History

The Capstone Experience

The Senior Sequence

students answer questions after history day presentationOur seniors take a two-block sequence in which they plan, research, and write a piece of article-length original scholarship as their capstone project. Each year the department also offers an opportunity for seniors to conduct their research at the Newberry Library in Chicago, where they are junior fellows with access to the Newberry’s reading rooms and special collections. With approval from the department, students can also choose to expand their senior essay into a longer thesis.

For more details on the capstone experience and requirements please click here.

For resources for research and writing click here.

History Day

IMG_2388-3.JPGEach year our seniors have the opportunity to present their capstone research at our "History Day" conference. This is a chance for them to share their work with their peers, instructors, family, and friends. This experience is designed to prepare them for conferences they might encounter later in their professional or academic lives. 

The 2022 History Day program can be viewed here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

To get a better understanding of the type of research conducting in the capstone experience, you can also view a selection of our previous student's research topics below:

  • Margaret Hughes "John Murray Spear's New Motor: An Episode From the Edge of
    American Spiritualism" - William R. Hochman Award Winner
  • Star Goudriaan "Neuzeit as Jetztzeit: A Critical Reappraisal of Presentism" - Duniway Award Winner 
  • Nick Connolly "Quaker Capitalism in Early America: The Rotch Family"
  • Matthew Miramontes "How Castles Built in the Middle Ages in Wales were the Beginning
    of Norman-English Colonialism"
  • Jacob Moore "Newfoundland and World War One: A Tale of Imperial Solidarity,
    Competition, and Nation Building"
  • Isabel Alter "Chicago's Sacramental Wine Racket: A Jewish Tale of Prohibition"
  • Lydia Hussain "Identity After Colonization: Art's Role in Identity Formation and Politics
    in Guyana"
  • Noah Kahle "From French to New Flavor: The Evolution of New York Fine Dining"
  • Adrianna Gautreaux: "'Angling in Troubled Waters:' The Role of Primrose League in Fred
    Rose's Map"
  • Juanye' Hairston "Crescent's Shadow is a Cross: A Case of Particularity in English
    Historiographical Conceptions of the Ottomans"
  • Julia Staat "Curated Collections and Curated Identities"
  • Anil Jergens "Inescapable Sadness: Field and Stream and the Character of a Nation"
  • Story Wolf-Tinsman "Mistreated Treaties: The Documents Behind Ute Land
    Dispossession in Northwest Colorado"
  • Matthew Silverman "The Ski Troopers: How the Training of the 10th Mountain Division
    Lead to the Advancement of the American Outdoor Industry"
  • Payton Jung "Marie-Antoinette: Conspicuous Consumption and Scapegoating the
    Corruption of the French Monarchy"
  • Destiny Rhoades "The Phenomenon of Violence, Agency, Control and Puritanism with
    the Salem Witch Trials"
  • Sophie Jones "Transgender Catalyst: Tracing Today's Category"

  • Jane Harris "Talk About Trauma" Mining Disasters, Memorial, and West Virginian Resistance" - Duniway Award Winner 
  • Grace Andrews "Constructing Motherhood"
  • Sarah Burnham "The Intersection of Science and Society: Anatomical Illustrations of Women in Renaissance Europe"
  • Sabrina Brewer "Reconcilation Before Reparation: Confronting the 1898 Wilminton Massacre and its Legacy"
  • Javier Cantu "Memory, Marginalized: The Forgotten Jesuits and Hispanos of Conejos, Colorado"
  • Scott Cunningham "1971 and the Death of the Gold Standard by Richard Nixon"
  • Jolie Curran "The Bloody Circus: The Sex Pistols as Bakhtinian Carnival"
  • Ben Gellman "A Legal Genealogy of Descent from Slavery in the British Atlantic to the 2001 World Conference Against Racism" - Extended Thesis
  • Chili Hopkins "Nonsense in a Nonsense World: Internalizing the Absurd in Soviet Russia"
  •  Turis Jessen "Vivencias De La Calle: The Eroding Mexican State"
  • Cormac Mccrimmon "Tierra Y Libertad: How Historical Conflict on the Sangre De Cristo Land Grant Shaped the Struggle for La Sierra"
  • Patrick McGinnis "Political Actvism in Sport"
  • Henry Nichols: Why We Dared: The Final Frontier"
  • Aaron Pachtman "The Imperial German Navy: The Premier Instrument of Kaiser Wilhelm II's Personal Monarchy to Kepp a Teetering Ship of State Afloat, 1888-1918"
  • Christian Roberts "How the New Deal's Rural Electric Cooperative Delivered Southern Economic Growth at the Expense of Equity"
  • Caroline Sharp "Imagining Apocalypse and Utopia: The Military-Industrial Complex in Colorado Springs"

  • Jacob Roschelle - Portraiture of Wilheim Voigt: Memory, Morality, and National Identity -William R. Hochman Award Winner. 
  • Hope Moody - Fabricating Medical Fact: Indigenous People, Tuberculosis, and White Exceptionalism in Colorado - Duniway Award Winner.
  • Nell Dickey - The Myth of Racial Progress in American Politics: North Carolina, A Cautionary Tale.
  • Nathaniel Blower - Neutral Principles and Some Second Coming Problems.
  • Hanna Ioffe - Teen Spirit v. Repressive Desublimation: A Critical Examination of Seattle's Alternative Music Scene.
  • Ellen Loucks - The Spiritual Integrity of Puritan Community: Youths, Moral Challenge, and Church Discipline.
  • Danny Corrigan - Reframing French Integration and Belonging: Ni Putes Ni Soumises as a War Machine.
  • Charlotte Atkins - The California Missions: Unearthing Stories of Indigenous Resistance.
  • Brice Tucker - Deconstructing the Jazz Canon: From New Orleans to New York City.
  • Arielle Gordon - Ratifying the 1963 Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

  • Eric Dallesasse - Heads Will Roll: An Analysis of Altered Memory Surrounding Marie Antoinette into the 21st Century - Duniway Award Winner. 

  • Gabriel McGill - The Chronicles of ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti: Conceptions of Science, Modernity, and Religion in Early 19th Century Egypt - William R. Hochman Award Winner. 

  • Mary Kate Maloney - The Construction of the Origins of Clerical Celibacy as a Political Tool.
  • David Henderson - The Second Amendment: Americans Final Defense Against Tyranny.
  • Molly Dunn - Bottled Nationalism: Examining the Chauvinistic Underpinnings of France’s Modern Wine Industry.
  • Alexander Berardinell - The Evolution of Racism in Hockey and the NHL’s Response.
  • Christopher Wilkie - The 1972 Summit Series: Canadian Nationalism and Cultural Identity Through Hockey.
  • Lily Fitzpatrick - Antifeminist Women: 20th Century Traditional Family Values and the American Christian Right.
  • Connor Nolan - The 1919 Race Riots and the Manifestation of the “New Negro” Movement in Chicago.
  • Daniel Feder-Johnson - We’re Gonna Fight Racism with Solidarity’: The Rainbow Coalition in Chicago, 1968-1970.
  • Isabella Lawrence - Out of Time: Photographic Representations of Kabyle Identity.
  • Caitlin Laurence - The Fate of the Hmong: The Interplay of Tribal, National and International Governments in Laotian Civil War.
  • Benedict Wright - Worlds in Tension: Pragmatism and Critical Theory.
  • Robert Schilling - They’ll Pass You By, Glory Days’: Bruce Springsteen and the Runaway American Dream.

  • Jasper Coulter - Copyright and the Evolution of Legal Systems: Assessing the Divergence of American Legal Culture from British Tradition - Cosgrove Award Winner. 

  • Abe Lahr - Authentic History and Narrative Hermeneutics in George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia - Duniway Award Winner. 

  • Truett Davis - Pain Management as a Framework for Understanding the Evolution of Chinese and Western Medicines in the Twentieth Century: Herbs, Opium, and Acupuncture Analgesia.
  • Hailey Dennis - ‘Can We All Get Along?’: A Comparative Study in Print Representation of the Los Angeles Riots of 1992.
  • Joseph Brasch - Strike Won: Comparing Responses within the Federal Government to the 1994-1995 MLB Strike.
  • Ben Israel - Detroit’s Sports and Economy: the 21st Century.
  • Otis Hatfield - American Counterinsurgency Doctrine in Iraq: FM3-24 History in Practice.
  • Jake Chase - Mapping History: Oceans, Empire, and the Age of Commerce.
  • Charlie Britton - Railroads, Romanticism, and the Branding of the Front Range by General William Palmer.
  • Richard Yates - Contours of Class Consciousness: Landscape Representation in the Cripple Creek Strike of 1903-04.
  • Maximillian Vivado - Bloodless Capital: Meat, Politics, and the Rise of the Public Abbatoir in Nineteenth-Century Paris..
  • Will Bemis - The Evolution of the Sicilian Mafia and the Challenges the Sicilian Mafia Presented to United States Democracy in the Twentieth Century.
  • Fleur Pellet - Abby Aldrich Rockefeller: The Shaping of a Modern American Culture.
  • Westin Michaud - How Advanced Technology Vanquished Aztec Civilization in 1521.
  • Catherine Luchars - The Politics of Contestation: Rafael Correa’s Citizen’s Revolution.

show all / hide all

Report an issue - Last updated: 04/25/2024