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Bloodied Kansas: Nazi Retribution in a Kansas POW Camp
Get PDFFear! Raw, naked, animal fear! Kameraden! Kameraden! Help! Help! Someone, please! Anyone, please? Faces, a blur of faces. Some sneer. Some laugh! Others look down, look away. Run! Where? The gate, they will help. They must help! No! Where are they going? This can\u27t happen, not here!Blows--fists, boots, hammerlike blows! Exhaustion. Silence. Acceptance. And finally ... darkness.In Nazi-occupied Europe this scenario played out for thousands of victims. But this wasn\u27t Europe. This tragedy occurred in the United States, in Kansas. The victim was Captain Felix Tropschuh, Afrika Korps veteran, and a prisoner of war under the charge of the U.S. Army. His tormentors were his fellow prisoners and his ordeal was endured right under the noses of his American captors and under conditions existing with American acquiescence
Henry James Sr.: Nineteenth Century Theologian
Get PDFHigh praise for Henry James Sr. came only from the few that understood his philosophy and theology. James was more often described as an undisciplined, radical, iconoclastic, new age nabob, or as the poet Ellery Channing imparted, "a little fat, rosy Swedenborgian amateur with the look of a broker, & the brains & heart of a Pascal." Thoreau, although a visitor to James\u27s home, barely elevated the discussion, chronicling James as a man who "utters quasi philanthropic dogmas in metaphysical dress." Looking through the inerrant eyes of history, and understanding the enormous social and religious changes that James participated in during the 1830-50s, it is easier to recognize James as the enigmatic genius worthy of his small renaissance. Once credited only for being the father of two of America\u27s great minds at the tum of the twentieth century, there is now an effort among scholarly circles to reassess James\u27s work as a theologian and writer. James the theologian was prototypical of much religious thought in America today, as his son\u27s work as a philosopher was prototypical of much philosophical thought in America today.
How the Cows Came Home...as Dinner: The Economic Survival of the Osage Indians Concerning the Development their Grass Leasing Business in the 1870s and 1880s
Get PDFIt was a sad song they sang that year as they trampled, grudgingly, out of their Kansas homelands. But this unhappiness was understandable since, for the Osage Nation, the last century was a harrowing history that included ceding nearly eight million acres of their sacred land to the haughty, relentless United States government. Even after their removal from the Sunflower state was completed by the early 1870s, newly appointed Indian agent Cyrus Beede remarked that the Osages were still not "ready to give up their war dance and ... scalping knife;"1 as if stealing their property was supposed to transform them into more evolved, more \u27civilized\u27 human beings
The Sage of Baltimore, A Life of H.L. Mencken
Get PDFOn a blazing hot Sunday afternoon in 1925, Henry Louis Mencken sat at his typewriter in a hotel room in Dayton, Tennessee, stripped to his underwear. While he pecked away in his usual manner, he paused occasionally only to light up another Uncle Willie cigar and to roar with laughter at his own writing. The dispatch he wrote to the Baltimore Evening Sun was inarguably some of his best work. Mencken\u27s dispatch told in flowing prose of a visit he and a female journalist took to a Holy Roller revival in the hills outside of Dayton, where "the old-time religion was genuinely on tap." The dispatch, later edited and published as "The Hills of Zion," would be one of Mencken\u27s most reprinted essays.
Editor\u27s Note
Get PDFThe 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\u27s efforts.Mindy WheelerMay 200
Catholic Nuns in the Civil War
Get PDFIn an era where women were denied any real careers in life except marriage and motherhood, "A prime attraction of convents was a way of life which gave women, who would otherwise have had no such possibilities, access to effect change, a prominent and active role-in short, a vocation in the world. Sisterhood was seen as a great undertaking in the service of an active and enthusiastic faith."1 These Catholic sisterhoods gave American girls an "alternative to marriage and motherhood, an opportunity for lifelong meaningful work, and a way to live out their spiritual ideals with an all female community that shared similar goals and values."2 Through their travels, their administrative skills, their nursing skills, and their adaptability to any situation, they might have been "sheltered from the world," but these women were definitely in the public sphere.
Wycliffe and Heresy
Get PDFOn December 31st, 1384, a priest died. No loud fanfare sounded, no one paraded through the streets; a stranger in town might not even realize that this man died holding heretical beliefs. Over forty years later his bones would be removed from the church graveyard, burned, and cast into the River Swift. However on that New Year\u27s Eve, John Wycliffe, called by some the "Morning Star of the Reformation," quietly passed away as a baptized church member and Catholic in good standing.
Lois Lane: In Step with Second-wave Feminism
Get PDFLois Lane has been described as impetuous, reckless, irrepressible, impulsive and unpredictable. She is too common. She is a combination saint, sinner, imp, imbecile, smartypants, snob, Samaritan. She is snoopy, inquisitive, curious, a pest, and can\u27t keep a secret. Lane has also been described as being attractive, ingenious, a star reporter, loyal to SUPERMAN and a terrific booster of worthy charities. At first glance, the main characteristic of Lane is her enigmatic qualities. However, taking a step back from the character reveals that the framework of omen\u27s history in which Lane was originally put into had begun to change.1 Creators of the character, Joe Siegel and Joe Shuster, had Lane appearing as a fixture in Superman\u27s life from 1938 on, even before Lex Luthor and Supergirl, she challenged, undermined, superseded, and sometimes, if necessary and convenient, aligned herself with the roles women were assigned in society.2 Since her inception, Lois Lane has had to navigate her way through multiple feminist waves, ideologies, and the perpetual reincarnation by various artists.3 This is because characters like these are outlets for artists and writers to express their individual perspectives on life. In the case of Lane, she is an expression for what her creators thought a woman like her should be. This expression becomes sensational when the character takes the lead in her own comic book, Superman\u27s Girl Friend, Lois Lane
The Force of Evil Circumstances: The Apache Scouts at Cibecue
Get PDFLed from their cells to the waiting gallows, the three Apache scouts walked past the assembled witnesses: three troops of cavalry, a single infantry company, and two companies of their fellow Indian scouts.1 Upon surrendering themselves they had protested their innocence, but were now resigned to their fate. They refused to beg for their lives. That would not be the Apache way. Addressing the onlookers for a last statement, one stated that to beg would only bring laughter and ridicule.
Smallpox: The American Fur Company Pox Outbreak of 1837-1838
Get PDFSmallpox is a virus that raged its war upon the people of this world for millennia. Striking the Native American population in the late sixteenth century with the landing of Cortez, smallpox emerged again in the eighteenth century during the American Revolution. During the summer of 1837, smallpox struck the upper Missouri River region. The epidemic caused the near elimination of tribes such as the Assinneboins, Crees and Mandans. The events generated headlines for some major newspapers like The Connecticut Courant, The Pennsylvania Freeman and The Waldo Patriot. Newspapers printed a segment of the events that were occurring in the upper Missouri River region; however a record found in the journal of a clerk at Fort Clark named Francis Chardon, titled "the American Fur Company responsible for the smallpox devastation," brought the Company\u27s responsibility to light. Fur trading companies were based on goods and services provided by fur exports. The American Fur Company accomplished such goals by navigating the Missouri River with steamboats like the St. Peter\u27s, which enabled them to provide such services at a greater speed. Through this rapid way of transportation, the American Fur Company became partly responsible for the alarming rate of Native American deaths due to smallpox, by spreading this disease throughout the upper Missouri River region