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Women raised in the Judeo-Christian patriarchal Britain during the seventeenth century and the eighteenth century were perceived as intellectually deficient. Men had been the head of the household and were expected to provide for their families, whereas women were largely found around the household making clothing and preparing food. However, despite these differences, poetry from the colonial women describe a world in which both men and women worked equally hard to support themselves and their families, and that women as well as men were involved in facilities involving health and politics. The purpose of this study was to investigate the most common themes in colonial women's poetry prior to the 1800's and understand the reason behind these themes. The poetry of Anne Bradstreet, Lucy Terry Prince, Martha Brewster, and Phillis Wheatley were investigated.  it can be concluded that , as demonstrated by the poetry of colonial women prior to 1800. It was determined that the capriciousness of life caused the colonialists to infuse every aspect of their daily lives with religious beliefs. 
 

Knights of the middle ages were the most honorable and noble warriors of their time. As the elite forces of kings, champions of maidens, and defenders of the people, knights were looked upon as the embodiment of what a true hero should be. However, even knights had fluctuations in their moral and religious standings that deviated from this noble image. My essay uses literary texts that were written at the time to be teaching tools for knights on how they should behave to contrast good and bad knightly qualities, and discuss what a true knight should be like. The examples of how knights treated women, how they followed the Christian faith, and how they performed in battle serves as a few broad areas of knightly aspects that knights were lectured about in these stories. Using these aspects, and looking at the texts, one can start to draw out an image of what a truly honorable and noble knight would look like.

Spanish and the British colonial endeavors in the New World resulted in demographic collapse for the Native American population. Spanish missionaries along the East and West Coasts of North America built the mission system in order to Christianize the Native American tribes they found, whereas European colonists who settled in New England sought wealth and freedom. Exposure to Old World diseases brought by the colonists greatly affected the native population in the New World, and demographic collapse ensued. The Black Legend and modern-day arguments indict the Spanish missionaries for the genocidal impact they had on the Native American population. However, a new examination of data offers a different conclusion, described in my project "Safe Haven? Spanish Colonial Missions as Centers of Refuge." Due to limited data, an absolutely accurate analysis of the Native American demographic collapse at contact is unachievable; however, disaggregating available data, along with examination of European colonial accounts, can determine patterns and trends. The conclusion of such an analysis is that the demographic collapse was the result of contact between Europeans and Native Americans.  The death rate of Native Americans skyrocketed in both New England and Spanish Florida, but it was the English colonists who effectively committed genocide against the Native Americans in order to take over the land, resulting in the Spanish missions becoming centers of refuge for the affected natives.

This paper was written to explore the complicated, dramatic downfall of the political power popes held during the later Middle Ages. The research shows there were reasons for this prior to the Reformation typically associated with this phenomenon. The thesis states that Pope Innocent III brought papal supremacy to an unprecedented height, to the point of intervening in secular political affairs unrelated to the church itself, and even initiating such actions to increase the pope's temporal power, thereby turning the position into a secular rather than spiritual one. This was caused by the secular background, often in law or the military, of Innocent, setting a precedent for other popes into the future. In depth analyses of five popes from the late 1100s to early 1500s are used to demonstrate this process. Due to the sheer amount of power these popes were now expected to acquire and expand upon, the papacy overextended itself and could no longer maintain the same degree of influence over politics as they had previously. Primary sources are utilized, written both by the popes themselves, including decrees, ordinances, documents of canon law, and letters and other correspondences, and their contemporaries, including historians and those who interacted with the pope, in the form of narratives and correspondences. Secondary sources are used in the literature search of authors who have also researched this topic, as well as to provide historical context. This includes papal histories from the 1800s to the present, a secondary medieval text, and Catholic Encyclopedia.

After the end of World War II, Eleanor Roosevelt wrote an advice column for McCall’s women’s magazine entitled “If You Ask Me.” Scholars argue that the end of the World War and the beginning of the Cold War occasioned a religious revival in the United States. It is possible to analyze and interpret this religious trend during the era through a close examination of Roosevelt’s magazine column in relation to other social and political issues of the time.  Such analysis reflects a lower level of religious interest in the late 1940s and early 1950s that focused mainly on its relation to politics, a growth of religious interest in the mid1950s that focused more on a personal spirituality, and a decline of a focus on religion in the late 1950s and early 1960s that focused more on questioning religious authority.  If one accepts the notion that the column topics deliberately focused on issues significant to the readership than the numbers of columns that have a reference to religion per year provide a numerical model of the trajectory of  American feelings and interest in religion that follows the actual religious trends in the United States from the late 1940s through the early 1960s. Application of these research findings allows for a better and deeper understanding of religious revival during this time period.
 

Gandhi’s campaign for Indian independence would not have been as successful without the nationalism that British education unintentionally led to.  The purpose of this project is to identify the exact impact that British-style education had in overcoming the disparity between the Indian people and in providing certain resources which aided in the development of Indian nationalism and eventually independence.  To understand the developments in India’s education system and the unification of Indians under nationalism, I focused on the voices of British officials, Indians who experienced the British education system in India, and Indian nationalist leaders.  These sources range from the installation of the British East India Company all the way to Gandhi’s campaign for independence.  The results of my research show that the British-style education implemented in India allowed nationalism to be born and to grow by developing governmental institutions, training Indians to run them, providing a common language, and giving Indians a common goal.

In the decades leading up to World War I, the increasingly divided European powers began developing war strategies in preparation for a possible continent wide war. The newest power, Germany, was no exception to this trend. Situated between France and Russia, German military leaders quickly realized the dangers of a two front war. Under the leadership of Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen, the Germans debated over how to tackle this serious problem. By 1905, it was finally decided that the best strategy resulted in facing the Russian’s first, then moving on to France. However, later that year in the finalized German war strategy, later known as the Schlieffen Plan, a France first policy appeared. This sudden change resulted from the conclusion of the Russo-Japanese War, also that year. A war between Russia and Japan, the Japanese shockingly won, in the first major victory of a non-European power over a European one, showing the weakness of the Russian Empire. Before this war, the German’s planning centered around their understanding of previous European wars and strategies. Afterwards, the German’s consciously learned from the results of a foreign war. Using the writings of Alfred von Schlieffen, a comparison can be made between the military plans before and after the Russo-Japanese War, which indicated a major shift in German military mentality from a Eurocentric one to a more globally influenced one, where the Germans not only paid attention but learned and altered their own plans in response.

The 1950’s and 60’s saw incredible growth within the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics due to the post-war boom in production and territorial expansion.  However, by the 1980’s the USSR experienced near stagnation in steel output, a rise in energy and raw materials costs, a sharp fall in investment and labor force growth, and an overall decline in production.  Agriculture failed to keep pace with the population growth while heavy industries simultaneously underperformed as well.  Spectacular harvest failures coupled with failures in the energy, steel, and construction materials sectors direly restricted the USSR's potential for economic prosperity in the 1980's.  This phenomenon offers the researcher a unique and stunning case study of what happens when a major global economy is allowed to fall into the hands of leaders with poor management and a lack of foresight.  By examining the recently declassified CIA briefs given to then President Ronald Reagan, we can clearly see and analyze all of the ailments and ramifications of the Soviet Union's poor economic planning and management in the latter half of its existence.  The economic data presented in these formerly top secret files not only tell us the story of how one of the two contemporary global superpowers was defeated by its own lack of sagaciousness, but it also serves as a warning to present-day economists and policymakers to be cautious and thoughtful in the decisions they make.

Using the information provided from the more recently released documents from the CIA archives, the correlating relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States in the 1980s dictated their foreign policy. With CIA documents recorded from1980 to 1985, a common thread was presented whenever the United States encountered the Soviet Union in another country. These documents revealed the efforts of the three Soviet hardliners in power to mitigate United States influence in different parts of the world. This paper reached the conclusion that there were three main areas in the world in which the Soviet Union held to this particular policy: the Middle East, Western and Eastern Europe, and Latin America and the Caribbean Basin. After extensively going through the documents provided by the CIA archives, I found a common thread. Everywhere in the world where United States influence and interests were present, the Soviet Union also had interests in the same area and attempted to stifle American policies and relations with those regional countries. With this thread, I connected a strand of documents to prove and establish my finding. This poster describes my research of the countries that were affected and exploited by the conflict of interests between the United States and the Soviet Union from 1980-1985.  

In first-hand accounts of knightly combat primarily in Spain, the level of extreme violence described is overwhelming. It is perplexing how religious knights could be morally content with the mass murders that they spent much of their lives committing. The answer is complex, but key is in who the knights were killing. Knightly violence was founded on the notion that their enemies, the Moors, were subhuman in value and, therefore, killing them did not constitute the taking of a human life. Because of this, the killing of the Muslims was not only acceptable; it was encouraged as a knight of Christ. Evidence of this can be seen in primary sources from the eleventh and twelfth centuries including crusade chronicles, a speech Pope Urban II delivered in 1095, and other discourses on knighthood. But the complexity of this answer arises when one examines the violent acts that knights committed against each other in tournaments and jousts. These specific acts, though they were not acts of vengeance for God against a common enemy (unbelievers), were still acceptable and sought after in the eyes of a knight because death of a knight meant life with Christ forever in heaven. Looking at these accounts reveals that knights were able to justify their violent acts a number of ways depending on the circumstances, either by convincing themselves that their enemies had no human value or by believing that their murderous acts were looked upon favorably by God.

In the late eighteenth century slaves in the state of Massachusetts were proactive in gaining their freedom. As a result of the type of master and slave relationship in Massachusetts, slaves were better educated, better versed in the English language, and more aware of political events around them than slaves in other states. Specifically, the slaves were knowledgeable about the Declaration of Independence and the Massachusetts’ Constitution of 1780, which featured the Enlightenment ideas of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Consequently, they were able to legally fight for their right to liberty. The slaves’ assertive legal claims were seen in the Mum Bett and Quock Walker court cases, as well as slave petitions of the period. The cases resulted in the legal termination of slavery in 1783 in Massachusetts, which set a precedent that spread throughout the New England states. By 1790 there were no enslaved persons left in Massachusetts. The purpose of this project was to explore the specific ways that the slaves were proactive in gaining their freedom through analysis of court documents, slave petitions, and journals of the time period.

In 1789 the rise of class tensions from the middle class in France soon lead to the French Revolution. Prior and during the revolution, Marie Antoinette, the queen of France, was targeted as the cause of the French Revolution. This accusation was due to her accumulated negative reputation from France’s Austrophobia, the significance of the Diamond Necklace Affair, and the over sexualization and dehumanization of her body. Frenchmen held great animosity towards Marie Antoinette due to her Austrian heritage and rumored plan to take down France for Austria. The Diamond Necklace Affair reinforced French citizens’ distrust of her ability to handle money and her ignorance of common Frenchmen’s struggles. Soon the French hatred of Marie Antoinette transferred into the humiliating over sexualization of her body through pornographic pamphlets and later into the dehumanization of her body. This caused her to become associated with sex scandals, negative religious connotations, and blamed for all of the bloodshed of the revolution. In conclusion, Marie Antoinette was an easy scapegoat to blame for many French citizens’ troubles.

Tracing the cause of a revolution can sometimes be a fruitless task. The endless list of causes and effects, the infinite number of interpretations, and new information being constantly uncovered can lead historians into a quagmire. The truth is that in history, there is no black and white, and trying to find a simple cause-and-effect leads to an over-simplification that can effectively, be wrong. Trying to reduce something like England’s Glorious Revolution can be particularly difficult, not only because the religious tensions boiling under English culture are difficult to track, but because the underlying causes can arguably be traced all the way back to the 12th century, even before. Every step farther back in history reveals another link, another effect that created not only England at the time of the Glorious Revolution, but England today as well. But there is one common theme in most of England’s pre-revolution history that has led to tensions, wars, hatred, and passionate belief: religion, specifically the struggle between Catholics and Protestants. England was re-defined by the Protestant Reformation, and the residual effects of such a huge societal shift led to the Glorious Revolution that placed William and Mary of Orange on the English throne—an event that still resonates in England today. The struggle between Catholics and Protestants has changed and defined English society, but never more than the decades following the Reformation. These religious struggles are the precursor of revolution, and the English Civil War and Revolution is the culmination of these struggles.