2020-2021 History Yearbook

DEPARTMENT2020-2021 NAME GOES HERE HISTORY

EVER ONWARD

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LETTER FROM THE CHAIR Dear KU Students, Faculty, Alumni, and Friends: For a second year the pandemic has not made it possible to celebrate in person the graduation of students and to recognize those who have received awards. The pandemic has created many challenges, but it has not stopped us from doing what we do best: making history.

It’s important to highlight our many achievements this year. Students and faculty adapted to new ways of teaching. Despite travel restrictions, our students and faculty have conducted research, completed papers, theses, and dissertations, and presented our findings at scholarly meetings and in publications. That work earned recognition both within KU and beyond.

Now more than ever we can see why history is so important to make sense of the present and to prepare for the future. By looking back, we can grasp better the reality, complexity, and diversity of the world. We understand that we’re not the first to confront huge problems, and that we can turn these problems into opportunities to make a better world. We do so by putting out skills to work: sorting facts from lies; finding and evaluating divergent, and often conflicting, evidence; developing compelling arguments; and effectively presenting our informed conclusions. We know how to analyze difficult problems, which is the first step to finding solutions to those problems.

The generosity of many donors has made it possible to recognize our outstanding graduating students, as well to help continuing students to carry out their research and to finish their degrees.

Some of those awards are named in memory of former History students; several honor outstanding History faculty mentors who made a difference in their students’ lives. This yearbook offers ample evidence that such support yields rich returns and allows students to realize their dreams.

Congratulations to our students and many thanks to our faculty, alumni, and friends!

Luis Corteguera Ahmanson-Murphy Professor Chair, History Department

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LETTER FROM THE UNDERGRADUATE DIRECTOR Dear History Majors, Class of 2021: The last fifteen months have not been what any of us expected. Remember the mass celebrations in February 2020 after the Chiefs won the Super Bowl? And then the disbelief when, just a few weeks later, the Jayhawks could not pursue the NCAA championship that was in their grasp? One good thing—among many!

—about being a history major is that you’ve been trained to expect, analyze, and learn from the rapid changes that mark the human experience. Although, admittedly, this last year and a half has pushed those skills to the limit.

We, the faculty and staff in the Department of History, are everso-proud of the grit, tenacity, and adaptability you have shown at KU through the Age of the Great Pandemic. You persevered through the nerve-wracking uncertainty and tribulations that affected us all. We all learned to, if not love, then at least manage our responsibilities and to maintain our engagement via Zoom and Teams and all the other platforms that suddenly became “the new normal.” You are the “Resilient Generation” and we appreciate the good grace you brought to our collective challenge.

You have certainly earned the opportunity to pursue your dreams and your hopes with fortitude and conviction. Your years studying the past have given you the analytic and communication skills, as well as the broad vision and generative knowledge, to make good on your futures and to make your mark on the world. With pride in your achievements, we wish you success and happiness. You will always have a home on the third floor of Wescoe in the Department of History. Please do keep us posted on all that comes next.

On behalf of the faculty and staff, you have our heartfelt congratulations, David Farber Roy A. Roberts Distinguished Professor Interim Director of Undergraduate Studies

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GRADUATING SENIORS

Jessica Blom

Abigail Byrd

Jessa Case

Paige Harding

Daniel Ryan Huddleston

Willow Blue Islas

Anna L. Jacobson

Sam Leyerle

Kylie Loewen

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GRADUATING SENIORS

Paula Lopez

Gannon Miller

Campbell Potter

Nic Redford

Meredith Shaheed

Jacob Springer

Anna Stafford

Logan Woodyard Stuart

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GRADUATING SENIORS NOT PICTURED Carrie Barr Nathan Bingaman Maxwell Bryan Phillip Cummings Grant Dailey Alessandro DeBrevi Jacob Downing Jaylen Fuller Andrew Gies Humberto Gomez Salinas Briton Heck Elizabeth Hinton Brenna Hobbs Matthew Hug Jacob Irvine Henry Kane Anderson Maginn Harrison Manlove Mike Mlynski Jackson Mooney Jake Morask Thomas Riggs Brenda Roan James Roberts Andres Sainz De Aja Gonzalez Del Ray Danielle Sapiente Kaman Simmons Kathryn Stanwix Jacob Thomas Brian Tines

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HISTORY HONORS THESES Jessica Blom, “The M*A*S*H ERA: Television and the Equal Rights Movement” This thesis explores the connection between society’s changing views on masculinity and the role of friendship in American life through the characters of the hit television show M*A*S*H (19721983). More than just a TV show, M*A*S*H was a major cultural phenomenon of the late 1960s to the early 1980s. From its first iterations as a novel and major motion picture, to its 11 seasons on TV, M*A*S*H explored a range of issues and themes that characterized the American culture of second half of the 20th century.

The span of this cultural phenomenon was also a period of widespread unrest in the United States, as the nation debated issues ranging from gender equality and racial equality, to protests against the Vietnam War and political rifts over the powers of the presidency. While the show addresses all of these concerns, its deepest and most consistent theme was changing notions of masculinity and gender relations, including shifting notions of male friendship and the push for gender equality. This is best expressed in the character of Dr. Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce and his connection to the others in his unit.

Using a deep, close reading of key episodes, and analysis of several of the major and minor characters that populate the MASH universe, this essay traces how a wildly popular American TV show recast the meaning of manliness, friendship, and sex through the tumult of the 1960s and 1970s.

Abigail Byrd, ”Directing Death: The Professionalization of Death Care in Urban Kansas’ Black Communities” The Civil War brought significant changes to America’s death industry and paved the way for the modern profession of funeral directing. Narratives of the social and economic impacts of this transformation often overlook Black communities, especially in the early days of this industry. Using materials from Black-owned funeral homes and newspapers in urban Kansas areas, specifically Topeka, during the post-Reconstruction period, this thesis examines the development of death care and the funeral industry in Black communities, from their roots in mutual aid societies to the social and economic elevation Black-owned funeral homes and their directors. Black funeral directors in early-1900s had social and cultural responsibility unique from those of white funeral directors, and many of these directors, their families, and their businesses had a significant and lasting impact on their communities. At the same time, the economic dualism of urban Kansas cities centered the funeral industry as a vital and exemplary structure in Black areas and for Black progress.

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HISTORY HONORS THESES Austin Childs, “Civil Rights Divided: Geopolitics of Black Transnationalism and ‘The Palestine Problem’” This thesis discusses historical examples of Black transnationalism and its impact on the perception of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict among prominent African-American activists. The research focuses on articles, memoirs, internal organization memos, and other documents written by Ethel Minor, James Baldwin, Stokely Carmichael, Malcolm X, and Ali Baghdadi, emphasizing the common thread between the oppression of Palestinians and African-Americans. According to these authors, that thread is the exploitation of Black communities for the benefit of imperialist nations.

At the center of the research is an investigation into the publication of “The Palestine Problem” by Ethel Minor in the monthly SNCC Newsletter. The document launched a broader conversation in the Civil Rights Movement regarding the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. This was a crucial moment in African-American history as Black power organizations embraced Black transnationalism, faced mounting criticism of antisemitism, and branched off into a new, internationalist approach to Civil Rights.

Anna L. Jacobson, “Lead, Leases, and Lies: Land and Power on the Quapaw Reservation in the early 20th century” This thesis examines the history of lead and zinc mining on the Quapaw Reservation in Oklahoma and argues that the opening of mining and mineral leases on the Quapaw Reservation imposed American views of nature and wealth upon Quapaw society, which in turn changed how Quapaw society operated in the late 19th century. Land is central to the relationship between Indigenous People and colonizers; clear examples of this can be seen in the interactions between the Quapaw Nation and the white miners who sought to profit off of the Quapaw’s wealth of lead and zinc resources. The notion of land as property and commodity are also results of colonization which are clearly seen in this history in terms of the new ways the Quapaw began to interact with nature. This paper also applies recently available information concerning allotment on the Quapaw Reservation in a way which has not been done before, revealing insights into how the Quapaw self-allotted their reservation, which was both unprecedented and replicated. Overall, this thesis seeks to synthesize the available information about allotment and lead and zinc mining on the Quapaw Reservation as a service to the Quapaw Museum and Quapaw Nation as a whole.

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HISTORY HONORS THESES Caleb Luck, “Humanitarian Aid or Western Manipulation? Interpretations of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Jordan from 1979-1991” Throughout the 1980s, discussions involving the United Nations Relief and Works Agency’s (UNRWA) methods of funding and function in supporting Jordan’s Palestinian refugee population served as proxy debating-grounds for larger political issues in the Middle East. Opinions regarding the agency’s budgetary woes expressed via the letters of Jordanian representatives to the UN, publications from the Jordanian press, and notes made by American observers during this time facilitated a nuanced analysis of the legacy of Western influence in the Middle East through the lens of humanitarian aid. Moreover, the issues addressed in these materials demonstrated that the political and financial dimensions of humanitarian aid are largely inseparable and thus allowed for a larger argument on the nature of international humanitarian relief work as an inherently politically biased enterprise.

Kaman Simmons, “Climate, Clans, and Capitalism: Structural Change in Somalia Since Independence” Somalia is a country on the eastern coast of Africa. As a result of civil war, it lacked a functioning government from the early-1990s to the mid-2010s. During the past thirty years Somalia has suffered a series of large-scale famines and droughts. The goal of this thesis is to explain the historical context behind those tragedies and understand the impact of environmental factors on Somali history. These answers are found by analyzing reports from the international aid community and news coverage of the Somali economy. These results show that the nomadic pastoral lifestyle that has formed the basis of Somali culture historically is in a process of gradual decline due to global markets and social change. The recent conflict and environmental factors such as drought and deforestation have hastened this decline which started during the colonial era. This decline is due to the duel factors of economic opportunity pulling Somalis away from the pastoral nomadic lifestyle, and environmental catastrophes pushing them out of it.

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HISTORY HONORS THESES Logan Woodyard Stuart, “Agricultural Higher Education in China: A Mirror to the 20th Century’s Shifting Political Landscapes” This thesis examines the development of agricultural higher education in China in the context of the complex role the government had in shaping national objectives for growth and economic expansion. Food production and agrarian China have been integral to political stability in the nation, and this thesis shows that each of the governments in China during the 20th century recognized the value of agricultural education for furthering and validating their ruling ideologies. China in the 20th century underwent massive changes in reigning political ideology, and agricultural higher education policies shifted in tandem with these political changes. These processes emerge in the first-hand accounts of agricultural scholars in China, as well as through state-propagated literature, which chart the evolution of China’s agricultural education goals. In the early Republican period agricultural education reflected an emphasis on modernization and an inclination to open up to foreign ideas. When the Communist party took control of China’s central government, agricultural education similarly adapted, mirroring the Communist agenda of uplifting China’s peasant classes and rejecting foreign influence. Through the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, the central government continued to focus on instrumentalizing agricultural education as an important facet of ideological change in the nation. In the latter part of the century, agricultural education again changed to emphasize modernization and a renewed look at globalization.

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UNDERGRADUATE AWARDS Ann Stewart Higham Award for Most Outstanding Graduating Senior Logan Woodyard Stuart

James C. Malin Scholarship Joseph Hartung Britany Johnson

Carl Becker Award for Most Outstanding Paper in a Senior Research Seminar (696) Harrison Manlove

Lila Atkinson Creighton Memorial Scholarship Katherine Price

Clifford R. Hope, Jr. Award for Outstanding Freshman History Major Alexandra Haggar Donald Worster Award for Excellence in History Anna L. Jacobson Engaged Scholar Award Meredith Shaheed Ewert/Cobb Student Opportunity Award Brian Tines James C. Malin Award for Outstanding Junior History Major Sophia Mager Lloyd S. Sponholtz Award for Outstanding Honors Thesis Anna L. Jacobson Melissa Evans Study Abroad Award Taylor Sarovich Walter Sours Socially Relevant Research Paper Award Abigail Byrd W. Stitt Robinson Award for Outstanding Sophomore History Major Haylee Rose

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Nicole Bingham Memorial Scholarship Hannah Rose Goseland W. Stitt Robinson Scholarship in American History Austin Childs

PHI ALPHA THETA INITIATES Phi Alpha Theta is a professional society whose mission is to promote the study of history through the encouragement of research, good teaching, publication and the exchange of learning and ideas among historians.

Students are invited to join the society if they have completed a minimum of four courses in history and maintained a GPA of 3.1 in History and a 3.0 GPA overall.

Jessa Case Brittany Johnson Griffin Johnson Morgan Renae Kurtz Anderson J. Maginn Kendall Paige Marsh Carol L. Mellott Madison Needham Jacob Robert Penner Hannah Rose Haylee Rose Taylor Samson Sarovich Walter Ray Sours Logan Woodyard Stuart Brian C. White Connor Wilcox Elizabeth Winkelman Hannah Elizabeth Wolfe

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LETTER FROM THE GRADUATE DIRECTOR This past year has been the most challenging academic year that any of us has experienced. As we bring the 2020-21 to a close, I am deeply proud of how well the graduate students in the History Department have weathered this catastrophe. Students have persevered despite losing access to archives and travel. In the face of radical changes in social interaction, our students and faculty have worked to maintain a sense of community. Dissertations have been reconfigured and reconceptualized, and the quality of graduate work has remained exemplary.

I am hopeful that the experience of this crisis has helped reveal the ways that humanistic and historical thinking are deeply needed in the current moment. For all the herculean efforts made by the medical sciences in crafting new vaccines and treatments, the work of convincing the global population of their efficacy and necessity requires historical and cultural thinking. We need historians to help teach us lessons that have been forgotten since the global influenza pandemic of 1918-20. What strategies worked then that we could pursue now? How do we work with marginalized communities and communities of color who have legitimate fears that medical treatments may be used in nefarious ways. Only fifty years ago, the government was still conducting medical studies on Black servicemen and sterilizing Puerto Rican women without consent. These histories have consequences, humanists are well positioned to be mediators, advocates, and advisors that can help medical teams work with diverse populations. Stepping beyond the immediacy of the pandemic, the world needs more historically conscious humanists working to reconfigure how we interface with technology, negotiate across and between cultural boundaries, and remind the world that we cannot understand the present without remembering the past.

I know that our graduates are well positioned to make a difference in the world as researchers, educators, consultants, advisors, directors. We are immensely proud of their accomplishments and look forward to reveling in their continued success.

Sincerely, Rob Schwaller Associate Professor Director of Graduate Studies

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DEFENDED DISSERTATIONS Dusty Clark, “Tradition Reinvented: The Reimagination of Kanpō Medicine in Twentieth Century Japan” Advised by Megan Greene This dissertation examines the ideological development of classical Japanese medical (also known as kanpō) philosophy and practice between the Edo period (1603-1868) and the mid-twentieth century. During this time, kanpō evolved from a system based in classical Chinese medical theories and practices into one heavily reliant on Western conceptions of disease and scientific practices. His dissertation traces the successive intellectual reinventions of the kanpō paradigm that led to formation of this modern“tradition.”

Michael Hill, “The Imperial Drawbridge: Alaska and the U.S. Pacific Empire” Advised by Sheyda Jahanbani and Drew Isenberg Alaska’s geographic separation from the rest of the United States played a pivotal role in the country’s transition from continental to overseas empire. Conceived of as both continental and overseas, yet neither fully one nor the other, Alaska allowed Americans to build upon a tradition of westward conquest while simultaneously experimenting with overseas imperialist ambitions. By 1898, on the eve of the Spanish-American War, some American leaders, desperate to continue U.S. expansion across the sea, looked upon Alaska as the United States’ lone example of overseas empire. These leaders believed Alaska set an example for the twentieth century, legitimizing the acquisition of foreign lands and the creation of a true U.S. overseas empire.

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DEFENDED DISSERTATIONS Ariel LaGue, “‘Right to Painless Death:’ The Fight for Humane Animal Slaughter in the Cold War United States” Advised by Sara Gregg During the 1950s, animal welfare organizations launched a campaign for the passage of ahumane slaughter law to require the use of improved slaughtering methods in packinghousesacross America. The call for legislative action ignited a widespread debate between animalwelfare advocates, religious communities, and the packing industry, all of whom held differingpositions on the proper role of the federal government.This dissertation features these claimsand argues for the significance of the 1958 Humane Slaughter Act in understanding the U.S.during a time ofincreased modernization, scientific innovation, production, and consumption,alongside a growing awareness of the impact of human decision making on the non-humanworld during the Cold War, and contributes to a broader understanding of how ethical,economic, and religious values influenced political decisions and led to an expanded role forthe federal government—one that regulated the human-food animal relationship.

Melissa Lunney, “What is a Witch Worth? The Value of Men at the Conclusion of the Salem Witch Trials” Advised by Kim Warren Defense on May 24, 2021 This dissertation examines the question of why more men were accused and convicted in the Salem Witch Trials than during trials and accusations in the rest of the English Commonwealth, as well as the course of events that transpired after Governor Phips ended the trials. An additional focus of the paper focuses on the social standing of families, and the impact of that standing on reparations. The families of higher standing in the community that lost a loved one received more money from the Commonwealth, while those seeking money for the loss of a female relative or of lower standing received less. Salem is documented as the first significant use of reparations to value social standing, not just material losses, and thus those with higher overall standing in the community were compensated at a higher rate.

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DEFENDED DISSERTATIONS Brian Trump, “Sex Crimes and Criminal Sexuality: Legislating and Policing Community Boundaries in Nebraska, 1880-1980” Advised by Beth Bailey This dissertation analyzes sex crime prosecutions in Nebraska between 1880 and 1980, a period in the state bounded by dramatic growth in population and state institutions in the 1880s and the reform of the sex crime statutes in the 1970s. Using newspaper coverage, trial records, and legislative documents, it explores how prosecutions for both violent and moral sexual offenses—rape, sodomy, and sexual psychopathy—highlight community boundaries and notions of belonging, particularly in terms of race, class, gender, and mobility. In doing so, it argues that trial outcomes and discourse surrounding sex crime prosecutions reveal distinctions at the local level between insiders and outsiders, who in society was entitled to legal protection from sexual threats and who represented those possible threats.

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GRADUATE PUBLICATIONS Eric Funabashi, “Japanese Immigrants’ Pantry: Creating Eating Habits and Identities with Brazilian Ingredients.” Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies, vol. 21, no. 2 (Summer 2021): 52-64.

This article explores the role of cookbooks in supporting the creation of new eating habits and identities during the Japanese immigration to Brazil. When Japanese immigrants first arrived in Brazil in 1908, the local food represented a major barrier to their acclimation in the new country. Unknown ingredients and disgust for popular seasonings like pork fat and garlic prevented Japanese immigrants from preparing familiar meals and caused drastic changes to their diets. After nearly three decades improvising meals, Japanese immigrants started to better incorporate Brazilian ingredients into their eating habits when an alliance between the Brazilian and the American governments in 1937, and Japan’s defeat in World War II pressured them to adopt Brazil as their new home country. As Japanese immigrants internalized a new mindset focused on making Brazil their permanent home, cookbooks written by immigrants not only taught them how to use Brazilian ingredients, but also reflected immigrants’ improvements in building a higher-quality lifestyle. This article analyzes cookbooks written by Japanese immigrants in tandem with private diaries and recipes to examine the complex process of creating new eating habits as well as new Brazilian Nikkei identities.

Ryan T. Fullerton, “’Any Kind of Added Protection’: Interest Groups, Cultural Heritage, and the Kansas Right-to-Hunt Amendment,” Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains, 44 no. 2 (Summer 2021).

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GRADUATE PUBLICATIONS Joao Batista Nascimento Gregoire, “The Challenges of the First Black Political Party in Brazil: Seeking Alliances in Unsympathetic Territory.” Brasiliana: Journal for Brazilian Studies 9, no. 1 (2020): 456-475.

This paper examines the rapprochement between the first black political party in Brazil – Brazilian Black Front - and the fascist party - Brazilian Integralist Action - as a microcosm to assess the challenges faced by Afro-Brazilians in the initial stages of black political activism in the changing Brazilian political atmosphere in the 1930s. The mutual opposition to European immigration, the authoritarian inclinations in the leadership of both parties, and the failure of the other side of the political spectrum, led by the Communist Party, to address race, are the three suggested explanations to explain such political collaboration. This study demonstrates that the first Brazilian black political party faced a twofold challenge. At same time that it attempted to find its own political voice, it needed to assess the best alternatives to seek political coalitions in a setting still dominated by whites who were reluctant to acknowledge racial inequalities in Brazilian society.

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EXTERNAL AWARDS Eric Funabashi The Japan Foundation Fellowship-Doctoral Candidate (August 2021-June 2022) Nippon Foundation Fellows Program (September 2020-June 2021) Toshiba International Foundation Fellowship (June 2021-August 2021) Joao Batista Nascimento Gregoire Conference on Latin American History (CLAH) - James R. Scobie Award (June 2020) Predoctoral Fellowship - Carter G. Woodson Institute at the University of Virginia. (August 2021July 2023) Ariel LaGue Andrew C. Mellon Applied History Fellow, Center of the American West, University of Colorado, Boulder (2020-2021) Amy Millet Fulbright Research Grant, Austria (2020-21) Fulbright Research Grant Semi-finalist, Austria (2021-22) Richard Plaschka Fellowship, Austria, 2020-21 Brian Moreno Academy of American Franciscan History (AAFH) 2021 Dissertation Fellowship

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UNIVERSITY AWARDS 2021-22 FLAS Fellowship Brian Moreno 2021 Summer Research Scholarship, Office of Graduate Studies Titus Firmin Marjorie Galelli Center for East Asian Studies Okubo Award Eric Funabashi Hall Center for the Humanities Graduate Research Travel Grant Titus Firmin Joao Batista Nascimento Gregoire Emily Raymond

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DEPARTMENTAL AWARDS Arthur & Judith McClure Memorial Scholarship Eric Funabashi Haoran Ni Weldon Clark Terrill James Yao Donald R. McCoy Dissertation Research Award Andrew Kustodowicz George L. Anderson Award for Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Michael Hill Grant K. Goodman History Scholarship Haoran Ni James C. Malin Award for Outstanding Teaching by a GTA Daniel Chmill Preston Decker Ariel LaGue Mrdjenovic Family Scholarship Emily Raymond Adam Rodger Norman E. & Mary Ann Saul History Award Daniel Chmill Joon Chung Preston Decker Eric Funabashi Joao Batista Nascimento Gregoire Andrew Kustodowicz Emily Raymond Sam Rogers Paul Schwennesen Oswald P. Backus III Memorial Award Adam Rodger Robert Yaple Prize in Military History Marjorie Galelli

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