German Immigrants in Church Records in the State of Kentucky

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Deborah Mocke and Roger P. Minert, PhD, History Introduction The purpose of this project was to assist in the furthering of German genealogical research, by making German Protestant church records in America more accessible to people with German ancestry. In the 2000 U.S. Census, nearly one in six people reported their ancestry as German. “42.8 […]

Siena and the Other: Looking at the Tenshō Embassy in Siena

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Lydia Breksa and Faculty Mentor: Eric Dursteler, History Introduction During the early modern period in Italy (1400s-1700s), nobles and organizations (e.g., guilds, oligarchies etc.) established a pattern of using artwork to demonstrate their power, standing in society, and relevance to current events. The exchange of diplomatic visitors, known as embassies, was common at this time […]

Mormon Masses: An Analysis of the Improvement Era’s Advertisements to the Separate Genders circa. 1927-1933

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Nicole Wechsler and Dr. Rebecca DeSchweinitz, History Department Introduction This project analyzed two main documents, comparing and contrasting the different LDS youth periodicals, namely the Improvement era and the Young Woman’s Journal. In this project I analyzed advertisements within the Improvement Era during the merger of the Young Woman’s Journal and the Improvement Era with […]

The Bishop of Boston: What the Archives Have to Say About a Hero of Religious Tolerance

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Marie Johnson and Dr. George Ryskamp, History Department French and American historians have been writing about Bishop Jean Louis Lefebvre de Cheverus for almost a century. However, when I discovered this man, I noticed that an element of his life remained in the shadows—how he united the Catholic and Protestant communities. He was a Catholic […]

The Power of Perseverance: The Untold Stories of the Rwandan Genocide and Beyond

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Benjamin Passey and Dr. Leslie Hadfield, History Department Introduction The civil war in Rwanda and genocide that accompanied it are perhaps the most horrifying examples of brutality and violence displayed in the latter half of the twentieth century. The genocide, which is believed to have claimed the lives of more than eight hundred thousand Rwandans […]

Catholic Marriage: Discovering French Basque Impediments

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Tatum Frampton and Dr. George Ryskamp, History Department In 1563, the Council of Trent exercised fundamental societal control by enforcing marriage laws within the Catholic church which outlined in detail the process of marriage. Every Catholic marriage required a pre-marriage investigation.1 This new structure forbade couples from marrying within the 4th degree of consanguinity (blood […]

Le Mauvais Curé: Priests and Parishioners in Eighteenth-Century France

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Justine Carr and Karen Carter, Department of History In France during the 18th century, parish priests had a very particular relationship with their parishioners. While the parishioners were dependent on the priest to receive the different Catholic sacraments, the priests, usually underpaid, depended on the parishioners to provide them with food and money. In the […]

Martin Luther: a Wild Boar

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Claire Woodward and Craig Harline, History Department Introduction: I assisted Dr. Harline in research with his upcoming book Wild Boar: The Rise of the Friar Martin Luther; 1517-1522. We explored these earlier key years of Martin Luther’s life, focusing on the events and people who shaped his rise to Reformation stardom, describing them in a new […]

Lord Bute and Conservative Scottish Nationalism: British Home Rule Movements in the 1890s and 90s

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Ryan Blank and Paul Kerry, History Department In the 1880s and 90s, the individual kingdoms and principalities that make up the United Kingdom experienced a revival of nationalistic sentiment. For the English, their national identity was tied to the Empire. The Celtic peoples re-invented nationalistic traditions, costume, and revived national languages. Building on the Romantic […]