Undergraduate Research

Undergraduate Research and Awards

Each year the Department of History awards a few scholarships and awards to its accomplished majors. These range from scholarships for promising students with established financial need to awards for excellent honors or 696 theses. Awards will be announced at our Annual Graduation ceremony, which takes place in May. In order to be considered for these scholarships and awards, you must be a history major and will need to submit an application. Some awards and scholarships require a statement or additional materials, as explained in the application form.

We also encourage history majors to apply for undergraduate research awards. Successful history majors have used these awards to conduct research for senior theses in locales as far flung as Africa and France, or closer to home in regional and national archives. If you are studying a less commonly taught foreign language, you may also be able to apply for a prestigious FLAS (Foreign Language Area Studies) fellowship. Several history majors have won these awards, which cover tuition for the academic year or a summer language program.

Honors Theses

The following Honors thesis projects were defended at the completion of the 2024-2025 academic year. Learn more about History Honors here.

• Runwa Karim Assaf,“Teaching the Lost-Found Nation: Identity Formation and the Fusion of Nationalism and Religion in the Nation of Islam’s Schools, 1960s-1975” |Thesis Advisor: Professor Shawn Alexander
  Runwa Assaf is pictured here with her committee members (L-R): Shawn Alexander, Runwa Assaf, Marie Grace Brown, and Luis Corteguera

  
   

• Levi Cromwell, “Quixote in the Classroom: The Rise and Fall of KU’s Integrated Humanities Program” | Thesis Advisor: Professor Jonathan Hagel
  Levi Cromwell is pictured here with his committee members (L-R): Sean Seyer, Levi Cromwell, Jonathan Hagel, and Nathan Wood.
  
   
• Mallory Davisson, “A Great Mass of Depraved and Degenerate: The American Federation of Labor’s Fight to Restrict Immigration, Exclude Undesirables, and Keep Labor American in the 1920s” | Thesis Advisor: Professor David Farber
  Mallory Davisson is pictured here with her committee members (L-R): David Roediger, David Farber, Mallory Davisson, and Rob Schwaller. 
  
• Jackson Felix, “More Than Just Literature: Transcendentalism Off the Page” | Thesis Advisor: Professor Laura Mielke
  Jackson Felix is pictured here with his committee members (L-R): Andy Denning, Sheyda Jahanbani, Jackson Felix, and Laura Mielke.   
  
   
• Connor Fenlon, Thesis Title: “From Foe to Friend: The Cinematic Redemption of the German Character in Hollywood, 1943-1955” | Thesis Advisor: Professor Beth Bailey
  Connor Fenlon is pictured here with his committee members (L-R): Beth Bailey, Connor Fenlon, and Jonathan Hagel. Not pictured: Eric Rath
  
   
• Julia Harstick, “Vehement Vern Miller: A Narrative Approach to Understanding Anti-Drug Policies at the Local Level” | Thesis Advisor: Professor Beth Bailey
  Julia Harstick is pictured here with her committee members (L-R): Kent Blansett, Julia Harstick, Beth Bailey, and Luis Corteguera.  
  
   
• Lola Niccum, “How to Become Beautiful: Advice from Seventeen in the 1950s” | Thesis Advisor: Professor Beth Bailey
  Lola Niccum is pictured here with her committee members (L-R): Beth Bailey, Lola Niccum, Rachel Schwaller, and Tiffany Gonzalez  
  
   
• Madi Norris, Thesis Title: “Resistance in River City: The Counterculture and the Anti-War Movement in Lawrence, Kansas in the 1960s and 1970s” | Thesis Advisor: Professor Beth Bailey
  Madi Norris is pictured here with her committee members (L-R): Kent Blansett, Jonathan Hagel, Madi Norris, and Beth Bailey. 
  
   
• Caitlin Patterson, "Ad Astra Per Militum: The Transfer of the ABMA to NASA, 1958-1960” | Thesis Advisor: Professor Sean Seyer
  Caitlin Patterson is pictured here with her committee members (L-R): Sean Seyer, Caitlin Patterson, and Erik Scott. Not pictured: Erik Rath
  
• Brooke O. Peters, Thesis Title: "The Right to Marry: Civil Rights Lawyering’s Influence in Loving v. Virginia (1967) and the Question of Judicial Activism” | Thesis Advisor: Professor David Farber
  Brooke O. Peters is pictured here with her committee members (L-R): David Farber, Brooke O. Peters, Jennifer Harrison, and Rob Schwaller
  
   
• Natalie Pursche, “Sex and the Not So Single Girl: Presenting Fashion, Femininity and Sexuality in Helen Gurley Brown’s Cosmopolitan" | Thesis Advisor: Professor Beth Bailey
  Natalie Pursche is pictured here with her committee members (L-R): Chris Forth, Beth Bailey, Natalie Pursche, and Marie Grace Brown 
  
   
• Nataley Schumaker, “Negotiating a Hybrid Japanese American Identity: An Analysis of Cultural Celebrations in Internment Camp Newspapers” | Thesis Advisor: Professor Tiffany González 
  Nataley Schumaker is pictured here with her committee members (L-R): Elizabeth MacGonagle, Elaine Nelson, Natalie Schumaker, and Tiffany Gonzalez.  
  
   
• Ivy Watt, Thesis Title: “The Adaptive Monument: Authenticity and Adaptation in Notre Dame’s Post-Fire Revival” | Thesis Advisor: Professor Andrew Denning
  Ivy Watt is pictured here with her committee members (L-R): Chris Forth, Elizabeth MacGonagle, Ivy Watt, and Andy Denning. 
  

Past Honors Theses

2023-2024 Academic Year: 

• Avery J. Amerio, “From Kansas to The Kremlin: Richard Nixon, Presidential Persuasion, and the Selling of Détente at Home and Abroad” | Thesis Advisor: Professor Sheyda Jahanbani
• Jude Butler, “More than a Sport: Early Developments of Baseball in Lawrence, Kansas” | Thesis Advisor: Professor Jonathan Hagel
• Khloe E. Crawshaw, “The Angel's Share: The History of the American Female Whiskey Drinker” |Thesis Advisor: Professor Jonathan Hagel
• Emily DeMars, “Sovereignty and Sobriety: The Intersection of Temperance, Statehood, and Disenfranchisement in Oklahoma.” | Thesis Advisor: Professor Kent Blansett
• Olivia G. Lara, “History, Memory, and Meaning: A Study of Enslaved Narratives from the Five Southeastern Tribes” | Thesis Advisor: Professor Kent Blansett
• Rachael A. Lawler, “The Tampons are not Alright: A Brief History” | Thesis Advisor: Professor Rachel Schwaller
• Hope Lynee McNeese, “A Stepping Stone to Internationalism: The Neutrality Act of 1937” | Thesis Advisor: Professor Andrew Isenberg
• Madison Needhamm, “Congregational Conversations: Exploring White Baptist Narratives on Racism During the Civil Rights Era” | Thesis Advisor: Professor Rachel Schwaller
• Jason Paul Oswald, "A Campus Mobilized for Deferments: Using ROTC to Avoid the Korean War Draft at the University of Kansas" | Thesis Advisor: Professor Beth Bailey
• Ethan Reiter, "John Spearman and John Brown: the Free State Identity and the Legacy of Unrest in Lawrence, KS in 1970" | Thesis Advisor: Professor Jonathan Hagel
• Benjamin A. Schluter, Thesis Title: “Wolves of the Great Father: Crow and Arikara Involvement in the Great Sioux War of 1876” | Thesis Advisor: Professor Kent Blansett

2022-2023 Academic Year: 

• Mason E. Clark, ““Meet the New Boss: ‘The Establishment’ in 1960s and 70s American Thought” | Thesis Advisor: Professor Sheyda Jahanbani
• Claire Ann Cox, “Decolonizing the Wakarusa Museum: The Role of Public Education and Forced Displacement Within the Settler Colonial Structure” | Thesis Advisor: Professor Kent Blansett
• Alexandra Haggar, “Rescind Era: The Failed Efforts in Kansas to Rescind Ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, 1973-1980” | Thesis Advisor: Professor David Farber
• Noah Hookstra, "The Tent Is Never Big Enough: Exodusters, Suffragists, and the People’s Party” | Thesis Advisor: Professor Jonathan Hagel
• Austin J. Klinock, “Ad Astra Per Astronauta: Bringing the Public ‘Up to Space’ and Astronauts ‘Down to Earth’” | Thesis Advisor: Professor Sean Seyer
• Anna A. Madrigal, “Repatriation Beyond the Borderlands: The Impact of the Depression of 1921 on Kansas City’s Mexican Immigrants During the Great Depression” | Thesis Advisor: Professor Jonathan Hagel
• Nicolas Eric Pottorf, "All Is Vanity and Evanescence: Manifestations of Pure Land Buddhism Within ‘The Tale of Heike’” | Thesis Advisor: Professor Eric Rath
• Walter R. Sours, “A College Try: The People’s College of Fort Scott, Kansas” | Thesis Advisor: Professor Jonathan Hagel
• Brittney Madison Wilson, “Assault, Robbery, Mayhem: The Consequences of Fraternal Campus Loyalty Movements at
  the University of Kansas After World War I” | Thesis Advisor: Professor Nicholas Syrett
• Elizabeth G. Winkelman, “The Day After Tomorrow: Climate Change & The Today of Science, Film, & Activism” | Thesis Advisor: Professor Alex Boynton

2021-2022 Academic Year: 

• Jessica Blom, “The M*A*S*H ERA: Television and the Equal Rights Movement” (2021) | Thesis Advisor: 
• Abigail Byrd, "Directing Death: The Professionalization of Death Care in Urban Kansas' Black Communities" (2021) | Thesis Advisor: Professor Shawn Alexander
• Austin Childs, "'Civil Rights Divided: Geopolitics of Black Transnationalism and 'The Palestine Problem'" 
• Riana Simone Henderson, "The New Negro Woman: African-American Womanhood, Respectability, and Power in the Early Twentieth Century”  (2022) | Thesis Advisor: Professor Kim Warren
• Anna L. Jacobson, "Lead, Leases, and Lies: Land and Power on the Quapaw Reservation in the early 20th century" (2021)
• Morgan Kurtz, “The Luck of the Archives: An Examination of the Unusual Journey of the Colonel Hopkins Collection” (2022) | Thesis Advisor: Professor Marie Brown
• Caleb Luck, "Humanitarian Aid or Western Manipulation? Interpretations of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Jordan from 1979-1991" (2021) | Thesis Advisor: Professor Marie Brown
• Joseph M. Mirakian, “Questions, Answers, and the American Dream: A Cultural History of the Quiz Show” (2022) | Thesis Advisor: Professor Jonathan Hagel
• Mamie Lucille Murphy, “From Brick to Marble: Imperial Narrative and the Temple of Augustan Concord”  (2022) | Thesis Advisor: Professor Philip Stinson
• Katherine Taylor Price, “Empire, Authenticity, and Urban Imagination at the 1906 Marseille Colonial Exposition” (2022) | Thesis Advisor: Professor Andrew Denning
• Haylee Rose, “A Toast to Volstead: Neoliberal Hollywood’s Re-interpretation of the Great Depression in Gangster Films from 1980-2008” (2022) | Thesis Advisor: Professor Jonathan Hagel
• Kaman Simmons, "Climate, Clans, and Capitalism: Structural Change in Somalia Since Independence" (2021)
• Sloan Mae Sprau, “Towing the Line: The State of Minnesota’s Dichotomy as Both a Regulator and Promoter of Sportfishing” (2022) | Thesis Advisor: Professor Andrew Isenberg
• Logan Woodyard Stuart, "Agricultural Higher Education in China: A Mirror to the 20th Century's Shifting Political Landscapes" (2021)