Paradise reclaimed: the end of frontier Florida and the birth of a modern state, 1900-1940

The question of whether Florida remained a frontier region well into the twentieth century is examined. For the purposes of this study, the concept of a frontier is not based on geography, but on social perception and infrastructural development. Specific areas of interest include disease prevention, the development of roads and railroads, promotional literature, and advertising as a state sponsored business. Data gathered in pursuit of these questions comes from a variety of sources. A broad selection of Florida newspapers are combined with a detailed examination of the papers of several governors, a selection of prominent businessmen and boosters, and the personal recollections of individuals interviewed by the Works Progress Administration. Also included are travel accounts, promotional publications by individual towns and cities, and a selection of photographs and illustrations from the era. There are several limitations on the depth of the research, primarily due to the loss of materials in several disasters, both man-made and natural. The WPA also interviewed only a handful of individuals, resulting in a rather meager selection of recollections. The ultimate conclusion is that Florida was very much a frontier, both physically and psychologically, until the Great Depression of the 1930s. At that point, the state was fully integrated into the United States and ceased to be a place apart. There is more work to be done, with greater emphasis on federal legislation and perhaps starting earlier in the nineteenth century, should anyone wish to delve deeper. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

The formative period of Anglo-American relations during the First World War, July 1914 - December 1915

When the First World War began in August 1914, President Woodrow Wilson declared that he wanted the United States to remain neutral. By avoiding the conflict in Europe he hoped to demonstrate that his country held itself to a higher standard and that he was an honest broker who could mediate an end to the war. Additionally, Wilson hoped that the United States could profit from selling goods to the belligerents. He was not, however, well-versed in diplomacy, nor was he a non-partisan observer. This disposition, along with his desire for American prosperity, regularly influenced his policies and, in turn, aided the Allies. Yet, regardless of his restricted and often parochial approach to international affairs, Wilson did not intentionally violate American neutrality in the early months of the war. His position changed as the conflict progressed because Britain and the United States gradually increased their economic and political ties to the point that U.S. and U.K. interests became Anglo-American interests. This dissertation examines how the intertwining of U.S. and British political and economic interests during the first eighteen months of the First World War induced Wilson to intentionally deviate from neutrality and provide calculated support for the Allies. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Recasting the image of God: faith and identity in the Deep South, 1877-1915

Individuals construct their own identity in large part through their conceptions of gender. Few historians, however, have explored how religion shaped gender construction in Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia during the New South period. Scholars have primarily concentrated on the roles various denominations allowed men and women to hold in church leadership rather than how different theological understandings changed the ways individuals understood manhood and womanhood. My dissertation explores how church officials used Protestant theology in Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia to argue for new constructions of gender. By using archival sources as diverse as diaries, sermons, speeches, unpublished memoirs, and published works, my research examines three theological groups in the American Deep South between 1877 and 1915. These three groups are the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC); the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MECS); and the emerging Holiness movement. I argue that these groups had specific theological emphases that changed how they conceived of manhood, womanhood, and family life. While class, race, and regional identities were important for the denominational officials studied, theology was also an influential factor in formulating their personal understandings of self. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

A friendly salute: the President-Little Belt Affair and the coming of the war of 1812

In May 1811, thirteen months before the start of the War of 1812, the United States frigate President and the British sloop-of-war Little Belt fought an hour-long battle approximately fifty miles off the North Carolina coast. When the firing ceased the Little Belt had suffered heavy damage and thirty-two casualties. The President sustained only minor damage and one wounded sailor. The brief battle had significant ramifications for Anglo-American relations. The victory of the U.S.S. President four years after the defeat of the Chesapeake redeemed the honor of the United States and its navy. Because the action occurred near the spot of the previous bout, some Americans and Britons suspected the scrape did not happen accidentally. Newspaper editors and political leaders hostile to the president alleged that President Madison ordered the attack as a means to halt the impressments of American sailors or possibly to draw the United States into a war with Great Britain. In both nations sentiment for a conflict increased as many Britons believed the United States had sullied their national honor and numerous Americans concluded that a victory over Britain would come with ease. The President-Little Belt Affair also confirmed the American tactical theory holding that the United States Navy could never destroy Britain's, but that lone, swift ships could defeat single British vessels in head-to-head duels. This strategy proved extremely successful in the opening months of the War of 1812. While the President-Little Belt Affair did not start the War of 1812, it did serve as an important event leading up to the conflict. Without this occurrence Americans might never have summoned the courage to fight their former master and the British might never have developed the desire to struggle with a nation thousands of miles away while their empire resisted Napoleonic France. The President-Little Belt Affair proved an essential part of the road to the War of 1812. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Serving two masters: Methodism and the negotiation of masculinity in the antebellum South

This dissertation examines the development of a distinct southern Methodist masculinity from the 1830s to the 1860s. More than a church history, this study explores the relationship between non-religious and religious society, the tensions inherent in to relationship, and the ethical questions that emerged from that tension. As Methodism evolved in the South, it took on regional social practices and affectations while also maintaining a denominational identity that opposed southern culture. Southern Methodists served two masters—the church and society—and both demanded obedience to divergent visions of masculinity and manhood. Although they rejected many manly pursuits, ministers adopted a proslavery ideology and patriarchal practices and reflected southern attitudes in their church doctrine and structure. My study argues that the ethical shift that occurred in the southern Methodist Church in the 1840s resulted from the dual demands of southern and denominational culture, which led them to construct their own vision of masculine identity. This study uses the Methodist Church as an example of the friction caused and questions raised by the intersection of gender, religion, and ethics in a constricted, patriarchal society. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Creating a "different citizen": the federal development of the Tennessee Valley, 1915-1960

This dissertation describes the process of cooperation and contestation by which residents, civic leaders, state officials, and federal politicians in the Tennessee Valley encouraged the economic development of their rapidly changing region. Beginning in 1916, when the Woodrow Wilson administration authorized construction of a hydroelectric dam and nitrate-producing plants at Muscle Shoals, Alabama, federal investment provided the means by which communities created (or attempted to create) prosperity by encouraging industrial development in a dying agricultural economy. The debates over Muscle Shoals led to the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority, but federal officials found that Valley residents rejected broad-based social reorganization in favor of directed economic investment. During the "Gunbelt" defense boom of World War II, Valley leaders increased calls for development, especially at Huntsville, where the inconsistency of federal funds led community leaders to develop a modern, professional industrial recruitment campaign. In the Tennessee Valley, and across the South, the Sunbelt economy emerged as locals encouraged federal investment in order to bring development while rejecting and redirecting broader calls for social change. Historians have only recently begun to investigate the complicated process by which the southern economy modernized in the twentieth century, but none have provided an in-depth exploration of the long-term growth of one particular region, such as the Tennessee Valley. Drawing on local records, numerous Valley newspapers, and federal records, this dissertation traces the process by which Valley residents attempted to attract industries and businesses to the region. As such, this research provides insight into the birth of the modern southern economy. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Welcome to South Carolina: race, sex and the rise of tourism in Myrtle Beach, 1900-1975

Though scholars have long focused on the impact traditional industries had on the development of the South, few have looked at the role tourism played in the economic and cultural transformation of the region. Even in South Carolina, tourism, not textiles or agriculture, is the state's number one industry. This work discovers how Myrtle Beach, the Palmetto State's biggest attraction, developed and adapted to the nation's changing cultural mores, all the while trying not to deviate too far from southern values. The study examines the impact of the tourism industry on the development of the city during a period of immense social and cultural turmoil in the United States, 1954 to 1973. Myrtle Beach leaders, concerned with keeping and expanding the tourism industry, contended with the ramifications of the civil rights and women's liberation movements, along with the opening of the interstate highway system. All the while, boosters tried never to waiver from their support of the town's family beach image. What they created though, was a white middle-class men's vacation paradise complete with golf courses and strip clubs. The city became a place to get away from the racial unrest and growing women's liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Myrtle Beach was caught between a mythic pre-1960s South of racial harmony and innocence and a modern, racially and sexually open society. Finally, this project discovers how South Carolina leaders used city boosters' tourism promotional strategies in marketing the state. Between 1945 and 1970, Southerners began to realize that tourism was an economic force. Southern governors meticulously crafted strategies to attract tourists to their states, working like their predecessors had before them to obtain northern smokestack industries. South Carolina was no exception. Governors McNair and West treated tourism in much the same fashion. The two leaders hired the most experienced people in the Palmetto State to head up the promotion. Many of these people came from Myrtle Beach. They helped impose the city's promotional strategies upon the state's efforts. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Baseball diplomacy, baseball deployment: the national pastime in U.S.-Cuba relations

The game of baseball, a shared cultural affinity linking Cuba and the United States, has played a significant part in the relationship between those nations. Having arrived in Cuba as a symbol of growing American influence during the late nineteenth century, baseball would come to reflect the political and economic connections that developed into the 1900s. By the middle of the twentieth century, a significant baseball exchange saw talented Cuban players channeled into Major League Baseball, and American professionals compete in Cuba's Winter League. The 1959 Cuban Revolution permanently changed this relationship. Baseball's politicization as a symbol of the Revolution, coupled with political antagonism, an economic embargo, and an end to diplomatic ties between the Washington and Havana governments largely destroyed the U.S.-Cuba baseball exchange. By the end of the 1960s, Cuban and American baseball interactions were limited to a few international amateur competitions, and political hardball nearly ended some of these. During the 1970s, Cold War détente and the success of Ping Pong Diplomacy with China sparked American efforts to use baseball's common ground as a basis for improving U.S.-Cuba relations. Baseball diplomacy, as the idea came to be called, was designed to be a means toward coexistence and normalization with the Castro government. Ultimately, despite a taking few swings during that decade, baseball diplomacy--unable to surmount the obstacles, either within politics or within professional baseball--failed to produce any actual games between Cuban and Major League Baseball teams. As Cold War détente evaporated into the 1980s, baseball's role in the U.S.-Cuba political relationship changed. Efforts to boost Cuban exposure to Major League Baseball developed as part of a general policy to use American culture and influence to erode Communism. This practice of deploying baseball as a political weapon continued into the 1990s. Unlike earlier efforts at baseball diplomacy, which were designed to improve U.S.-Cuba relations, baseball deployment aimed to provoke a democratic regime change in Cuba. This dissertation examines how politics have complicated U.S.-Cuba baseball exchanges, and traces the sport's contradictory use through baseball diplomacy and baseball deployment. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

The New Deal, rural poverty, and the south

This dissertation examines the political and administrative history of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) and its predecessors, the New Deal agency most directly associated with eliminating rural poverty. In addition, it studies and describes the efforts to remedy rural poverty, with an emphasis on farm security efforts (particularly rural rehabilitation) in the South, by looking at how the FSA's actual operating programs (rural rehabilitation, tenant-purchase, and resettlement) functioned. This dissertation demonstrates that it is impossible to understand either element of the FSA's history - its political and administrative history or the successes and failures of its operating programs - without understanding the other. The important sources include archival collections, congressional records, newspapers, and published reports. This dissertation demonstrates that New Deal liberal thought (and action) about how to best address rural poverty evolved considerably throughout the 1930s. Starting with a wide variety of tactics (including resettlement, community creation, land use reform, and more), by 1937, the New Deal's approach to rural poverty had settled on the idea of rural rehabilitation, a system of supervised credit and associated ideas that came to profoundly influence the entire FSA program. This proved to be the only significant effort in the New Deal to solve the problems of rural poverty. The FSA proved to be modestly successful as an anti-poverty program; it ameliorated the suffering of the rural poor and generally improved the lives of its clients. It did not prove to be successful as a political institution, succumbing to political attacks during World War II. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

New York transformed: committees, militias, and the social effects of political mobilization in revolutionary New York

Social mobilization during the American Revolution rapidly, fundamentally, and permanently changed the way New Yorkers related to government. By forcing residents to choose sides and regulating their access to commodities such as salt and tea, local committees made government integral to how people lived their lives. Rebel campaigns against the British army in 1776 and 1777 furthered this involvement, giving state-formed commissions for detecting and defeating conspiracies the warrant to investigate individual conduct and define acceptable political behavior. With Tories expelled from central New York and the disaffected persuaded to support rebellion in the war's later years, the rebel government redistributed loyalist property and enfranchised much of white society. By the 1788 Poughkeepsie Convention, New Yorkers - a people who had previously related to each other through their social class, religious affiliation, and position within a community - believed that government existed to expand political participation, provide citizens with economic opportunity, and protect the rights of the individual. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries