Daigle wins Best Undergraduate Paper
By Emily Schmidt
University Communications Student Assistant
studentpio@minotstateu.edu
BRANDON, Manitoba – Casey Daigle, a Minot State University English and history double-major, won the First Division Museum at Catigny Prize for the Best Undergraduate Student Paper presented at the Northern Great Plains History Conference in Brandon, Manitoba in late September.
At the conference, history students and scholars presented roundtables and papers on a variety of subjects. After presenting her paper, “Lavender Menace: Communism, Homosexuality, and the Nuclear Family,” Daigle had no idea she would win the award.
“It was really amazing,” she said. “I had had a couple people come up who had been reading it before hand and complimented me. I was very surprised.”
Daigle got the idea for her paper after listening to a podcast.
“They were talking about at one point during the, I believe Truman or Eisenhower administration, the president had said something about wanting to get all the gay people out of administrative affairs, and somebody had said to him, you can’t do that, we wouldn’t have administrative affairs anymore,” she said. “That’s somewhat where the idea of the lavender menace, people who were working within the government and were secretly gay, came from.”
She originally wrote this paper for a history class last spring, but history professor Bethany Andreasen suggested she submit it to the conference.
“I was pleased to help her take advantage of an opportunity to present her paper at a professional conference, and I’m gratified at her success,” Andreasen said.
The focus of “Lavender Menace” was to connect ideas about communists and ideas about gay people to domestic containment, or the perpetuation of the nuclear family as the ideal American way of life.
“One of the major points of my paper was that during this time period, disagreement with how America works or how America is ordered becomes sort of like being a traitor, even if that disagreement is based in how you live your life,” she said. “It’s really kind of seen as, oh being different makes you almost like a traitor.”
Professor Andreasen agrees with the judges that Daigle’s paper was a winner.
“Casey chose a topic focused on significant domestic consequences of the Cold War in 1950s America and seized the opportunity to undertake the necessary primary source research for her paper,” she said. “She constructed a solid and well-written argument.”
There were several perks to winning the award, including a cash prize.
“Amazingly, I ended up winning $200,” said Daigle. “I like to joke that now I can finally call myself a writer because I was paid for writing.”
On top of writing, Daigle also enjoys participating in English Club and has been an active member of the League of Social Sciences and Prism. After graduation, she plans to get a Ph.D., become a professor, and create more history and English majors.
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| Published: 11/15/19 |
