2024-03-29T10:03:53Z
http://digitalcommons.providence.edu/do/oai/
oai:digitalcommons.providence.edu:dissertations-1000
2019-05-17T01:48:04Z
publication:dissertations
publication:theses
Niagara, 1814: The United States Army quest for tactical parity in the War of 1812 and its legacy
Fredriksen, John Conrad
<p>From an American perspective, the 1814 Niagara Campaign is the most important military event of the War of 1812 in Canada. The principal formation of this endeavor, the Left Division, was a modest force of two small regular brigades and one of volunteer militia. Under the inspired leadership of Jacob Brown and Winfield Scott, however, its tactical prowess was celebrated and became the focus of reforms in the post-war era. The Left Division's battle record, it has been historically asserted, also provided political support for standing forces that could function within the constraints of American political culture yet blaze the trail of manifest destiny in the decades that followed. The 1814 Niagara Campaign, with its contributions to professionalism and the perceptions of victory it bequeathed to a desperate nation, is viewed as a cornerstone of United States Army tradition. My objective in writing this study is three-fold. The first is to render close-focus analysis of the Niagara campaign, its course and consequences. To facilitate this I utilize an operational narrative, one possessing sufficient scope to address broad military concerns, while simultaneously allowing for battlefield discussions. My second goal is methodological. Because Niagara engagements were essentially "soldiers' battles", my narrative draws heavily upon primary evidence generated by men fighting in the ranks. I invoke these materials to counter the traditional reliance by historians on official accounts, which are invariably sanitized by their authors. My final investigation is biographical. By critically assessing lionized figures like Jacob Brown, Winfield Scott, and Sir Gordon Drummond, this study transcends polemics and treats them in a more realistic manner. In sum, critical analysis of the 1814 Niagara Campaign removes the veneer of military glory cloaking it and presents an alternative view: a dangerous undertaking, fraught with inept leadership on both sides and punctuated by unrealistic expectations. Given the inadequacy of existing Niagara scholarship, this study will provide fresh perspective on a seminal event in United States military history. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)</p>
1993-01-01T08:00:00Z
Dissertation
Ph.D.
https://digitalcommons.providence.edu/dissertations/AAI9332746
oai:digitalcommons.providence.edu:dissertations-1001
2020-04-24T22:21:23Z
publication:dissertations
publication:theses
Joan Desmond, Ormond, and Ossory: The world of a countess in sixteenth-century Ireland
Holland, Karen Ann
<p>Until very recently, women and their role in the economy and politics of the time have rarely been acknowledged by historians of early modern Ireland. However, the documented activities of noblewomen during the period of Tudor reform do merit a close examination. One woman whose life and world deserves such consideration is Joan Fitzgerald, countess of Ormond and Desmond (c. 1514-1565). Joan's significance and influence stemmed in part from the fact that she was the daughter of the 11th earl of Desmond and the wife of three powerful men, James Butler, 9th earl of Ormond, Sir Francis Bryan, Lord Justice of Ireland and Gerald Fitzgerald, 15th earl of Desmond. Following the death of her first husband, Joan begins to appear in the manuscript sources with increasing frequency. As a young widow, free for the first time from male authority, Joan could legally act independently, re-establishing control of her dowry lands and appealing to influential individuals at court to protect her children's inheritance. Though Joan recognized the limitations placed upon a married woman in the sixteenth century, she still appears to have preferred marriage to widowhood. However, during her second marriage, Joan does not again become an anonymous individual. Rather, her activities provoked "fear" among "Englishmen" and caused "Irishmen" to appeal to her for aid. Her third marriage necessitated a new role for Joan, that of peacemaker between her husband and eldest son, Thomas Butler. Near contemporaries in age, they represented the next generation in the centuries-old Desmond/Ormond feud over territory and the prisage of wines. Even Queen Elizabeth recognized Joan's skill and called upon her to maintain "the quiet" in Munster while Gerald was sequestered in England. Joan Fitzgerald's life illustrates that a noblewoman could play an important role in the economic and political affairs of sixteenth century Ireland. Joan was involved in both the private world of her family and the public realm of the Irish government and English court. Her activities, particularly those of her later life, help to further dispel the oft-held notion that women were powerless individuals in the early modern period. Joan's experiences demonstrate that the amount of authority a woman possessed could change considerably over time, reflecting her own changing circumstances. Even though Joan gained her power through an unusual combination of events, as a landholder, household manager and parent she influenced the lives of her tenants, retainers and children. More importantly, as a countess and royal subject, she participated significantly in the world of politics and the court.</p>
1996-01-01T08:00:00Z
Dissertation
Ph.D.
https://digitalcommons.providence.edu/dissertations/AAI9839486
oai:digitalcommons.providence.edu:dissertations-1002
2020-04-24T22:21:25Z
publication:dissertations
publication:theses
The politics of honor: Character, slavery, and the political development of Abraham Lincoln, 1809–1854
Coelho, John J
<p>Lincoln's community, the Upland Southern community, was an extremely precarious, highly masculine social structure, and its unwritten rules of conduct, in combination with a fluid class arrangement, placed great pressure on Illinois' citizens. In this hothouse of social and state politics, a man's motives and conduct came under constant scrutiny. Only those select few deemed worthy by the people were able to attain their highest award, their honor, and were provided with an opportunity to run for political office. The author utilizes the work of Ryan Dearinger and Nicole Etcheson, along with the great wealth of oral histories made commercially available in the last ten years, to examine the role Upland Southern honor played in the political and personal development of Abraham Lincoln. Special attention is paid to how Upland Southern honor influenced Lincoln's thoughts and decisions upon the great issue of his day, that of slavery.</p>
2006-01-01T08:00:00Z
Dissertation
M.A.
https://digitalcommons.providence.edu/dissertations/AAI1438456
oai:digitalcommons.providence.edu:dissertations-1003
2019-05-17T01:48:09Z
publication:dissertations
publication:theses
A history of temperance and prohibition in Rhode Island, 1820–1916
Carcieri, Paul T
<p>The subject dissertation examines the history of private and governmental efforts to limit, temper, hence the term "temperance," and prohibit the use and sale of alcoholic beverages in the State of Rhode Island during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The first stirrings of the temperance movement in Rhode Island came from within its Protestant community during the 1820s and 1830s. During this period some Protestants became alarmed over the growing incidence of public drunkenness in the state, especially on holidays like the Fourth of July, and much resented the cost to government of policing and jailing those who over-indulged. Another root of the temperance cause was the Protestant apprehension over the increasing number of Catholic Irish arriving in Rhode Island during the 1830s. What alarmed the Protestant community most about these newcomers, apart from the fact that they were of a different creed, was that as a group they saw little wrong in the moderate enjoyment of alcoholic beverages, even on Sundays. This cultural idea clashed with the notion of "Sabbatarianism," the fundamental Protestant belief that Sundays were special days, to be set aside exclusively for the Lord, and allowed for no revelry or entertainment, including drink. Not that the Irish did not esteem and hold dear the Sabbath, but for them it allowed a certain amount of social intercourse and modest celebration. Pietistic and humanitarian considerations were other stimulants of the Protestant temperance movement in Rhode Island. During the 1830s some Protestants came to believe earnestly that the use of alcohol led to a host of human ills, physical and mental, and therefore liquor ought to be banned from society by law. A working force behind this belief was the widespread dissemination earlier in the nineteenth century of a considerable anti-liquor literature penned by men like Dr. Benjamin Rush. Rush was a Philadelphia physician attached to the Continental army during the American Revolution. His duties led him to observe, firsthand, the effects of alcoholism on soldiers and their families. The publication, in 1784, of his physiologically graphic treatise "An Inquiry into the Effects of Spiritous Liquors on the Human Mind and Body," acted as an inspiration to some Americans, especially the Protestant clergy who took it upon themselves to preach Rush's message before their congregations. Protestant concerns over alcohol were also fueled by the Second Great Awakening. This Protestant fundamentalist movement gained devotees throughout America during the early 1800s. It stressed, among other tenets, the need for personal reform by believers including the elimination of all vice and temptation from the human heart. During the 1830s and 1840s several temperance societies, Protestant and Catholic, organized in Rhode Island. These included groups like the Providence Temperance Union, the Providence Association for the Promotion of Temperance, the State Temperance Society, the Catholic Temperance Society, the Catholic Temperance Fraternity, and the Sons of Temperance in North America. The labors of these temperance activists and the pressure some of them brought to bear on public opinion and politicians resulted in the Rhode Island legislature's passage of the state's first prohibitory law in 1852. Rhode Island's "Maine Law" made illegal the sale or consumption of liquor and remained in force for eleven years. During the forty years after the Civil War new and larger temperance organizations grew up in Rhode Island. These included the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, the Independent Order of Good Templars, the Rhode Island Temperance Union, the Rhode Island Prohibition Party and the Rhode Island Anti-Saloon League. The organizational growth of these associations was at times phenomenal and displayed an uncanny ability to capture public attention and that of the print media. Some, like the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the National Prohibition Party still exist today. As did their predecessors earlier in the nineteenth century, these societies devoted themselves to persuading people to limit their use of alcohol, or abstain from it entirely. Some of the tools that they employed in this effort have been left behind for the modern researcher and constitute a trove of primary sources---annual reports, meeting minutes, anthems, addresses, handbills, poems, plays, prayers, etc. When the opportunity presented itself some of these groups also lobbied the Rhode Island General Assembly to bring back prohibition. Their hopes were realized. In 1874 and in 1886 liquor was again banned from Rhode Island. When prohibition ended in 1889, liquor control in Rhode Island came under an intricate License Law which empowered individual cities and towns to determine by popular election whether they would be "wet" or "dry." (Abstract shortened by UMI.)</p>
2007-01-01T08:00:00Z
Dissertation
Ph.D.
https://digitalcommons.providence.edu/dissertations/AAI3262589