The University of Vermont History Review, Volume XXV 2014-2015
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THE UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT HISTORY REVIEW Volume XXV 2014-2015 The UVM History Review is a yearly publication of the University of Vermont History Department. It seeks to publish scholarly essays and book reviews of an historical nature from current and past UVM students. EDITORIAL BOARD Senior Editor David Solomon Faculty Advisor Dr. Francis R. Nicosia Fall 2014 Spring 2015 Mark Alexander Natalie Gunn Coffman Nate Gondelman Angela Grove Alanna Freedman Mahnke Ronald Colin MacNeil Adam Quinn Patrick Maguire Newton Rose Adam Quinn Kassandra LePrade Seuthe Julia Walsh For ordering information please contact Kathy Carolin at: The University of Vermont History Department 201 Wheeler House 133 South Prospect Street Burlington, Vermont 05405 Cover: Photograph of the University of Vermont graduating class of 1896; “The women of UVM: some, maybe all.” Courtesy of the University of Vermont Special Collections. LETTER FROM THE EDITOR III WITHOUT HOUSE AND HOME: THE RESPONSE OF JEWISH WELFARE TO THE DESOLATION AND DISPOSSESSION OF ELDERLY GERMAN JEWS BY KASSANDRA LEPRADE SEUTHE 1 RED HERO ES: THE ORIGINS AND NATURE OF LEFT-WING JEWISH RESISTANCE IN NAZI GERMANY BY G. SCOTT WATERMAN 14 SOCIALIST HUMANISM AND E.P. THOMPSON’S WORKS BY OLIVER BURT 27 PAWN AND SCAPEGOAT: DEPICTIONS OF JANE BOLEYN, VISCOUNTESS ROCHFORD BY CONTEMPORARIES, HISTORIANS, FICTIONAL WRITERS AND FILMMAKERS BY ALANNA FREEDMAN MAHNKE 36 BRITISH WOMEN, DOMESTICITY, AND THE CREATION OF EMPIRE BY ELIZABETH VAN HORN 49 THE HEROIN EPIDEMIC AND THE VIETNAM WAR: HYSTERIA, RHETORIC, AND MYTHOLOGY IN NIXON’S AMERICA BY ASHLEE R. PAYNE 60 SAINTS MORE THAN SOLDIERS: THE ENLISTMENT OF THE MORMON BATTALION BY NATALIE GUNN COFFMAN 72 THOMAS JOHNSON & A COUNTRY MARKET: AMERICAN FRONTIER ECONOMY IN 1794 BY ANGELA GROVE 88 A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF LORD DUNMORE’S PROCLAMATION AND THE JOHN LAURENS EMANCIPATION PLAN BY KIERAN O’KEEFE 101 DEPARTMENT NEWS 116 ABOUT THE AUTHORS AND EDITORS 119 2015 INDUCTEES TO THE UVM CHAPTER OF PHI ALPHA THETA 121 ii LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Dear Readers, It is my pleasure to present to you the 2014-2015 University of Vermont History Review, which collects the very best historical work composed by the UVM undergraduate and graduate student body. In the following pages you will find a host of interesting and well-researched articles that reflect the diverse talents of our students in their broad geographic, thematic and temporal range. I would like to take a moment to thank the editors of the Review, whose dedication and appreciation for detail helped make this edition the very best it could be. Creating the Review is a year-long process, often taking attention away from comprehensive exams, thesis writing, and any number of other things that an editor could be doing rather than meeting in the library on a chilly Thursday night to discuss submissions. Their work lies behind the scenes throughout this volume, on every page and in every footnote, silently and thanklessly polishing and shining, helping to make every article the best version of itself. I am also grateful for the patience of both Kathy Truax and Kathy Carolin, who have endured a year’s worth of frantic emails and panicked questions. I am forever in your debt. Special thanks to Professor Frank Nicosia, the faculty liaison for this year’s edition, for setting aside time to sit down and exchange ideas, and for steadily reassuring our efforts throughout the publication process. And finally, I would like to thank the authors; thank you for submitting your work for all of us to enjoy. It is my hope your contributions will inspire future authors to summon the courage, as you have, to send their most cherished work to the History Review. David Solomon, June 25, 2015 iii UVM History Review WITHOUT HOUSE AND HOME: THE RESPONSE OF JEWISH WELFARE TO THE ESOLATION AND ISPOSSESSION OF LDERLY ERMAN EWS D D E G J -- KASSANDRA LEPRADE SEUTHE Geographically removed from family abroad, and progressively isolated within communities, elderly German Jews who had been unable to emigrate were uniquely vulnerable to Nazi policies of isolation, impoverishment, and dispossession. As traditional forms of elder care were disrupted through emigration, increasing numbers of the aged sought placement in Jewish old age homes and nursing facilities. 1 The promise of shelter, physical care, and a sense of community offered by these institutions appealed to many Jews who expected to live out their days in Germany. As a result of systematic pauperization and the exclusion of Jews from public welfare services, however, thousands of impoverished German Jews became dependent on Jewish community assistance to ensure their basic means of survival.2 In turn, a Jewish welfare apparatus that was founded in a tradition of philanthropy and charitable donation struggled to make due with ever diminishing resources and increasing need—a consequence of severe strictures imposed by the Nazi state. For their part, Jewish welfare and charitable associations responded to the growing need with dedication and self-sacrifice in order to accommodate the burgeoning numbers of the aged and destitute in order to allay their suffering. In April 1938 the Berlin Jewish community dedicated a nursing home in the name of Heinrich Stahl, the organization’s long time president. The ceremony coincided with Stahl’s 70th birthday, and provided board members the opportunity to address the care of elderly Jews who remained in Germany, which was a matter of growing priority for their community and Germany Jewry as a whole, In recent years, as families emigrated out into the world, many of those among us have become “homeless” in a deeply personal sense. Elderly people have been left behind alone; they have lost the shelter of the family. At an age when the individual is no longer able to maintain himself unassisted, numerous community members remain without house and home. To provide for them is [our] noble duty. 3 Between 1933 and early 1938 some 140,000 Jews emigrated from Germany. 4 Many of those who remained were older people who had little hope of passing rigorous immigration restrictions. Additional factors, such as becoming financially dependent on relatives or the stress of starting life anew in unfamiliar surroundings, resulted in elderly Jews being more likely to remain behind. At the same time, it became clear that as a population the elderly would not be in a position to tend to their own physical needs and to sustain themselves financially within 1 S. Adler-Rudel, Jüdische Selbsthilfe unter dem Naziregime 1933-1939: im Spiegel der Berichte der Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1974), 169. 2 Wolf Gruner. “Poverty and Persecution: The Reichsvereinigung, the Jewish Population, and Anti-Jewish Policy in the Nazi State, 1939-1945” (Paper presented at conference on “Jews and Poverty” at the Simon Dubnow Institute for Jewish History and Culture, Leipzig, Germany, 2007), 34. 3 Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt Berlin, “Die Sitzung der Repräsentanten-Versammlung von 13. April” April 17th, 1938. Heinrich Stahl Collection. Leo Baeck Institute. DigiBaeck Digital Archive. 4 Francis R. Nicosia and David Scrase eds. Jewish Life in Nazi Germany: Dilemmas and Responses, (New York: Berghahn Books, 2010), 4. 1 UVM History Review Germany. More and more, Jewish welfare organizations would be called upon to provide the care that had traditionally been carried out within the family. It would not only be older German Jews who would be expected to remain in Germany. While serving on the board of the Reichsvertretung, chairman Otto Hirsch is reported to have said that, “Not everyone will be able to leave, after all, someone must take care of the elderly.”5 While this comment was directed at the obligations of Jewish welfare bodies to continue to provide for vulnerable Jews in Germany, it reflected on a broader trend across German Jewish society. When children and younger relatives remained behind voluntarily, it was often to carry on the care of elderly parents and dependent loved ones. 6 In accordance with gender expectations of the time, a greater number of those who stayed were women. An observer commented that, “Women can’t think of emigration because they don’t know who might care for their elderly mothers… in the same families, the sons went their way.”7 One of the reasons for this was that sons were expected to provide financially rather than care giving or other means of support. Certainly there were also Jewish men who chose to remain and care for aging loved ones, but they did so in fewer numbers than their female counterparts. It should also be noted that multiple gender specific socio-economic factors limited emigration prospects for women beyond a tradition of familial commitment. Among them, coincidentally, was the prominent position many Jewish women held within the welfare system and their sense of obligation to continue work in support of their community. 8 This spirit of self-sacrifice and dedication of those women who worked in Jewish welfare is reflected in a letter dated May 1939 written by Hedwig Strauss- Eppstein to a former colleague in Palestine addressing the prospect of her own emitgration, “Do you understand when I say that all, and I mean all, [the work] that we did until this point has been child’s play compared to what we presently face? And yet it is impossible to think of leaving now!”9 In order to appreciate the significance of a continued tradition of Jewish welfare work, one has to consider the origins of the Jewish welfare system in Germany. Independent institutions of Jewish charity and social welfare work emerged in the late nineteenth century following a greater push toward philanthropic and community assistance for those in need.10 While some historians suggest the separate Jewish welfare system resulted from antisemitic exclusion that prevented Jews from full integration into associational life of Wilhelmine Germany, others argue that this unique community focus was a consequence of the paradoxical process of assimilation.11 The core infrastructure of modern Jewish welfare took shape in response to economic hardships of the Weimar years and coincided with immigration of large 5 Beate Meyer, Tödliche Gratwanderung.