Victor E History

In this episode, our online Master's student Miranda Edwards joins Dr. Manamee Guha to talk more about Nicholas II and World War I. How much did his autocratic ideals clash with revolutionaries who were looking for large-scale reforms? Miranda also discusses the role Nicholas II's wife Alexandra Feodorovna  and her ally Rasputin played in pushing Russia into the throes of World War I.

In this episode, Hollie Marquess is joined by senior history major Shelby Oshel to discuss "Cartoons and Communism: Understanding Themes of Gender and Nationalism in Soviet Animations." Shelby uses the lens of gender to analyze Soviet animated cartoons and films from their infancy through the collapse of the Soviet Union. 

In the years 1932-1933, Ukraine suffered a famine that historians estimate killed over four million Ukrainians. As a result of the famine, women had to come up with different survival strategies and methods for procuring and preparing food for themselves and their families. Senior history major Alissa Zajac joins Hollie Marquess to discuss women's roles in food procurement and preparation during the Holodomor. 

In this episode Dr. Manamee Guha is joined by Drew Legere, a Junior at Fort Hays State University to discuss her research project on the tense relationship between the British and the Chinese leading up to the Opium Wars. As the British involved themselves in the opium trade, which brought British controlled Indian opium to China, both the opium merchants and Christian missionaries argued in support of the opium wars. Religious arguments were used by both groups to emphasize the importance of a British connection to China. For British opium merchants, demonizing the Chinese through their heathenism allowed the merchants to ignore the negative impact of the opium trade since the Chinese lack this vital British quality. Christian missionaries supported the opium wars to expand Christian influences on China, but later view the opium trade as a barrier to conversion which they viewed as a necessity for Chinese betterment.

 Suggested Reading: 

Berridge, Virginia and Edwards, Griffith. Opium and the People: Opiate Use in Nineteenth-century England. London and New York, NY: Allen Lane and St. Martin’s Press, 1981

Derks, Hans. History of the Opium Problem the Assaulton the East, Ca. 1600 - 1950. Leiden: Brill, 2012

Mason, Mary Gertrude. Western Concepts of China and the Chinese,1840-1876. New York, NY,1939

Milligan, Barry. Pleasures and Pains: Opium and the Orient in Nineteenth-Century British Culture. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1995

Said, Edward. Orientalism, New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1979

Paquette, Jean “An Uncompromising Land; the London Missionary Society in China, 1807-1860,” PhD Diss., University of California, 1987.

In this episode, Lizz Dobmeyer, a master's student in the FHSU History Department online, joins Hollie Marquess to discuss "Nursing Under Fire: The Experiences and Achievements of World War I Allied Nurses on the Western Front.”

Join Dr. Manamee Guha as she chats with Dr. Amber Nickell and Prof. Hollie Marquess discuss plans for their upcoming trip to Poland as part of a study abroad program during Spring of 2023.  Food, finances, enrollment requirements are just some of the questions they address in this podcast. Get all the answers you need about this trip, right here in this podcast. Better still, if you have further questions reach out to Dr. Amber Nickell at [email protected], and she will have an answer for you!

In our final episode of season one, FHSU graduate student in history, Alison Helget, joins Hollie Marquess to discuss her master's thesis "'You Wanna Play Rough?': The Italian Mafia and Butch Lesbian Partnership in Greenwich Village, 1945-1968." We visit about the role of Anna Genovese, wife of mob boss Vito Genovese, in gay nightlife and the surprising partnership between the mafia and lesbians in postwar New York.


Image: Buddy Kent (left) and Anna Genovese (right) 

In our penultimate episode, join us with Colton Wagner, Master's student in History at Fort Hays State University, for a chat on the history of African Americans in the West, African American rodeo in the Jim Crow era, and the inclusion of African Americans into professional rodeo. 



Image of Myrtis Dightman. Courtesy: https://nationalcowboymuseum.org/rodeo-hall-of-fame/5237/

In episode seven of Victor E History podcast, we are in conversation with Chelsea Kiefer, a sophomore history major at Fort Hays State University, to discuss how Britain developed its tea obsession and how it led to two opium wars fought between Britain and China.





Image courtesy: © duncan1890/iStock.com

Episode Six of the Victor E History podcast features Larry Zimmerman, a junior History major at Fort Hays State University. In this episode he discusses his original research on Lucy Parsons, anarchism, the Haymarket affair, and the labor movement during the 19th century.