19th Century America Research Articles

Opera for the People: English-Language Opera and Women Managers in Late 19th-Century America. By Katherine K Preston. AMS Studies in Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. xxix, 618 pp.

Opera for the People: English-Language Opera and Women Managers in Late 19th-Century America. By Katherine K Preston. AMS Studies in Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. xxix, 618 pp.

Weight and economic development: current net nutrition in the late 19th- and early 20th-century United States

ABSTRACT When traditional measures for material and economic welfare are scarce or unreliable, height and the body mass index (BMI) are now widely accepted measures that represent cumulative and current net nutrition in development studies. However, as the ratio of weight to height, BMI does not fully isolate the effects of current net nutrition. After controlling for height as a measure for current net nutrition, this study uses the weight of a sample of international men in US prisons. Throughout the late 19th- and early-20th centuries, individuals with darker complexions had greater weights than individuals with fairer complexions. Mexican and Asian populations in the US had lower weights and reached shorter statures. Black and white weights stagnated throughout the late 19th- and early-20th centuries. Agricultural workers’ had greater weights than workers in other occupations.

Did Capital Requirements Promote Bank Stability: Lessons from the National Banking Era

The early 20th century United States provides an opportunity to determine whether imposing capital requirements on commercial banks promotes banking stability in the long run. The structure of the national banking system facilitates inference using a regression discontinuity design. The discontinuity arose because federal law raised capital requirements on banks operating in towns whose populations exceeded certain thresholds. These thresholds enable me to estimate the impact of capital requirements on the choices and outcomes of similar banks operating in similar towns under different regulatory regimes. I find that banks subject to higher capital requirements did hold more capital, but also increased their lending proportionately, so that their leverage and risk of failure remained roughly unchanged. Ultimately, capital requirements did not result in lower suspension rates or enhance financial stability.

Psychology in the “Backyards of the World”: Experiences From India

The mind has been the subject of fascination since ancient times, and every cultural tradition has folk theories related to meaning-making, attributions, and explanations about being human. In this sense, the subject of Psychology is as old as humanity, although its rise as a global, scientific discipline is relatively recent, emerging from 20th-century Europe and America. Theoretical ideas and methods generated during the growth of the discipline were aligned with beliefs about human nature and scientific methods specific to Euro-American cultures. Although “preached” and practiced universally as a science, this culturally circumscribed and ideologically bound history of the discipline needs further examination. Rather than “thinking globally” and “acting locally,” the agenda of Psychology has been the reverse; “think locally and act globally,” as critics of mainstream Psychology have pointed out. The predominance of individual, intra-mental, laboratory-tested, quantifiable dimensions of human conduct are based subliminally on Western ideology. The alternative methods of approaching real-life experiences, literature, art, inter-mental phenomena, and other qualitative dimensions of human interactions remain relatively under-explored. The dominant mainstream Psychology is seen as an objective, measurable, and universal science that has had far-reaching consequences for ordinary people around the world. This somewhat sinister side of conventional Psychology is the subject of this article, where we argue that despite significant exceptions and scholarly dissent, the popularity and prevalence of experimental Psychology has marginalized “others” at the expense of its own progress. We use illustrations primarily from teaching, research and practice in Psychology in Indian Universities.

Charles-Alexandre Lesueur in Philadelphia: His Remarkable Contributions to Natural History and Scientific Illustration

Here the nearly forgotten contributions of Charles-Alexandre Lesueur (1778-1846) to natural history during his stay in Philadelphia are reviewed. He was a self-taught artist and naturalist whose first occupation was that of an illustrator working for Nicolas Baudin, the commander of a Napoleonic expedition to explore the Austral regions in the early 1800’s. Through his work with the naturalist Francois Peron, both during and after the expedition, he became a reputed naturalist in his own right. Following the demise of Peron, Lesueur traveled to America in 1815 as an assistant for William MacLure, a geological explorer and philanthropist. Although his contract was for but two years, Lesueur resided in North America from 1816 to 1837. He first lived in Philadelphia, from 1816 to 1825, and there he made his critical contributions to the establishment of the one of the first and major societies of natural history in America and its journal, the Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. During this time, Lesueur published on a wide variety of taxa, created important contacts for the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia with renowned French naturalists, provided illustrations for other naturalists, and even aided in the printing of the journal. Although Lesueur is recognized as one of the key figures of science in 19th century America, his American scientific work is actually little known. This illustrated essay is an effort to shine a light on his neglected natural history work and his striking scientific illustrations from his time in Philadelphia.

Assimilation and ethnic marriage squeeze in early 20th century America: A gender perspective.

BACKGROUNDDuring the 19th and early 20th centuries, large waves of international immigrants, often heterogeneous in terms of age and sex structure, arrived in the United States. Within a relatively short time, many of these immigrants were assimilated. While prior studies have identified an impact of the marriage squeeze on intermarriage, the role of gender is less known.METHODSWe use data from the 1930 census to examine the role played by variation in the sex ratios of the six largest immigrant groups at the beginning of the 20th century on marital outcomes by sex.RESULTSOur analyses show that the probability of marrying outside one’s ethnic group in this period is strongly tied to local ethnic sex ratios. Marital outcomes are affected for both sexes, but sex ratios are found to be more influential on males marrying out of their ethnic group. While a surplus of one’s own sex increases the probability of exogamy for males, it is likely to increase the probability of being single for females.CONTRIBUTIONOur findings highlight the importance of ethnic sex ratios in local marriage markets at a critical juncture of American immigration and its consequences. We focus on an understudied aspect of this process: gender differences in the association between sex ratios and marital assimilation. We show that marital decisions differed by sex and that the high levels of intermarriage in this period are more likely to be explained by unbalanced sex ratios for males than for females.

When Coercive Economies Fail: The Political Economy of the Us South after the Boll Weevil

How do coercive societies respond to negative economic shocks? We explore this question in the early 20th-Century United States South. Since before the nation's founding, cotton cultivation formed the politics and institutions in the South, including the development of slavery, the lack of democratic institutions, and intergroup relations between whites and blacks. We leverage the natural experiment generated by the boll weevil infestation from 1892-1922, which disrupted cotton production in the region. Panel difference-in-differences results provide evidence that Southern society became less violent and repressive in response to this shock with fewer lynchings and less Confederate monument construction. Cross-sectional results leveraging spatial variation in the infestation and historical cotton specialization show that affected counties had less KKK activity, higher non-white voter registration, and were less likely to experience contentious politics in the form of protests during the 1960s. To assess mechanisms, we show that the reductions in coercion were responses to African American out-migration. Even in a context of antidemocratic institutions, ordinary people can retain political power through the ability to ``vote with their feet.'' Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

Mary Edwards Walker: military surgeon who wore the trousers

Mary Edwards Walker was a highly principled and passionate reformer who refused to recognise the oppressive social conventions of 19th-century America. At the time, women's educational opportunities were limited and hard to access, their legal status inferior to that of men, and their right to vote denied. Fashion dictated that they lace themselves into tight corsets under voluminous skirts and petticoats that compromised their health and freedom of movement. She would have none of it. Qualifying as a doctor in 1855—only 6 years after the first woman doctor in the USA, Elizabeth Blackwell—Walker campaigned for dress reform and wore trousers, sometimes under knee-length skirts, throughout her adult life. “The greatest sorrows from which women suffer today”, she wrote, “are those physical, moral and mental ones, that are caused by their unhygienic manner of dressing!” Walker's feminism extended to the battlefield: she served as a military surgeon in the American Civil War and received the Medal of Honor. Women making medical history: introducing A Woman's PlaceIn December, 2017, The Lancet issued a call for papers for its special theme issue on women in science, medicine, and global health .1 The Comment outlined the gender inequalities in medicine that still persist, long after many overt barriers to women's participation have fallen. While that theme issue will be forward-looking, I believe we can also gain insights from looking to the past for examples of women who have made their mark against the odds, and by asking what it was about their particular circumstances that enabled them to do so. Full-Text PDF Rukhmabai: doctor and social reformerStraddling a faultline between tradition and progressive education in 19th-century British India, Rukhmabai forced legislators to reconsider laws on the status of girls, and went on to forge her own career as a doctor—one of the first Indian women to practise in her country. She was quick to generalise her own experience of injustice as a Hindu woman to the predicament of all her fellow countrywomen, and was an outspoken social reformer. Full-Text PDF

Republics of the New World: The Revolutionary Political Experiment in 19th-Century Latin America

Republics of the New World: The Revolutionary Political Experiment in 19th-Century Latin America

The Lynching and Rebirth of Ned Buntline: Rogue Authorship during the American Literary Renaissance

Though largely unknown today, “Ned Buntline” (Edward Zane Carroll Judson) was one of the most influential authors of 19th-century America. He published over 170 novels, edited multiple popular and political publications, and helped pioneer the seafaring adventure, city mystery and Western genres. It was his pirate tales that Tom Sawyer constantly reenacted, his “Bowery B’hoys” that came to define the distinctive slang and swagger of urban American characters, and his novels and plays that turned an unknown scout into Buffalo Bill, King of the Border Men. But before “Ned Buntline” became a mainstay of the popular press, he had been on his way to becoming one of the nation’s highbrow literary elites. He was praised by the leading critics, edited an important literary journal, and his stories appeared in the era’s most prestigious publications. This study examines how and why “Ned Buntline” moved from prestigious to popular authorship and argues that the transformation was precipitated by one very specific event: in 1846, Edward Z. C. Judson was lynched. A close examination of Judson’s life, writing, and the coverage of him in the newspapers of the day (including the remarkable story of how he survived a lynching) demonstrates that the same issues that led to his lynching also led to his rebirth as a new kind of American author.

Oil discoveries and education provision in the Postbellum South

This paper studies the effect of oil wealth on the provision of education in the early 20th century United States. Using information on the location and discovery of major oil fields, I find that oil wealth increased local revenue and education spending. However, population increased, and as consequence, schooling quality did not improve across the board. Nominal teacher wages increased, and oil-rich counties were more likely to participate in the Rosenwald school building program for blacks. However, neither student-teacher ratios nor school attendance rates improved in the wake of oil discoveries.

Every Nation Has its Dish: Black Bodies and Black Food in 20th-Century America. By Jennifer Jensen Wallach

Every Nation Has its Dish: Black Bodies and Black Food in 20th-Century America. By Jennifer Jensen Wallach

Review: Opera for the People: English-Language Opera and Women Managers in Late 19th-Century America, by Katherine K. Preston

Book Review| August 01 2019 Review: Opera for the People: English-Language Opera and Women Managers in Late 19th-Century America, by Katherine K. Preston Opera for the People: English-Language Opera and Women Managers in Late 19th-Century America, by Katherine K. Preston. AMS Studies in Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. xxix, 618 pp. Candace Bailey Candace Bailey CANDACE BAILEY is Professor of Musicology at North Carolina Central University. Her current research focuses on women and music in the United States during the nineteenth century. Her most recent book is Charleston Belles Abroad (University of South Carolina Press, 2019). She will be a National Humanities Center Fellow and Kate Van Winkle Keller Fellow at the American Antiquarian Society in 2019–20. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Journal of the American Musicological Society (2019) 72 (2): 581–585. https://doi.org/10.1525/jams.2019.72.2.581 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Candace Bailey; Review: Opera for the People: English-Language Opera and Women Managers in Late 19th-Century America, by Katherine K. Preston. Journal of the American Musicological Society 1 August 2019; 72 (2): 581–585. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/jams.2019.72.2.581 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentJournal of the American Musicological Society Search Nineteenth-century music has never faded as a foundational subject of inquiry among musicologists nor has its popularity waned in the concert hall or college classroom. Since at least the 1980s, however, musicologists have begun to question the prominence given to the repertoire presented in these spaces and, more broadly, the influence of the canon on modern perceptions of music of the past. Critical interrogation of musicology and its historiography has yielded an expanding list of composers, provided a more balanced view of compositional practices, and opened the door to reconsiderations of performance, circulation, and reception. This type of research provides a more holistic approach to Western music and allows for new examinations of old concepts and innovative interpretations of familiar repertoires. Music in the United States presents special challenges to traditional methodologies. Its historiography is too young to have many old concepts, and its repertoire hardly familiar. Tensions that may... You do not currently have access to this content.

Verortung in der Zeit

Abstract The article discusses the question, if the past as a legitimation for collegiate architecture becomes obsolete after the change from historical styles to modern architecture in 20th century America. On the one hand, the example of Walter Gropius’ Harvard Graduate Center (1948) shows that traditions like the Harvard’s yard are still used on a very abstract level to fit a new building group into the university. On the other hand, the ambition of past decades to define future through architecture or a masterplan seems to be inappropriate after deep changes in society caused by the depression and by World War II later. As a consequence, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe tries to make changes possible for the new Campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology (after 1938): his grid allows to add new building parts easily, and to give them more or less a shape for changing functions.

Opera for the People: English-Language Opera and Women Managers in Late 19th-Century America

Book Review| July 01 2019 Opera for the People: English-Language Opera and Women Managers in Late 19th-Century America Opera for the People: English-Language Opera and Women Managers in Late 19th-Century America, by Katherine K. Preston. Pp. xxix + 618. AMS Studies in Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. £35.99. ISBN: 978-0-19-937165-5. Charlotte Bentley Charlotte Bentley University of Cambridge Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google American Music (2019) 37 (2): 257–261. https://doi.org/10.5406/americanmusic.37.2.0257 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Charlotte Bentley; Opera for the People: English-Language Opera and Women Managers in Late 19th-Century America. American Music 1 January 2019; 37 (2): 257–261. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/americanmusic.37.2.0257 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveUniversity of Illinois PressAmerican Music Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright 2019 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Representing and re-defining expert knowledge for the layman. Self-help medical manuals in late 19th century America

This paper analyses a corpus (over 1 million words) of three self-help medical handbooks published in the US in the latter quarter of the 19th century, R.V. Pierce’s The People’s Common Sense Medical Adviser (1883), M.L. Byrn’s The Mystery of Medicine Explained (1887), and Gunn and Jordan’s Newest Revised Physician (1887). It aims to explore the discursive construction of medical knowledge and of the medical profession in the period, combining discourse analysis and corpus linguistics. The popularity of these manuals has to be seen within the context of medical care at a time when, in spite of the advances made in the course of the 19th century, the status of the medical profession was still unstable. Initially the focus of the study is on the representation of the medical profession. In this respect, the analysis testifies to an approach to traditional medical expertise which is essentially ambivalent, taking its distance from abstract medicine and quackery alike, while at the same time promoting a new approach based on different, more modern principles. The focus then shifts to the episteme of the medical science as represented in the works under investigation. The construction of selected epistemically relevant notions – knowledge, theory/ies, experience, evidence, and observation – is discussed relying on concordance lines in order to retrieve and examine all the contexts where they occur. The results of the analysis indicate a shift in the epistemological approach to knowledge, with theory and suppositions being complemented by experience, evidence and facts, and a representation of knowledge as a tool for empowerment, in line with the increasing democratisation of medicine characterising the period.

"Without The Least Provision": Black and Desegregationist Resistance to Systemic Racial Discrimination in Private and Public Housing in Trenton, New Jersey, 1938-1965

Most historical scholarship on race and housing in the 20th-century United States examines public housing and private housing separately or focuses on large metropoles. This study seeks to understand the relationship between public and private housing discrimination, segregated residential patterns, and desegregationist advocacy in mid-20th Century Trenton, New Jersey. To do so, it utilizes archived documents of local civil rights organizations, correspondence between activist groups and local public officials, and local newspaper articles along with secondary literature on race and housing. This thesis argues that the introduction of federal public housing programs in the 1930s, intended to increase quality housing access, allowed Trenton’s government officials to place black residents in segregated projects, thereby reinforcing existing segregated residential patterns. Simultaneously, financial institutions and realtors infringed upon black Trentonians’ agency in the private market through discriminatory lending and realty practices that discouraged integration. City leaders’ segregationist attitudes furthered systemic racial discrimination, confining black Trentonians of all socio-economic classes to poor quality, overcrowded housing. Black and segregationist activists resisted segregationist practices by asserting their right to fair representation as taxpayers through letters, community meetings, and public demonstrations. By the 1960s, they gained an ally in Trenton’s mayor, but the mass exodus of white Trentonians in the postwar period prevented integration efforts from coming to full fruition. These findings suggest that racial discrimination in private and public markets coalesced to systemically limit black families’ ability to access decent and sufficient housing conditions throughout the country.

Cousin marriage, hierarchy, and heredity: contestations over domestic and national body politics in 19th-century America

Cousin marriage, hierarchy, and heredity: contestations over domestic and national body politics in 19th-century America

Landscape of Evils in Upton Sinclair’s <i>The Jungle</i>

In The Jungle, Upton Sinclair delineates the social evils in the early 20th-century America from such aspects as the evils of reification, banality and unscrupulous personality. He discloses the phenomena of reification appearing under the systematic force by highlighting the reification of political-commercial relation, capitalist-worker relation and interpersonal relation, denouncing the social trample on laborers’ basic human rights and dignity from the perspectives of political corruption, politician-businessman collusion and capital monopolization. Moreover, he explores the anti-civilization, anti-socialness and anti-ethics of banality of evils through the revelation of evil-doings of scabs, manual laborers and real estate brokers. Finally, the unscrupulous personality finding expression in jealousy, avarice and lust brings to light the pleasure-seeking evil psyche harmful to social interaction.

Opera for the People: English-Language Opera and Women Managers in Late 19th-Century America by Katherine K. Preston

Opera for the People: English-Language Opera and Women Managers in Late 19th-Century America by Katherine K. Preston