Listed here are students who as candidates for honors in the Department of History wrote theses that are in the catalog of Davidson’s E. H. Little Library and available for inspection in the College Archives (through 2006). The catalog listing begins in 1968 (thus, unfortunately, does not include Ken Kelley, in the honor of whose memory the Kendrick K. Kelley Program was founded in 1988).   There appears to be no record of honors theses completed before 1968.

Authors and theses are grouped by year, but not always alphabetically for any given year. Names are those under which students wrote; they do not reflect changes resulting from marriage, nor do they indicate titles earned since graduation from Davidson.

A few theses written by some students enrolled since 1988-89 in the Kelley Seminar are not in the catalog and are thus not listed here. Most students listed here graduated with honors, but not every student listed did. Students who won the Kelley Award are marked with an asterisk (two in one year on some occasions).

Please report need for correction to Departmental Assistant Margaret Sprinkle.

Pre-Kelley Era, 1968-1988

• Layman, Daniel F. “The role of the Virginia Gazette in influencing public opinion in Virginia, 1766-1776” (1968).
• Perry, Charles R. “Edmund Burke and political parties: an analysis of theory and practice” (1968).
• Seigler, William J. III. “T. R. and Great Britain: a study of Theodore Roosevelt's influence on Anglo-American relations before and during his first administration” (1968).
• Cooley, Jim D. “The foundations of alliance: a study of the forces which led to the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization” (1969).
• Hooker, Robert W. "The London Times and the Policy of Appeasement" (1969).
• Phillips, Randel. “The prestige of Parliament, 1566-1601: a study in the development of the House of Commons” (1969).
• Roe, John H. Jr. “Origins of the social jurisprudence of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes” (1969).
• Skinner, Charles B. “The foreign policy of Sir Robert Cecil: 1598-1604” (1969).
• Affeldt, Mark. S. “Robert M. LaFollette, Governor of Wisconsin : 1901-1905” (1971).
• Philips, James A. “The evolution controversy in America” (1972).
• Eskridge, William N. Jr. “Bayle's thought and its significance: Pierre Bayle and the seventeenth century assault on authority” (1973).
• Levi, Richard P. “The court god: "evolution" of civil rights and the 14th amendment” (1973).
• Allison, Christopher F. “Anglo-Scottish relations, 1558-1603” (1974).
• Balkcom, W. Stephen. “Florentine humanism and the politics of northern Italy: 1400-1440” (1974).
• Bennett, William Stevenson. “The historical relationship of Mooresville to the Rocky River: an examination of indistrialization [industrialization] and the historic common law of water use” (1974).
• Butts, Donald. “Woodrow Wilson and the futile trip west: September 1919” (1974).
• Norman, Robert E. “The Federal government and civil rights for the black American, 1861-1896” (1974).
• Somerville, Frank. “Charles I: a failure in the leadership of 17th century England” (1974).
• Atkinson, Robin. “The diplomatic rebirth of France: the diplomacy of The´ophile Delcasse´, 1898-1905” (1975).
• Mitchell, Paul Rush. “The defeat of the third Carolina Klan, 1963-1967: a study of executive leadership” (1975).
• Smith, Richard L. “The impeachment of Justice Samuel Chase” (1975).
• White, Jack H. Jr. “The American Civil War in the London Times” (1975).
• Clark, Peter F. “Republics of equipoise: the influence of John Adams on constitution-making in the United States, 1776-1787” (1976).
• Duncan, Alan. “The Progressive movement: precedents for the future”  (1976).
• Ey, Douglas W. Jr. “The impeachment and trial of Henry, Lord Viscount Melville” (1976).
• Hunter, James R. “The reluctant Confederates: the struggle to keep North Carolina in the Union, 1860-1861” (1976).
• Kirby, Milford K. “A revisionist interpretation of depression politics, centralization, and the general sales tax in North Carolina : 1928-1936” (1976).
• Kirkman, David N. “German economic policy in Spain during the Spanish Civil War: 1936-1939” (1976).
• Link, William A. “The House peace mission of 1916” (1976).
• Smith, William L. Jr. "D.A. Tompkins and the New South, 1877-1914" (1976).
• Thorp, Daniel B. “The price of liberty: the effect of the American Revolution on Sabine Hall Plantation” (1976).
• Johnson, Clifford P. “American impeachment as viewed by the framers of the United States Constitution” (1977).
• Ruby, Thomas O. “James Iredell: the making of a constitutionalist” (1979).
• Gibert, Julie S. “The dual role of the country parson and the position of the Church of England in the late eighteenth century” (1981).
• Myers, Andrew H. “Day of imfamy [i.e. infamy]: a history of the civil rights movement in Monroe, North Carolina” (1986).
• Pearson, Jodi L. “George III as seen by his contemporaries: 1760-1820” (1986).
• Wright, Julian H. Jr. “The fifth Earl Spencer: ‘Content to be a liberal,’ an investigation of the life and career of John Poyntz Spencer, 1835-1910” (1987).
• Allison, John DeSaussure. “A study of the career of the second Earl Spencer while first Lord of the Admiralty” (1988).
• Eckbert, Ashley A. “The species in development: Marx and universal human nature” (1988).
• Myrick, Martha. “Southern liberals in the post-reconstruction South” (1988).
•  *Schoel, Gretchen F. “David Potter's People of Plenty: a better understanding of the concept of American character” (1988).
• Barton, Sara E. “Victory over Watergate: the opinions of four prominent investigators regarding the restoration of respect for law and government in the 1970's” (1989).
• Bostick, Elizabeth L. “Women in Selma: unfairly forgotten” (1989).
• Brentjens, Renier. “Varieties of isolationism and interventionism: the Congressional debate over lend lease, January-March 1941” (1989).
• *Bryant, Harry S. Jr. “Uncertain loyalties: sentiment in the South Carolina backcountry during the revolution” (1989).
• Frasché, Mary. “An analysis of the role of the Catholic Church in the Nicaraguan revolution” (1989).
• Prince, Junius Scott. “William Shippen's Dilemma” (1989).
• Rochford, David J. III. “Perceptions and policies: Woodrow Wilson's approach to relations with Huertista Mexico, 1913-1914” (1989).
• Scherer, John P. II. “A code of civility: anitwar dissent at Davidson College during the Vietnam era, 1964-1973” (1989).
• Tanner, Gordon. “Uncertain victor: the battle against camp diseases in the Confederate Army” (1989).
• Damewood, Elizabeth Rhodes. “Kanawha County's "Great Textbook Controversy": regional heritage, national history, and public education, 1974-1975” (1990).
• *Johnson, Sarah K. S. “Bellona and the "Petticoat War": a social history of the Peggy Eaton scandal, 1829-1832” (1990).
• Lipscomb, George. “Dependence down under: Australia looks to America 1945-1966” (1990).
• Long, Donald D. “George Mason and slavery” (1990).
• Lovas, Robert A. “The Tar Heel stand: opposition to Nashville agrarianism in North Carolina, 1930-1935” (1990).
• Ayer, Ara T. “Dissension in the Diaspora: the history of the schism in the Armenian American Church and community (1931-1934)” (1991).
• Baker, Stuart G. “The young guard of the Confederacy: a history of the North Carolina Junior Reserves in the Civil War” (1991).
• Davis, W. Kearns Jr. “Muse of freedom: the prose and politics of Dr. Juan Bosch” (1991).
• Giles, Jon. “A reluctant rebel: North Carolina's effort to resist the secession movement, 1950 [1850]-1856” (1991).
• McLean, Mark S. “The bombing of Nagasaki: a study of flawed decision-making” (1991).
• *Short, Kimberly A. “Cecilia Beaux: figure in a changing background” (1991).
• Slagle, James M. “Ich denke--Rudi Dutschke and the West German student movement: 1961-68” (1991).
• Smith, Sandra W. “An activists' herstory: feminist leaders in North Carolina during the struggle for the Equal Rights Amendment, 1971-1982” (1991).
• Blair, Laura E. “A call to action?: North Carolina women's colleges and the women's movement” (1992).
• *Canipe, Christopher L. “Robert Kennedy and the politics of passion” (1992).
• Dempster, Mary M. “The public school prayer debate: Christian reactions to the Supreme Court rulings, 1962-1963” (1992).
• Fox, Holly. “Humble and obedient servants: Presbyterian missionaries in the mountains of Kentucky” (1992).
• Grubb, Robert L. “Traders or suckers?: the relationship between the United States military and the Soviet Union, 1943-1945” (1992).
• Hardage, Heath. “Symbol as sacrifice: a portrait of Winnie Davis” (1992).
• Jones, Gene A. Jr. “The Highland Scots of colonial North Carolina: emigration and the loyalist impulse” (1992).
• *Moriarty, Michael J. “Raising mountains: West Virginia and twenty-five years of the Appalachian Regional Commission” (1992).
• Bowers, Robert C. “The forward look: Theodore Roosevelt and conservation” (1993).
• Cheah, Sharon Ui-Hoon. ”Separate spheres: two Southern Presbyterian women missionaries in China” (1993).
• Douglas, Robert S. Jr. “Saws and screams: amputation and infection in the Civil War” (1993).
• *Levengood, Paul A. “Trial by fire: North Carolina quakers during the Civil War” (1993).
• McDermott, Thomas A. P. “The changing of the guard : public reaction to America's passage from isolationism to interventionism as experienced through five national magazines 1940-1941” (1993).
• Morton, Frances. “What brought us together: the women's home missionary movement in Atlanta, 1880-1920” (1993).
• Riley, Stancel M. III. “Dashed hopes: Birmingham's black community and civil rights, 1963” (1993).
• Shealy, Kirby D. III. “The role of the craft: South Carolina Freemasonry and secessionist politics” (1993).
• Timberlake, Grey. “Trapped by tradition: Davidson's African-American community from 1930-1970” (1993).
• Bavis, James R. Jr. “Abortion in a conservative southern state: the establishment of a liberal abortion policy in North Carolina, 1919-1978” (1994).
• Buck, Brannon J. “Huntsville, Alabama and the Civil War: an untold story” (1994).
• Coleman, Emily E. “Expressions of expectation: courtship in the antebellum South” (1994).
• Hart, Jeffrey C. “Hatred for the Hun?: British atrocity propaganda and its influences on British soldiers during the Great War” (1994).
• Haynie, Todd. “Unheeded warnings: a study of the opponents of escalation in the Vietnam War, August 1964-July 1965” (1994).
• *Howard, Amy. “Silence isn't golden: Harry Golden's civil rights advocacy” (1994).
• *McDaniel Kathryn N. “From romance to realism: Southern history in the state history textbooks of South Carolina and Arkansas, 1947-1991” (1994).
• Mansell, William F. III. “An unhappy marriage: Scottish nationalism within the British state, 1945-1955” (1994).
• Phillips, Robert L. Jr. “A mirror for princes: the Umayyad state under 'Abd Al-Rahman III” (1994).
• Pomeroy, William L. “Edward Teller, Andrei Sakharov, and the role of the scientist-politician in the arms race” (1994).
• Hyde, Max. “Suetonian biography and the sense of individual personality in William of Malmesbury's Gesta regum anglorum” (1995).
• *Russell, Cristine M. "`Amidst all the roar of the cannon’: North Carolina government in the Civil War” (1995).
• Rawlings, Jennifer L. “`The Eponymous hero of travel’: Thomas Cook and travel in Egypt, 1869-1914” (1995).
• Diminich, Giampiero. “The economic effects of emancipation: a study of eastern North Carolina, 1865-1880” (1995).
• Newcomb, Rachel C. “Complete outsiders: Paul Bowles and the expatriates of Tangier” (1995).
• Bost, Victoria K. “Doing for themselves: the importance of self-improvement organizations for African-Americans in post-Revolutionary Boston” (1996).
• Byassee, James D. “Let the churches lead the charge: the Civil War in Southern Presbyterian journals, 1861-1865” (1996).
• Feeley, Stephen D. “The awfull [sic] school: captivities, conversion, and the quest for cultural survival in New France (1676-1763)” (1996).
• *Marion, Cynthia A. “The birth of Florentine civic humanism: the influence of Papal relations on the rise of the Renaissance state in Florence” (1996).
• Palmer, Jarrell H. O. “Christian Zionists and their Christian duty, 1941-1948: 'the Jewish problem' is a Christian problem” (1996).
• Shames, Steven A. “A good faith effort: integration at Davidson College, 1958-1964” (1996).
• *Luskey, Brian P. “From national consensus to class consensus  Joseph Chamberlain's radical programme of 1885 and the origins of class-based political parties in Great Britain” (1997).
• White, Jamison G. “Left out in the cold: Wesley Fishel, Vietnam and the ordeal of liberalism during the Cold War” (1997).
• Salter, John F. “Late progressive social engineers and criminal justice reform: the Chicago Crime Commission in the 1920s” (1997).
• McGehee, Margaret T. “A castle in the wilderness: Victorian values in Rugby Colony, Tennessee, 1880-1887” (1997).
• Field, Elizabeth A. “Community action in Charlotte: the Charlotte Area Fund between the years 1963 and 1968” 1998).
• Lee, Mary Kathryn. “Thomas Smith Grimke's Christian republicanism: a higher and holier revolution” (1998).
• *Santschi, David A. “Robert Barnes : Erasmian humanism and the reformation through royal supremacy” (1998).
• Whitmire, Amy C. “Paternalism and protest: Chicopee, Georgia and the southern textile industry from 1927-1935” (1998).
• Burnett III, O. Lee. “Colonials, Creeks, and the crown's officials: Jonathan Bryan's lease with the Creek Confederacy, 1771-1775” (1999).
• Crawford, Molly. “Plague and pestilence: the 1921 pellagra crisis” (1999).
• *Daly, Michael E. “From Bernadotte to Alpha: the American diplomatic struggle to forge a plan for peace in the Middle East” (1999).
• Fixel, Carolyn. “A southern governor's pledge of allegiance: Governor LeRoy Collins of Florida and the politics of moderation in the post-Brown south” (1999).
• Flinn, Anne Elizabeth. “Defying the solid south: the perpetuation of tenancy in North Carolina” (1999).
• Latanich, Rebecca R.. “From wide-angle lens to focusing lens: an analysis of African-American press coverage of the Women's Army Corps, 1942-1945” (1999).
• Watson, Elizabeth A. “The 1967 Arab-Israeli War: six days that forever changed neoconservative politics in America” (1999).
• Arutyunyan, Yevgenia V. “The treatment of the Armenian genocide in Germany throughout the twentieth century” (2000).
• *Brown, Ashley. “Democracy on trial: the British debate over the American Civil War and the future of Britain's "Americanization" (2000).
• Isenhour, William. “The outbreak of the Peloponnesian War: a diversity of interpretations” (2000).
• Hodge, Daniel. “The unabashed cold warrior: Senator John G. Tower and an era of American foreign relations” (2001).
• *Kalett, Alison. “Jewish identity in Richmond, Virginia, 1891-1916” (2001).
• Lauria, Amanda. “Bridging gaps :the children of Italian immigrants” (2001).
• McKeehan, Robert J. “Forced recovery :the convict lease system in North Carolina, 1860s-1890s”  (2001).
• *Miller, Katherine R. “The politics of healing :the later Stuarts and the royal touch” (2001).
• Wheeler, E. Brooke. “Securing the future of downtown Baltimore :Charles Center, 1957-1965” (2001).
• Schaefer, Michael D. “The anti-apartheid movement, 1984-1986: popular protest frames U.S. policy” (2001).
• Bell, Diana W.  “Female benevolence and the paradox of confederate nationalism: 1861-1870”  (2002).
• Elkins, Douglas M. “Liberalism defied: Southern opposition to the left during Roosevelt's second term, 1936-1940” (2002).
• Lambeth, John. "`From phraseology to reality’: Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the United States, 1930-31"  (2002)
• *Leibe, Brandt. “Moving target: the Carter administration, nuclear targeting strategy, and Presidential directive 59” (2002).
• Miller, Kristina Renee.  "Attempting to preserve women's traditional role? British conduct literature, 1714-1798" (2002).
• Rayburn, Trey. “David Schenck: reconstruction Judge, North Carolina patriot” (2002).
• Smoak, William S. “Against all odds: the Carter administration, Congress, and the mission to save the Cambodian people” (2002).
• Summerlin, Beth. "Nolan Knight and the fight for Notary Public in North Carolina” (2002).
• Baetjer, Patrick. “The roots of isolationism : intervention in the Russian Civil War” (2003).
• Halligan, Elizabeth. “Freedom of control: the failure of school desegregation and the transformation of neighorhood indentity in the Eau Claire community of Columbia, South Carolina, 1964-1972” (2003).
• Roark, Adam B. “Whitewashing the silver screen: censorship and Hollywood films, 1939-1946 / by Adam Daniel Roark” (2003).
• Stackhouse, Sarah G. “Improving, defending and marketing the highlands” (2003).
• Wheeler, David G. Jr. “`Baptized in the Tears’: slave fatherhood in the Antebellum South” (2003).
• *Baldwin, Melinda C. "`Creative Spark’: Dame Kathleen Lonsdale and women in twentieth-century british science” (2004).
• Becker, Louis T. “Occupied libraries: American military government and the reconstruction of German libraries, 1945-1949” (2004).
• Birdsey, Laurence H. "`A lyrical war’: songs of the Spanish Civil War” (2004).
• Bunge, David M. “Davidic Kingship in the Carolingian era” (2004).
• Chaney, Wesley B. “Richard Kyle Fox and the business of boxing” (2004).
• Craft, Joshua V. “Ernesto Galarza and the failure of labor-intellectual cooperation: relations between intellectuals and the labor movement in early postwar " (2004).
• Kota, Megan N. “The Asheville Normal and Teachers College, 1892-1943: northern Presbyterians in Appalachia” (2004).
• Pesses, Emily G. “A rabbi in Montgomery: the Jews of Montgomery, Alabama and a civil rights controversy” (2004).
• Prickett, Drew C. “Irish piracy in the context of the Anglo-Spanish War, 1585-1604” (2004).
• *Behizadeh, Becky. “Sometimes from necessity, frequently from choice: elite women's solitude in the Antebellum South” (2005).
• Dahl, Katherine F. “French refugees and British colonists: expressions of cultural identity within Huguenot communities of South Carolina, 1680-1776” (2005).
• *Jones, Sian. “Mainline Protestant America and the birth of Israel” (2005).
• Puckett, Amy E. “The Eclectic Society of London: unity without uniformity” (2005).
• Stanhope, Sally K. “Liberation of the southern lady: the girls' camping movement in the American South, c. 1920-1950” (2005).
• Walcott, Jennifer C. “Citizenship without the vote: Mary Augusta Ward (1851-1920) on society, politics, and empire” (2005).
• Straussberger, Trey. “Constructing images of Uhuru: informal political negotiation and the Kenyan Independence Movement, 1954-1963” (2005).
• Cross, Alice. “Women behaving badly: reframing the trans-Atlantic repercussions of the feud between Ida B. Wells and Frances Willard in Great Britain, 1894” (2006).
• Frank, Merin. “Seeing Basque: the aesthetic revelations of early Basque nationalism, 1876-1914” (2006).
• Gilbert, Melissa. “Hoots v. Pennsylvania
• Hall, Matthew. “Public reaction to the 1951 Truman-MacArthur controversy” (2006).
• *LaForest, Eric. “`The only Orthodox Catholics left’: Gustav Mahler, Adolf Loos, Karl Kraus, and Catholic modernism in fin-de-siècle Vienna” (2006).
• Meyer, Erin. “Ways to `know a land’: British women’s travel to Greece, 1718-1914” (2006).
• Roady, Peter. “Triumph and failure: U. S. policy towards Pakistan during the Carter and Reagan administrations” (2006).
• *Barrow, Lee. "Contact Dynamics: Hawaiians' Interactions with Western Merchants and Missionaries, 1778-132" (2007).
• Bridges, Bobby. "From the Ashes: The First Stages of Postwar Recovery Druing the American Occupation of Wuerzburg, 1945-1947" (2007).
• Freeman, Amy. "Societ and American Female Pilots in World War II: The Politics of Gender" (2007).
• Hashmi, Omer. "Antionomies of Rebellion: An Unarmed Army in the Northwest Frontier, 1919-1947" (2007).
• Hoke, John. "'Ye Merchants That Go About to Dishonour All Sides': Interlopers and the East India Company, 1679-1701" (2007).
• Kalodner, Lauren. "Foot-Ball to Futbol: Soccer and the Formation of Argentine National Identity, 1867-1930" (2007).
• Kota, Emily. "Revising the Recipe: An Examination of Fannie Merrit Farmer's Legacy as a Cookery Expert, 1869-1915" (2007).
• Richter, Mary Alice. "The Colonial Zoo, Paris, 1931" (2007).
• Broughton, Robert. "A Crusader from the Olympic Village: Constructing the Legacy of Avery Brundage" (2008).
• *Diamant, Samuel. "Local Civil Rights Litigators: Durham's African American Attorneys, 1922-1954" (2008).
• Horwitz, Charles. "Of Jewish Blood and German Soil: Jewish Bavarian Regional Identity and Anti-Semitism in the Weimar Republic, 1919-1933" (2008).
• McLeod, Randall. "Scotland's Sovereignty Asserted: The Darien Scheme as an Example of Scottish National Identity, 1695-1707" (2008).
• Waldrop, Nancy. "Reclaiming the Indian in Colonial Architecture: The Senate House of Madras" (2008)