vt uhr virginia undergraduate tech historical review volume 5 ³ spring 2016 editorial board editors Dr. Heather Gumbert Dr. Robert P. Stephens Dr. Paul Quigley managing editors Faith Skiles Kevin Caprice associate editors Eleanor Boggs Kelly Cooper Beck Giesy Courtney Howell Molly Lash Derek Litvak Rachel Snyder design editor Courtney Howell The Virginia Tech Undergraduate Historical Review is published annually by the Virginia Tech Department of History. The journal is available at http://vtuhr.org. Bound copies of the journal are available at http://www.lulu.com. All rights reserved. No portion of this journal may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the formal consent of the publisher. All email correspondence should be addressed to: [email protected] All other correspondence should be addressed to: VTUHR Editor Department of History (0117) 431 Major Williams Hall Blacksburg, VA 24061-0117 Cover image: Chief Photographer’s Mate Robert F. Sargent, Into the Jaws of Death - U.S. Troops Wading through Water and Nazi Gunfire. 6 June 1944. 2,963 × 2,385. Stored at the National Archives and Records Administration, Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. 4 table of contents from the editors pg 6 Faith Skiles and Kevin Caprice on sands stained red pg 9 Ordinary Men and Extraordinary Courage on Omaha Beach Tyler Abt unesco takes on the taliban pg 23 The Fight to Save the Buddhas at Bamiyan Eleanor Boggs guibert of nogent pg 35 The Development of Rhetoric from Anti-Judaism to Anti-Semitism Elyse Sulkey convict leasing pg 57 Justifications, Critiques, and the Case for Reparations Courtney Howell from the lab to the lotus pond pg 79 Interactions between Orientalism and Ideals of Domestic Science Nancy Mason bewitched pg 99 Witchcraft, Life Insurance and the Business of Murder Rachel Snyder image citations pg 112 submitting to the vtuhr pg 113 5 from the editors e are excited to unveil the fifth issue of the Virginia Tech Undergraduate Historical Review and invite you to delve into its pages rich in historical Wscholarship. The Review began in 2011 with a vision to create a platform for publishing exceptional undergraduate research at Virginia Tech. Last year, we expanded that opportunity to include undergraduate work from other four-year universities in Virginia. This year, we are happy to announce we have expanded further into universities in North Carolina as well. This year’s Review includes a submission from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Our hope is that the Review will continue to grow and develop in the years to come. One of the main objectives of the Review is to offer students the opportunity to gain experiences in the discipline of history outside of the classroom. When students submit to the Review, their papers are peer-reviewed by an editorial board of undergraduates. Our editorial staff takes this review process seriously, working diligently to return cogent and clear ideas for revisions. Undergraduate submitters profit as they work through editing suggestions and acquire knowledge of the peer-review process for publication. The quality of the submissions in this journal reflects the dedication to excellence of both authors and undergraduate editors. This edition of the Review contains six outstanding articles, beginning with Tyler Abt’s On Sands Stained Red. Abt takes a bottom-up approach to examining the successes and failures encountered by the American troops on Omaha beach during the Normandy invasion. In his paper, Abt argues that success was jeopardized due to poor planning from top military officials, and victory was only won through the poise and courage of low ranking troops. Next, Virginia Tech Alumnaus Nancy Fowlkes Mason takes us to China in her cross-cultural look at American home economists’ work in the country between the 1920s and 1940s. Fowlkes Mason shows that the home economists she studied prioritized scientific ideas about home economics over the cultural practices of both Chinese and American societies. Ellen Boggs continues our look into history outside of the United States in her article on UNESCO’s involvement in 6 efforts to save the Buddhas at Bamiyan from destruction by the Taliban. Boggs shows that the Taliban’s religious agenda, determination to gain international recognition, and influence from Al-Qaeda blocked the international agency’s efforts. Elyse Sulkey, from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill provides an historical/literary analysis of the transformation of thought in Benedictine monk Guibert of Nogent from anti-Judaic clerical sentiments in his early work to anti-Semitic rhetoric in his later work. Moving us back to American history, Courtney Howell’s Convict Leasing reassesses the convict leasing system in place in the U.S. South in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, arguing that the primary function of the system wassupport and criticism for the system focused on economic, rather than racial, issuescontrol. Last but not least, Rachel Snyder’s Bewitched sheds light on an oft-forgotten murder network that spanned the East Coast in the early twentieth century. Snyder finds that this network, steeped in Italian traditions, used murder and insurance fraud as a strategy for economic survival during the Great Depression. As graduate editors, we hope that you enjoy this issue of the Virginia Tech Undergraduate Review as much as we have enjoyed working both with the editorial board and authors in crafting it for publication. For their support and help in making this issue possible, we would like to thank Dr. Mark Barrow, chair of Virginia Tech’s History Department, as well as our faculty editor for this year, Dr. Paul Quigley. Also, we would like to thank Dr. Robert Stephens, founder of the VTUHR, the undergraduate editorial board and all the students who made the brave decision to submit their work for publication. Our design editor, Courtney Howell, deserves our heartfelt thanks and appreciation for all the hours spent designing and formatting the Review. Lastly, we thank you. By picking up and reading this journal you not only expand your knowledge of history but also support undergraduate research. So, we hope you will sit back, relax and enjoy your journey back in time! faith skiles and kevin caprice Managing Editors 7 on sands stained red Ordinary Men and Extraordinary Courage on Omaha Beach Tyler Abt n June 6, 1944, at to expect minimal resistance. approximately 7:15 A.M., The massive thirty-minute naval only 45 minutes after the bombardment, accompanied, as Oinitial allied landing craft hit the historian Stephen E. Ambrose beaches of Normandy, France, to explained, by “480 B-24s carrying breach Hitler’s Atlantic Wall, 1st 1,285 tons of bombs,”3 was Lt. Bob Edlin and the men of 1st intended to annihilate German Platoon, A Company, 2nd Ranger resistance on Omaha Beach and Battalion approached the smoke- create shell holes to provide the shrouded Dog Green Sector advancing Americans cover. of Omaha Beach in their LCA The bombardment, however, (Landing Craft Assault).1 Both A accomplished very little. and B Companies’ landing craft “When we came in, there had spent the early hours of the was a deep silence,” Lt. Edlin morning trolling in a circling recollected. “The only thing that pattern a few miles off the coast I could hear was the motor of of France awaiting orders to land. the boat that we were on. It was Those orders had now arrived. dawn; the sun was just coming The time aboard the small over the French coast. I saw a LCA in rough seas took its seagull fly across the front of the toll on the Rangers. Lt. Edlin boat, just like life was going on recalled: “There were many sick as normal. All the gunfire had people. They were vomiting on lifted for a very short time…. I each other’s feet and on their didn’t hear anybody pray. I didn’t clothing.”2 They had been told hear anybody say anything. We knew that the time was here.” 1. Joseph Balkoski, Omaha Beach: D-Day June Suddenly, machinegun fire 6, 1944 (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2004), 158. pinged off the front of the LCA. 2. Marcia Moen and Margo Heinen, The Fool Lieutenant: A Personal Account of D-Day and 3. Stephen E. Ambrose, D-Day: June 6, 1944, World War II (Elk River, MN: Meadowlark The Climactic Battle of World War II (New Publishing, 2000), 27. York: Touchstone, 1994), 120. 9 German artillery fire began be entering, or the introduction landing all around the Rangers’ of inappropriate men and landing craft. “We crouched in machinery, none of the expected the bottom of the boat in the advantages actually materialized vomit, urine, and seawater.”4 on the French beaches. In spite An LCA beside Lt. Edlin’s of all of these failures from the carrying men of B Company top, the men on Omaha Beach exploded from a direct hit, likely accomplished their objective. killing everyone aboard before As the dawn broke then next they could even hit the beach. day, although casualties covered Edlin’s LCA struck a sandbar the beach, the sunrise shone and ground to a halt 75 yards off brightly on American flags the beach, but the ramp did not as well. The victory was won drop because the British seaman not through brilliant military tasked with operating it had been strategy from the top, but on the decapitated by the intense hail battlefield — through bravery of incoming German fire.5 Edlin and poise exhibited by men at screamed at the British coxswain the bottom. It was the ability of to get the boat in further so his officers on the ground, officers men would not have to cross such like Colonel Schneider, Lt.