Social Science History current issue

Critical Junctures, Long-Term Processes: Urban Redevelopment in Chicago and Milwaukee, 1945-1980

Rast, J. — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:30:06 PDT

Facing severe social and economic challenges following World War II, both Chicago and Milwaukee formed local economic development partnerships. However, Chicago's development approach emphasized downtown, while Milwaukee's approach focused largely on manufacturing. This article uses literature on path dependence and urban regimes to show how development strategies initiated in both cities during the late 1940s became entrenched over time, although more so in Chicago than in Milwaukee. I argue that postwar development policy in each city can be understood only through a genuinely historical approach that links outcomes at the close of this narrative in 1980 with key causal factors dating back to the 1940s.

Socioeconomic Differences in the Health of Black Union Soldiers during the American Civil War

Lee, C. — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:30:06 PDT

This article investigates patterns of socioeconomic difference in the wartime morbidity and mortality of black Union soldiers during the American Civil War. Among the factors that contributed to lower probabilities of contracting and dying of disease were lighter skin color, a nonfield occupation, residence on a large plantation, and residence in a rural area prior to enlistment. Patterns of disease-specific mortality and timing of death suggest that the differences in the development of immunity to disease and in nutritional status prior to enlistment were responsible for the observed socioeconomic differences in wartime health. For example, the advantages of light-skinned soldiers over dark-skinned and of enlisted men formerly engaged in nonfield occupations over field hands resulted from differences in nutritional status. The lower wartime mortality of ex-slaves from large plantations can be explained by their better-developed immunity and superior nutritional status. The results of this article suggest that there were substantial disparities in the health of the slave population on the eve of the Civil War.

Introduction

McCants, A. — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:30:06 PDT

One of the most vexing social debates of the late twentieth century in the industrialized West has centered on the complex of questions regarding the paid participation of women in the labor force. Which women engage in paid work, and for what reasons? For how many hours in a week, or weeks in a year, do they work for wages? What kind of work is it appropriate for women to do or, as some would ask, are they even capable of performing? How should the compensation for that work be established or evaluated? Joyce Burnette's book Gender, Work, and Wages in Industrial Revolution Britain is an important contribution to the growing body of scholarship that seeks historical answers to these questions. In this roundtable discussion three historians and two economists respond both to Burnette's book and to the larger scholarly debates about the nature of women's work in the past. The themes that have most piqued the interest of these respondents lie primarily along three lines: the problem of evaluating the relative strength of male and female labor, and the importance of strength to wage setting; the struggle to properly define power relationships, either between men and women in the household or workplace or between owners of capital and sellers of labor; and the problem of the thinness or thickness of markets or, more specifically, the problem of limited female mobility.

Disciplinary Differences: A Historian's Take on Why Wages Differed by Gender in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Britain

Froide, A. M. — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:30:06 PDT

Strength and Power in the Industrial Revolution

Goldin, C. — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:30:06 PDT

The Gender Gap in Wages: Productivity or Prejudice or Market Power in Pursuit of Profits

Humphries, J. — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:30:06 PDT

The Significance of Brawn

Sharpe, P. — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:30:06 PDT

Reply to Comments

Burnette, J. — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:30:06 PDT

Contributors

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:30:06 PDT

Acknowledgments

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:30:06 PDT