2005-06
 

dissertations  on  the  southwest Since its inception in 1998, SMU’s PhD Program in History has accepted a small number of students each year and currently has twenty-two students studying for their doctorates in American history with a special focus on the Southwest.  Following are synopses of the work of fourteen of the program’s students who are in their fourth year or beyond and working at various stages on their dissertations.

Matthew Babcock—"Turning Apaches into Spaniards: North America's Forgotten Indian Reservations"

 Babcock's dissertation addresses the unrecognized historical experience of thousands of Apaches who settled on reservations near Spanish presidios a century before Geronimo's surrender in 1886.  It explains how and why Spaniards transformed presidios from bases for offensive and defensive war into zones of peace called "establecimientos de paz" or "peace establishments," and examines Apache motives for making peace, the reasons some groups remained independent, and the extent of their acculturation. Finally, it explores the reasons for the system's decline and collapse under Mexican control from 1821-1831 and the short and long-term effects of this experience on Apache culture.

Anna Banhegyi—"Where Marx Meets Osceola: Ideology and Mythology in the Eastern-Bloc Western"

 At one curious junction in the intricate network of cross-Atlantic cultural exchange, the popular appeal of frontier mythology converged with the aims of Communist ideology to result in an eastern-bloc rendering of the western genre. Although the intended effect of highlighting the connections between state ideology and an established mythology largely failed to register with audiences more interested in Wounded Knee than what Karl Marx had to do with Osceola, the films had a lasting cultural impact on the perceptions of Native Americans in the collective consciousness of Central Europe. Focusing largely on the so-called Indianerfilme (“Indian Films”) of the German Democratic Republic’s famed film production company DEFA, and in particular the process that rendered the face of actor Gojko Mitic the preeminent image of the Indian in the region, Banhegyi will examine the convergence of frontier mythology and cold-war ideology in eastern-bloc westerns produced throughout the period that extends loosely from the building of the Berlin Wall to its downfall.

Constance Bradford—“Women’s Experiences in Texas Institutions of Higher Learning, 1880-1920”

 A study of the experiences of women in Texas institutions of higher learning from 1880 to 1920, her dissertation explores, compares, and contrasts the changing social and educational environments in which women of differing races and economic classes found themselves, and the resulting negotiation of these changed spaces.  Bradford’s dissertation will assess the impact of the schools and the women on each other as well as on their surrounding communities. 

Alicia Dewey—“Risk, Opportunity and Failure: ‘Going Broke’ in the Texas Borderlands, 1898-1941”

By studying bankruptcy cases filed under the Bankruptcy Act of 1898, Dewey will examine how different people coped with difficult economic circumstances in selected counties along or near the Texas/Mexico border.  She is interested in studying what drew these people to the borderlands, strategies they employed to make a living and/or achieve the “American Dream,” and why they experienced financial failure.  She will also explore cultural attitudes toward debt and bankruptcy and the growing role of the federal court in mediating debtor/creditor relationships.

Edward James Dudlo—“Martial Borderland: The US Army and the Incorporation of New Mexico, 1846-1912”

Dudlo’s work explores the dynamic political, economic, and social relationships that are created and cultivated as borderlands are incorporated into modern nation states. As instruments of state incorporation, he is particularly interested in the varied roles of national military forces in these processes.

Jose Gabriel Martinez-Serna—“Jesuits, Indians, and Viticulture in the Making of a Frontier Town: Santa María de las Parras, Nueva Vizcaya, 1598-1822”

Martinez-Serna will explore community development in the north of Colonial Mexico, describing the evolution of a Jesuit mission to a thriving multiethnic frontier town with winemaking as its main economic activity.

Helen McLure—“'I Suppose You Think Strange the Murder of Women and Children': White-capping and Lynching in the American West, 1870-1930”

McLure will document and analyze particularly lethal and non-lethal vigilante and mob attacks on women and children of all races and ethnicities in the West and Southwest during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Eduardo Moralez—“Tejanos and Mexicans in Indiana and the Great Lakes Region, 1900-2000"

Moralez will examine how Tejanos and Mexicans have established working and middle-class communities in Indiana and the Great Lakes region, as well as explore how class status has affected citizenship and ethnic identity during the twentieth century.  He focuses on Tejanos and Mexicans working in Great Lakes agriculture and the steel industry since the turn of the century.  Many settled out of migrant streams connecting Texas and the Great Lakes region to establish middle-class communities in central and northern Indiana after adopting group labels such as "Hispanic," "Latino," or "Mexican American," all of which signaled new class and ethnic identities.  State, federal, church, and community archives, together with oral histories, are his primary sources.

Houston Mount—“"Everette Lee DeGolyer, Sr. and the Transformation of the Petroleum Industry"

Mount is examining the life and career of Everette Lee DeGolyer, Sr., focusing on the impact of geology and geophysical prospecting on the shape of the petroleum industry and its place in American society.  Over the course of DeGolyer's career from 1909 to 1956, oil production was transformed from a relatively primitive business to a highly complex and costly venture dominated by increasingly sophisticated and specialized operators.  Geologists and geophysicists were central in this transformation and played a leading role in government's regulation of the evolving oil industry.  As a geologist and a promoter of geophysical prospecting, DeGolyer's life and career offers an excellent vantage from which to view these far-reaching changes of regional, national and, indeed, international relevance.

Paul Nelson—"Utah's Canyon Country: Hope and Experience Encounter an American Desert"

Nelson is working on a human-environmental history of Southern Utah's Canyon lands, tracing exploration, settlements, booms, and busts in this desert region.  He will focus particularly on religious ideology and optimism as they shaped peoples' understanding of the area.

José Ramírez—“Tejanos in World War I: Here and Over There”

Ramírez will show how Mexican Texans and the U.S. government cooperated with each other during the war despite a deep-seated mutual distrust. His research has taken him to the Library of Congress, the archives of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Military Intelligence Division.

Jeffrey Schulze—“Trans-Nations: Indians, Imagined Communities, and Borderlands Realities in the 20^th Century”

Schulze explores indigenous groups that have communities on both sides of the US-Mexican border, focusing on the ways in which their transnational orientation has proven to be both beneficial and problematic in their struggles to maintain group cohesion and cultural continuity.

Clive Siegle—“Ciboleros and Sharps Rifles: Hispanics, Anglos, and the Great Buffalo Harvest, 1785-1879”

This examination of the activities of ciboleros (buffalo hunters) from the Southern Plains of New Mexico, Mexico, and Texas from 1775 to 1878, focuses on Rath City, Texas, during the period of 1875-1878. Siegle compares and contrasts the ciboleros and the Rath City groups during the period when they coexisted in the final, climactic throes of “the great bufalo slaughter.”

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