Students who wish to receive Honors in American Studies must have a GPA over 3.5 in the major and will complete a two-semester independent research project. Students with GPAs below 3.5 but above 3.3 in the major may petition the AMS committee for special consideration to proceed with an independent study project that may be proposed for Honors. The seminar paper in AMS 489 ("Senior Seminar") can serve as the first semester of research for this project. In this research project students need to demonstrate their critical engagement with primary sources and an assessment of how their project contributes to the existing research in the field. By the end of February in the spring semester, the student and the faculty director of the independent study will select an honors committee and, in consultation with that committee, decide if the project is progressing well enough to present for Honors. This committee should include 3-5 members; of these 2 must be from the American Studies Department; one of them must be a tenure-track professor. The faculty project director is not on this committee and cannot participate in the discussion and evaluation of the project by the committee. In addition, please consult "Granting of Honors" in the College Catalog.

Print copies of most F&M Honors Theses are available for consultation in the Reading Room of Archives & Special Collections, located in Martin Library of the Sciences. Abstracts for theses produced in 2005 and later are available online, and are linked below. If the author  has granted permission, the full thesis can be accessed electronically from its abstract page. 

2022

Lydia Shaw, Storytelling as Survival: Feminist Embodiment and the Women's Health Movement

2021

Anna Gabrielle Goorevich, "'Just Different': Anson Dorrance, Gender and Athletic Coaching"

Elena Claire Robustelli, "The Schlemiel as Viral Hip-Hop Star: Lil Dicky's Jewish Flow" (interdisciplinary honors project with Judaic Studies)

2020

Maeve Elizabeth O'Brien, "Beyond Novelty: Deaf West Theatre on Broadway"*

2018

Wyatt Alden Behringer, "Stewards of the City: Community Organizations, Economic Development, and Poverty in Lancaster City, Pennsylvania"

2016

Mary Virginia Cadwell, "The Defense of Storm King Mountain and Its Impact on American Environmentalism"*

Kelsey Jerree Glander, "The Forgotten Fight Oral History Project" (thesis); TheForgottenFight.com (website)

Maria Therese Guarisco, "Keeping Up with Postfeminism: The Branding of the Kardashian Sisterhood"

Shannon Elizabeth Ricchetti, "Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. and the Louisville Park System"*

Sarah Rose Wheaton, "Narrative as Truth: The Public Construction of Operation Allied Force in the United States"*

2015

Leah Eleanor Brenner, “From the Atomic Bomb to the Predator Drone: Media and the Framing of Military Innovation”*

2013

Leslie Ann Lindeman, “Pretzels with a Purpose: The Role of Christianity in the Auntie Anne’s Brand”

Amanda K. Loh, “Daily Grinds: The Breakdown of Community in College Coffee Shops”*

Alexis Teevens, "Hero-Teachers and Counter-Narratives in Federal Education Policy and Popular Films, 2001-2012”*

2012

Matthew Richard Latessa, “Beyond Records: Lancaster’s Vinyl Community and the Romance of the Turntable”

2011

Caitlin Hays Black, “Mothers, Daughters, and ‘Young Girl’s Ambition’: The Reconfiguration of Women’s Slave Narratives”

2009

Molly Honor Briere, “A Landscape in Transition: The Evolution of the Massachusetts Section of the Connecticut River Valley in the Nineteenth Century”

2006

Eileen Marie Keever, “’We Feel the Heat Too’: Lancaster’s Civil Rights Movement in the Summer of 1963”

Allison Pavero, “Civil Rights and Civil Wrongs: Recreational Segregation in Lancaster, Pa.”

Lyndsay Poole, "Shadows of Doubt: Middle-Class Respectability and Working-Class Sexuality among Lancaster’s Women, 1913-1924” 

2003

Jana Leonore Johnson, “Levittown and the Postwar American Dream”

1999

John Stuart Emrich, “Good Intentions to Failed Ideals: The Formation of Eastern State Penitentiary under Solitary Confinement at Hard Labor”

Meg Rebecca Gerstenblith, “A City Besieged: The 1918 Influenza Epidemic in Lancaster, Pennsylvania”

Katherine Ann John, “Windows Into History: Lancaster Maps and Mapmakers, 1753-1960”

1997

Whitney Ford Stahlberg, “Aspects of Educational Reform in Twentieth Century America”

1995

Susan Claire Katz, “Urban Renewal and the Changing Face of Lancaster”**

1993

James Frederick Leach, “Foundation for the Future: The Struggle for Downtown Revitalization in Lancaster 1956-1965”

1990

Linda Jean Cortese, “Coeducation at Franklin and Marshall College: Expectations and Reality”

1986

Liza Montanaro, “William Reynolds and the U.S. Exploring Expedition”

1985

Patrick Daniel McHugh, “The Irish-Americans: Perspectives on an Ethnic Group”

1983

Jodelle L. Bryan, “ From Vaudeville to the Silver Screen: Popular Entertainment in Lancaster, 1900-1925”

Dave Weingold, “The Relationship Between Libertariansim and Jeffersonianism”

1981

Mary Lynch, “Nineteenth-Century Transportation Innovation and the Urbanization Process in Lancaster”

1980

Maralee Sweren, “An Analysis of the Revitalization of Baltimore City”

*abstract only available online
**video project, not available in archive