Founded in 1996, the Fairmount Folio is a history journal which publishes the work of students at Wichita State University. It is published by the Gamma Rho Chapter of the national history honorary, Phi Alpha Theta and the Department of History at Wichita State University. Topics have included American, European, Asian cultural, political, economic, and social themes, from ancient to modern times, but are not limited to any geographical region. ISSN 2998-4033 (online) ISSN 2998-4025 (print)
Wichita State University Phi Alpha Theta Gamma Rho Chapter
Copyright by Gamma Rho Chapter of Phi Alpha Theta. All Rights Reserved.
Witchcraft in the American Colonies Beyond the Limits of Salem
In the United States, witchcraft has become synonymous with Salem. When it comes to the history of witchcraft in the United States the conversation tends to be dominated by Salem, as the words witchcraft and Salem seem to have become synonymous. What is also well known is that the Salem Witch Trials led to the deaths of so many and the imprisonment of dozens more. However, fears of witchcraft and witch hunts and trials have occurred all over the world. There is documentation of witches and persecution of people thought to be witches on every continent that people inhabit. In the last few decades, as the subject of women's history has flourished there has been an abundance of research done on the topic of witchcraft and its impacts in the American colonies. However, a majority of this research and the scholarly writings have focused on the Salem Witch Trials. While this has drawn more of the general population into the topic, there is still far more research that is needed on the other witch trials that occurred in the American colonies. Salem has a well-publicized and understood history when it comes to witchcraft and trials, but there are many trials that preceded and followed those that occurred in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Copyright (c) 2019 Fairmount Folio: Journal of History
Pounds, Police, and Patriots: How Colonial Reactions to British Quartering Transformed from 1756-1774
Of all the legislation which edged the thirteen colonies towards independence, none are as misrepresented as the Quartering Acts of 1765 and 1774. From an early age, generations of American students are still taught that through the Quartering Acts, Britain forced colonials to take red-coated troops under their roofs, feed them, and care for them. This was not the case.1 In fact, the Quartering Act of 1765 was actually the first time England ever explicitly banned quartering in private homes.2
Copyright (c) 2018 Fairmount Folio: Journal of History
Breaking a Century of Silence: A Historiography of the Tulsa Race Riot
The events of May 31 through June 1, 1921 had been obscured by a lack of official records and a culture of silence for the better part of a half-century. Thanks to the diligent work of amateur journalists and historians like Mary E. Jones Parrish, and civil servants like Maurice Willows of the American Red Cross, we have a historical record to work with. Writers like Ed Wheeler and Scott Ellsworth pioneered investigation into the riot, conducting Interviews and collating their findings into some of the first works dedicated to the act. Thanks to the efforts of Don Ross and the other members of the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, the prevailing narrative preserved by Parrish and Willows persisted into acceptance as the official story. Historians working during the commission drafted three distinct histories, built upon past work on the subject and serving different purposes: either to humanize the victims and perpetrators of the riot, make the case for reparations, or examine the context surrounding the riot's remembrance in the city.
"The Crusade Against the Whisker" and the Birth of the Modern Radical Beard
This paper seeks to investigate the shift in style in the last decade of the nineteenth century, when it again became customary for men to shave their beards. In order to address this topic, the historiographies of facial hair, masculinity, and radical politics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the United States demand attention. The convergence of these three areas of study will provide the basis for this examination into this shift in style, and the social meanings that may have been placed on beards and beardlessness during this period in American history.
Ross and Watie: The Relationship and Influence of Cherokee Chiefs, from Removal to the Civil War
John Ross and Stand Watie were chiefs and leaders of the Cherokee people through a large part of the nineteenth century. Politically they differed in thought and action. Even though they maintained different political understanding, they both believed in the unity of the Cherokee Nation. Through their lives, their differences shaped each other and their nation. Their actions had major influences on one another. What started as a political divide became a personal grudge over decades. The decisions they made for themselves and the Cherokee people had great effect on each other. Their political movements were not only based on the Cherokee people, but on how the other would react. This relationship began in the early 19th century and went through the Civil War. They were a part of treaties, assassinations, peace, and war. They influenced and changed their nation, and influenced and changed each other.
Gender and Division of Labor Associated with Dying, Burial, and Mourning in Early America
During the colonial period, and the years of the new republic, death most frequently occurred in the home. Members of communities engaged in a system of mutual aid by helping families at a time of loss. Women cared for the sick and dying and prepared the body for burial.4 Men built coffins, as an extension of the cabinet making trade. The local sexton dug the grave. On the day of the funeral, men transported the coffin to the burial site. Women participated in the funeral service by providing hospitality to mourners and taking part in the procession. Women and men participated in mourning rituals by donning attire and following mourning etiquette based on religion and social status. These gendered divisions of labor and social expectations represented the specified gender roles within colonial society. Although the rituals associated with death and dying particularly in functions outside the home were dominated by men, women still carved out their own place in these rituals based on gender roles of the time.
Back in our Fiske Hall home, this issue of "The Folio" showcases a variety of scholarship. Each volume of the journal often reflects the seminar and course classes offered in the previous year. The articles in volume 19 are uniquely limited to American history topics. While the location of the topics is focused on one country, they range widely chronologically. From colonial America to the 1920s, these papers reflect on serious issues facing daily life. Both Amanda Underwood and Rhenee Clark Swink showcase the lives of women in eighteenth century America. Logan Dougherty addresses the connection between politics and men's facial hair at the turn of the twentieth century. The personal relationships of Cherokee political families, and the issues which drove them to disagreement are analyzed and reflected upon in Erik Ferguson's article. We end the issue with Joshua Mackey's recreation of the decades long effort to tell the tale of the Tulsa race riots. Taken together these articles tell us much about the lives and issues facing Americans. Thanks are due to the faculty of the Department of History who give of their time, expertise, and guidance throughout the process. Faculty provide invaluable support from the development of paper topics and sources of information in preparation of class papers, to guidance through the final revisions prior to publication. A board consisting of faculty chooses the papers to publish. On behalf of the students and faculty who made this edition possible, we hope that you will enjoy their work. Dr. Helen Hundley Faculty Editor
Bombing Wichita: How the bombing campaigns of World War II spurred production and change in Wichita, Kansas
Far above Germany, seven men fly. Their jobs are all different and imperative to the success of their mission. Hundreds of other planes fly beside them. All are focused on the task and trust in the rest of the crew and in their plane. Once the target is sighted, tons of bombs are released. They see the explosions and are elated in another mission completed. What they did not see was the family home the bombs destroyed, or the family members that lost their lives to the horrors of air warfare. The military gave justifications for this new method of war. Perhaps in their hearts, the pilots and crew felt bad for those who perished. However, they are at war and did whatever needed to be done to win. Thousands of miles away, different civilians faced disparate stresses. These civilians lived in Wichita, Kansas and they were imperative to the production of airplanes for World War II. The Boeing-Wichita plant is an important case study of war production. It was the largest plant located in Kansas and built the most iconic aircraft of World War II. The war production transformed Wichita's people, infrastructure, future and added stress to a considerable number of those in Wichita; however, those stresses did not include wrestling with the morality of bombing civilians of belligerent nations.
Peace Breaker: Edwana Collins and Desegregation in Wichita Public Schools
The fight for Civil Rights in the United States has been difficult and has largely been accomplished by people who have challenged the status quo. History shows that progress and people willing to break the peace go hand in hand. Edwana Collins was one such peace breaker. On June 8, 1970, she was duly sworn and took the stand ready to testify against the Wichita Board of Education, an institution she had been part of for nearly sixteen years. Throughout her tenure on the Board of Education, Collins was a needed advocate for desegregation in Wichita Public Schools and fought to give African American families a voice within the school system. Through a study of her personal papers, Board of Education documents, local newspapers, and the civil rights movement in Wichita as a whole, one can trace her efforts toward integration, from her early work as president of the Board, creating and serving on committees designed to research the underlying issues contributing to segregation, her commitment to advocating for the African American parents, and her ultimate act of peace breaking, testifying against the Board of Education. Though she was not alone in her fight against inequality, her efforts demonstrate that individuals can be agents of change within their communities.
Ragged Schools: Educational Opportunities for Destitute Children in 19th century England
Beginning in the 1750s the industrial revolution changed the way in which many citizens lived in Britain. Before the Revolution, eighty percent of citizens lived in rural areas. However, due to agricultural advancements which allowed more food to be grown by less people this changed. As fewer people were needed on the farms, many migrated from their rural homes to the developing urban areas to look for jobs in factories and mines. The cities where these factories were located were rapidly built and little planning went into their design. This new urban working class lived in overpopulated, unsanitary parts of the cities and were also not guaranteed work once they moved to the city. Industrialization had its ups and downs and, therefore, so did the job market. Workers were constantly dealing with fluctuating employment. For those who could not find any work, they often resorted to begging, lying, and stealing as an alternative. Sadly, this was not a cross bared solely by the adults of the working class; many children also learned this way of life as well.
Defending the Defender: Gerald Winrod and the Great Sedition Trial
The Rev. Dr. Gerald B. Winrod, an evangelist based in Wichita, Kansas, viewed himself and his followers as defenders. He came to call his media and ministry organization the Defenders of the Faith and its flagship magazine, The Defender. From Winrod's view, the Defenders provided a moral bulwark against Darwinists, saloon keepers, women who wore revealing clothes, Catholics,sometimes, Jews, and especially Communists. At times, Winrod used very thin evidence to apply these labels to those he viewed as threats to American morality. For example, Winrod widely promoted his assertion that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was both a Jew and a Communist.1
Gobitis and Barnett: The Flag Salute and the Changing Interpretation of the Constitution
In Minersville School District vs Gobitis (1940) the United States Supreme Court ruled 8 to 1 overturning lower court decisions barring states from implementing compulsory flag salutes. Three years later, the Supreme Court overturned that ruling with a 6 to 3 decision in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943). The cases were nearly identical and argued similarly but had different outcomes. How did the landscape of America change so drastically in a three-year period? First, the Supreme Court did not see a danger in the rise of nationalism in the United States or the social impact the ruling would bring. Second, the violence that followed Gobitis decision caused Jehovah's Witnesses, a pacifist group that was uninvolved in politics, to become more persistent in utilizing the legal system and more vocal concerning persecution of its members. Finally, the Supreme Court was not the same. A change in justices and a shift in the focus of the Court from economic matters to personal liberties created a different political landscape, when West Virginia State Board of Education vs. Barnett reached the Court in 1943.
Agency on the Edge: Women of Colonial St. Louis and the Power They Held
In 1763, the city of St. Louis began its life on the western side of the Mississippi River. From its inception the city had aspects that were uncommon for a frontier village. The people there still dealt with normal frontier problems, like relations with neighboring Native American tribes, taming and shaping the land, and supplying the town. However, its location gave St. Louis an interesting history. It was first settled by French merchants who quickly found themselves under Spanish rule. The Spanish would last until 1803 when Louisiana was given back to France then promptly sold to the United States. Through all of these changes the people remained steady, and they developed somewhat uncommon views of women for the time. Those views were reflected in how women came to settle in the city, spent their days, appeared in courts, and how they obtained education. The unique circumstances of women in St. Louis make it an interesting setting for a case study of how women in the early nineteenth century had different levels of agency in their own lives.
It's Not About the Whales: The Continued Need for Protectionist Environmental Law
Environmental law is altering the understanding and practice of law. Environmental Law is a legal discipline derived from social movements during the 1960s and 1970s, and has progressively received social, political, cultural, and legal acceptance. But its legitimacy is derived from extra-legal evidence. Law experienced a similar shift during the Progressive Era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Progressive legal scholars promoted the Law and Society Movement, which focused on the concept of "legal realism." Legal realism argued that courts consider legal and non-legal evidence in their decision-making processes. They preferred to base legal arguments on empirical research rather than traditional legal rules and institutions. In his 1881 work The Common Law, legal historian Oliver Wendell Holmes noted that experience should govern the creation and application of law, not solely logic. He argued that one had to be aware of all kinds of non-legal matters to develop a thorough understanding of law. In 1921, Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo's work The Nature of the Judicial Process continued Holmes's argument. He added that judges should not solely rely upon legal past precedent, but consider all branches of knowledge, experience, information, and their own intuition. Modern legal realists view law not as a fixed phenomenon, but in a state of constant flux, responding to changing social conditions.1 Environmental law challenges court justices to not only include procedural law and sociological jurisprudence in their decisions, but also to consider each case as unique and different from all others.
Copyright (c) 2016 Fairmount Folio: Journal of History
A Family Friendly Force: Providing a Family Visitation Option for SAC Alert Crews
On January 16, 1974, commanders at McConnell Air Force Base near Wichita, Kansas, and members of the local media ate a lunch of steak and baked potatoes. A photograph in the official base newspaper shows a woman in a beehive hairdo about to hand a plate over cafeteria glass to one of the honored guests. The occasion was the opening of a new alert center, ready to house up to twenty-four member crews of KC-135 airplanes. The base paper called it "the newest and finest alert facility in all the Strategic Air Command" (SAC) and a "vast improvement over old alert facilities."1 The Wichita Eagle was more objective in its description but did call the center "a one-of-a-kind alert facility."2
Teen Titans and a Generational Movement of the 60s and 70s
A caption jumps out from the cover page, "THEY JUST COULDN'T WAIT TO START THEIR OWN MAG!" Approved by the Comics Code Authority and officially sealed with the Superman DC National Comics brand, the cover reveals four super powered teenagers in the midst of a struggle for their very lives. "NO, YOU"RE NOT SEEING THINGS! THAT'S ROBIN, WONDER GIRL, KID FLASH and AQUALAD-- ALL FIGHTING THE SAME VILLAIN... The BEAST-GOD of XOCHATAN!" Young readers across the nation could get their hands on this thrilling first issue and debut of a newly formed superhero team for only twelve cents, a decent price for nearly forty pages of entertainment. Young adults and children thought so too, back in 1966 when this comic book issue was first published. As exhilarating as it would be to see the Teen Titans battle a Beast-God named Xochatan, however. What is more important, historically that is, was what was being implicitly expressed through this series. During a time when a multitude of social movements were rapidly progressing towards social equality for most Americans, their own superheroes now seemed to be joining them.1
The Plain Dealer and the Home Defender: Nick Chiles, Carry A. Nation, and Smasher's Mail
In her short-lived newspaper The Smasher's Mail, Carry A. Nation included two accounts of how she began her business relationship with Nick Chiles, owner of the Topeka, Kansas, Plaindealer, newspaper.1 The inaugural issue of Smasher's Mail in March 1901 said when Nation started her campaign against the saloons of Topeka (called "joints" in the vernacular of 1901), Chiles took a "deep interest in her work." When Nation was taken into custody on a charge of destroying private property and "the so-called Law and Order people" put her in the Shawnee County jail, Nation's former friends deserted her. Nation, a white woman, contacted Chiles, an African American man, to request that he post her bond, and he complied.
Les Américains Noirs: Race and Racism in the U.S. and French Army during World War I
Huddled at the trench's lip, eyes fixed upon the desolate moonscape beyond, anxious soldiers clutched their bayonet-fixed Nebil rifles as their hearts hammered against their chests. As the whistle's Harpie-like cry pierced the air, these troops charged across No Man's Land while German shells erupted all around them in a volcanic symphony. The enemy saw the men's French uniforms and dark skin, and believed they faced another company of France's feared West African shock troops. However, these soldiers were not African, nor were they French. These were African-American soldiers of the US Army's 93rd Infantry Division. Placed under the command of the French army in 1918 while still nominally a part of the AEF, these African-American troops had the unique experience of serving in two different armies from two different nations. Unlike their sister division, the 92nd, the 93rd tasted what they believed to be the fruits of equality long denied them in America. Moreover, the legacy of these African-American soldiers reveals far more than racial perspectives held by Americans, but also those of the French, especially when one considers their use of African colonials. Through the lenses of US black soldiers' wartime trials, the employment of black troops in both armies, as well as US and French racial perceptions, one beholds racism's sinister sneer upon the visages of both American and French societies.
Rejecting Eve: Reception of Christianity Among Cherokee and Iroquois Women
Christianity and the values it espoused were antithetical to traditional Iroquoian and Cherokee values. Women experienced similar social, economic, political, and religious authority within their respective societies. Their experiences in regard to Christianity, however, differed, although acceptance of missionaries in both societies was more for political and economic reasons rather than a genuine interest in Christianity. Iroquois women were profoundly suspicious of missionaries and consistently rejected Christianity. Huron and Algonquian adoptees with prior experience in established missions warned their new brethren that the presence of missionaries served as a prelude to European expansion, disease, and war. Cherokee women perceived Christianity and the civilization mission it carried with it as a validation of the work in which they already engaged. They remained outwardly more receptive but maintained aspects of their traditional spirituality. Both societies combatted Christianity's attempt to subjugate women and struggled to maintain the gender balance so central to their cultures. These traditional powers held by women, and their resistance to a forced transition to patriarchy, are exemplified by two Native women: Degonwadonti, or Molly Brant (Mohawk), and Nanyehi, or Nancy Ward (Cherokee).
The Fairmount Folio was created by Dr. Helen S. Hundley in 1996 to provide a forum for undergraduate and graduate students to publish exceptional historical work. Over the course of twenty years and seventeen volumes, she has served as the driving force and champion of the Folio. She has overseen every detail of its publication, including the transition to a digital format. Her dedication is such that even after a serious accident in March of 2016, she continued guiding the publication of this volume. Tis only a flesh wound, she might have said. To her, this volume is affectionately dedicated. Dr. Robert M. Owens and Felicia Hammons
Few battles in military history can be judged both tactical and strategic successes. The World War I Battle of St. Mihiel is one of these. Its success can be attributed to many reasons: the excellence of the battle plan, the leadership of the generals and field commanders, the enthusiasm of the American doughboys, and the lack of German will to hold the salient. But above all, its success depended on the great cooperation within the newly-instituted American Chief-of-Staff command, and within the recently-formed Allied command, both of which allowed for the powerful massing of troops and materials needed to defeat a determined enemy fighting a total war. Cooperation produced the massive army which formed for the first time at St. Mihiel - an army "nearly four times as large as Grant's Army of the Potomac at its maximum strength. three times Napoleon's Grand Army at Leipzig, nearly twice the German army at Sedan in 1870, and much larger than either the Japanese or Russian armies at Mukden, the largest on record before 1914."1
Copyright (c) 2015 Fairmount Folio: Journal of History
Long Live the Nation: Political Cartoonist and Nationalism In Victorian England
Few things are as innocent as a weekly episode of Charles Shultz's Peanuts in the Sunday newspaper. Most often, the sole purpose of the artist is to cause the reader to smile, to momentarily allow melancholia to be replaced by laughter, to entertain. Shultz's work is part of a group of cartoons that be described as comic art. Another group, the social cartoon, is designed to amuse the reader, but also to provide commentary on some annoying or worrisome aspect of life. A third type of cartoon, however, is rarely innocent and usually deals with loftier issues than life's inconveniences. The political cartoon is a partisan, and often nationalistic, comment made by the artist. Through his or her work, the cartoonist seeks to "influence the viewer to a particular viewpoint and predispose him or her to a particular action." Political cartoons are frequently known for "artistic excellence" and humor, but these characteristics are always secondary to the ideas that the drawings express. Truly excellent political cartoons are symbolic, but simple. They may not be purely representational, but any misrepresentation or exaggeration must be believable. Finally, and most importantly, political cartoons must be rooted in truth and be about a subject which has "lasting importance."1 Cartoons are, in fact, an important resource for scholars interested in the political climate of a nation. The artist's drawings not only reflect prominent issues of a nation, but help shape feelings of nationalism among its citizens.
Dear Readers, We are very pleased to bring you Volume 15 of the Fairmount Folio, a journal made possible by the efforts of undergraduate and graduate students, and the faculty of the Department of History at Wichita State University. These articles were chosen for their sophisticated research and presentation qualities by Editorial Boards. Dr. Robert Weems, Willard W. Garvey Distinguished Professor of Business History, Dr. George Dehner, Associate Professor of History, Dr. Robin Henry Associate Professor of History, and Dr. Travis Bruce, Assistant Professor of History, all gave their time and expertise to choose the papers for publication. This volume's wide range of topics from early Medieval to the twentieth century reflects the broad range of courses available to our students. Both Kristina Haahr and Lynsay Flory delve into the impact of two Christians, St. Frideswide who became an evolving legend which represented a variety of times, and John Wycliffe who challenged Roman Catholic administration. Jason Herbert, Anna Wood, and Emma Snowden all wrote on basic issues of race and expansion that came to a head in the nineteenth century. jason Herbert explores the nexus of Native Americans and escaped slaves in the creation of Muskogee society. Anna Wood looked at women abolitionists in Great Britain. Emma Snowden discusses the writings of a prominent American journalist, Henry Watterson, and his views on American Imperialism at the time of the Spanish-American War. We finish with two cultural topics which reflect very serious issues, personal hygiene and food sources. John Skelton's work on pellagra and Carolyn Speer Schmidt's work on food production and the needs of a modernizing world show how important changing food production and medical research was for the twentieth century. Dr. Helen Hundley Faculty Editor
Copyright (c) 2014 Fairmount Folio: Journal of History
Dear Reader: We are pleased to present the fourteenth edition of the Fairmount Folio. This year we present works from both undergraduate and graduate students in Wichita State University's history department. Each of these essays was chosen for its content and overall quality by the Editorial Board and carefully edited by myself and Dr. Helen Hundley to provide the reader with the highest caliber of scholarship. This issue, all of our entries deal with war: the reaction to war, war itself, the effects of war, and war of a different kind in our own society. An unattributed quote my mother often told me growing up was, "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting their own battle." This has resonated throughout the editing of this volume. As I encountered American Indian relations in the American Revolution with Jason Herbert's work, john Skelton's work about venereal disease among soldiers, the oft-looked over Memel problem in Nathaniel Lutke's essay, Sarah Lavallee's work on post-traumatic stress disorder among soldiers, Angela Sager's writing on the Mennonite reaction to the Vietnam War, and Tyler Thornton's work on local battles in the fight for rights of Wichita's homosexual community, I realized that battles are fought in every aspect of life; including editing, writing, and college level studentship in general. By analyzing these topics as they do, the student writers allow us to realize the effects of battles on everyday people fighting both militaristic wars and wars in society. I must thank Dr. Helen Hundley for her supreme leadership role, kindness, and keen eye in the editing process. The Folio, as always, is indebted to the Editorial Board: Dr. Robert Weems, Dr. Jay Price, and student editor Jason Herbert. Lastly, a thank you to Denise Burns is necessary, who has helped students who do not have the insight in word processors that she does format their papers for our use. Enjoy. Jillian Overstake April 2012
Dear Reader: We are delighted to present to you this thirteenth edition of the Fairmount Folio. Awaiting you is an array of historical essays from Wichita State University graduate students. Each of these six outstanding essays was carefully selected by the Editorial Board based upon its scholarship and carefully edited for the readers' education and enjoyment. This edition is unusual in that each essay deals with American history and two deal specifically with Kansas history. We have grouped the essays chronologically, beginning with David Ferguson's, "No Taxation Without Representation!!! (And Only If Both Can Be Within The Bounds Of Our Legislative Control.)" This essay explores the complex issues of colonial Americans' demand for representation in the British parliament in the 1760s and the repercussions of those demands. The next essay is by Kate Page, "Those Pirates and Muslim Barbarians: The American Public View of the Barbary Nations and the United States Participation in the Barbary War." The author looks at the response and attitude of the United States on pirating and the Barbary Wars in the early nineteenth century. Next, we move into the Civil War era with Karen Powers', "Catholic Nuns in the Civil War." This essay documents the important nursing role Catholic nuns played during this conflict. And Jillian Overstake's essay, "The Nurse, the Soldier, the Spy: Three Women of the American Civil War and the Primary Sources They Left Behind," tells the story of three interesting women and their contributions during the Civil War. In "Race in Kansas," Karen Powers follows the issue of race from the "Bleeding Kansas" days into the early twentieth century. And in the final essay, "Dr. John Brinkley: Quack Doctor, Radio Personality, and Politician," Jason Gilliand looks at the life of this interesting and eccentric Kansan. Dr. Helen Hundley deserves a special thank you for her help and support throughout the process of compiling and editing these essays. It has been a tremendous learning experience for me and I am grateful for being given the opportunity to serve as Editor. I would also like to thank the Editorial Board - Dr. Robin Henry, Dr. Ariel Loftus and Dr. Hundley -- for their input in the process of selecting these papers. It has been a joy to work with each of these professors. Please enjoy the fruits of our labor in these enlightening essays. Judy Welfelt April 2011
Dear Reader: On behalf of the Editorial Board and Staff, I am proud to present to you the twelfth edition of the Fairmount Folio, an annual publication of some of the best historical research from WSU's graduate and undergraduate students. This issue has a marked emphasis on American history, where minority groups such as Native Americans and gays and lesbians figure prominently. This emphasis is not intentional. The selection was made by the Editorial Board based on the merit of the research papers, and from this process, five outstanding papers were selected. The opening piece by Marquez is titled "Understanding Homosexuality in Postwar Kansas." In this the author examines some of the major developments that were occurring in the nation's cities concerning the understanding of homosexuality, and how these were reflected in Kansas at a time when the interstate highway system was beginning to emerge. In the second piece, "Smallpox: The American Fur Company Pox Outbreak of 1837-1838," Ables discusses the great smallpox epidemic, and its effects on the Native American population of the Upper Missouri region. Ramsey's "Understanding the Cherokee War" is an analysis of the diplomatic relations between Cherokees and English, and the events that led to the British-Cherokee conflict of 1759, and Marquez's "Persecution of Homosexuals in the McCarthy Hearings" deals with the role that the famous senator played in the lavender scare of the early fifties. The closing piece departs from this thematic pattern. In "Preparing for the Future War," Munshaw analyzes the major Soviet military buildup of the early thirties, as previewed in Stalin's First Five Year Plan. I would like to extend my gratitude to the Editorial Board members for their hard work in reviewing and selecting these research papers. In addition, I would like to thank professors Robert Owens and Robin Henry for their useful feedback in the improvement of the students' works. Finally, I thank Dr. Helen Hundley for her enthusiastic support and great editorial vision in aiding me with this privileged task. In times of economic stress and budget cuts, publications like this show that supporting the humanities never goes unrewarded. Hugo Marquez April 2010
In this, our eleventh volume of the Fairmount Folio, I am inaugurating a new segment of the journal, an interview with an established historian. It will mirror a concept begun in our sister publication, The Historian, the journal of the national history honorary, Phi Alpha Theta. This segment is meant to provide wider understanding of the variety of experiences and scholarship found among historians. We hope you will enjoy these interviews.
The Fairmount Folio is a student publication of the Phi Alpha Theta honorary society at Wichita State University. The journal is written and edited by WSU students, both undergraduate and graduate. Each volume is the result of the hard work of many people, including those students who submit papers for consideration; the authors selected for publication; the Editorial Board which consists of several History Department faculty members; the Faculty Editor, Dr. Helen Hundley; and the Student Editor. This year, I was asked to be the Student Editor. When I accepted, I knew the task would be educational and fun, but at times, frustrating and time consuming. My expectations were met, and the rewards are beyond quantitative measure. As with history itself, the publication of an academic journal is a collaborative effort. Of great importance to this undergraduate editor was the unique opportunity to engage in and observe peer review of scholarly work and to experience the complete process of journal publication. Thank you to Dr. Helen Hundley. She has been the Faculty Editor of the Folio for over a decade, and it is a great asset to the University, the History Department, and the students that she has dedicated her time and expertise repeatedly to this publication. This year, Dr. Hundley contributed to the Folio not just behind-the-scenes, but also with a new segment--an interview with a working historian. For students of history, it is enlightening and necessary to understand the scope and impact of historical research. Thank you to all those who submitted papers for consideration. The Editorial Board received a record number of papers this year and the process was made even more challenging by the quality of the papers submitted. Thank you to the authors selected for publication, not only for supplying the journal with interesting and well-written papers, but for their continued patience and diligence throughout the editing and revising process. Thank you to the Editorial Board and faculty advisors. Drs. Ariel Loftus, Robert Owen, and Helen Hundley each read through the record number of submissions and thoroughly considered each one. In addition to the members of the Editorial Board, several other History Department faculty members provided the authors selected for publication with suggestions and guidance during the revision process. Specifically, I would like to thank Dr. Robin Henry, not only for her assistance during this project, but for her excellent teaching, interesting courses, and engaged support of my educational endeavors. This volume spans from ancient to modem history, from Asia to the Americas, from military and political to cultural and religious histories. Of particular interest to this editor is the variety of sources utilized by the student authors. For instance, the study of history has been enriched in recent years by the introduction of various electronic databases which allow students at \VSU the access to engage in more thorough research than ever before. Several of the authors utilized contemporary newspapers to analyze the context of the topics being studied. Print media has played a unique role in enabling national discourse and disseminating information, and for just those reasons it is a primary tool for many historians. The authors and editors thank you for reading the Fairmount Folio and sincerely hope you enjoy the product of so many people's efforts. Mindy Wheeler May 2009