Social Science History recent issues

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

Dynamic Social Norms and the Unexpected Transformation of Women's Higher Education, 1965-1975

Jones, S. — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 07:46:51 PDT

In the late 1960s and early 1970s the gender divide in American higher education narrowed rapidly as women shifted their aims from homemaking to careers. The dynamic-social-norms hypothesis explains why we observe unexpected and rapid rather than gradual change in women's education and employment. The explanation draws on a theory of social change developed by Timur Kuran that predicts revolutionary rather than incremental shifts in social norms. Critical to the argument is the claim that in some settings the choices of individuals depend in part on the choices of others. In the presence of interdependencies, the potential exists for unexpected and rapid transformations, such as that occurring in higher education between 1965 and 1975.

Introduction

Carmichael, A. G. — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 07:46:51 PDT

Diagnostic Prescriptions: Shifting Boundaries in Nineteenth-Century Disease and Cause-of-Death Classification

Beemer, J. K. — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 07:46:51 PDT

The lack of a standardized cause-of-death nomenclature poses certain challenges for historical and demographic research of nineteenth-century mortality trends. Efforts to standardize disease and cause-of-death terminology did not successfully take place on an international level until the late nineteenth century. While many disease terms were in common, their diagnostic applications were not. This study examines the relative impact that standardized nomenclature had on cause-of-death reporting in western Massachusetts from 1850 through 1912. I analyze the effects of one specific international influence on late-nineteenth- and early twentieth-century grammars of death, namely, the organized efforts of European and American medical professionals to instruct physicians in proper nomenclature through explicit references and sanctions in the 1900 International Classification of Diseases (ICD). My analysis focuses on the problematic usage of two diagnostic terms in particular: puerperal fever and inanition. The qualifying instructions for these diseases are particularly important for U.S. studies, because they targeted U.S. physicians for correction and provide further insight into the institutional efforts to effect conventional, diagnostic usage on both an international and a local level. I show that the ICD's effect on cause-of-death reporting in Holyoke and Northampton was modest at best. The ICD correctives in question were not unilateral directives from the European medical establishment but in fact originated in the United States. The ICD developed as a collaborative endeavor, enlisting the efforts and interests of participating countries to help create a mechanism for implementing a standardized cause-of-death nomenclature capable of addressing international and local public health concerns.

Diachronic Analysis of Cause-of-Death Terminology: The Case of Tuberculosis

Padiak, J. — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 07:46:51 PDT

Outmoded terminology, inconsistent usage of terms, and lack of specificity are routinely encountered in death records, making integration of past causes of death difficult. This article summarizes problems encountered during large-scale analysis of nineteenth-century causes of morbidity and mortality. Tuberculosis is likely the most problematic cause of death that is routinely encountered; the different manifestations of this disease, depending on which part of the body it infects, mean that it can have quite diverse pathologies, each accorded a separate term. Following this terminology, changes in tuberculosis among soldiers in the British army from 1830 to 1913 are investigated. Morbidity shows a large contribution by scrofula to the total tubercular diseases from 1830 to 1870. Phthisis, the pulmonary form of tuberculosis, dominates mortality.

Diagnostic Spaces: Workhouse, Hospital, and Home in Mid-Victorian London

Mooney, G. — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 07:46:51 PDT

For nine weeks during the 1866 cholera epidemic, the registrar general for England and Wales published details of more than 13,000 deaths in London. Although the names of the deceased and the informant were withheld, all other information available from the death certificate was reproduced in the capital city's Weekly Returns, including registration district and subdistrict, precise address (house number and street, or institution), sex, age (sometimes down to hours for infants), occupation, cause(s) of death, and duration of final illness. Since historians' access to original death certificates in England and Wales is restricted, this source presents an opportunity to analyze systematically the practice of cause of death certification in the middle of the nineteenth century, albeit during a period of mortality crisis. Variability of diagnostic "depth"—that is, the listing of multiple causes and duration of final illness—is considered for three major causes: cholera, diarrhea, and respiratory tuberculosis. Deaths in workhouses and general hospitals were chronically underdocumented compared to home deaths. This finding supports the notion that the institutionalization of sickness in the nineteenth century was accompanied by a loss of the "patient narrative" and also points to the entrenchment of institutional cultures of record keeping and administration.

Contributors

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 07:46:51 PDT

Time Trends in Social Class Mortality Differentials in the Netherlands, 1820-1920: An Assessment Based on Indirect Estimation Techniques

van Poppel, F., Jennissen, R., Mandemakers, K. — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 13:21:45 PDT

The question whether socioeconomic status gradients in adult mortality have changed over a broad historical period has become an important political and theoretical issue but is hard to test. In this article we study long-term trends in social inequality in adult mortality by using data for 2 (of the 11) provinces of the Netherlands for the period 1812–1922. We apply indirect estimation techniques, which have been developed for the analysis of mortality patterns in countries with deficient data. Our article shows that indeed there was a clear social class gradient in mortality, with the elite having higher survival chances between ages 35 and 55 than the middle class and farmers. Differences were even more apparent in comparison with workers. Over time there was a strong convergence among social classes in mortality levels. The implications of our results for the dominant views on the change in living standards in the past are discussed.

When to Care: The Economic Rationale of Slavery Health Care Provision

Lander, K., Pritchett, J. — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 13:21:45 PDT

Prior to the Civil War, many hospitals in the southern United States treated both free and slave patients. In this article we develop a model for the selective medical treatment of slaves. We argue that the pecuniary benefits of hospital care increased with the price of the slave if healthy. Using a rich sample of admission records from New Orleans Touro Hospital, we find a positive correlation between the predicted price of the slave and the probability of hospital admission. We test the robustness of the model by controlling for the length of residence in the city, ownership by traders and doctors, and the type of illness.

Mill Owners and Wobblies: The Event Structure of the Everett Massacre of 1916

Richardson, J. G. — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 13:21:45 PDT

This article examines the event structure of the labor conflict known as the Everett Massacre, which occurred in Everett, Washington, on November 5, 1916. The much-celebrated confrontation between members of the Industrial Workers of the World and local law officials and citizen groups came to symbolize the sharp class divisions that shaped the lumber industry in the latter years of the nineteenth century in the Northwest. The article uses event structure analysis (ESA) to identify the causal structure of this conflict. Guided by this analysis, the focus turns to the structure of discourse in newspaper articles to reveal changes in the contrasting accounts of mill owners and union members, or Wobblies. The article draws on the concepts of relational distance and the monstrous double as a theoretical interpretation for the comparatively more violent labor struggles in the Far West.

The Changing Nature of Professional Regulation in Canada, 1867-1961

Adams, T. L. — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 13:21:45 PDT

There is a growing body of literature exploring the relationship between regulated professions and the state. Research has shown that the state is the key source of power for professions, and it has suggested that professions may support and assist state agencies and actors in many ways. Although studies have documented changing state-profession relations across region and era and recent research points to significant change in the regulation of some professions in the past decade or two, there remains much that we do not know about the changing nature of professional regulation over time. In this article I examine professional regulation in four Canadian provinces between 1867 and 1961. The findings reveal distinct eras of professional regulation and definite differences in who is regulated and how over time. There are many more regulated professions toward the end of the period, they are more closely regulated by the state, and their relationships to each other are more closely delineated. The implications for our understanding of state-profession relations over time are discussed.

Contributors

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 13:21:45 PDT

Social Anthropology and Social Science History

Kertzer, D. I. — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 08:57:17 PST

In the 1970s, when the social science history movement emerged in the United States, leading to the founding of the Social Science History Association, a simultaneous movement arose in which historians looked to cultural anthropology for inspiration. Although both movements involved historians turning to social sciences for theory and method, they reflected very different views of the nature of the historical enterprise. Cultural anthropology, most notably as preached by Clifford Geertz, became a means by which historians could find a theoretical basis in the social sciences for rejecting a scientific paradigm. This article examines this development while also exploring the complex ways cultural anthropology has embraced—and shunned—history in recent years.

Signatures of Commerce in Small-Town Hotel Guest Registers

Fyfe, D. A., Holdsworth, D. W. — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 08:57:18 PST

Guest registers for six commercial hotels are analyzed to reveal everyday, nonmigratory travel patterns associated with small towns and villages in the upper Susquehanna valleys of New York and Pennsylvania at the turn of the twentieth century. The residences of guests are mapped using geographic information system (GIS) software and reveal two broad patterns of connectivity, a translocal cluster of visitors from places within the immediate vicinity and a set of visitors from more distant places up the urban system. Census and directory data identify many repeat visitors, such as hucksters and peddlers extending the reach of rural stores and merchants traveling circuits as agents of metropolitan manufacturing centers. In addition to commercial travelers, the presence of traveling entertainments, such as vaudeville acts and circuses, in hotel guest registers reveals shifts in American popular culture and entertainments on small-town Main Streets. These registers offer a fixed window onto a mobile world, and the signatures hint at the types of connections between these settlements and the outside world.

An Empirical Test of Federalist and Anti-Federalist Theories of State Contributions, 1775-1783

Dougherty, K. L. — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 08:57:18 PST

This article tests Federalist and Anti-Federalist explanations for state contributions to the confederation government using data on troop requisitions from 1775 to 1783. The Federalists claimed that state politicians acted unilaterally and contributed when the Continental army protected their state's interests. The Anti-Federalists claimed that state politicians understood their duty to the Union and contributed to advance its needs. The results suggest that, with one important caveat, states contributed more consistent with the Federalist argument. This helps explain why the Articles of Confederation needed reform.

Cultural Strategies and the Political Economy of Protest in Mid-Qing China, 1740-1839

Hung, H.-f. — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 08:57:18 PST

In the historical study of contentious politics, political economy theories see the transformation of the dominant form of contention from reactive violence to proactive demonstration in early modern Europe as a result of large-scale political-economic processes like state formation and market expansion. Culturalist theories emphasize instead the significance of large-scale cultural reconstitutions in forging such transformation. Judging between these two theories is no easy task, as macropolitical-economic and cultural changes were concurrent in most cases. Mid-Qing China (c. 1683-1839), which experienced state centralization and commercialization in conjunction with a relatively stable neo-Confucianist hegemony, constitutes a telling case that helps resolve the debate. By analyzing a catalog of political protest events derived from archival sources, I find that Chinese protest changed from predominantly reactive violence in the seventeenth century to proactive demonstration in the mid-eighteenth century and back to reactive violence in the nineteenth century. The general direction of change can be explained by the cyclical trajectories of state formation and market development alone. At the same time, the specific claims and repertoires of protest were always delimited by the cultural idioms available in the overarching neo-Confucianist orthodoxy of the time. This study suggests an integrated perspective synthesizing both culturalist and political economy accounts to offer a fuller explanation of macrohistorical changes in contentious politics.

Contributors

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 08:57:18 PST