During the half-century following the end of the Civil War, over fifty opera houses were built across the Genesee Country of New York State- a region extending from the western edge of the Finger Lakes to the eastern border of the Niagara region. Although little different from their earlier counterparts, called 'halls', the conscious choice to call a newly built or acquired entertainment hall an opera house reflected a desire on the part of both town and builder to be thought of as appreciative of higher culture and the arts, and of having the financial stability to create and support such a venue. These opera houses were what I believe to be perceived indicators of a town's cultural and economic progress: that is, they were understood on the part of the financier and community at large to be visible evidence to outsiders of the town's cultural sensitivity and financial security. In addition, the construction of an opera house conferred on the builder/financier a secure place within the town's social hierarchy as that of benefactor and promoter of the common good. Eloquent speeches outlining the town's gratitude for such a place of entertainment were often a major part of opening night ceremonies at the new opera house. Thus, the perception of an opera house as being representative of economic and cultural success exists on a dual level- that of the political entity and its inhabitants, and that of the individual builder. Leisure time was increasing during the last part of the 19th century, due to changes in technology and labor laws, and in many social circles attending performances at the local opera house was considered to be preferable to attending those at vaudeville theaters, burlesque houses, circuses, or taverns. Opera houses were perceived as offering a higher, more morally desirable quality of entertainment than many other venues- a perception often utilized by acting companies and theater managers in their advertising. By studying the plays, touring and local acts, newspaper advertisements and playbills associated with local opera houses, it is possible to further our understanding of how a community's opera house reflected cultural transitions during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These changes were happening nationally as well, as an agrarian society changed to one more urban- and industrially- based. New technologies, economic growth, and increasingly more complex national rail infrastructure influenced the rise in popularity of the opera house both in the study region and on the national level. Conversely, all these factors also played a role in the demise of the opera house as cultural icon. Still, even though their heyday has long since passed, many citizens of towns which possessed one of these structures have spoken with pride in the fact that their town once had one. More than a century after these structures were built, the perception that an opera house represented their town's elevated level of prosperity and cultural achievement still exists in this region today.

From the early traditions of Natty Bumppo and Huck Finn to the more modern images drawn from John Dos Passos and Jack Kerouac, the journey motif has long been a stable of American literature. This thesis explores the origin of the modern road hero in American culture at the turn of the twentieth century along two divergent lines. The first is the configuration of the hobo as a heroic rebel, and the second is the making of the bohemian/intellectual vagabond. The first part of this investigation, by considering a diversity of cultural forms and viewpoints, attempts to paint a broad backdrop from which more focused study may proceed. As such, disparate phenomena such as the undertone of ambiguity behind the "tramp menace," the image of the comic tramp in popular culture, and the generation and resonance of an indigenous hobo subculture will be examined coextensively. The second section grapples with the formation of the hobo as hero, beginning with the writing of Walter Wyckoff and Josiah Flynt and proceeding with the work and persona of Jack London. This is followed, in section three, by a discussion of the intellectual vagabond. Reaching back to consider the spiritual forebear of this genre, Walt Whitman, the section culminates with an exploration of Richard Hovey, Bliss Carman and the "Vagabondia" poetry. The final section addresses the consolidation of the two major images already delineated. More suggestive than comprehensive, this discussion links the germination of the modern road hero to the parallel politicization of the hobo and the bohemian/intellectual vagabond during the first two decades of the twentieth century.

This essay argues the American corporations formed in the 1790s were a direct outgrowth of the positive experience the people had with colonial corporations. Due to restrictions placed by the king on the types of corporations permissible in the colonies, the corporations that were created were town-based, that is they were created to perform the responsibilities the province gave to the towns. In the 1760s and 1770s the far-flung, poor towns of New Hampshire could not provide for themselves the type of infrastructure the province demanded: roads, causeways, and bridges. The people, recognizing the value the colonial corporations provided to their towns, expanded their use after independence and the 1780s economic depression. This essay uses New Hampshire as the basis for study. Primary source materials include: petitions, corporate charters (laws), town inventories, and journals of the legislature. The corporations studied are colonial era towns, ferries, and lotteries; Confederation era toll bridges; and Constitutional era canals, social libraries, turnpikes, and manufacturing.

In the final weeks of the 1920 presidential election campaign, an eccentric college professor from Ohio, William Estabrook Chancellor, distributed a series of leaflets across the Midwest that claimed the Republican candidate and future president, Warren G. Harding, was racially “impure.” Much has been written about Chancellor, his racist theories, which were based on the “scientific racism” of the time, and his relationship to the Democratic Party. What has not been examined, however, is how his allegations about Harding were connected broadly to the social construction of whiteness in America in the twentieth century. In this context, the Harding race rumor is not at all a marginal moment in the history of the twenty-ninth president. Rather, it helps to show that Warren Harding's experience with the race dichotomy of the early twentieth century had much in common with that of other persons accused of mixed-race status at the time. Harding's extended family members were put under severe risk of being discredited and disenfranchised in a nation where it only took a hint of white racial “impurity” to deprive a person of the privileges of whiteness. As such, there is ample reason to reconsider the ways we remember Warren Harding's life and presidency

William Miller was a typical preacher of the Second Great Awakening who was involved with reforms and revivals. His millennial views, which have traditionally led historians to classify him as a fringe preacher of the nineteenth century, were in actuality commonplace thinking during the Second Great Awakening. When his millennial views and methods of revival are compared to Charles Finney's, what emerges is not an oddball preacher but a widely accepted balanced millennial view that hearers of his message gravitated to and accepted. By comparing Charles Finney's millennial views and the impact of revival and reform in Rochester, New York with William Miller's millennial views and his revival and reform in Portland, Maine similarities between these two millennialist preachers of the Second Great Awakening will become apparent. Historians have often relegated William Miller to the fringe elements of society, but he and his associates were actively involved in reforms such as abolitionism and temperance, as shown by the writings of William Lloyd Garrison and Henry Jones, an early Millerite preacher. Through the use of church records and diary entries by a retired Presbyterian minister, Caleb Bradley, in Portland, Maine from 1 840, a clearer picture of the complex nature of revival and reform will emerge to correctly place William Miller in history during the Second Great A wakening for the first time.