Rice Historical Review

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https://hdl.handle.net/1911/92659

The Rice Historical Review published its inaugural issue in April 2016. It was launched by a group of undergraduate history majors passionate about historical research. This journal is sponsored by the Rice History Department.

For more information about RHR, including submission details for future volumes, please visit the journal's website.

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Front Matter 2016 Spring Issue
(Rice University, 2016) Carroll, Mary Charlotte Y. ; Landsman, Rachel S.
CONTENTS: About the Rice Historical Review -- Founding Editorial Board -- Faculty Board -- Welcome from the Editors -- Table of Contents
Consumerism, Commodification, and Beauty: Shiseido and the Rise of Japanese Beauty Culture
(Rice University, 2016) Guerra, Jessica
This research focuses on the development of advertising in interwar period Japan (between World War I and World War II) and the growing prevalence of the Modern Girl. As women with a certain aesthetic were popularized through advertisement campaigns, this aesthetic was disseminated to a wider audience and incited cultural change. For the purposes of this research, the cosmetics company Shiseido and its advertisements will be used in order to illustrate the effects of one major Japanese company on the spread of the Modern Girl throughout Japan and the surrounding regions. Advertisements from an MIT database were examined from the period, and are analyzed in the following work I have attempted to gauge the prominence of the Modern Girl figure, her appearance, and various other visual factors. After conducting this project, I have concluded that Shiseido played an integral rote in the rise of Japanese beauty culture and in the spread of the Modern Girl phenomenon.
Back Matter 2016 Spring Issue
(Rice University, 2016) Carroll, Mary Charlotte Y.; Landsman, Rachel S.
CONTENTS: Acknowledgements -- THE INAUGURAL ISSUE CONTRIBUTORS -- Additional Information -- Future Contributors
Extirpating the Loathsome Smallpox: A Study in the History and Demise of Smallpox, as Aided by Thomas Jefferson
(Rice University, 2016) Durham, Anna
This essay explores the history of smallpox variolation and vaccination with particular emphasis on the contributions of Thomas Jefferson to the spread of both methods in the United States. The research draws mainly upon contemporary histories of the disease and modern medical insights, as well as primary sources in the form correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and his contemporaries. Jefferson's motivation in performing his own experiments with variolation and vaccination becomes clear when considering his Eastern and British forerunners, and the enthusiasm with which he writes on the subject points to his emotional involvement. This research makes clear the significance of Jefferson's experiments to scientific progress and the importance of his efforts to alert the American people of the procedures' value.
From Welcoming to Wary: The SPD's Rhetoric on the Flüchtlingspolitik
(Rice University, 2016) Lim, Jungbin
This paper traces the response of the SocialDemocratic Party of Germany (SPD) to the European migrant crisis in the fall of 2015. In particular, I explore the change in the party's position, which initially had pledged full support of the admission of refugees to Germany but toned down its support over the course of the fall. I discuss this development against the backdrop of the rightward shift of the SPD. I argue that a possible explanation of the change in the SPD's position is the decision of Chancellor Merkel, leader of the rival party Christian Democratic Union, to grant admission to hundreds of thousands of refugees on September 5th, 2015. Mainly based on the SPD's own publications and media coverage of the party's activities, this paper examines the shift in the language of the SPD.
Preserving the Spirit of National Parks: The U.S. Army in Yellowstone
(Rice University, 2016) Wang, Tim
As the flagship U.S. National Park, Yellowstone,throughout its administrative history, has set many precedents for park management policies and practices across the United States. This essay examines the period of administration of the park by the United States Army from 1886 to 1916, which was especially formative for Yellowstone. The army reversed the trend of ineffective leadership in administering the park. The policies enacted during that period — regarding nature, wildlife, and tourism management — laid the groundwork for the administration of Yellowstone. In turn, many of these best practices were adopted by subsequent national parks. Most importantly, the army's work served as a major factor in the very preservationof the national parks system. Therefore, the park administration by the United States Army left a lasting legacy that is still evident in both Yellowstone and many other national parks today.
The Blockade of Leningrad & the Mixed Results of Sovietization
(Rice University, 2016) Burrough, Dane
The Siege of Leningrad, a joint German-Finnish operation during World War II, lasted for 880 days and took the lives of a large number of the citizens of the city. The city was entirely cut off from the rest of the Soviet Union, causing mass starvation that was far deadlier than the military operations of the siege. Many scholars have argued that the Second World War served as the catalyst to fully "Sovietize" the populations of the various Soviet Republics. Examining primary sources from the siege, this paper explores the extent to which that process of Sovietization actually occurred in Leningrad and how the unique experiences of the blockade imprinted on the citizens a sense of independence from the greater Soviet state.
Front Matter 2017 Spring Issue
(Rice University, 2017)
CONTENTS: Editorial Board -- Faculty Board -- Sponsors -- Table of Contents
Free Labor through Marx's Capital
(Rice University, 2017) Pemantle, Walden; Moran, Michael
Following the abolition of slavery or serfdom, wage labor became the norm for the laboring class of many nations. This article examines how capitalism and wage-labor replaced slavery and serfdom with other forms of coerced labor. The article uses the treatment of freedmen in Reconstruction-era Southern United States, Prussian ex-serfs in imperial Germany, and colonial subjects in German Togo as case studies to argue that government interference, commodification of labor and goods, and prioritization of surplus value (profit) each contributed to particularly coercive systems of wage labor.
The Religion of Thomas Jefferson
(Rice University, 2017) Altschul, James; Hahn, Christina
Thomas Jefferson’s religious beliefs remain a point of contention in contemporary political discourse, with actors on many different sides of religious debate seeking to claim him as an advocate for their position. In this paper, I attempt to understand Jefferson’s beliefs in his own words, examining his writings on spirituality, religious institutions, Christianity, miracles, and morality in both his letters to friends and colleagues, as well as his own abridged version of the bible. Though Jefferson was far from orthodox, I argue that he never saw himself as anything but a Christian; he simply had strong and independent convictions about what being a Christian meant. I also argue that his secular humanism was largely responsible for guiding his thoughts on religion, and at times became the position to which he ascribed most dogmatically.
The Decay of the State
(Rice University, 2017) Hood, Nikolai; Fritz, Anna Yen
German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) perceived that certain fundamental structures’ from language to justice’ which had previously been enshrined by religious transcendence were by his time decaying through the democratizing impulses of the nineteenth century. He pondered the implications of this decay in its various manifestations, most significantly with respect to morality. Nietzsche viewed these structures not only as the means through which inter subjectivity takes place, shaping human relations and the communities that they make up, but also as the foundation of the human mind’ the self and its interior world. This paper takes as its starting point Nietzsche’s analysis of the decay of the state and explores the consequences of the dissolution of intersubjective structures in general on human communities and human consciousness.
The Politics of Policy: the Obama Doctrine and the Arab Spring
(Rice University, 2017) Tyler, Hannah; Bishop, Justin
This paper defines and examines the Obama Doctrine by contextualizing it through the lens of other presidential doctrines and schools of realism and idealism. In addition, it seeks to establish the doctrine's tenets and contradictions. It then examines Obama’s arc of disenchantment with the Arab Spring and explains how this arc affected the way he made policy regarding the Middle East.
The Work of Women: Middle Class Domesticity in Eighteenth Century British Literature
(Rice University, 2017) McDougal, Abi; Dwyer, Meagan
This essay considers how British literature in the eighteenth century participated in creating a singularly domestic image of women. Addressing gender roles, Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, Mary Hays’s Emma Courtney, and Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey form a literary progression with which to compare nonfiction historical sources. The critique suggests how the changing economic framework disenfranchised women as it enabled men to advance. It further identifies three aspects contributing to women’s confinement to the home: first, growing authority over domestic staff; second, responsibility over children’s education; and third, a supposed inability to engage with public, political thought. Furthermore, it recognizes how the domestic sphere simultaneously became a women’s source of authority while preventing her from engaging with the world at large. Within these topics, the essay considers how a growing feminist voice in British fiction toward the end of the eighteenth century allowed female authors to push against the devaluation of women.
Back Matter 2017 Spring Issue
(Rice University, 2017)
CONTENTS: Editorial Board -- About US -- Acknowledgements -- Future Contributors
Women on the Oil Frontier: Gender and Power in Aramco's Arabia
(Rice University, 2017) Jones, Benjamin; Wu, Xiaoyu (Linda)
The Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco), which controlled the world's largest crude oil reserve and was once the largest American investment overseas, often claimed that its petroleum extraction activities contributed to the modernization of Saudi society. Scholars have critiqued Aramco's narrative of enlightened self interest by showing how the company clung to a racialized labor hierarchy and repeatedly eschewed reforms. This essay continues that criticism by examining Aramco’s policies on women and the family. Using internal memos and publicity materials released between 1940 and 1970, this study reveals how Aramco’s American owners used gender to understand, manage, and Orientalize their Saudi employees. In its public image, Aramco claimed to be liberating Saudi women from an anachronistically oppressive society. Yet in the jobs it did (and did not) offer to women, as well as the housing options it gave to Saudi families, the company’s policies demonstrate a similarly patriarchal logical work.
A Carefully Constructed History: Gregory of Tours and the Observation of Societal Shift in Merovingian Gaul
(Rice University, 2018) Lucier, Oliver; Samperio, Isabel
Gregory of Tours, a powerful sixth French century bishop, was also an influential historian. His major work, The History of the Franks, provided a detailed account of politics and society in fifth and sixth century France. By focusing on several key passages of this text, I argue that Gregory used his position as an historian to argue for a complementary religious and political order where secular, Merovingian rulers and religious leaders worked in concert. Gregory believed that this combined order was necessary to provide security and stability in the tumultuous aftermath of the fall of Rome.
Back Matter 2018 Spring Issue
(Rice University, 2018)
CONTENTS: Editorial Board -- About Us -- Acknowledgements -- Future Contributions
Race, Labor, and Class in Interwar New York
(Rice University, 2018) Ratnoff, David; Williamson, Frances
Black urban politics in New York City blossomed as black migrants found employment in the industrial North during the Great Migration. Publishing its first issue in 1917, the black radical newspaper the Messenger, sought to raise race and-class consciousness among its readership. Heralding the “New Negro,” the Messenger promoted Socialist politics and encouraged trade unionism. An important interlocutor with other black periodicals, the Messenger argued that racial advancement was predicated on class consciousness and labor organization. Yet the Messenger’s short lifespan reflected the limits of Socialist politics as a vehicle for black political mobilization.
Front Matter 2018 Spring Issue
(Rice University, 2018)
CONTENTS: Editorial Board -- Faculty Board -- Sponsors -- Table of Contents
A Virgin Queen, But Not by Choice
(Rice University, 2018) Abdow, Emily; Fritz, Anna
“A Virgin Queen, But Not By Choice” explores the question of why Queen Elizabeth I never married. The essay argues that Elizabeth’s gender required her to have the full support of both her privy council and parliament to tie the knot on a marriage, which proved an impossible feat. In addition, the essay argues the debates surrounding each potential match- including fears of a Catholic suitors influence in Protestant England - were political repercussions of her womanhood. The failed courtships of Robert Dudley, Charles Archduke of Austria, and Francis, Duke of Anjou, serve as case studies that illustrate Elizabeth’s inability to proceed with any match due to divides among her councilors. Ultimately, the essay demonstrates how Elizabeth’s very virginity was a decision made by for her by her male councilors.

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