University of Massachusetts Undergraduate History Journal
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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 includes 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.
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Publication Open Access Atonement for the Unions: The True Story of How the US Got Its Minimum Wage and What It Means Now(2025) Corbett, AubreyThis paper examines the crucial role national labor unions played in the implementation of a minimum wage in the United States. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, union membership was widespread and deeply influential. Vastly exceeding today’s numbers, unionized workers organized effectively to challenge exploitative labor conditions. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) established a federal minimum wage in response to these conditions. While contemporary scholarship often credits President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, such focus overlooks the sustained pressure of organized labor. Strikes, sit-ins, and collective actions–including the Haymarket Affair (1886) and Pullman Strike (1894)–generated public and political urgency. This paper highlights how national unions like the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations amplified these local movements, coordinated lobbying efforts, and helped secure legislative action. Their influence shaped the FLSA and redefined labor standards for future generations of American workers.Publication Open Access Weighing Between Freedom of Speech and Rival Interests in Hustler Magazine Inc. v. Falwell(2025) Wald, Zachary L.Hustler Magazine Inc. v Falwell was a 1987 landmark case that expanded the scope of First Amendment protections. The Supreme Court ruled that a publication made by Hustler magazine was constitutionally protected, despite containing material that vehemently disparaged televangelist Jerry Falwell. Significantly, this case limited the ability of public figures to recover damages for infliction of emotional distress. Though the Court had previously qualified the extent of free speech, it declined to do so in this instance because factors such as precedent, the history of First Amendment applications, and the consequences of a ruling adverse to Hustler each weighed in the magazine’s favor. This paper analyzes primary sources including oral arguments and Court opinions to demonstrate why Falwell lost the case. In particular, both sides’ arguments are examined through the analytical frameworks established in Philip Bobbitt’s Constitutional Fate, a work which describes multiple avenues for assessing the constitutionality of laws.Publication Open Access From Forum to Capitol Hill: Republicatn Decline in Rome and the Structural Tensions of 21st-Century American Politics(2025) Wang, YuxuanWith the new presidential election over, the United States just entered a new era with dramatic political polarization, increasing social tension, and the growth of public anxiety. 2000 years ago, these familiar phenomena happened in another great civilization which experienced an autocratic, military control and that caused the republicans to transition to the Empire. This is Rome—-one of the most powerful civilizations in human history. Today, we may see another turning point in the United States. So, how do two countries lead themselves to face the similar turning point of the cross road of history? And since the loss of the Roman Republic had lots of similarities and differences with America, how will it warn the challenge of American democracy?Publication Open Access A War Story: World War II, Memory, and Experience(2025) Johnson, JaedinThis paper explores World War II and American collective memory in the video game Call of Duty: World at War, (Activision 2008) and how it influences public understanding of the conflict. Drawing on oral histories as well as historical scholarship, the paper analyzes game missions in an effort to discover World at War’s historical fidelity. The findings reveal that many of the game’s missions remain faithful real world locations and dates. While the game encourages historical empathy and moral reflection, its portrayal omits key racial and ethical complexities, particularly in the Pacific theater. This omission reinforces narratives of American exceptionalism when compared to the game’s depiction of the Eastern Front. Nevertheless, World at War offers a unique digital space where players can engage with the trauma and memory of World War II, highlighting the potential and limits of gaming as a medium for historical representation.Publication Open Access Publication Open Access Where The Wild Things Are: Columbus's Search for Monsters in the New World(2025) Lessard, AnnaPublication Open Access Compassion and Contempt: Dante's Moral Corrections of Shades in the Inferno(2025) Robertson, Katie L.In Dante’s Commedia, he uses his contrapasso as an enforcing justice of punishment as the mirrored consequence of sinner’s Earthly sin. The contrapasso is used as a tool of moral correction for how Dante responds to the shades’ choices committed in sin. Dante’s responses range from pity, contempt, and more rarely, violence. These instances of violence raise ethical questions to the reader that challenge preconceived notions about sin’s severity of punishment. These instances also include disassembling the dichotomy that is Dante auctor and Dante agens, by raising questions of historical narrative into his treatment of certain shades. This question of justice is prompted by the poet for the reader and for himself as the pilgrim. His responses are often guided or scolded by Virgil, who serves as his personification of reason, offering Dante the opportunity to extend this influence of reason to those in Hell who betrayed it in life.Publication Open Access Publication Open Access Man’s Best Fiend: The Black Dog and Social Change in EnglandVail, RowanTales of dark, fiery-eyed hounds heralding storms and prowling lonely roads have been a consistent presence in English folklore since at least the time of the Reformation. Despite their ubiquity, these Black Dogs do not always serve the same purpose. These distinctions correspond with three different natures: the Devil, which seeks to punish sinners; the Omen, which appears as a portent of death; and the Guardian, which acts as a protector. These interlocking evolutions formed as direct reflections of moments of social change within England.Publication Open Access GENDER, BIOLOGY, AND POWER: SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONS AND WOMANHOODCahill, RobertFor 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.