ucf:44693
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH0003849

Title: VISIONING THE NATION: CLASSICAL IMAGES AS ALLEGORY DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
Creator: Reed, Kristopher, Lyons, Amelia, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: In the latter half of the Eighteenth Century, France experienced a seismic shift in the nature of political culture. The king gave way to the nation at the center of political life as the location of sovereignty transferred to the people. While the French Revolution changed the structure of France's government, it also changed the allegorical representations of the nation. At the Revolution's onset, the monarchy embodied both the state and nation as equated ideas. During the...
Show moreIn the latter half of the Eighteenth Century, France experienced a seismic shift in the nature of political culture. The king gave way to the nation at the center of political life as the location of sovereignty transferred to the people. While the French Revolution changed the structure of France's government, it also changed the allegorical representations of the nation. At the Revolution's onset, the monarchy embodied both the state and nation as equated ideas. During the Revolutionary Decade and through the reign of Napoleon different governments experienced the need to reorient these symbols away from the person of the king to the national community. Following the king's execution, the Committee government invented connections to the ancient past in order to build legitimacy for their rule in addition to extricating the monarchy's symbols from political life. During the rule of Napoleon, he used classical symbols to associate himself with Roman Emperors to embody the nation in his person. Through an examination of the different types of classical symbols that each government illustrates the different ways that attempted to symbolically document this important shift in the location of sovereignty away from the body of the king to the nation.
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Date Issued: 2007
Identifier: CFE0001901, ucf:47496
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0001901

Title: 'A Room of Their Own': Heritage Tourism and the Challenging of Heteropatriarchal Masculinity in Scottish National Narratives.
Creator: O'Neill, Carys, Lyons, Amelia, Beiler, Rosalind, Cheong, Caroline, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: This thesis explores the visibility of women in traditionally masculine Scottish national narratives as evidenced by their physical representation, or lack thereof, in the cultural heritage landscape. Beginning with the 1707 Act of Union between Scotland and England, a moment cemented in history, literature, and popular memory as the beginning of a Scottish rebirth, this thesis traces the evolution of Scottish national identity and the tropes employed for its assertion to paint a clearer...
Show moreThis thesis explores the visibility of women in traditionally masculine Scottish national narratives as evidenced by their physical representation, or lack thereof, in the cultural heritage landscape. Beginning with the 1707 Act of Union between Scotland and England, a moment cemented in history, literature, and popular memory as the beginning of a Scottish rebirth, this thesis traces the evolution of Scottish national identity and the tropes employed for its assertion to paint a clearer picture of the power of strategic selectivity and the effects of sacrifice in the process of community definition. Following the transformation of the rugged Celtic Highlander from his pre-Union relegation as an outer barbarian to his post-Union embrace as the epitome of distinction and the embodiment of anti-English, anti-aristocratic sentiment so crucial to the negotiation of a Scottish place in union and empire, this thesis hones in on notions of gender and peformative identity to form the basis for an analysis of twentieth and twenty-first century national heritage dynamics. An innovative spatial study of monuments and memorials in the Scottish capital city of Edinburgh highlights the gendered inequity of memorialization efforts and the impact of limited female visibility on the storytelling potential of the cityscape. Such a perspective not only adds a distinct visual component but also brings my study full circle by exemplifying contemporary discussions on the role of gender in narrative-setting, the sociocultural relevance of monuments and memorials, and the nature of representation in public spaces.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: CFE0007846, ucf:52811
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007846

Title: Building Unity Through State Narratives: The Evolving British Media Discourse During World War II, 1939-1941.
Creator: Cook, Colin, Lyons, Amelia, Solonari, Vladimir, Larson, Peter, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: The British media discourse evolved during the first two years of World War II, as state narratives and censorship began taking a more prominent role. I trace this shift through an examination of newspapers from three British regions during this period, including London, the Southwest, and the North. My research demonstrates that at the start of the war, the press featured early unity in support of the British war effort, with some regional variation. As the war progressed, old political and...
Show moreThe British media discourse evolved during the first two years of World War II, as state narratives and censorship began taking a more prominent role. I trace this shift through an examination of newspapers from three British regions during this period, including London, the Southwest, and the North. My research demonstrates that at the start of the war, the press featured early unity in support of the British war effort, with some regional variation. As the war progressed, old political and geographical divergences came to the forefront in coverage of events such as Prime Minister Chamberlain's resignation. The government became increasingly concerned about the grim portrayals of the Dunkirk Evacuation in the press, as Britain's wartime situation deteriorated. I argue that as censorship and propaganda increased, newspapers fell into line, adhering to state narratives and uniting behind a circumscribed version of the events that molded a heroic presentation of Dunkirk. Censorship from the government came in various forms, often utilizing softer methods such as the control of information flow and warning publications, which complied in order to appear patriotic and avoid further suppression. My analysis of these papers indicates that this censorship and unity of the press continued during coverage of the Blitz, as the media discourse became more cohesive and supportive of the government's goals.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: CFE0007794, ucf:52334
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007794

Title: Searching for Home at Ch(&)#226;teau de la Guette and Beyond: Social and Spatial Dimensions of Jewish German and Austrian Children's Journey to Flee Nazi Persecution via Children's Homes in France.
Creator: Schneider, Sarah, French, Scot, Walker, Ezekiel, Crepeau, Richard, Lyons, Amelia, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: This study examines the experiences of a group of Jewish German and Austrian children who were sent on the Kindertransport to France in an effort to escape Nazi persecution. Using oral history interviews from the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, written testimonies, personal papers, and archival collections from organizations such as the OEuvre de Secours aux Enfants (OSE), this study analyzes the children's experiences at the Ch(&)#226;teau de la Guette children's home in France...
Show moreThis study examines the experiences of a group of Jewish German and Austrian children who were sent on the Kindertransport to France in an effort to escape Nazi persecution. Using oral history interviews from the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, written testimonies, personal papers, and archival collections from organizations such as the OEuvre de Secours aux Enfants (OSE), this study analyzes the children's experiences at the Ch(&)#226;teau de la Guette children's home in France and their subsequent time at the children's home H(&)#244;tel des Anglais in La Bourboule. This thesis examines the social and spatial dimensions of the children's journey to find home and flee Nazi persecution via France. While research has more extensively covered other children's rescue efforts such as the Kindertransport to Great Britain, this thesis demonstrates that the migrations of children fleeing the Holocaust via France were diverse and often characterized by frequent movement due to the historical context of France during World War II. In conjunction with a digital project, this thesis maps and discusses four paths taken by the La Guette children during the war: life in hiding in France, illegal flight over the border into Switzerland, deportation, and immigration to the United States. This research also examines the impact of children's homes on the pre-war, wartime, and post-war experiences of Jewish refugee children fleeing Nazism. After the La Guette group dispersed, many of the children stayed in contact with one another. Through survivor reunions and other commemorative activities years later, many survivors maintained a connection with their peers, educators, the Rothschild family, and others associated with their time in France and constructed memory of their wartime experiences. Ultimately, the La Guette case shows the long-lasting impact of children's homes on the lives of Jewish refugee children fleeing the Holocaust.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: CFE0007244, ucf:52211
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007244

Title: The Colonial Legacy of Environmental Degradation in Nigeria's Niger River Delta.
Creator: England, Joseph, Walker, Ezekiel, Lyons, Amelia, Sacher, John, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Nigeria's petroleum industry is the lynchpin of its economy. While oil has been the source of immense wealth for the nation, that wealth has come at a cost. Nigeria's main oil-producing region of the Niger River Delta has experienced tremendous environmental degradation as a result of decades of oil exploration and production. Although there have been numerous historical works on Nigeria's oil industry, there have been no in-depth analyses of the historical roots of environmental degradation...
Show moreNigeria's petroleum industry is the lynchpin of its economy. While oil has been the source of immense wealth for the nation, that wealth has come at a cost. Nigeria's main oil-producing region of the Niger River Delta has experienced tremendous environmental degradation as a result of decades of oil exploration and production. Although there have been numerous historical works on Nigeria's oil industry, there have been no in-depth analyses of the historical roots of environmental degradation over the full range of time from the colonial period to the present. This thesis contends that the environmental degradation of Nigeria's oil producing region of the Niger Delta is the direct result of the persistent non-implementation of regulatory policies by post-independence Nigerian governments working in collusion with oil multinationals. Additionally, the environmental neglect of Nigeria's primary oil-producing region is directly traceable back to the time of colonial rule. Vital to this argument is the view that the British colonial state created the economic institutions which promoted Nigerian economic dependency after independence was achieved in 1960. The weakness of Nigeria's post-colonial dependent system is exposed presently through the continued neglect of regulatory policies by successive post-colonial Nigerian governments.
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Date Issued: 2012
Identifier: CFE0004534, ucf:49251
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004534

Title: The Role of Tactical Nuclear Weapons in American China Policy: 1950-1963.
Creator: Poppino, James, Zhang, Hong, Foster, Amy, Lyons, Amelia, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: This study demonstrates that tactical nuclear weapons occupied a central and essential role in US military policy for confronting the Peoples Republic of China between 1950 and 1963. Historians seldom look at tactical nuclear weapons as a separate and distinct component of American foreign policy and generally place these weapons as a subset of a strategic doctrine directed at the Soviet Union. When examined as a separate component of military policy, however, tactical nuclear weapons proved...
Show moreThis study demonstrates that tactical nuclear weapons occupied a central and essential role in US military policy for confronting the Peoples Republic of China between 1950 and 1963. Historians seldom look at tactical nuclear weapons as a separate and distinct component of American foreign policy and generally place these weapons as a subset of a strategic doctrine directed at the Soviet Union. When examined as a separate component of military policy, however, tactical nuclear weapons proved to be indispensable tools for the American leadership to deal with the complex relationship between the United States, the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan). Such weapons allowed each of the three administrations examined in this study (Harry Truman's, Dwight Eisenhower's and John Kennedy's) to commit the United States to defense obligations that would otherwise have been impossible. As these weapons developed from their infancy in the late 1940s through a number of aggressive field deployments in the 1950s, US presidents repeatedly turned to tactical nuclear weapons when considering their military options for confronting China. The role of tactical nuclear weapons strengthened with each passing presidency and with each crisis between China and the United States. From these crises, tactical nuclear weapons evolved from inefficient weapons systems of Korean War policy, to a key element of a defensive military policy to contain China, and, in their final iteration, as an instrument that not only to assured containment, but was also considered as a possible method of depriving China from obtaining its own nuclear weapons.
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Date Issued: 2016
Identifier: CFE0006163, ucf:51118
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006163

Title: By Book and School: The Politics of Educational Reform in France and Algeria during the Early Third Republic.
Creator: Brooks, Michael, Lyons, Amelia, Crepeau, Richard, Larson, Peter, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: During the era of New Imperialism, the newly-formed French Third Republic continued France's civilizing mission both in France and in Algeria. Founded on a series of reforms, republican leaders and educational experts judged primary level education taught in the French language to be the most effective means of uniting a linguistically and culturally diverse population in the metropole. These republican values, based on revolutionary tenet of universality, would help France to sustain a...
Show moreDuring the era of New Imperialism, the newly-formed French Third Republic continued France's civilizing mission both in France and in Algeria. Founded on a series of reforms, republican leaders and educational experts judged primary level education taught in the French language to be the most effective means of uniting a linguistically and culturally diverse population in the metropole. These republican values, based on revolutionary tenet of universality, would help France to sustain a republican regime, would thwart attempts to reestablish monarchical rule, and would teach future French citizens what it meant to be politically active. At the same time, another group of metropolitan republicans set out to reform the educational system in Algeria, the crown jewel of the French empire. These men, using the civilizing mission as their justification, wanted to export the reformed metropolitan curriculum to Algeria in order to inculcate French values into the indigenous populations. The exclusive use of the French language and of metropolitan educational materials, based on assimilationist beliefs, resulted in the devaluation of Algerians' culture, language, and traditions. A third group of leaders and educational experts who had lived in Algeria recognized the peril involved in the direct export of metropolitan education. This third group championed Algerian exceptionalism, arguing that local circumstances must be considered when reforming education in Algeria so that indigenous culture is respected. Their associationalist perspectives predated the metropolitan shift in colonial ideology from assimilation to association.
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Date Issued: 2016
Identifier: CFE0006078, ucf:50942
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006078

Title: Joining the "Big Leagues": Politics, Race, and the Pursuit of NBA Franchises in Miami and Orlando, 1982-1987.
Creator: Hillyer, Garrett, Crepeau, Richard, Lester, Connie, Lyons, Amelia, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: This thesis analyzes the formation of two National Basketball Association (NBA) franchises(-)the Miami Heat and the Orlando Magic(-)and the efforts of groups representing both cities to procure those franchises between 1982 and 1987. Drawing primarily from discourse found in local newspapers, this thesis serves as a case study of the dual nature of sport to both unite and divide communities. While proponents of the NBA in Miami and Orlando preached the social, cultural, and economic benefits...
Show moreThis thesis analyzes the formation of two National Basketball Association (NBA) franchises(-)the Miami Heat and the Orlando Magic(-)and the efforts of groups representing both cities to procure those franchises between 1982 and 1987. Drawing primarily from discourse found in local newspapers, this thesis serves as a case study of the dual nature of sport to both unite and divide communities. While proponents of the NBA in Miami and Orlando preached the social, cultural, and economic benefits of sport, they ignored the ways in which the pursuit of sport divided local governments and perpetuated historic hostility toward African-American residents in each city. Debates over basketball arena funding created deep divisions within and between city, county, and state governments. Arena construction ultimately displaced hundreds of families in the historically African-American neighborhoods of Overtown (Miami) and Parramore (Orlando). Still, prospective NBA franchise owners in each city promised residents that professional sport would galvanize their community, provide national relevance, and spur economic revitalization. Although city and team officials attempted to shape the discourse surrounding their NBA pursuit as wholly unifying, underlying discourse revealed divisions within each city.Chapter one explores the history of arena and sport-related politics in Miami, relays the history of racial prejudice by Miami government toward Overtown African Americans, and analyzes how these two histories influenced the funding and location of the city's eventual NBA arena. Similarly, Chapter two explores the history of arena politics in Orlando, relays the history of racial prejudice from municipal government toward Parramore residents, and analyzes the relation of these two elements to the financing and planning of Orlando's arena. Chapter three analyzes prospective NBA ownership groups in Miami and Orlando, their structural makeup, characteristics, and their efforts to sell season-ticket deposits in hopes of luring the league to their city. Chapter four analyzes the underlying destructive discourse surrounding the arenas and prospective franchises, particularly as it relates prejudicial language toward Overtown and Parramore and vitriolic language between Miami and Orlando.
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Date Issued: 2016
Identifier: CFE0006324, ucf:51554
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006324

Title: Elizabeth Tudor: Her Youth, Education, and the Development of the Legend of the Virgin Queen.
Creator: Santi, Katrina, Larson, Peter, Lyons, Amelia, Crepeau, Richard, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Elizabeth Tudor, the Virgin Queen, has received extensive attention from historians, especially since the advent of gender studies in the last forty years or so. Historical studies, movies, and television shows present Queen Elizabeth I as a remarkable character with legendary skills as a ruler despite her gender and the era in which she ruled. None of these studies delve into Elizabeth's childhood in an attempt to address how her experiences as a child and her education allowed her to...
Show moreElizabeth Tudor, the Virgin Queen, has received extensive attention from historians, especially since the advent of gender studies in the last forty years or so. Historical studies, movies, and television shows present Queen Elizabeth I as a remarkable character with legendary skills as a ruler despite her gender and the era in which she ruled. None of these studies delve into Elizabeth's childhood in an attempt to address how her experiences as a child and her education allowed her to establish her power early on in her reign. By looking at her childhood and education, this study shows that her skill as a ruler and her unique characteristics developed out of a natural scholarly ability as well as a unique schoolroom agenda set by her tutor, Roger Ascham. The primary ability which set her apart was her skill in rhetoric, taught to her by Ascham. Young girls from every social stratum in Early Modern England were expected to remain silent, but Elizabeth was encouraged to speak. Her ability to speak allowed her to project her power and cement her legitimacy from the beginning of her reign. This study first reviews letters written and translations completed by the Princess between the years of 1544 and 1548 to establish the primary focus of her childhood years. The focus then shifts to her education and the influences on it that helped her develop into a skilled speaker despite expectations for her gender. Finally, the study finishes by examining the speeches Elizabeth gave in the first years of her reign, between 1558 and 1572. Through these and other sources this study shows that Elizabeth Tudor's education prepared her for a throne she was never expected to sit upon and allowed her to express her power in ways that were beyond the scope of most female monarchs up to that point in time.
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Date Issued: 2016
Identifier: CFE0006496, ucf:51406
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006496

Title: Lives of Przemysl: War and the Population of a Fortress Town in Galicia, Austrian Poland, 1914 - 1923.
Creator: Stapleton, Kevin, Solonari, Vladimir, Lyons, Amelia, Cassanello, Robert, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: This paper addresses the civilian perspectives of, and reactions to, the social, military and political changes that occurred in Przemysl and Galicia during and immediately after the Great War. The fortress that surrounded Przemysl, located on the San River, was designed to protect the approaches to Krakow and Budapest from the east. The military forces of the Austro-Hungarian, Russian and German Empires crossed Galicia several times during the course of the war, which caused great damage to...
Show moreThis paper addresses the civilian perspectives of, and reactions to, the social, military and political changes that occurred in Przemysl and Galicia during and immediately after the Great War. The fortress that surrounded Przemysl, located on the San River, was designed to protect the approaches to Krakow and Budapest from the east. The military forces of the Austro-Hungarian, Russian and German Empires crossed Galicia several times during the course of the war, which caused great damage to the agricultural base and displaced millions of people. The war spread sanitary diseases throughout the civilian populations and destroyed several hundred towns and settlements.This paper examines these changes through the use of diaries and memoirs of civilians in the town during the Russian sieges and occupation (1914-1915), and the battle between the Russian forces and the Central Powers to regain the fortress in 1915. Bombardments and infantry assault targeted the ring of fortifications that surrounded the town. Military action destroyed the fortifications and inflicted damages to the infrastructure of the town. The more fluid nature of the fighting on the Eastern Front in Galicia caused damages on a larger scale than on the Western Front. Toward the end of the Great War and in the period of independence following the collapse of the imperial system in East Central Europe, a series of nationalistic territorial disputes broke out, primarily among the Poles and Ukrainians (sometimes referred to as Rusyns or Ruthenians), over the undefined eastern borders in the lands of the former empires of Russia, Austro-Hungary and Germany. This period of conflict and instability lasted from the outbreak of war in 1914 to the final delineation of borders in 1923.
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Date Issued: 2016
Identifier: CFE0006184, ucf:51146
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006184

Title: Visions of Race and Gender: Press Coverage of the French Colonial Expositions of 1922 and 1931.
Creator: Morgan, Zachary, Lyons, Amelia, Solonari, Vladimir, Gannon, Barbara, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: During the interwar period, France attempted to reinvigorate interest in the empire amongst the public via elaborate colonial expositions. The colonial expositions of Marseille (1922) and Paris (1931) served as a means to celebrate the empire and to educate the French about the benefits of living within Greater France, an entity that included the metropole and the colonies. This thesis examines how press coverage of both expositions worked alongside these events to counteract anxieties...
Show moreDuring the interwar period, France attempted to reinvigorate interest in the empire amongst the public via elaborate colonial expositions. The colonial expositions of Marseille (1922) and Paris (1931) served as a means to celebrate the empire and to educate the French about the benefits of living within Greater France, an entity that included the metropole and the colonies. This thesis examines how press coverage of both expositions worked alongside these events to counteract anxieties regarding France's economic recovery after the war, continuing world presence, demographic losses, and most importantly the relationship between France and its colonies. It explores how the press attempted to mitigate these fears by creating, reinforcing, and reproducing an economically positive, dynamic, vibrant and ultimately sanitized vision of the colonies. This thesis argues that the press actively supported the goals of the expositions and championed the success of the civilizing mission, and demonstrates the media's role in perpetuating visions of French universalism. Their vision reveals contradictions found within French universalism that helps form a basis for analysis. This study scrutinizes the dominant discourses regarding the colonies during the interwar period and how the press used contemporary concepts of race and gender in their coverage of the expositions. This thesis argues that the press used the figure of the colonial soldier/worker and the erotic and patriarchal relationship between France and its colonies to reinforce colonial hierarchies regarding race and gender. The press attempted to shape the public's view of the empire through reconstructions of the imperial project and its people that idealized France's mission. Only the communist press sought to highlight the ferocity of French colonization.
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Date Issued: 2015
Identifier: CFE0005672, ucf:50177
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005672

Title: Fire in a Distant Heaven: The Boxer Uprising as a Domestic Crisis in the United States.
Creator: Fandino, Daniel, Zhang, Hong, Lyons, Amelia, Kallina, Edmund, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: This thesis examines the Boxer Uprising which took place in China around the turn of the twentieth century as a domestic crisis in the United States and the means through which different factions within America shaped the popular perception of the event. It argues that American and Chinese interest groups successfully managed the crisis by developing a narrative that served to further their own interests. These efforts were geared towards convincing an uncertain American public of the...
Show moreThis thesis examines the Boxer Uprising which took place in China around the turn of the twentieth century as a domestic crisis in the United States and the means through which different factions within America shaped the popular perception of the event. It argues that American and Chinese interest groups successfully managed the crisis by developing a narrative that served to further their own interests. These efforts were geared towards convincing an uncertain American public of the necessity and righteousness of particular ways to respond to the crisis. The primary factor in this narrative was a malleable ideal of civilization centered on American concepts of industry, Christianity, and democracy. This thesis maintains that the print media of the day was the essential element for the distribution of this message, which allowed for an explanation to the crisis, the protection of Chinese citizens within the United States, justification for American actions abroad, and a speedy return to the status quo.
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Date Issued: 2014
Identifier: CFE0005489, ucf:50337
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005489

Title: Reconciling Order and Progress: Auguste Comte, Gustave Le Bon, (&)#201;mile Durkheim, and the Development of Positivism in France, 1820-1914.
Creator: Navarro, Khali, Lyons, Amelia, Walker, Ezekiel, Crepeau, Richard, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: This thesis discusses the philosophy of positivism in nineteenth century France. Based on an empirical vision of society, positivism advocated values of rationality, progress, and secularization. In that way, it stood as one of the defining systems of thought of the modern era. I discuss, however, an undercurrent of anxiety about those same values. Positivism's founder, Auguste Comte, argued that all sciences would become unified and organized under universal principles and empirical...
Show moreThis thesis discusses the philosophy of positivism in nineteenth century France. Based on an empirical vision of society, positivism advocated values of rationality, progress, and secularization. In that way, it stood as one of the defining systems of thought of the modern era. I discuss, however, an undercurrent of anxiety about those same values. Positivism's founder, Auguste Comte, argued that all sciences would become unified and organized under universal principles and empirical standards. He viewed the human mind as becoming more rationalized throughout history. In his later career, however, he argued that rationalism was a destructive force and that a new form of secular religion as necessary to establish morality and order. I argue that this transition from science to religion represents an underlying anxiety of the nineteenth century. Intellectuals from different sides of the political spectrum viewed progress as positive, but also limited. They argued that something beyond science, in the realm of the religious, the metaphysical, or the subjective, was necessary for society. They expressed these concerns through the language of gender. Comte argued that women would be at the center of his religion. They would socialize and moralize men, making them part of a new unified, pacifist and orderly social whole.I also discuss two later intellectuals, social psychologist Gustave Le Bon and pioneering sociologist (&)#201;mile Durkheim. Le Bon represented the fin-de-si(&)#232;cle rejection of positivism. He began with positivist principles, but later argued that humanity was irrational and violent. He viewed the modern masses as a powerful force which threatened to destroy civilization. The other figure, Durkheim, rejected Le Bon's form of nationalist right-wing thought and formed theories of social harmony, altruism, and a solidarity. He sought to reconcile egalitarian republican principles with positivist science. Despite their diverging theories, however, Le Bon and Durkheim employed similar assumptions about modernity and gender. Le Bon argued that European men were superior, and that all other groups shared an undeveloped mentality. Durkheim argued that men were social while women were simpler and mentally limited.Their views, far from establishing an unproblematic hierarchy of gender and race, in fact expressed anxieties about the state of modernity. They identified women, the lower classes, and other societies with values of simplicity, unity, and tradition. They identified the modern, Western male individual with the problems of modern society: excessive rationalization, instability, and secularization. This sense of ambivalence about modernity reveals the central importance of positivism to understanding nineteenth century thought. Positivism sought to reconcile seemingly antithetical principles of order with progress, individualism with social unity, and morality with rationalization. In doing so, it established anxieties about the forces of change. Positivists advocated the most modern of principles, and sought to further the progress of civilization, but also identified those rationalized forces as problems in need of control. Positivism thus established its own undoing, which would come at the beginning of the twentieth century. In that era, intellectuals rejected purely scientific visions of the world in favor of subjective thought. I locate the origins of that rejection at the very foundations of positivist theory.
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Date Issued: 2014
Identifier: CFE0005220, ucf:50644
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005220

Title: The Rwandan Genocide and Western Media: French, British, and American Press Coverage of the Genocide between April and July of 1994.
Creator: Tyrrell, Candice, Walker, Ezekiel, Lyons, Amelia, Crepeau, Richard, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: The Rwandan Genocide occurred between April and July of 1994. Within those four months, approximately a million Tutsi were brutally murdered by the Hutu in an effort to cleanse the country of a Tutsi presence. The genocide was the culmination of decades of unrest between the two groups created from Western influence under colonialism and post-colonial relationships. The international response to the genocide was scarce. While international intervention waned, the international media kept the...
Show moreThe Rwandan Genocide occurred between April and July of 1994. Within those four months, approximately a million Tutsi were brutally murdered by the Hutu in an effort to cleanse the country of a Tutsi presence. The genocide was the culmination of decades of unrest between the two groups created from Western influence under colonialism and post-colonial relationships. The international response to the genocide was scarce. While international intervention waned, the international media kept the genocide relevant in its publications. This thesis examines print media sources from the United States, Britain, and France. This thesis argues that the reporting of the genocide exacerbated larger issues concerning the relationship between the West and Africa. The journalists perpetuated Western superiority over Africa by utilizing racism to preserve colonial ideologies and stereotypes of Africans. In turn, this inherent Western racism complicated the implementation of human rights legislation that would have helped save Tutsi lives. This thesis places the Rwandan genocide, through the reports of Western media, into the larger historiographic context of the Western African dichotomy.
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Date Issued: 2015
Identifier: CFE0005730, ucf:50080
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005730

Title: 'The Tourist Soldier': Veterans Remember the American Occupation of Germany, 1950-1955.
Creator: Vance, Meghan, Lindsay, Anne, Lyons, Amelia, Beiler, Rosalind, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description: Studies of postwar Germany, from 1945-1955, have concentrated on the American influence as a military occupier, the development of German reconstruction and national identity, and memory of this period from the German perspective. Within the memory analyses, firsthand accounts have been analyzed to understand the perspectives of Germans living through the postwar period. Absent from this historiography is an account of American memories and firsthand perspectives of the occupation,...
Show moreStudies of postwar Germany, from 1945-1955, have concentrated on the American influence as a military occupier, the development of German reconstruction and national identity, and memory of this period from the German perspective. Within the memory analyses, firsthand accounts have been analyzed to understand the perspectives of Germans living through the postwar period. Absent from this historiography is an account of American memories and firsthand perspectives of the occupation, particularly during the 1950-1955 period. This thesis employs oral histories of American veterans stationed in postwar Germany, American propaganda and popular cultural mediums during the early 1950s, and modern historiographical trends to provide an understanding of how Americans remember the German postwar decade. American veterans remembered this period, and their encounters with local Germans, as a positive experience. These positive memories were mediated by 1950s Cold War rhetoric and propaganda and were subsequently predicated upon the men's perspective as occupying soldiers. Their recollections align with American popular memory delineating the military occupation as ending in 1949 upon the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany, therefore overshadowing the 1950-1955 period of occupation. The ways in which Americans remember the postwar occupation in Germany, particularly from 1950-1955, inform broader memory and historical narrative trends of this era.
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Date Issued: 2015
Identifier: CFE0005732, ucf:50113
Format: Document (PDF)
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005732

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