Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'History of Defiance County'

1968 was a tumultuous year where Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated, the Democratic National Convention in Chicago had protests, and the election of Richard Nixon shaped the next four years. The mainstream media overshadowed the local interpretation of these events. Mid-sized cities like St. Louis have largely been ignored by the mainstream media and modern scholarship. St. Louis is a complex case because it includes the city, the county, and the greater Metro East region which lies in the neighboring state of Illinois. Unlike other major cities and their suburbs, cities in the St. Louis region consider themselves separate from the city even though there is a clear influence from the city. An examination of St. Clair County, Illinois in the Metro East will show how the complexity goes even deeper. Three cities in St. Clair County, Illinois shared their opinions about the major events in 1968, and their different interpretations of these events leads to a unique window into social and racial sentiments within the county. Each city represents one aspect of St. Clair County life. East St. Louis represents a largely African American industrial suburb of St. Louis, O’Fallon was the predominant white rural farm and mining area of the county, and Belleville represents the blend of a city suburb and the rural country life.

The few previous historians who have done research on this region focused mainly on one city in the Metro East to exemplify the whole, and East St. Louis is used as the focal point of St. Clair County. I will not solely rely on one city to give an overarching concept, but three distinct cities with different economic and population makeups. Through my research on newspaper editorials on a micro level, I demonstrate the larger trend of these sentiments in the Midwest that go largely unnoticed by the larger media in 1968.

In 1954, Southwestern Louisiana Institute (now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette) became the first undergraduate school in the Deep South to desegregate. Its acclaim as the first, however, was promoted only because it lost as a defendant in Clara Dell Constantine et al. v. Southwestern Louisiana Institute et al. What occurred then, and the indignities experienced by African American students during that first decade has never been fully documented. The black experience was figuratively and literally blacked out.

African American students found themselves receiving lower grades in class than their white counterparts. Social events banned them, and school services denied access. To cope with racism, they drew strength by supporting one another, developing a grapevine, establishing their own social network, and most of all, keeping focused on their education. But not everyone was against them. Some whites risked their reputation, and became their brother’s keeper.

The four Pillars of Progress, commemorating the fiftieth anniversaries of SLI’s desegregation and Brown in 2004, stand today as a campus testament to that era. But what remains at odds is whether the desegregation of SLI was “without incident.” That still remains a matter of interpretation and depends on whom is being asked and who answers.

Prior to the Civil War, the lives of free African Americans in Fairfax County, Virginia were both ordinary and extraordinary. Using the land as the underpinning of their existence, they approached life using methods that were common to the general population around them. Fairfax was a place that was undergoing a major transition from a plantation society to a culture dominated by self-reliant people operating small farms. Free African Americans who were able to gain access to land were a part of this process allowing them to discard the mantle of dependency associated with slavery. Nevertheless, as much as ex-slaves and their progeny attempted to live in the mainstream of this rural society, they faced laws and stereotypes that the county's white population did not have to confront. African Americans' ability to overcome race-based obstacles was dependent upon using their labor for their own benefit rather than for the comfort and profit of a former master or white employer.

When free African Americans were able to have access to the labor of their entire family, they were more likely to become self-reliant, but the vestiges of the slave system often stymied independence particularly for free women. Antebellum Fairfax had many families who had both slave and free members and some families who had both white and African American members. These divisions in families more often adversely impacted free African American women who could not rely on the labor of an enslaved husband or the lasting attention of a white male. Moreover, families who remained intact were more likely to be able to care for children and dependent aging members, while free African American females who headed households often saw their progeny subjected to forced apprenticeships in order for the family to survive.

Although the land provided the economic basis for the survival of free African Americans, the county's location along the border with Maryland and the District of Columbia also played a role in the lives of the county's free African American population. Virginia and its neighbors remained slave jurisdictions until the Civil War, but each government wished to stop the expansion of slavery within its borders. Each jurisdiction legislated against movement of new slaves into their territory and attempted to limit the movement of freed slaves into their jurisdictions. Still, in a compact border region restricting such movement was difficult. African Americans used the differences of laws initially to petition for freedom. As they gained access to the court system, free African Americans expanded their use of the judiciary by bringing their grievances before the courts which sided with the African American plaintiffs with surprising regularity. Although freed slaves and their offspring had few citizenship rights, they were able to use movement across borders and the ability to gain a hearing for their grievances to achieve increasing autonomy from their white neighbors.

No one story from the archives of the Fairfax County Courthouse completely defines the experience of free African Americans prior to the Civil War, but collectively they chronicle the lives of people who were an integral part of changing Fairfax County during the period. After freedom, many African Americans left Fairfax either voluntarily or through coercion. For those who stayed, their lives were so inter-connected both socially and economically with their white neighbors that any history of the county cannot ignore their role in the evolution of Fairfax.

This thesis investigates the creation of California’s Free County Library System during the Progressive Era. Previous histories of the topic have conveyed a partial picture of those involved in organizing county libraries, focusing on leaders at the state level, such as James L. Gillis and Harriet Eddy. Using Santa Cruz County as a case study, this thesis examines the overall process of organizing a county library system at the local level. Primary source materials consulted include correspondence and publications from the California State Library, newspaper accounts from the time period, California Library Association meeting minutes, News Notes of California Libraries , and local records from Santa Cruz County. This study discusses the Progressive Era’s influence on California county library organizing in general and Santa Cruz County libraries in particular. It also considers how the Progressive Movement affected the rising power of women’s groups and their invaluable work organizing public libraries. In addition, the thesis explores the early development of reading rooms and libraries in Santa Cruz County and the creation of the area’s first county library system. The thesis pays particular attention to the early history of the Watsonville Public Library and its adamant stance against joining the Santa Cruz County library system. Based on comparative histories of the two library systems, the thesis concludes with an analysis of the positive and negative characteristics of a countywide library system versus an independent city library.

Between 1870 and 1980, leaders in Winchester and Frederick County, Virginia, successfully encouraged industry, diversified agriculture, improved local institutions and infrastructure, and promoted the community and its products. In 1870, the community was recovering from the devastation caused by the Civil War. In succeeding years, Winchester and Frederick County did not decline as the United States transitioned from an agricultural to an industrial economy. Unlike many other small American communities, Winchester and Frederick County achieved economic stability as farmers diversified crop production and business leaders organized to attract industry and encourage commerce and tourism. Leaders became community boosters and extended their goals to improve community life. Progressive leaders strengthened and expanded government, improved education and medical care, supported better transportation, and upgraded the civic infrastructure.

This dissertation examines progressive business leaders for more than a century and focuses on efforts to achieve economic stability. Farmers developed apples as an important commercial crop. In the business sector, leaders attracted outside industry and developed local industries to provide jobs. Leaders coped with many challenges, including the legacy of the Civil War, the impact of external forces, national economic downturns, the Great Depression, and two World Wars.

Most Winchester and Frederick County leaders between 1870 and 1980 were independent businessmen and believed there was a congruence of their interests and those of the region. They understood the community and were actively involved in civic life. Leaders influenced and reacted to the attitudes of fellow citizens. Leaders of Winchester and Frederick County were ordinary citizens who cooperated to expand and diversify the economy and meet the challenges of change.

Lincoln County, Arkansas, is a small county in the southeastern sector of Arkansas that lacks a museum dedicated to its history. With Lincoln County lacking the funds to purchase/build a physical space that is on-par with current museum standards, a museum building is an impossibility at this point. Yet, the older generations that are full of knowledge about the history of the county are fading away. To preserve past and future history, a new spin on a museum had to be accomplished. The spin was creating a digital museum. This study goes in-depth on the creation of a digital database and museum for Lincoln County using Omeka.net and WordPress.com according to Dublin Core and museum standards. The websites showcase a broad and general history of Lincoln County that will hopefully become a foundation for the creation of a physical museum.