The Virginia Tech Undergraduate Historical Review

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https://hdl.handle.net/10919/18635

The Virginia Tech Undergraduate Historical Review is a peer-reviewed undergraduate research journal published biannually through the cooperation of the History Department at Virginia Tech, Phi Alpha Theta's chapter at Virginia Tech, and a dedicated staff of reviewers and editors. The Undergraduate Historical Review highlights the best research being produced by undergraduate historians here at Virginia Tech. Visit the journal hompage at https://vtuhr.org/.

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America Rock's Education, Presenting National Narratives on American Television
Brenner, Talia (Virginia Tech Department of History, 2018-04-23)
In 1995, Schoolhouse Rock Live! opened off-Broadway and went on to enjoy a successful run. As a “jukebox” musical, its score comprised selections from all the classic Schoolhouse Rock genres, ricochetingbetween Science Rock (“Interplanet Janet”), America Rock (“ElbowRoom”), Math Rock (“Three is a Magic Number”), and Grammar Rock (“Unpack your Adjectives”). Since then, the musical has become a popular choice for amateur theater companies around the United States.A large factor in the musical’s success is the strong influence of nostalgia. In the case of Schoolhouse Rock, this nostalgia is not too surprising: the cartoons were a 1970s and ‘80s childhood classic, a family-friendly collection of songs that adult audience members can now pass on to their children. This nostalgia can reverberate generationally as a generation of children develop their own memories of their parents’ childhood television. Schoolhouse Rock’s status as a classic remains unclear, since the generation of children of parents born in the 1960s and ‘70s is only now developing its own culture of nostalgia. Yet Schoolhouse Rock remains strong for the present, in part because it is tied so deeply to the acculturation to U.S. history that has contributed to a generation’s national identity. As such, these stories often receive an uncritical reception from students and grownups remembering their childhoods. Examining these stories in relation to the historical understanding of the time may help to break down the implicit messages in these beloved cartoons. America Rock presents a fairly familiar story to anyone who went through the American public educational system in the late twentieth century. The story of the United States’ founding and expansion in both land mass and population depicted in these videos are central to our idea of American national identity.
American Media Coverage of the Rise of Hitler, an Indicator of Depression-Era American Isolationism or of a False Assessment of the Rise of the Chancellor?
Urquidi, Christina (Virginia Tech Department of History, 2017-10-01)
This study seeks to analyze the response of the US media to the rise of Hitler, a process which occurred during the Great Depression, in the 1930s. At a time when the attention of the country was focused on domestic economic problems, assessment of the rise of a leader who became such a prominent figure is an interesting topic worthy of analysis. While his rise could not be wholly ignored, one can imagine that it would probably have been spoken of more in a less tense domestic climate. Overall, this study shows that the rise of the Führer was not described in as critical of a way as should be expected of a democratic nation, especially one that would go on to fight, in an extremely bloody and protracted manner, this man and all he represented.
The Aspartame Controversy of 1981, The Hidden Truth Behind the Not-So-Sweet Artificial Sweetner
Sykes, Morgan (Virginia Tech Department of History, 2015-05-01)
Bewitched, Witchcraft, Life Insurance and the Business of Murder
Snyder, Rachel (Virginia Tech Department of History, 2016-05-01)
Ferdinando Alfonsi of 2515 East Ann Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, died October 27, 1938, at National Stomach Hospital, his life reduced to a piece of paper in the Pennsylvania Department of Health and Bureau of Vital Statistic's office. The death certificate captured a snapshot of a thirty-eight-year-old, white, married, male of Italian parentage and origin, who made his living as a construction worker. By all accounts, this is an ordinary death certificate of an ordinary death, with all the official signs, stamps, and registration numbers that came along with death in the twentieth century. Except, in the middle of the right-hand column, under principle cause of death, stamped in smeared, bold letters read "INQUEST PENDING."1 This is no ordinary death certificate. This is the death certificate of a murdered man, a man whose murder led to the discovery of an expansive insurance murder ring operating in 1930s Philadelphia.
A Brief History of Quarantine
Drews, Kelly (Virginia Tech Department of History, 2013-05-01)
The Cold War Propaganda of Project Apollo
Kennedy, Rae (Virginia Tech Department of History, 2012-05-01)
Convict Leasing, Justifications, Critiques, and the Case for Reparations
Howell, Courtney (Virginia Tech Department of History, 2016-05-01)
The first prisoner received by the State of Florida into the convict leasing system was an African-American man named Cy Williams. He was officially entered into prison records as "No. 1." rather than by his name. Williams did not know his own age upon arrival, but one prison official's memoir states that the boy had been convicted "when he was a mere pickaninny." Though not large enough to mount a horse, Williams nevertheless attempted to steal one and the authorities caught him while he was trying to lead it off by the halter. For his crime, a judge "duly sentenced" Williams to twenty years imprisonment. Malachi Martin, the warden of the work camp at the time, unsure at first how to put such a small prisoner to work, eventually came up with an idea. He placed a pile of two bricks at each of end of the prison yard while giving "the black baby" two more. The warden then ordered Williams to carry his two bricks to one of the piles at either end of the yard, place them on the ground, pick up the other two bricks, and carry them to the pile at the opposite end. He continued this process for the entire day, always carrying two bricks at a time. Martin instructed Williams to keep the piles of bricks neat and warned him not to break any of them. If he failed to keep his stack orderly, or if he damaged the bricks, he would be whipped. He continued this activity throughout his sentence and "grew up at the task" until given other labor assignments years later. Through the abrasion from simply picking the bricks up and setting them down, Williams managed to wear out four sets of bricks while carrying out his sentence. The state never considered commuting Williams' sentence, even after ten years of service as protocol dictated; the proper avenues for commutation were not in place at the camp because of inefficient leadership and poor organizational structures within the prison system. Eventually, however, Williams received "gain time" and only served seventeen years out of his twenty-year sentence.
Dismantling the Myths of the Eastern Front, The Role of the Wehrmacht in the War of Annihilation
Kapinos, Andrew (Virginia Tech Department of History, 2018-04-23)
The English-language historiography of the Eastern Front of World War II is notably sparse until the late 1980s and early 1990s. In the first couple of post-war decades, memoirs written by former generals in the Wehrmacht, the armed forces of the Third Reich, dominated the historical conversation. These memoirs created the myth of the clean and apolitical Wehrmacht, where military operations and genocidal policy were separate. According to this narrative, it was the Nazi leadership and the SS that committed large-scale atrocities on the Eastern Front while the Wehrmacht focused only on winning the war. Anglo-American historians largely accepted these accounts, mainly because of Cold War tensions with the Soviet Union. The experiences of German generals were invaluable insights into Soviet doctrine, and therefore the generals’ tendency to downplay their own complicity in Nazi war crimes was largely accepted. Increasing access to German and later Soviet archives in the 1980s and 1990s revealed that this was far from the truth. Recent historical works have demonstrated that genocidal policy and war strategy were inextricably linked. The question of why the Wehrmacht accepted Nazi ideology is more difficult to answer. Historians have applied this question to both the High Command and to the everyday soldiers, with differing conclusions.
Executive Exploitation, Richard Nixon, Administrative Policy, and the Vietnam War
Burton, Luke (Virginia Tech Department of History, 2013-05-01)
The Fight for Justice in Virginia: Moss 3 and the Pittston Coal Strike of 1989
Gipe, Will (Virginia Tech Department of History, 2014-05-01)
The Fourteenth Amendment and the African American Struggle for Civil Rights
Hemmingson, Grace (Virginia Tech Department of History, 2014-05-01)
Freedom in the Night, Antebellum Slave Life After Dark
Smith, Bekah (Virginia Tech Department of History, 2017-10-01)
The movement of slaves during the night is not an area that seems to have generated much conversation among scholars. The main narrative that slaves fall into is that of the brutality and oppression they endured in the South. While that narrative is important to reconstruct, the movements and actions of slaves after their work hours is just as crucial to our understanding. Looking at slave choices during the night can speak to what male and female slaves wanted for themselves as well as their families. Stephanie Camp and Deborah White both speak at great lengths in their books of the slave’s nights, especially those of female slaves. Larry Hudson’s book, To Have and To Hold, focuses on the nuclear slave family and included descriptions of their activities during the hours of darkness. The topic of slavery brings about many questions, but observing slave movements occurring at night may answer some of those questions. What roles did men take on during the night? What were the responsibilities of women after work hours? Did night play a significant role in slaves attempting or successfully running away? What was the reaction of white Southerners to slave mobility during the dark and did this mobility threaten daytime work? What were the sleeping conditions of slaves? In the antebellum South, nighttime offered slaves more than sleep. Night for slaves allowed them greater freedom such as white men experienced during the day. A sense of freedom existed for slaves, both male and female, during the hours of darkness: freedom not just from exhaustive hours of labor, but the freedom of choice in how to spend their time without the watchful eye of overseers.
From Home to Port, Italian Soldiers' Perspectives on the Opening Stage of the Ethiopian Campaign
Shank, Ian (Virginia Tech Department of History, 2017-10-01)
In this article I analyzed the journey of Italy’s soldiers from home to the port of embarkation. Far from a united and uniform fighting force, I showed that Italian soldiers originally conceived of their enlistment in strikingly divergent terms. At the outset of the campaign some were clearly reluctant, suspicious recruits. Others, meanwhile, were broadly enthusiastic about the adventure and adversity that lay ahead. But all–to some degree or another–had yet to take firm personal ownership of the campaign they had been called to serve. Nonetheless, over the course of these soldiers’ journeys south, their first engagements with the country and countrymen that existed beyond the domains of their provincial homes ultimately yielded a crucial measure of national solidarity by the time of their embarkation for the Ethiopian front.
From the Lab to the Lotus Pond, Interactions between Orientalism and Ideals of Domestic Science
Mason, Nancy (Virginia Tech Department of History, 2016-05-01)
At a time when America had only just begun its journey away from the discriminatory Chinese Exclusion Acts of the 1880s and toward its eventual alliance with China during World War II, a group of home economists from Oregon began to contemplate sending one of their own to China. Ava B. Milam, head of the Department of Home Economics at the University of Oregon, left for Yenching University in 1922 to design a home economics program uniquely tailored to Chinese culture. In the 1920s, ideas of western superiority flourished, and work in China was largely considered as valuable in reflecting the promise of American society.
Gender, Race, and Education, Battling State Bigotry and Tyranny in Virginia, 1958
Pope, Anna (Virginia Tech Department of History, 2015-05-01)
Going Critical, Three Mile Island and the Federal Reform of the Nuclear Power Industry
Dauterive, Myles (Virginia Tech Department of History, 2012-05-01)
Guibert of Nogen, The Development of Rhetoric from Anti-Judaism to Anti-Semitism
Sulkey, Elyse (Virginia Tech Department of History, 2016-05-01)
Guibert of Nogent wrote Gesta Dei per Francos, or The Deeds of God through the Franks, between 1106 and 1109. It was a revision of an earlier anonymous chronicle titled Gesta Francorum. Though his chronicle of the First Crusade was not well known in his own time, Guibert of Nogent is today one of the best known chroniclers of the crusades, perhaps due to his autobiography Monodiae, or Memoirs, which is popularly referred to as A Monk’s Confession. Guibert wrote his memoirs around 1115, which was quickly followed by his treatise against relic cults, On the Relics of Saints, in 1119. In these later works, Guibert accused Jews of using black magic; he was one of the first anti-Semitic writers to do so.
Help on the Homefront, The Women of the USO
Bolt, Carmen (Virginia Tech Department of History, 2013-05-01)
When General Eisenhower described the “cooperative, voluntary undertaking” on the home front, he was referring specifically to the role and actions of the United Service Organization(s) (USO) during World War II. Established in 1941, the USO –a voluntary organization made up of an original six independent agencies –provided aid, both on the home front and overseas. Eisenhower put special emphasis on “the people at home” because of the constant aid and support generated by women remaining on the home front.1 Over the course of the Second World War, women experienced a shift in their gender roles as they stepped forward to maintain the American “War Machine” while many men were overseas. Women provided the necessary labor in mechanical jobs and volunteer organizations, such as the USO... Women were never simply "given” the right to work, or vote, or stand side-by-side with men socially. It would be a long, hard-fought war, a war where they once more would have to break the norm, step out of the households, and confront their typical reality with the hope and determination to achieve something more for themselves. Organizations, such as the USO, provided a vital stepping-stone to propel women toward greater gender equality. By allowing women to labor alongside men within the workplace, the USO got women out of the household, out of the kitchens, and into a more equal society.
Her Beauty Captivated His Mind and the Sword Severed His Neck! The Changing Depiction of Judith Beheading Holofernes from the Pre-Renaissance Era to Contemporary Society
Keillor, Genevieve (Virginia Tech Department of History, 2018-04-23)
This study examines artistic depictions of the story of Judith beheading Holofernes in the Book of Judith from different historical eras. The goal of these case studies is to bring attention to how art has reflected ideas about women in the past using sexist stereotypes. This article treats these ideas and the production of artwork as historically contingent in order to question the misogyny displayed through the history of art. Using historical research and stylistic analysis, this article will argue that Judith was portrayed differently during each era in response to how women were viewed at the time.
Keep up the Fight, Eudora Ramsay Richardson and the Evolution of Feminism After Suffrage
Ledesma, Andrea (Virginia Tech Department of History, 2015-05-01)

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