History Dissertation Repository

The Northumbria Dissertation Repository was launched in October 2015 to share the best of the university's undergraduate research in History. While online repositories already exist for postgraduate theses, few include undergraduate research – despite the fact that many dissertations are original in conception, argument, and in their use of primary sources.

The History team at Northumbria is pleased to provide access to the excellent, archive-driven research undertaken by our final-year students. The dissertations included in this repository were all awarded first-class marks. They reflect the range of research expertise at Northumbria, as well as our commitment to research-based learning. Moreover, the pieces in this dissertation clearly testify to the skills, enthusiasm and hard work of our students.

We hope to add further examples of undergraduate research to the repository in subsequent years, thereby developing it as a useful resource.

If you have any further questions about the repository, please contact Dr Daniel Laqua or Dr James McConnel.

Medieval and Early Modern History

Medieval

• Hide, Rachel: Tribal Resistance in Northern England and Scotland from the Roman Conquest to the Building of Hadrian’s Wall, 43-122 AD
• Husbands, Benjamin:The Afterlife of Joan of Arc: Visual Representations of the Maid of Orléans
• Watson, Hannah: A Feminist Analysis of the Reinforcement of Patriarchal Strategies within Families of the Late Medieval Gentry

Early Modern

• Curry, Adam:The Arthurian Reformation: The Changing Image of the Arthurian Legend During the English Reformation
• Clarke, Lucy: A Comparison of Female Prostitution in Eighteenth-Century London and Dublin
• Harrington, Helen: Gender and ‘Crimes of Speech’ in Seventeenth-Century York
• Weightman, Peter: The Role of the Commons of Cumberland and Westmoreland in the Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536

Modern British History

1789-1914

• Green, Jyoti: Female Same-Sex Desire in the Nineteenth Century: Approaches from Lesbian Feminist Theory
• Martin, Hannah: ‘Tragedy, Death, and Memory’: The Commemoration of British Coal Mining Disasters in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century
• Riddell, Daniel: Tyneside and the Italian Risorgimento, 1848-1861 
• White, Oliver: The Football League and the Game It Made: A Study of the Development and Transformation of Association Football, 1888–1914 

1914-1945

• Aldis, Francesca: “They call this spring, Mum, and they have one here every year”: An Examination of the Evacuation Experience of Tyneside Schoolchildren 1939–1945
• Carr, Jessica: Women’s Work in Munitions Factories during The First World War: Gender, Class and Public Opinion
• Isles, Scott: More Than 'an Enemy's Name, Rank and Number': Information Gaines from Luftwaffe Prisoners of War and its Use for British Intelligence during the Battle of Britain, July - October 1940
• Macfarlane, Euan: British Naval Innovation and Performance before and during the First World War: The 1916 Sinking of the HMS Invincible
• Timms, Mathew: The North East and Economic Depression, 1935–1939: The Impact of the Team Valley Corporation
• Wickenden, Rebecca: ‘For Home and Country’: The Role of the Women’s Institute in the Northumberland and Durham Counties during the Second World War

1945-

• Corrigan, Chloe: More Than the 'Fuddy Duddy Co-op': The Consumer Co-operative Movement in 1960s Great Britain
• Fairbairn, Lily: 'Born to Struggle': Working-Class Women's Activism in 1970s Britain
• Kundu, Victoria: 'Roaming Mobs of Mutants!': Anti-Nuclear Culture and Protest in Britain, 1979-1989
• Sumner, Billy: Militant within Liverpool City Council 1983–1986: The Impact of and Reaction to a Left-Wing Political Movement in the Labour Party
• Tewson, Miles: The Process of Decolonization in Burma: Managing the Transition from Colony to Independent State

Modern European and International History

• Harold, Danny: Russian Exiles in Britain, 1918–1926: The Politics and Culture of Russia Abroad
• Heywood, Gareth: Education, Sociability and the Politics of Culture in Fin-de-Siècle France
• McGowan, Abbie: ‘Looted Art as an International Issue’: From Nazi Plunder to Restitution, 1939–1951
• Robertson-Major, James: A Long Half-Life: Responses to Chernobyl in Soviet and Post-Soviet Society
• Serafin, Marcel: Socialist Opposition in the Polish People’s Republic, 1964–1989

US History

• Armstrong, Alasdair: Words as Weapons: Black Nationalist Poetry in America during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s
• Foley, Lee: A Step Backwards: Nixon, Détente, and the American Space Program
• Henderson, Sophie: Disobedience and Defiance: Massive Resistance in Mississippi in the 1950s and 1960s
• Keen, Gavin: New York City’s Societal Influence on the Punk Movement, 1975–1979
• Lisle, Ben: ‘In no other business in America is the color line so finely drawn as in baseball’: An Analysis of Black Baseball’s Failed Attempts at Achieving Major League Professionalism, 1887–1939
• McGuinness, Chloe: Bridging the Gap One Bite at a Time: A Food History of African American Activism, 1955-2015
• Paterson, Ewan: Redefining Watergate: Surveillance, Paranoia and Pop Culture in America’s Long 1970s
• Watson, Lucy: Representing the 1970s on TV: That '70s Show
• Weaver, Alice: Peace Activism and Women’s Politics: Women Strike for Peace in Context, 1961–1972