University of Massachusetts Undergraduate History Journal

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<h2> Submission Guidelines</h2> <p>We accept submissions in three categories: essays or book reviews based on secondary sources, essays based on primary sources, and miscellaneous historical reflections. Essay submissions must be historical, academic pieces with a clear thesis, analysis and support. But for historical reflections, we also encourage students to submit reflective writing pieces on the study of history, or what history means to them. This section of the journal is particularly open-ended to students. You may submit pieces that were assigned as part of coursework or essays done independently if they fit the academic criteria.</p> <h2></h2> <h2></h2> <h2>Review Process</h2> <p> Upon receiving each submission, the editorial board will decide on the appropriateness of the piece for the journal and will then solicit feedback from an outside reviewer. The author’s name and identifying information will be removed from the submission to allow the reviewer to concentrate only on the content. Based upon the feedback from the outside reviewer, whose identifying information will remain unknown to the author, the editorial board will decide whether to publish the piece. We will then send a notification to the author, indicating that their article will 1) be published as is; 2) require minor revisions; 3) require major revisions; 4) not be published in the journal at this time.</p>
<p>Founded in 2016 by members of Phi Alpha Theta, the national history honor society, the UMass History Journal is devoted to showcasing the diverse historical work of undergraduate students. This publication will include essays, book reviews, and historical reflections written either within or outside the framework of undergraduate courses. Authors may be history majors, minors, or non-majors who have interests in the study of history. </p>
<h2>Submission Checklist</h2> <p></p> <p>1) All text, including headings, sub-headings, notes, and references, is set in a standard 12-point type, such as Times or Times New Roman, and the text is double-spaced with a 1-inch margin on all sides.</p> <p>2) The piece should conform to proper, standard English grammar as described in <em>Elements of Style</em></p> <p>3) References/citations should conform to <em>The Chicago Manual of Style</em></p> <p>3) The piece is no longer than 7,000 words with footnotes and references included.</p> <p>4) The abstract is no more than 150 words.</p> <p>5) There are no URLs located in the main text when used in a bibliographical sense (although names such as Amazon.com are acceptable). URLs should be relocated to endnotes or the reference list.</p> <p>6) Manuscript has been copyedited by the author.</p> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p> <h2>Style Points and Mechanics</h2> <p></p> <p></p> <p>Quotation Marks</p> <p></p> <p>Double quotation marks should be used for in-text quotations, direct speech, and publication titles, and also for constructed terms or concepts, for ironic effect, or for authorial commentary. In all cases, a period or comma precedes the closing double quotation mark. Citations and Bibliography</p> <p>Notes</p> <p>Notes should be presented as footnotes and full bibliographic information should appear at first citation. Citations should conform to the Chicago Manual of Style citation system. Please consult the Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide for reference. Any acknowledgments should be placed as an unnumbered note before the Notes section.</p> <p>Note reference superscripts should be in Arabic numerals (1,2,3 etc.) not Roman numerals.</p> <p>URLs should not be located in the main text when used in a bibliographical sense. URLs should be relocated to endnotes or the reference list.</p> <p>Please refer to the Purdue Online Writing Lab's guide to the Chicago Manual of Style for examples and detailed descriptions. See also this list of examples prepared by the UMass History Journal.</p>

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    Getting on the Map: American women and subversive cartographical practice
    Westhoven, Kara
    Approaches to cartographic history have largely centered around a Cartesian perspective of space and a masculine tradition that celebrated the domination and exploration of new lands. This paper, instead, assesses the ways in which women have successful inserted themselves into this cartographic practice. By examining American women’s use of maps, from tools for education and early nation building, to nineteenth-century biographical resources, and as promotional visuals of the suffrage movement, it becomes clear that women have utilized maps, geography, and cartographic vocabulary in unconventional ways throughout history. Maintaining critical perspective of feminist cartography also allows for identification of the oversight and exclusion of marginalized groups of women. This study of historic cartographic practices culminates in discussion of modern feminist geography and its efforts to represent women’s diverse relations to space. In tracing the historical patterns of women’s participation in cartography, as well as their contemporary implications, we find that women have subverted a traditional masculine narrative of space in a variety of ways.
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    THE FRENCH COLONIAL ENTERPRISE, A CASE STUDY ON THE DISCOURSE OF EMPIRE: INSPIRED BY THE WRITINGS OF TOCQUEVILLE, SAID, AND GORDON
    Chrzanowski, Michael
    This essay explores the writings of Edward Said, Daniel Gordon, and Alexis de Tocqueville; each of these historians reflected on the concept of colonialism and its possible social, cultural, and political ramifications. Said is remembered as a prominent post-colonialist, and this is reflected in his criticism of European exoticization of the East in his book Orientalism. European notions of superiority, matched with a desire for intellectual accumulation of other cultures' knowledge, propelled colonialism forward in the nineteenth century. Alexis de Tocqueville's accounts on France's colonial mission challenge Said's notion of European superiority; Tocqueville was a civil servant, politician, and historian who held mixed feelings towards French colonial efforts. Tocqueville was concerned with French intentions and efficiency; it was important for colonizers to try to understand the people they sought to rule. Daniel Gordon, a critic of postcolonial scholarship, tries to dissect the language of colonial discourse employed by intellectuals like Said and Tocqueville, highlighting the contested space of reflections on colonialism in the twenty-first century. This work synthesizes the writings of these three intellectuals to craft a coherent understanding of colonialism, "civilization," and "Orientalism" concerning European interactions with non-Europeans.
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    BOSE’S REVOLUTION: HOW AXIS-SPONSORED PROPAGANDA INFLAMED NATIONALISM IN WARTIME INDIA
    Connors, Michael
    After decades of subjugation under the British crown, India’s leaders at the onset ofthe Second World War were split on how to handle nationalist sentiment in their country. Part ofthe Indian National Congress, an independence-focused political party, these leaders werehighly aware of the reality where many common Indian citizens would shed blood for a king thatwould not validate India as an independent state. Since negotiation seemed to prove fruitless, Subhas Chandra Bose, a savvy Indian political leader, decided action must be taken to remove the British Raj. In order to weaken British authority, Bose split from the INC — forming a shaky alliance with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in order to promote anger in Indian citizens through propaganda radio broadcasts. With Axis support, Bose waged an information war on the Allies, proclaiming a “Free India” while leading a provisional army. Meanwhile, Allied efforts to dissuade Indian citizens from Bose’s rhetoric through their own propaganda countermeasures may have not been as effective as initially intended.
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    Popular Literature in the Abbasid Caliphate: How It Represented and Defined the Culture of the Abbasids
    Weidner, Genevieve
    Often times, the study of history focuses on concrete events, such as wars or political measures. In a history classroom, this is usually not out of neglect, but for the sake of time. In order to cover the broadest timeline, history teachers often gloss over the culture of each region they study. However, the culture is an essential part of history. The culture explains what people valued, which contributes to the events that usually define the course of history. This paper examines two styles of popular literature during the Abbasid Caliphate. By examining poetry and the prose works of Kalila and Dimna and The Arabian Nights, the values of the Abbasids become clear. While there is no direct evidence that suggests these works caused a revolution, war, or political uprising, they certainly demonstrate the culture of this time period.
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    GENDER, BIOLOGY, AND POWER: SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONS AND WOMANHOOD
    Cahill, Robert
    For decades, feminist scholars engaged in discourses surrounding women as a biological and social identity. Scholars unpacked normative ideas of womanhood and gender, often drawing very different conclusions from one another. They theorized that womanhood was a social construction to ensure their subservient status to patriarchal institutions. The line between biological and social identity was and still is contentious between scholars. Writers like Judith Butler, Caroline Smith-Rosenberg, and Natalie Zemon Davis analyzed gender constructs in both a theoretical and historical sense and formed their analysis in different ways. Their work breaks down how medical orthodoxies created biological ideas of womanhood and how biology was used as a method to effectively enforce normative ideas of gender. This work seeks to compare the approaches of each scholar and their analysis of womanhood.
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    Jews in Romania Before, During, and After the Holocaust
    Pastorello, Michael
    An examination of Romania’s past reveals a historical pattern of anti-Semitic behavior which tragically culminated in the killing of close to 300,000 Jews during World World II. Under the fascist rule of Ion Antonescu (1940-1944), Romania actively participated in the persecution and extermination of the Jewish population. Initially, discriminatory laws were enacted, but that soon escalated to mass deportations and killings of Romanian Jews. Following the ousting of the fascist regime, a communist government gained control of Romania and ushered the country into a post-war era. This period predominantly focused on distancing the country from their anti-Semitic past using censorship and distorted history. Even today, despite irrefutable evidence, the Romanian public continues to deny the nation’s involvement, often blaming Hitler for the Romanian Holocaust. Although Hitler and the Nazis played a role, Romania’s long-standing anti-Semitic tendencies facilitated collaboration efforts, and resulted in crimes which were independent atrocities perpetrated by leaders and citizens alike. In spite of efforts by later governments to attribute fault solely to the Nazis, Romania must take accountability for its participation in the Holocaust.
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    The Humanism of Dr. Peter Parker
    Holmes, Michael B.
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    The Blurriness of Speech at “The Schoolhouse Gate”
    Hastry, Brianna
    The landmark 1969 Supreme Court case, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District, stated that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech and expression at the schoolhouse gate,” so long as the speech does not “materially or substantially interfere with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school.”36 However, unlike many precedents set in landmark cases, this ruling has been unclear and contested in ensuing decades. Minors’ free speech rights must be understood in the context of a long, complex, and at times contradictory history of conflicting interpretations, such that, even now, more legal challenges are required to produce a clear set of rules. Through an analysis of a variety of contradicting court cases regarding free speech in schools, the rights of minors more broadly, and “right to know” issues in students’ education, the highly contested nature of minors’ free speech rights, historically and contemporarily, becomes apparent.
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    Violent Reflections: Bloody Mary in 1990s Pop Culture
    Godinez, Mac
    The final decade of the 20th century transformed the folk figure of Bloody Mary into a recognizable character on television screens through media like the 1992 film Candyman and the X-Files episode “Syzygy.” This paper explores the extent to which the Bloody Mary character provided a narrative tool to discuss U.S. state violence and brutality. The first section summarizes early academic writing on Bloody Mary to understand how this legend took hold in the United States. The second section traces the contours of the Bloody Mary figure to understand her narrative utility, as well as consider the history and anxieties around children’s divination games in the age of Satanic Panic. The third section looks at the dual nature of 1990s state violence through an increase in militarized police forces alongside disinvestment in social support systems. In the conclusion, this paper analyzes Candyman alongside “Syzygy” to understand how the two approach a fear of vengeance from different ideological attachments to police authority. Throughout the course of this paper, these sections demonstrate how mainstream anxieties about police violence and potentially violent retribution are presented through the familiar and fantastical folk figure of Bloody Mary.