Vassar Scholarship

New Hampshire’s White Mountains are the site of some of the earliest tourism developments in the United States. In this thesis, I analyze how these developments served to re-shape and construct a new–and lasting–landscape of the region that served the...

This project aims to concurrently theorize how settler colonialism, white supremacy, and brahmanism manifests in North America through the actions and implications of high caste, first-generation Indian immigrants in the second half of the 21st century. I assert that dominant...

The 1970s and 1980s saw a significant increase in the popularity of jeans among the Soviet Union's youth. To gain a better understanding of the origins of this trend, the paper analyzes interviews with former Soviet Union citizens, as well...

This article presents hitherto overlooked documents at Vassar College in the United States relating to the character and reputation of the architect John Soane (1753–1837). The antiquarian and topographic author John Britton (1771–1857), a lifelong friend and associate of Soane...

Dybbuks (spirits of the dead who possess the bodies of the living) and Lilith (the first wife of Adam turned child-killing night demon) are monsters who have existed in Jewish folklore, religious writings, and entertainment media for hundreds of years...

In this paper I apply the nonparametric methods proposed by Quah to data on US state relative income levels. In contrast to Quah's results using cross-country data I find no evidence of polarization in the cross-state income distribution. The long-run...

This paper explores the town-and-gown divide between the college and local communities in order to investigate how institutions of higher education can foster mutually beneficial relationships with their neighbors. The project culminates in a guidebook of proposals for the college...

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) is a contested illness with no diagnosis. Treatment typically consists of symptom management. This spurred interest in finding ways to help patients with ME/CFS to find new ways of improving and helping them recover. The...

From 1896 to 1909, a system of sewage disposal existed on the Vassar farm, purifying sewage through sandy soils and irrigating the adjacent crop fields. This system was ecologically innovative in its time and Ellen Swallow Richards, a Vassar alumna...

The Gulf of Maine, located in the northwest Atlantic Ocean, is biologically, ecologically, and socio-economically important. Humans have interacted with this region by overfishing cod, implementing bounties on harbor and gray seals, instigating warming through human induced climate change, and...

This thesis looks at the history of collections, tracing cabinets of curiosities to natural history specimens at colleges and universities during the 19th century. It will explore the trajectory of academic museums as art galleries became more prominent at colleges...