Masters Degrees (History)

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Browsing Masters Degrees (History) by browse.metadata.advisor "Grundlingh, Albert Mauritz"

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    Aweregs : die rustelose lewe van Ben Viljoen 1868-1917
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2018-12) Van der Merwe, Willem Carel; Grundlingh, Albert Mauritz; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of History.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis is a critical interpretative biography of Barend (later Benjamin) Johannes Viljoen, who was born in Thembuland, South Africa in 1868 and died in New Mexico, USA in 1917 at the age of 48 from natural causes. After his arrival at the age of eighteen in the South African Republic as a the eldest son of a poor migrant farming family, Ben Viljoen rose within twelve years from an ordinary policeman to a journalist, newspaper owner, commandant of the Johannesburg commando and member of the Tweede Volksraad (Second House of Assembly) for the Johannesburg constituency. During the Anglo-Boer War he participated in numerous engagements and was promoted to general and assistant commandant-general of the Transvaal forces. He was captured at the beginning of 1902 and banished to St. Helena. Following several unsuccessful attempts to establish himself in the Transvaal Colony after the war, Viljoen was the co-organiser of and a participant in the Boer War Spectacle at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. Afterwards he remained in the USA and married an American woman even before his divorce in South Africa was finalised. After an unsuccessful attempt by him and “general” Willem Snyman to establish a Boer colony in northern Mexico, Viljoen and other Afrikaners settled at the end of 1905 in the southwestern American state of New Mexico where they became successful alfalfa farmers. Here Viljoen played an active role in the local community life and state politics. During the Mexican revolution in 1911 he acted as a military adviser to the revolutionary leader (and later Mexican president) Francisco Madero, who afterwards appointed him as peace commissioner to the Yaqui Indians of Mexico. After a short appointment as a Mexican consul in Germany he was involved in several filibustering attempts in northern Mexico with prominent American capitalists. This thesis is based on extensive primary research in South Africa, the Netherlands, Britain, Mexico and the USA. It contributes to an understanding of the undercurrents in the ranks of the Afrikaners and Afrikaner nationalism during the first few years after the war. Considered as a whole this biography of Ben Viljoen is a re-evaluation of the prevailing notions of how the Boer leaders adapted to the post-war dispensation. It also examines the strategies that Viljoen used to establish and further himself in the South African Republic, Mexico and the USA. By examining Viljoen’s life and the influences that formed him, this thesis seeks to throw more light on that period and thus promote a nuanced understanding of the South African past.
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    The earthquake of 29 September 1969 in Tulbagh, South Africa
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2018-03) Terblanche, Monique; Grundlingh, Albert Mauritz; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of History.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This work is an social-cultural study that gives an account of the 29 September earthquake that struck Tulbagh in the spring of 1969. This is an interdisciplinary research that takes a socioeconomic approach that awards an emic perspective of individual experiences of the natural disaster. Current historiography has been limited to the scientific determinants of the earthquake, neglecting the impact it had on the surrounding communities. It is these shortcomings that are addressed; not only are events on the immediate impact analysed, but also the way in which they have been remembered.
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    The everyday lives of the white South African housewives
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2017-12) Rommelspacher, Amy Fairbairn; Grundlingh, Albert Mauritz; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of History.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study seeks to obtain an impression of the “interior” lives of English and Afrikaans housewives, as portrayed by two woman’s magazines - one English and one Afrikaans - which were in print in South Africa between 1918 and 1945. The quotidian activities of white South African housewives: their attempts to look after their families, their diets and beliefs surrounding nutrition, their concerns about society, what they wore and why they wore it, their routines inside the home and expectations of domestic life, their leisure time, hobbies and the ideologies supporting their actions are its chief concerns. Die Huisvrou and Mrs. Slade’s Good South African Housekeeping are the magazines used as primary sources to inform this work. They were chosen because both are specifically addressed to housewives and have not previously been utilised. The study of these magazines therefore provides a unique opportunity to compare womanhood and the spheres of ordinary life in these two cultures in a novel manner. Despite historical attention being paid to Afrikaans women as volksmoeders and participants in public and political spheres, the domestic realm of housewives in both cultural groups has remained largely untouched. Examining the details of the everyday lives of housewives in a specific historical context creates an opportunity to explore various aspects of women’s lives as well as the impact of the private sphere on constructing a history of South Africa. It is revealed that while the histories of Afrikaners and Anglophones are commonly considered to have emerged in opposition to each other, especially in the wake of the South African War (1899-1902), comparisons between the lives of housewives provide an opportunity to establish that most of these women’s daily activities were very similar and transferable between the two cultures. Both English and Afrikaans housewives were expected to care for their spouses, rear children, feed their families, be knowledgeable about food preparation and nutrition, clean and look after their physical appearances. Both also had access to cheap labour in the home to make their practical duties easier. More intriguingly, the pressures produced by events such as the World Wars, social changes and rapid industrialisation in South Africa affected, and in some cases, were perceived to be threatening, home life. External events and disturbances in society clearly resulted in reactionary responses within the magazines. A modification of divorce laws in the 1930s, for instance, created an atmosphere of panic in Die Huisvrou as women feared the demise of family life. As a result, pressures were put onto unmarried women to spend their time preparing for marriage and home life as opposed to joining the workforce for economic reasons. This investigation reveals the details of the lives of white South African housewives, and recognises the impacts that women’s activities within the domestic sphere had on society outside of the home and vice versa. Through comparing Afrikaans and English housewives, it is also established that women in both cultures held similar beliefs about family and society which were at the centre of their lives. Both were motivated by the philosophy that the success of a society primarily relied on the strength and success of each individual family’s home life within that society.
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    “Ik weet niets van de ontploffing” : an examination of the Braamfontein Explosion of 1896
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2017-03) Ahnie, Garth Tai-shen; Grundlingh, Albert Mauritz; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of History.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis investigates the causes and origins of the Braamfontein Explosion or disaster of 1896, while outlining its immediate effects. Various sources do discuss or mention a cause for the explosion, yet on a closer inspection of the evidence, it becomes apparent that the causes were not as simplistic as suggested in these works. The investigation discusses the critical chain of events that led up to the explosion, while proposing what can be considered the possible cause or causes. To do so, this thesis will be looking at the various industrial and social components that surround the perception of the explosion such as the dynamite industry, the railway company and the official investigation that followed. Additionally the thesis will be a lens upon the unique characteristics of the Witwatersrand of that time, by presenting the nuances of its various people that were involved with and or affected by the explosion. The year 1896 was not a particularly pleasant year for the Rand – it was on alert following the Jameson Raid, it was enduring a drought that led to water scarcity, as well as the average feature of town fire or the odd homicide. Thus the explosion came at a difficult time, and affected the most vulnerable of the town. It is the hope that this thesis will recount the events before, during and after the explosion, to create a fuller and more accurate image, but by no means can it encompass all facets of the event.