Student Achievement

Graduate Student Spotlight: Matthew Novosad

Posted on January 26, 2022 by Holden, Constance

In November 2021, UConn History Master’s student Matthew Novosad presented at UConn’s annual Graduate Research Conference. This conference is an opportunity for 2nd year graduate students to engage their research ideas with the broader UConn community. The work presented at this conference is based on research conducted during the 5102 course, “Historical Research and Writing.” Matthew Novosad’s research examines perceptions of submarine warfare during the First World War. His paper was titled, ” ‘The law of nations, the law of man, and the law of God’: Discourse on Submarine Warfare in American Newspapers during the First World War.” He is also the president of the Franklin Historical Society and board member of Ashbel Woodward Museum in Franklin, CT.

1) What is your 5102 research project about? What are the central research questions? What are some of your findings?

My 5102 Research project was about the discourses about submarine warfare during the First World War in the United States. I primarily utilized newspapers for this project, drawing especially on editorials, advertisements, and letters to the editor. One of the guiding questions for all of my research, not just this project, is why did the submarine come to be almost exclusively associated with Germany during the World Wars, even when other countries made extensive usage of their submarine fleets? As well, I am also interested in how was the submarine understood during the war. I felt that one potential way to explore these questions was to look at how submarines were being discussed in the United States and to thus see if the discourse was about the submarine as an object. As I discovered, the conversations were mostly about the usage of submarines and how people viewed that usage within a legal framework. Additionally, I was interested in how the submarine was viewed in a wider cultural context but was only able to scratch the surface of that theme with this project. Films, I feel, would be an interesting angle to explore as there were multiple submarine related movies produced and released during the war that didn’t have much utilize the conflict as a theme – such as The Submarine Pirate in 1915 which starred Charlie Chaplin’s half-brother Sydney Chaplin. Another was the 1916 production of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

2) How did you become interested in your research topic?

My father was a submariner during the late Cold War and he served onboard the USS George Washington Carver (SSBN 656) and the USS Augusta (SSN 710) so I grew up in a Navy household covered in Navy and submarine decorations. I also attended the Avery Point campus for my BA and most days I drove by a sign which stated that Groton is the “Submarine Capital of the World”. We could look out of our classroom windows and maybe see a Submarine leaving the Thames River and Long Island Sound for the Atlantic. I’d say I’m a product of my environment.

Additionally, I’ve always had an interest in the First World War and when I was an undergraduate, I discovered pictures of British and French submarines which had participated in the Gallipoli campaign in 1915. I had never known, up until that point, that the Allied powers utilized submarines during the First World War. It sent me on an odyssey to discover as much as I can about them. There are many questions I feel that can be explored through the Allied usage of submarines: What challenges does a naval war pose to coalition warfare? How did the Allied powers fit the usage of submarines into their strategies? How did they ‘sell’ their usage when they were condemning the Germans for Unrestricted Submarine Warfare? What relationship existed between civilians and an, at the time, relatively new weapons system? What can we glean about an emerging military-industrial complex (or as other scholars have termed for this period a “naval-industrial complex”)? How were the experiences of the First World War absorbed institutionally by Allied navies, how did that affect them going into the Second World War?

That’s a bit of a long-winded way of saying I became interested in this particular topic for my 5102 Paper in an effort to hopefully learn a little bit about the disconnect between the Allied usage of submarines during the war, and why they are almost non-existent in many accounts of the war at sea during the First World War. The specific shape that the project took, analyzing material that mostly came from newspapers, was the result of circumstance. COVID-19 and attending my first year of Graduate School online made doing other sorts of research more problematic.

3) What were some of the strategies that you used to organize your research? Did you use any digital tools or software?

My main organizational tool was Zotero. It made not only saving and organizing the secondary literature easy, it also let me maintain a well-organized database of my primary sources. I sorted them principally by date as I was exploring responses to the submarine at certain “flashpoints” such as the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 or the German resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare in 1917. Zotero also made citations much easier!

4) What was your favorite part of this research project?

The cozy days I spent with tea or hot cocoa (two of the three major drinks in the Royal Navy during the First World War) sifting through the mountains of material I had uncovered. There’s a sense of adventure and discovery as you get to actually start reading through your primary sources. I like to envision myself almost like Gandalf in Fellowship of the Ring when he goes to do research on the “One Ring”, although with far less at stake than the fate of Middle-Earth! I will say though, that for this project, I did miss the physicality of in-person research.

5) What was a memorable finding that you uncovered during your research?

It was easily the advertisements. Some of them were very humorous with slogans such as “Submarine Prices, Aeroplane Quality” while others can make you scratch your head such as a two week, two page spread of a “Submarine Sale” which used the imagery of unrestricted submarine warfare to sell clothing. At the very least, the companies who utilized these sorts of motifs did not believe that there was enough public animus against the submarine as an object that they could use it to try and sell their wares so I found that to be extremely memorable.

6) How did this project shape how you conceptualize your future career and/or research goals?

It has clarified for me that Allied Submarines were nearly forgotten during the war, let alone after it. I’d love to explore more deeply how they were (or weren’t) utilized in propaganda and in the construction of post-war national narratives. It has also helped show me that there is no work which deals with the design and usage of the submarine in a truly transnational context. For example, many histories treat John Holland, an Irish immigrant to the United States, as the “inventor” of the submarine. Holland’s big innovation was combining already existing inventions which had been used in submarine construction in countries like Spain and France, and then selling his version to the US Government. I’d love to see how inventors across the globe envisioned their submarine designs and research from the 1850s onwards. I’d also love to explore the concept of Connecticut as an “arsenal” of the United States. Both major American submarine designers and manufacturers were based in Connecticut: Electric Boat was (and still is) in Groton, while Lake Torpedo Boat Company was based in Bridgeport. Both companies sold their designs to the United States Navy and to other governments around the globe.

7) What inspired you to pursue a graduate degree in history?

Like Ishmael in the opening chapter of Moby-Dick, I accounted it was high time I went “to sea” once again. Graduate school, for me, was the next logical step in my career. I had taken time off after completing my BA in 2018 to take stock and see what I really wanted to do. In October 2019, after a year and a half of part-time jobs (some of which I loved, some of which I didn’t) I decided it was finally time to apply and to take my history career to the next step. I don’t see myself doing much outside of the realm of history – although what form that explicitly takes, I am not yet currently sure of.

8) What do you appreciate about studying history?

The freedom. I get to explore topics that interest me and even more importantly I get to share what interests me with other people. Research and studying are a paramount part of the job, but I find that what’s key to me is sharing historical knowledge and methods with a wider audience. It’s why I participate in the “AskHistorians” project, why I’ve appeared made podcast appearances, why I reenact as a hobby, and why I work so hard on local history as President of the Franklin Historical Society and as board member of the Ashbel Woodward Museum in Franklin, CT – because the teaching of history is what really excites me. I like sharing my insights and excitement with others!

9) If you could teach any course, what would it be and why?

I’m torn, I would love to teach a course about the First World War or a course about local history. The First World War I hope is at least a little obvious based on my earlier answers! I feel there’s a lot that students could gain from a course on the war and the way that we still very much live with its legacies. I envision such a course focusing not just on the European theatres, but its global dimensions and impact. It would also give me a chance to talk not only about submarines and the war at sea, but also about cavalry which is a rabbit hole of mine!

On the other hand, I’m in many ways wedded to local Connecticut history. It’s my firm belief that all history is local history in at least some way and I get so much personal value out of my work at the Franklin Historical Society and Museum. I’ve found in my tenure as the Franklin Historical Society President that my very small town as a very big history which connects it to so many major events and social movements. Franklin has both been influenced by, and has itself influenced, the larger world. No place is “unchanging” and it’s extremely fulfilling to help tell new narratives and stories in a town which had a fairly “static” history. I also find that local history has much more immediacy for people and makes the “big” more tangible. To be able to share Connecticut history with students would be an honor.

Undergraduate Honors Student Thesis Spotlight: Madison May

Posted on January 21, 2022July 9, 2025 by Holden, Constance

UConn ’21 graduate Madison May worked with UConn History Professor Charles Lansing on their senior thesis. Their project is an intellectual history of Black political thought within the context of World War II. In focusing on Black perceptions and writings about World War II, Nazism, and Jewish persecution, May examines how the global fight against Nazi Germany influenced the rise of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. A job well done!

Madison May, “Persecution Reaps Freedom: the Impact of the War Against Nazi Germany on the American Civil Rights Movement”

Thesis Advisor: Charles Lansing

This senior honors thesis examines the experience of African Americans during World War II, abroad and on the home front. The guiding questions for this study include: what was the relationship between the Second World War and the Civil Rights Movement?; What did Black soldiers and journalists, at home and abroad, think about the fight against Nazism?; Did the existence of the atrocities committed during World War II accelerate social change? Finally, what connections did Black Americans make with Jewish persecution? Although work has already been done on this topic, this thesis is original in its source content and builds upon the past work of others. Sources for this thesis include a mixture of books, articles, monographs, oral histories, and newspaper articles. There are twenty-two interviews by Black World War Two veterans and twenty-five articles from African American newspapers used as research, spanning from 1933, when the Nazis came to power, to 1946, a year after the war ended. It has been concluded from the research that African American experience during World War II did in fact serve as a spark for the Civil Rights Movement, and social change in general.

Undergraduate Honors Student Spotlight: Arieta Jakaj

Posted on December 10, 2021 by Holden, Constance

UConn ’21 graduate Arieta Jakaj worked with UConn History Professor Ken Gouwens on their senior thesis. Their project traces the intellectual history of the Renaissance and ancient Greece musical forms. Exciting work!

Arieta Jakaj, “Cosmic Harmony and the Death of Music: Florentine Music Theory and Its Influences During the Late 16^th Century (1573-1587)”

Thesis Advisor: Ken Gouwens

The leaders of Florence’s late Renaissance musical scene — the Florentine Camerata or Camerata de’ Bardi (1573-1587) — believed that music in their own time was dying. To help remedy this, they wanted to bring back Ancient Greek musical forms and theories. Did the Renaissance music masters of late-16th Century Florence know that they could never truly replicate the legendary musical past of Ancient Greece? It is clear from the writings of theorists in Cinquecento Italy that they were very aware of their limitations; Ancient Greek music could never be fully replicated. However, the members of the Florentine Camerata still reflected on Ancient times and sought to pull the past to their present. The Camerata’s focus on the past seemed to represent an ever-present need, a longing, for the past to be real and palpable sonically in Cinquecento Italy. Out of this arose a more formidable question: With little music documentation and notation left from Ancient Greece, separated by a span of over a millennium and a half, why did these musicians of the Italian Renaissance decide to revitalize Ancient forms, knowing they could never achieve exactly what the surviving literature promised? During my investigation, I intend to explore the key Greek musical thought that survived from Ancient times and which aspects of this thought appealed to the Camerata. Furthermore, I shall analyze the debates that ruled the Camerata’s discussion and the results of their attempts to recapture the sound of Ancient Greece. It is my intention to evaluate the validity of the conclusion that I have come to during my research, which is that the intellectuals of the Florentine Camerata were concerned with the power of music to develop the soul and wanted to imitate the Ancient Greeks to capture the power of that influence, all while still experimenting and testing the boundaries of Renaissance music.

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Spotlight: Jenifer Gaitán

Posted on December 3, 2021December 3, 2021 by Holden, Constance

UConn ’21 graduate Jenifer Gaitán worked with UConn History Professor Ariel Mae Lambe on their senior thesis. Their project uses a multi-layered methodology that examines the experiences of first-generation Latinx college students. Jenifer majored in History with a minor in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. A job well done!

Jenifer Gaitán, “Salir Adelante: Exploring the Systems of Support of First-Generation Latinx College Students in Their Pursuit of Higher Education”

Thesis Advisor: Ariel Mae Lambe

This thesis explores both the obstacles and systems of support of first-generation Latinx college students as they complete their undergraduate education. The history of the Latinx community in the US and their fight for education is detailed. An analysis is provided of the impact of social, cultural, and economic conditions and the role of immigration in the lives of this student demographic. Finally, this thesis contributes to this area of study through the analysis of ten qualitative interviews that were conducted of first-generation Latinx college students in the last year. Several obstacles that students faced were related to finances, gendered expectations, serving as the middleperson between their families and U.S. institutions. Students identified both formal and informal sources of support, which came from student organizations, mentors, their peers, as well as workshops and presentations. These student’s experiences illustrate the importance of having culturally competent resources and material support available in the form of scholarships, computers, and textbooks to ease financial and other burdens.

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Spotlight: Michael Francomano

Posted on November 19, 2021 by Holden, Constance

UConn ’21 graduate Michael Francomano worked with UConn History Professor Alexis Dudden on their senior thesis that explores the legal discourses around nuclear weapons in the twentieth century. A job well done!

Michael Francomano, “The Influence of the United States on Nuclear Laws”

Thesis Advisor: Alexis Dudden

The United States government has influenced the laws surrounding the use of nuclear weapons from the moment of their first use against a civilian population in 1945. These efforts include countless measures taken to absolve the United States from responsibility for their actions. This is especially seen in the Marshall Islands where US government efforts to abjure legal responsibility to help those directly impacted by radioactive fallout resulting from weapons testing between 1945 and 1962 abound as do efforts to attend the natives that were completely displaced from their home islands destroyed in the name of nuclear testing. These actions span to current day warfare. In so doing, the United States government defies international laws prohibiting the use of nuclear weapons in war in the form of armor piercing rounds of munitions made out of depleted uranium (used as recently as 2015 in Syria). The legality of these weapons is something that remains a gray area in international law, and a major contributor to that is the fact that the United States has used its power and history with nuclear weapons to influence the creation of new precedents and disregard the laws that have already been in place.

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Spotlight: Michael Fox

Posted on November 12, 2021November 17, 2021 by Holden, Constance

UConn ’21 graduate Michael Fox worked with UConn History Professor Meredith Rusoff on their senior thesis that explores freedom of speech in early modern England. A job well done!

Michael Fox, ““A Strange Thing for the Foot to Guide the Head”: Freedom of Speech in Elizabethan Parliaments

Thesis Advisor: Meredith Rusoff

Freedom of speech is a right that many in the United States, and the Western world, take for granted as something that is critical for any modern democratic society to function. However, this has not been the case for the vast majority of Western, and human, history. It is during the early-modern period, specifically the Enlightenment, that concepts such as freedom of speech were developed, and eventually became fully encoded in law. Britain, more specifically England, led the way in the development of freedom of speech within its Parliament, and the practice of common law. Similar to how the government itself evolved in England, so too did its concept of what rights and liberties could be exercised.

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Spotlight: Elisabeth Bienvenue

Posted on November 5, 2021November 17, 2021 by Holden, Constance

UConn ’21 graduate Elisabeth Bienvenue worked with UConn History Professor Nancy Shoemaker on their senior thesis that explored music and culture among New Englanders of Franco American descent. A job well done!

Elisabeth Bienvenue, “La Vie en Chant: The Role of Songbooks in Twentieth Century Franco-American Survivance”

Thesis Advisor: Nancy Shoemaker

The Chants Populaires des Franco-Américains were a collection of songbooks published by the Union Saint-Jean-Baptiste d’Amérique in Woonsocket, Rhode Island from 1929-1962. These songbooks should be considered as part of “la survivance” (“the survival”), a mindset in which the Franco-Americans of New England sought to preserve the French language, Catholic faith, and cultural ties to Quebec and Acadia in future generations. This paper argues that survivance was both a political and cultural phenomenon and that while the politicized survivance movement fell out of favor after the divisive reform effort known as the Sentinelle Affair ended in 1928, the cultural aspects of survivance endured for several more decades. While the songbooks serve as a powerful example of the importance of music and culture among Franco-Americans of the twentieth century, the songbooks themselves did not survive in mass distribution, but they successfully contributed to the movement to create a cultural legacy among New Englanders of Franco-American descent.

Matthew Novosad Writes About African American War Veteran from Franklin, CT

Posted on September 27, 2021 by Holden, Constance

UConn History MA student, Matt Novosad, has written an insightful article about Homer Peckham, who was the only African American war veteran from Franklin, CT. In his Norwich Bulletin article, Matt walks us through the life of Peckham, before and after his military service. A job well done! We look forward to reading more of your work that recovers the hidden histories of Franklin, CT.

Recent Graduate Student Achievements

Posted on September 24, 2021July 9, 2025 by Healey, Mark

Please join us in celebrating the many recent achievements of UConn graduate students.

New Positions

Kate Aguilar (PhD 2021) defended her dissertation, “In the Eyes of the Hurricanes: Miami Football, Race, and American Conservatism.” She began as Assistant Professor of African American History at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota in Fall 2021.

Hilary Bogert-Winkler (PhD 2019) appointed Assistant Professor of Liturgy at the School of Theology, University of the South, Sewanee, TN in Fall 2021.

Nathan Braccio (PhD 2020) defended his dissertation, “Parallel Landscapes: Algonquian and English Spatial Understandings of New England, 1500-1700.” He started as Postdoctoral Fellow in Environmental History at Utah State University – Uintah Basin in Fall 2021.

Danielle Dumaine (PhD 2020) completed her dissertation, “Selling Herself: Diane di Prima, Desire, and Commodity in the Postwar United States.” She has been Visiting Assistant Professor, University of North Texas since Fall 2020.

Kevin Finefrock (PhD 2021) defended his dissertation, “The Long Emancipation: Navigating Slavery’s End in Connecticut, 1780-1830.” He is Associate Director of Employer Engagement and Operations, Connecticut College.

Edward Guimont (PhD 2019) started as Professor of Global History at Bristol Community College, Fall Rivers, MA in Fall 2021.

Aimee Loiselle (PhD 2019) began a position as Assistant Professor of History at Central Connecticut State University in Fall 2021.

Winifred Maloney (MA 2018) has started a new position as Associate Dean of College Counseling at Choate Rosemary Hall.

Lauren Stauffer (PhD 2021) completed her dissertation “Beyond the North Atlantic: How NATO Developed an ‘Out-of-Area’ Perspective, 1979-1991″ and began work in a position with the US government.

Megan Streit (PhD candidate) began work this fall as Deputy Director of Operations for Capstone, Keystone, and Pinnacle Courses, National Defense University, Washington DC.

Jessica Strom (PhD 2021) completed her dissertation “Financing Revolution: Adriano Lemmi and the Struggle for Italian Unification“ and continues to teach courses at the UConn Stamford campus.

Prizes, Fellowships, and Internships

Katie Angelica (PhD candidate) received a 2019 grant from the New England Regional Fellowship Consortium, a 2020 Short-Term Grant from the New York Public Library, a 2021 Andrew Mellon Grant from the Massachusetts Historical Society, and a 2021 Grant from the Connecticut League of Women Voters — and she has finally been able to starting putting all of them to use in an intense stretch of dissertation research this fall as archives and libraries reopen.

Alex Beckstrand (PhD candidate) was the sole winner of the 2021 Rear Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison Naval History Scholarship, an award of $5,000 given by the Naval History and Heritage Command to an active duty commissioned officer in the US Navy or Marine Corps studying the lessons of naval history for the analysis of great power competition. He also had his article on Woodrow Wilson and civil-military relations during the 1916 military expedition into Mexico accepted by the Journal of Military History.

Nicole Breault (PhD candidate) was Robert Middlekauff Fellow at the Huntington Library for two months in 2020-2021, as well as Draper Dissertation Fellow at the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute. She was co-winner of the inaugural Sandra Rux Prize. For 2021-22, she is the David Center for the American Revolution Pre-Doctoral Fellow at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia.

Orlando Deavila Pertuz (PhD 2019) won Honorable Mention for the 2019 Michael Katz Award for Best Dissertation in Urban History. He is now Assistant Professor at the Instituto de Estudio del Caribe, Universidad de Cartagena, Colombia.

Erick Freeman (PhD candidate) is a Dissertation Fellow at the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute, 2021-22.

Constance Holden (PhD candidate) was an intern with the National Endowment for the Humanities in Summer 2021. She also won the Brian Bertoti Award for Outstanding Historical Scholarship for her paper, “Black Visibility and Whitened Modernity: Constructing Argentine Nationalism in Caras y Caretas, 1898-1910”, presented at Virginia Tech’s Innovative Perspectives in History Graduate Research Conference.

Aimee Loiselle (PhD 2019), won the 2020 Catherine Prelinger Award from the Coordinating Council for Women in History & 2020 Lerner-Scott Prize in Women’s History from the Organization of American Historians.

Frances Martin (PhD candidate) received a 2021 Samuel Flagg Bemis Dissertation Research Grant from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.

Britney Murphy (PhD candidate) was 2021 National Predoctoral Fellow for Humanities Without Walls.

Amy Sopcak-Joseph (PhD 2019), won the 2020 Zuckerman Dissertation Prize in American Studies from the McNeil Center for Early American History at the University of Pennsylvania.

Megan Streit (PhD candidate) received a 2020-21 Boren Fellowship, a 2020 Samuel Flagg Bemis Dissertation Research Grant from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, and a 2021 Critical Language Scholarship to study Azerbaijani.

Nicole Breault Named American Philosophical Society Fellow

Posted on April 24, 2021 by Reyes, Marc

Congratulations are in order for UConn History PhD candidate, Nicole Breault. In the past year, Nicole received fellowships from the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute and The Huntington Library. Nicole can add another impressive honor to her already long list of grants and fellowships. Nicole was named the David Center for the American Revolution Pre-Doctoral Fellow at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia for 2021-2022. She will spend the next year in Philadelphia researching, writing, and finishing her dissertation.

Well done, Nicole, and congrats on another impressive feat. You do UConn History proud and are a model for graduate student excellence.