Degree Name

MA (Master of Arts)

Program

History

Date of Award

5-2009

Committee Chair or Co-Chairs

Melvin E. Page

Committee Members

Stephen G. Fritz, Leila S. Al-Imad, Henry J. Antikiewicz

Abstract

Many historians refer to the Armenian Genocide of 1915 as the first genocide of the twentieth century. In the context of the first global war, the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire were systematically persecuted and many eliminated while the world watched. Yet today, American memory and conception of the Armenian Genocide is remarkably different from similar historical events such as the Holocaust. The Armenian Genocide and America's reaction to it is a forgotten event in American memory.

In an attempt to better understand this process of forgetting, this thesis analyzes the Washington Post's news coverage of the Armenian Genocide. By cataloguing, categorizing, and analysizing this news coverage, this thesis suggests Americans had sufficient information about the events and national reaction to it to form a memory. Therefore, the reasons for twenty-first century collective loss of memory in the minds of Americans must be traced to other sources.

Document Type

Thesis - unrestricted

Copyright

Copyright by the authors.

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