2,423 research outputs found

    Harbingers of A New Age: Irish and Scots Irish Indian Fighters on the Colonial American Frontier

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    Through the examination of various points of Irish and Scots Irish settlement in the New World, a previously underrepresented portion of American history emerges to tell the story of a hearty and industrious people who literally went out into the wilderness and settled their own communities. Through their hard work and enterprising nature, they were able to not only survive in the face of extreme adversity on the frontier, but they preserved their culture for generations and contributed to the cultural, political, military, religious, and environmental influences that shaped the New World and the American nation. Their martial prowess and military ingenuity enabled them to survive through frontier warfare, and to emerge as highly valued soldiers in North America. In doing so, they created an identity that has come to be known as uniquely American. Through an understanding of the history of the Irish history and the evolution of Irish Indian Fighters in the New World, a unique perspective of American history comes to light

    Canada\u27s Evergreen Playground: A History of Snow in Vancouver

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    The City of Vancouver is not as snowy as the rest of Canada; rain, not snow, is its defining weather feature. But snow is a common seasonal occurrence, having fallen there nearly every winter since the 1850s. This dissertation places snow at the centre of the City of Vancouver’s history. It demonstrates how cultural and natural factors influenced human experiences and relationships with snow on the coast between the 1850s and 2000s. Following Vancouver’s incorporation, commercial and civic boosters constructed – and settlers adopted – what I call an evergreen mentality. Snow was reconceptualized as a rare and infrequent phenomenon. The evergreen mentality was not completely false, but it was not entirely true, either. This mindset has framed human relationships with snow in Vancouver ever since. While this idea was consistent, how coastal residents experienced snow evolved in response to societal developments (such as the rise of the automobile and the adoption of new snow-clearing technologies) and regional climate change. I show that the history of snow in Vancouver cannot be fully understood without incorporating the southern Coast Mountains. Snow was a connecting force between the coastal metropolis and mountainous hinterland. Settlers drew snowmelt to the urban environment for its energy potential and life-sustaining properties; snow drew settlers to the mountains for recreation and economic opportunities. Mountain snow became a valuable resource for coastal residents throughout the twentieth century. Human relationships with snow in the mountains were shaped, as they were in the city, by seasonal expectations, societal circumstances, and shifting climate conditions. In charting a history of snow in Vancouver and the southern Coast Mountains, this dissertation clears a new path in Canadian environmental historiography by bringing snow to the historiographical forefront. It does so in an urban space not known for snow, broadening the existing geography of snow historiography. In uncovering snow’s impact on year-round activities, this work also expands the field’s temporal boundaries. Through this work, one sees how snow helped to make Canada’s Evergreen Playground

    Kempsey, New South Wales : How social and political divisions in Kempsey’s early history impacted the town’s economic and environmental development to 1865, and its ongoing susceptibility to disaster

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    This study addresses the question: how did social and political divisions influence the
 economic and environmental development of Kempsey during the colonial period up
 to 1865? Primary documents including personal letters, journals, memoirs, political
 and governmental papers, along with a range of colonial newspapers have been
 studied and interpreted to form a social historical solution to the question. Due to the
 range of sources available for this investigation, a variation of methodologies has been
 employed, with particular emphasis on an empirical qualitative analysis. In addition to
 considering existing non-scholarly thematic histories of the Macleay Valley, this
 thesis draws existing scholarly investigations together and builds upon them, looking
 into the interdependence between society and environment, politics and geographical
 developments, culture and social movements to piece together the story of Kempsey
 and uncover the key events which have led to long lasting impacts on the town. No
 other scholarly study of this kind has been undertaken to bring the entire complex and
 multifaceted story of Kempsey’s early years into one scholarly investigation.
 Implications for this study highlight the important factor that powerful social and
 political divisions in a community have when important decisions about town
 planning, environmental protection, and issues of social justice need to be addressed.
 These divisions can lead to catastrophic outcomes that could impact generations to
 follow, as shown in the tumultuous history of Kempsey, New South Wales

    A view of colonial life in South Australia: An osteological investigation of the health status among 19th-century migrant settlers

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    Studies of human skeletal remains contribute to understanding the extent to which conditions prevailing in various past communities were detrimental to health. Few of these studies have evaluated the situation in which the first European colonists of South Australia lived. Colonial Australian skeletal collections are scarce, especially for research purposes. This makes the 19th-century skeletal remains of individuals, excavated from St Mary’s Cemetery, South Australia, a rare and valuable collection. The overarching aim of this thesis was to investigate the general and oral health of this specific group of 19th-century settlers, through the examination of their skeletons and dentitions. Four research papers in this thesis address this overarching aim. The first two papers determine the general skeletal health of the settlers, with a focus on pathological manifestations on bones associated with metabolic deficiencies and the demands of establishing an industrial society. Paper 3 investigated whether Large Volume Micro- Computed Tomography (LV Micro-CT) could be used as a single technique for the analysis of the in situ dentoalveolar complex of individuals from St Mary’s. This led to a detailed investigation of the dentitions of the St Mary’s sample, in paper 4, with the aims of determining the oral health status of these individuals, and understanding how oral conditions may have influenced their general health. The skeletal remains of 65 individuals (20 adults and 45 subadults) from St Mary’s sample were available for the four component investigations using non-destructive techniques - macroscopic, radiographic and micro-CT methods. Signs of nutritional deficiencies (vitamin C and iron) were identified in Paper 1. The findings of paper 2 showed joint diseases and traumatic fractures were seen and that gastrointestinal and pulmonary conditions were the leading causes of death in subadults and adults respectively. Paper 3 found that the LV Micro-CT technique was the only method able to generate images that allowed the full range of detailed measurements across all the oral health categories studied. A combination of macroscopic and radiographic techniques covered a number of these categories, but was more time-consuming, and did not provide the same level of accuracy or include all measurements. Results for paper 4 confirmed that extensive carious lesions, antemortem tooth loss and evidence of periodontal disease were present in the St Mary’s sample. Developmental defects of enamel (EH) and areas of interglobular dentine (IGD) were identified. Many individuals with dental defects also had skeletal signs of co-morbidities. St Mary’s individuals had a similar percentage of carious lesions as the British sample, which was more than other historic Australian samples, but less than a contemporary New Zealand sample. The 19th-century migrants to the colony of South Australia were faced with multiple challenges such as adapting to local environmental conditions as well as participating in the development of settlements, infrastructure and new industries. Evidence of joint diseases, traumatic injuries and health insults, seen as pathological changes and/ or abnormalities on the bone and/or teeth, confirmed that the settlers' health had been affected. The number of burials in the ‘free ground’ area between the 1840s -1870s was greater than the number in the leased plots, reflecting the economic problems of the colony during these early years. Validation of the reliability and accuracy of the LV Micro-CT system for the analysis of the dentoalveolar complex, in situ within archaeological human skull samples, provided a microanalytical approach for the in-depth investigations of the St Mary’s dentition. Extensive carious lesions, antemortem tooth loss and periodontal disease seen in this group would have affected their general health status. The presence of developmental defects (EH and IGD) indicated that many of the settlers had suffered health insults in childhood to young adulthood. Contemporaneous Australian, New Zealand and British samples had comparable findings suggesting that little improvement had occurred in their oral health since arriving in South Australia. In conclusion, the findings of this investigation largely fulfilled the initial aims. Our understanding of the extent to which conditions prevailing in the new colony were detrimental to human health has increased, as has our knowledge of why pathological manifestations and/or abnormalities were seen on the bones and teeth of individuals from the St Mary’s sample. A multiple-method approach, to derive enhanced information has been shown to be effective, whilst establishing a new methodology (LV Micro-CT) for the analysis of dentition in situ in human archaeological skulls. Further, this investigation has digitally preserved data relating to this historical group of individuals for future comparisons.Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Biomedicine, 202

    The Phenomenon of Death in Great Britain 1815-1855

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    Disertační práce se zabývá fenoménem smrti ve Spojeném království v letech 1815-1855. Analyzuje postoje dobové společnosti ke smrti a využívá k tomu syntézu mnoha odlišných úhlů pohledu. Na problematiku smrti, umírání a pohřbívání je tak nahlíženo optikou dobového práva, medicíny, tisku či umění. Využity jsou také ego-dokumenty. Mnohovrstevnatá práce v sobě kombinuje řadu historických metod a jako celek může být řazena k výzkumu historické každodennosti a dějin mentalit. Chronologicky je práce zařazena mezi dva důležité válečné konflikty, napoleonské války a krymskou válku. 20-40. léta 19. století patří obecně mezi nejméně zmapovaná období britských dějin, tato disertace tak vyplňuje jistou mezeru v dosavadním bádání nejen v oblasti dějin smrti v Británii. Klíčová slova: 19. století, společnost, smrt, britské dějinyThis dissertation examines the phenomenon of death in the United Kingdom between 1815 and 1855. It analyses the attitudes of chiefly pre-victorian society towards death, using a synthesis of several different perspectives. Various aspects of death, dying and burial are thus viewed through the lens of contemporary law, medicine, the press, and the arts. Primary personal sources are also used. The multi-layered work combines a number of historical methods and as a whole can be classified as research into historical everyday life and mentalities. Chronologically, the thesis is between two wars, the Napoleonic and the Crimean wars. The 1820s-40s are one of the least researched periods of British history, so this dissertation fills something of a gap in existing research not only concerning the history of death in Britain. Keywords: 19th century, society, death, British historyÚstav světových dějinInstitute of General HistoryFaculty of ArtsFilozofická fakult

    'Our land abounds in nature's gifts': Commodity frontiers, Australian capitalism, and socioecological crisis

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    This thesis presents a history of the origins of capitalism on the continent of Australia. It begins from a contemporary conjuncture riven with socioecological crises that demand theoretical and historical explanation – a conjuncture of mass extinction, of collapsing ecosystems, of accelerating climatic change. From this vantage-point we look to theorise and historicise capitalism in Australia. Animating this history is our central research question: how have ‘commodity frontiers’ shaped the socioecology of Australian capitalism? This question brings the tools of historical materialism – especially in its eco-socialist and world-ecological forms – to bear on the historical origins of Australian capitalism, enabling an understanding of the production of nature and socioecological crisis in Australia. The argument begins from a definition of capitalism as a historically specific totality of socioecological relations: internally related processes of cheap nature, state formation, racialization, and gendered difference driven forward by the structuring power of the value form. These relations violently displaced extant Indigenous socioecologies, spreading across the landscape of Australia via the vehicle of ‘commodity frontiers.’ The thesis traces empirically the process of invasion, and the production of cheap nature through an incorporated comparison of three frontiers – wool, coal, and sugar. In exploring the internal relations of these frontiers through space and time we find them bound within the same totality, defined by dialectics of appropriation and exploitation, of crisis and expansion, of cheapness and of great cost. Put simply, the thesis grapples with the political and analytical challenge of the Capitalocene, and looks to contribute to its undoing through a retelling of the history of the invasion of this continent, and an apprehension of the nature of capitalism

    Connectivity: Cockney-styled artistes of late 19th and early 20th century music hall and Britain’s inner urban audiences

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    By the last decade of the nineteenth century and continuing into the first of the twentieth, music hall in Britain had become a commodified, national entertainment medium. Whilst still an eclectic mix of entertainment offering, one genre of stage performance, which included the leading national artistes of the day, were those defined in this study as cockney-styled entertainers. Although unique performers in their own way, each had an on-stage act that was focussed upon their particular presentation through song, common individual characters, and depictions of the everyday experiences of the population that lived and worked in Cockney London. Their performance style and the lyrics contained in their most successful songs were strongly London-centric, referenced and delivered in a cockney vernacular. Superficially, this would seem to be counter-intuitive and paradoxical. How could inner urban audiences beyond the metropolis positively relate to the cockney-styled entertainers’ London-referenced stage presentation and cockney vernacular delivery when they would likely have little or no direct experience or familiarity with the capital? This study directly addresses this apparent paradox, by positing a new theory in respect of the performer/audience relationship that these entertainers shared with inner urban audiences nationally, but especially those within the inner urban communities of Britain’s largest cities. This relationship, defined as ‘connectivity’, meant that the leading cockney-styled artistes were able to embark on successful regular regional tours of music halls utilising their existing style of London-centric performance content delivered in a cockney vernacular without the need for any local modification. However, this special performer/audience connectivity was only made possible by the contingent synergy of four key enabling factors that were present around the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century which are identified and analysed in this thesis. Through the promotion of this theory of connectivity and the analysis of its enabling factors, this study presents a unique addition to the historiography of late Victorian and early Edwardian music hall

    South Australian Art Needlework 1876-1909

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    Art Needlework was the first technical art at the Adelaide School of Design. It became a conduit to an alternative form of higher education which fostered independent careers for women at a time when that was still radical. The elevation of Art Needlework into the curriculum of the Adelaide School of Design occurred because of a conflation of four things. First, middle and upper-class women spent considerable time practising existing needlework skills for domestic necessity or pleasure. Second, female-operated ecclesiastical embroidery guilds were purposely furnishing a proliferation of new churches in the colony of South Australia and beyond its borders. Third, there was a growing aesthetic awareness of the Arts & Crafts trend for handmade objects of original design, and fourth, the influential Director of the Adelaide School of Design, H. P. Gill arrived in Adelaide to take up his position already supportive of women in a working environment. By harnessing the scene, Gill established a secular Art Needlework Society as a commercial arm of the school. The Society was successful because it prioritised original design and borrowed the same business practices as the ecclesiastical ateliers. This thesis determines that in contrast to the few who pursued a University pathway, many more women were able to leverage their existing needlework skills into an alternative form of higher education at the Adelaide School of Design. It also demonstrates how the School’s Art Needlework Society modelled the commercial practices that successfully underpinned the first Art Needlework studios operated by New Women seeking independent careers, even before they were enfranchised.Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, 202
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