Academic literature on the topic 'North American'

The North American Astereae clade (Asteraceae: Astereae) represents an ecologically important lineage whose species frequently comprise early to mid-successional ecosystems primarily throughout the United States. In the eastern U.S., most species are perennial suffrutescent herbs whereas many in the western U.S. are shrubs or subshrubs, particularly in the Solidagininae s.l. The delimitation of this subtribe, however, has remained unclear as molecular phylogenetics have not resolved whether the Solidagininae s.s. and another clade, the Gutierrezia lineage, collectively form the Solidagininae s.l. To evaluate the relationships among and within these lineages, high-throughput sequencing was employed across the North American Astereae. Highthroughput sequencing was also used to clarify relationships of one taxonomically contentious genus within the Gutierrezia lineage, Euthamia. Additional Euthamia specimens were amplified via polymerase chain reactions for sequencing two loci to increase phylogenetic sampling within the genus. Subsequent species delimitations based on molecular phylogenetics and morphological evaluations from literature were used to model species distributions through ecological niche modeling. Niche comparisons via the R package ‘Humboldt’ further assessed whether the most closely related species differed considerably in their environmental niche occupation. These collectively outlined the distributions of all nine Euthamia species and indicated that hypothetical sister taxa have diverged environmentally for both allopatric and sympatric species.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you.<br>This dissertation studies the largely unexamined role of land surveying in the emergence and growth of the United States and its literature. In the Introduction I argue that surveying was an indispensable technology of American expansion that provided the means through which new territories were incorporated and assimilated within the burgeoning nation. The national survey further created a vast archive of images and descriptions that diffused into the furthest reaches of American thought, social life, and representational practice, forming a powerful conceptual framework for "viewing" and imagining the nation and its seemingly inevitable future. American fiction during this period both served and resisted the survey's ideological program by providing-and also refuting-narratives of place, identity, and sovereignty necessary to authorize control of the western lands. Chapter One argues that Charles Brockden Brown's Edgar Huntly (1799) dramatizes the largely forgotten history of the nation's first territorial expansion into the Northwest Territory during the 1780s, illustrating how the United States used the promise of private property in land to bring an end to frontier violence and impose fundamental changes in frontier social relations that ultimately led to US control of the region. Chapter Two focuses on Helen Hunt Jackson's Ramona (1884) which depicts the role of the national survey in the reterritorialization of Alta California after 1848. The basic difficulty that plagued this contact zone involved the incorporation of a mosaic of spaces shaped by Spanish, Mexican, and Indian cultural practice and tradition into the social, legal, and economic structures of the United States-a process that might be described as the survey's "translation" of the idiomatic and informal spaces of Alta California into the uniform landscape of the nation. Chapter Three considers Louise Erdrich's Tracks (1988) and the instrumental role of the survey in a misguided national effort during the 1870s to "civilize" native peoples by introducing them to private property. Tracks exposes how the attempt to assimilate native peoples to the cultural and economic structures of the white communities surrounding them was accomplished through a profound, and destructive, revision of native space-the surveying of collectively held Indian lands into privately held allotments.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 2004.<br>Title from title page screen (May 20, 2004). Thesis advisor: Edward E. Schilling. Document formatted into pages (xiv, 225 p. : ill. (some col.), maps). Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 117-128).

Thesis (M.S.) -- University of Montana, 2008.<br>Title from author supplied metadata. Description based on contents viewed on May 15. Author supplied keywords: habitat selection, porcupine. Includes bibliographical references.

Between 33,000 and 55,000 British North Americans (BNAs) fought in the American Civil War. Historians though, have largely overlooked or misinterpreted the BNAs' contribution. Most historical accounts portray BNAs as mercenaries, bounty jumpers, or as the victims of press gangs. Many works imply that most BNAs were kidnapped, or drugged and hauled while unconscious across the border to "volunteer." We are also told that BNAs expended enormous amounts of energy attempting to secure their discharges, and of necessity, had to be placed under guard to prevent their desertion. Nowhere, however, are we informed about average BNAs. Most were neither victims nor abusers of the American recruitment system. Unfortunately, their large and significant contributions to the Union's war effort are all but lost, as historians have tried to capture the more exciting and extraordinary side of BNA recruitment. Such an unbalanced portrayal of BNAs characterizes them as inferior soldiers, and that is a disservice to both BNAs, and to the units in which they served. Much of the misunderstanding surrounding BNAs stems from the lack of a common definition for BNA, and through a failure by researchers to appreciate the significance of the changing nature of the Civil War soldiers' enlistment motivations. My study, on the other hand, concentrates on average BNAs and, in the process, tries to come to grips with their true reasons for enlisting. In the end, the payoff is a more balanced depiction of BNA troops; and the discovery that BNAs were not a homogeneous group of men. There were two basic types: those who resided in the United States before their enlistment, and those who crossed the frontier from the British provinces to volunteer. Both types were willing recruits, but otherwise they showed unique characteristics and enrollment behaviour. American resident BNAs enlisted in patterns much like their American neighbours and friends, while British North American resident BNAs were, in the main, driven by the enlistment bounty. The distinction is important if a better understanding of BNAs is to be achieved.

This study analyses the impact on mid-nineteenth-century Anglo-American relations of British North America. It argues that successive British governments worked to retain the strategically-important colonies, despite the often exaggerated influence of Little Englandism. It also stresses the overwhelming loyalty of the colonists, despite aberrations like Canada's 1849 Annexation Crisis. It points to two annexation crises - in 1848 and 1849. During the former, Anglo-American relations suffered as the colonists braced themselves for a popular American invasion. In the 1849 crisis, unknown to the British, the American government briefly considered annexing Canada. When this opportunity vanished, Washington willingly prolonged the crisis in order to weaken Britain during negotiations over Central America. The Fishery Dispute of 1852-1854 found Britain practising pressure politics. London used years of tension between American and colonial fishermen as a pretext for a show of naval strength off North America during negotiations with the United States over Cuba and Central America. The Fishery Dispute also succeeded in forcing the Americans to take Reciprocity seriously. This study rejects traditional interpretations which claim that Lord Elgin's success in 1854 stemmed from his own brilliance and his ability to tell America's feuding sections different stories about the likely effect of Reciprocity. Instead it argues that Elgin succeeded in 1854 because of the work over several years by other diplomats. He also succeeded in 1854 because of a mutual desire for transatlantic calm due to America s domestic problems and Britain's involvement in the Crimean War. Though Elgin's ability oiled the wheels of success, he was also fortunate to arrive just as the ruling party in Washington put down its guard and celebrated the Kansas-Nebraska Compromise. The ratification of Reciprocity in British North America confirms that, despite granting self-government to the three main colonies, Britain put wider imperial interests before purely colonial interests. The thesis concludes that British North America, though nominally powerless and dependent on Britain, had a significant role in Anglo-American relations. The colonies pressured London and Washington by various tactics, while Mother Country and territorially rapacious republic frequently used the colonies as a weapon in their dealings with each other. This produced a diplomatic North Atlantic Triangle with each polity cynically trying to use the other two for its own ends.