East Coast Cities Research Articles

Historical Trauma: <em>Anti-Manchuism and Memories of Atrocity in Late Qing China</em>

In April 1644 the reigning emperor of Ming-dynasty China committed suicide as massive rebel armies invaded Beijing. By the end of that year the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), led by Manchus, had defeated the rebel armies and remnant Ming forces in and near the capital and had seated a new emperor on the throne in the Forbidden City. They had taken control of northern China and were well on their way to imposing their authority in the south as well. The Qing, like the earlier Yuan (Mongol) dynasty of the thirteenth century, was a conquest dynasty, achieving power through invasion from the north. In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Manchu tribal leaders had put together, through conquest and alliance, an ever larger and more efficient military machine that also included Mongols, Koreans and Han Chinese (in what we now call southern Manchuria). The collapse of the Ming, the spread of violence across much of China in the early seventeenth century and the final attacks of the Qing forces caused great suffering. Whole cities were razed when their residents did not submit; men were killed, women raped and children enslaved. Men were ordered to shave their pates and grow queues in the Manchu style, and some committed suicide rather than do so. This historical trauma was recorded extensively by literate Chinese.1 [End Page 67] However, the Qing conquest overall was accepted by the Chinese landholding gentry. Historians generally agree that in spite of widespread Ming loyalism and resentment against the new "barbarian" overlords, the Qing ability and willingness to maintain the basic socioeconomic order led the "gentry" class to cooperate. Tellingly, family heads who refused to accept service under the Qing encouraged or acquiesced as their sons and nephews participated in the revised examination system and pursued careers in Qing officialdom. Rulers like the great Kangxi emperor (r. 1661-1722) understood the need to appeal to this critical social elite. In the Confucian tradition, populations could be categorized according to standards similar in some ways to modern racial thinking. Certainly, the distinction between the "civilized" (Chinese) and the "barbarous" (foreigners) was central. At one extreme, it was held that barbarians were innately animal-like and could never become civilized. However, the mainstream view essentially held that this distinction was not immutable: barbarians could become civilized ("transformed"—jiaohua, xianghua) and indeed were even expected to do so. Also, rulership was legitimized by the "Mandate of Heaven," which was bestowed on the basis of virtue, not racial purity. Anyone, theoretically, could claim the Mandate and an orthodox place in the succession of emperors. The Qing dynasty's claims to legitimacy were virtually unquestioned through the eighteenth century, but that authority began to fray in the nineteenth. As the Qing government suffered a series of defeats and humiliations at the hands of the British, French, Americans, Germans and other Western powers, and in 1895 at the hands of the long-despised Japanese, and as domestic reforms were stymied by conservatives, calls for radical change increasingly were heard. The scions of the old gentry elite were then being educated in modern schools located in east-coast cities and abroad, where they learned modern racial thinking, that is, the mainstream Western view that humanity was divided among several major, essentially immutable breeding populations. Generally these were referred to in five, color-coded categories: Whites, Yellows, Browns, Blacks and Reds. This order also represented a hierarchy of intelligence and morality that justified rule by Whites—temporary and tutorial rule in some views, permanent rule over uneducable peoples in other views. The present essay cannot pursue this subject. Suffice it to say [End Page 68] that Chinese thinkers at the turn of the twentieth century accepted some of the basic premises of racial thinking, tending to equate the intelligence of Whites and Yellows and sometimes predicting a racial war between them for world supremacy.2 Chinese thinkers also understood...

Historical Trauma: Anti-Manchuism and Memories of Atrocity in Late Qing China

In April 1644 the reigning emperor of Ming-dynasty China committed suicide as massive rebel armies invaded Beijing. By the end of that year the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), led by Manchus, had defeated the rebel armies and remnant Ming forces in and near the capital and had seated a new emperor on the throne in the Forbidden City. They had taken control of northern China and were well on their way to imposing their authority in the south as well. The Qing, like the earlier Yuan (Mongol) dynasty of the thirteenth century, was a conquest dynasty, achieving power through invasion from the north. In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Manchu tribal leaders had put together, through conquest and alliance, an ever larger and more efficient military machine that also included Mongols, Koreans and Han Chinese (in what we now call southern Manchuria). The collapse of the Ming, the spread of violence across much of China in the early seventeenth century and the final attacks of the Qing forces caused great suffering. Whole cities were razed when their residents did not submit; men were killed, women raped and children enslaved. Men were ordered to shave their pates and grow queues in the Manchu style, and some committed suicide rather than do so. This historical trauma was recorded extensively by literate Chinese.1 [End Page 67] However, the Qing conquest overall was accepted by the Chinese landholding gentry. Historians generally agree that in spite of widespread Ming loyalism and resentment against the new "barbarian" overlords, the Qing ability and willingness to maintain the basic socioeconomic order led the "gentry" class to cooperate. Tellingly, family heads who refused to accept service under the Qing encouraged or acquiesced as their sons and nephews participated in the revised examination system and pursued careers in Qing officialdom. Rulers like the great Kangxi emperor (r. 1661-1722) understood the need to appeal to this critical social elite. In the Confucian tradition, populations could be categorized according to standards similar in some ways to modern racial thinking. Certainly, the distinction between the "civilized" (Chinese) and the "barbarous" (foreigners) was central. At one extreme, it was held that barbarians were innately animal-like and could never become civilized. However, the mainstream view essentially held that this distinction was not immutable: barbarians could become civilized ("transformed"—jiaohua, xianghua) and indeed were even expected to do so. Also, rulership was legitimized by the "Mandate of Heaven," which was bestowed on the basis of virtue, not racial purity. Anyone, theoretically, could claim the Mandate and an orthodox place in the succession of emperors. The Qing dynasty's claims to legitimacy were virtually unquestioned through the eighteenth century, but that authority began to fray in the nineteenth. As the Qing government suffered a series of defeats and humiliations at the hands of the British, French, Americans, Germans and other Western powers, and in 1895 at the hands of the long-despised Japanese, and as domestic reforms were stymied by conservatives, calls for radical change increasingly were heard. The scions of the old gentry elite were then being educated in modern schools located in east-coast cities and abroad, where they learned modern racial thinking, that is, the mainstream Western view that humanity was divided among several major, essentially immutable breeding populations. Generally these were referred to in five, color-coded categories: Whites, Yellows, Browns, Blacks and Reds. This order also represented a hierarchy of intelligence and morality that justified rule by Whites—temporary and tutorial rule in some views, permanent rule over uneducable peoples in other views. The present essay cannot pursue this subject. Suffice it to say [End Page 68] that Chinese thinkers at the turn of the twentieth century accepted some of the basic premises of racial thinking, tending to equate the intelligence of Whites and Yellows and sometimes predicting a racial war between them for world supremacy.2 Chinese thinkers also understood...

The relationship among violence victimization, witnessing violence, and youth distress.

To explore whether violence victimization and witness experiences of predominantly African-American, low-income, urban adolescents were associated with distress and whether psychosocial factors contributed to symptomatology. Data for this study were obtained from a cross-sectional survey of 349 youth between the ages of 9 and 15 years who resided in any of 10 low-income public housing communities in an East Coast city. Survey instruments assessed exposure to violence, distress symptomatology, youth psychosocial functioning, and family dynamics. Data were analyzed by computing Pearson correlation coefficients and a series of multiple linear regression models. Witnessing violence was related to youth reports of intrusive thoughts and feelings, difficulties with concentration, and vigilant or avoidant behavior. Violence victimization was correlated with feelings of despondency about having either a happy or long life, as well as feelings of being unloved, uncared for, and afraid. Younger youth, boys, and active problem solvers were more likely to report intrusive thoughts. Problematic family communication was related to intrusive thoughts, distraction, feeling a lack of belonging, and expressions of emotional numbing. The act of witnessing violence may be associated with a set of distinct symptoms. Youth who witness violence also need to be identified so they may be aided in dealing with their distress. Family communication, particularly problematic family communication, and problem solving also contribute to symptomatology.

Use of DNA fingerprinting to investigate a multiyear, multistate tuberculosis outbreak.

In 1998–1999, the Baltimore TB control program detected a cluster of 21 tuberculosis (TB) cases. Patients reported frequent travel to various East Coast cities. An investigation was conducted to determine whether transmission of the same Mycobacterium tuberculosis strain was occurring in these other localities. A collaborative investigation among federal, state, and local TB controllers included TB record reviews, interviews of patients, and restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis of selected M. tuberculosis isolates from diagnosed TB patients in several cities in 1996–2001. A national TB genotyping database was searched for RFLP patterns that matched the outbreak pattern. Eighteen additional outbreak-related cases were detected outside of Baltimore—the earliest diagnosed in New Jersey in 1996, and the most recent in New York City in late 2001. The outbreak demonstrates the need for strategies to detect links among patients diagnosed with TB across multiple TB control jurisdictions.

If a US Drug Abuse Epidemic Fails to Include a Major East Coast City, Can It Be Called an Epidemic?

If a US Drug Abuse Epidemic Fails to Include a Major East Coast City, Can It Be Called an Epidemic?

Prostate cancer screening practices and beliefs

To examine primary care physician prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing and prostate cancer screening beliefs, practices, and trends over time. Longitudinal physician survey. Community and academic primary care practices in a major East Coast city. Physicians with > or =100 patients enrolled in an HMO serving 90,000 patients were surveyed in 1993 and 1998 regarding prostate cancer screening beliefs and practices. In 1993, 176 physicians (76%) completed the survey. In 1998, 76% of the 1993 respondents responded to a second survey. Associations between and changes over time in beliefs and self-reported PSA testing were analyzed. Physicians reported ordering PSA tests in 73% of health maintenance exams (HMEs) in 1993 and 81% of HMEs in 1998. PSA testing significantly increased between 1993 and 1998 with 43% of physicians reporting increased testing and only 13% reporting reduced testing. Between 1993 and 1998, physician attitudes favoring PSA testing increased although less than half of physicians believed that aggressive early treatment improved patient outcomes. Community versus academic practice location was also associated with PSA testing. Physicians reported high and increasing rates of PSA testing from 1993 to 1998 and more favorable attitudes toward PSA testing. Despite conflicting expert recommendations and a lack of consistent, high-quality supporting evidence, PSA screening appears to be increasingly considered a standard of care by practicing physicians. However, beliefs other than improved patient outcomes due to screening may be the primary drivers of increased PSA testing.

Sentencing sex crimes against children: an empirical and policy analysis

This study investigated factors that contributed to the sentencing outcomes of 387 sex crimes against children who were prosecuted in a large East Coast city. Hypothesized variables that were indexed to predict sentencing included several offense, victim, and perpetrator characteristics. The findings revealed that individual victims' experiences are generally less predictive of sentencing outcomes than perpetrators' characteristics, that sentences generally tend to be lenient, that intra-family and stranger abuse seem to be taken equally seriously, and that the criminal justice system does seem to incarcerate those society is most worried about—persistent predators who abuse several children. The article ends with suggestions for further research and policy development. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A descriptive study of an epidemic of poisoning caused by heroin adulterated with scopolamine.

Adulterants, contaminants, and diluents are all examples of additives to street drugs. Some of these additives may be pharmacologically active; however, it is unusual for them to cause toxic side effects. In the spring of 1995, a new form of heroin appeared in New York City, spreading to other East Coast cities, that was adulterated with scopolamine. It caused severe anticholinergic toxicity in heroin users with patients often presenting to emergency departments in great numbers. This is a report of the demographics and clinical characteristics of the epidemic. A combination of prospective and retrospective data collection from the New York City, New Jersey, Delaware Valley, and Maryland Poison Centers. The primary measurements were age, sex, route of drug use, vital signs, signs and symptoms, disposition, and treatment. Of the 370 cases reported to the participating poison centers, 129 were excluded from the final analysis because of insufficient data. Of the patients who used this product, 55% presented with signs and symptoms of heroin toxicity but then became severely agitated with anticholinergic symptoms when naloxone was used to reverse respiratory depression. Nasal insufflation was the route of administration in 34% of the cases. Seizures were rare (3%). Ninety percent required admission, and half were admitted to a critical care unit. Adulteration of street drugs can lead to toxic epidemics. Poison centers are essential for identification of these trends and are the primary source of information on diagnosis and treatment.

West Nile virus detected in mosquitoes in Central Park

In New York City local health authorities have stepped up surveillance and ordered more insecticide spraying of neighborhoods as a response to the identification of more birds infected with West Nile virus and as more mosquitoes carrying the virus are found. It is noted that the West Nile virus has been commonly found in humans birds and other vertebrates in Africa Eastern Europe and parts of Asia but it had not been reported in the Western Hemisphere. However in July New York Citys Central Park was closed after city officials announced that infected mosquitoes were found and that insecticide needed to be administered to the 843-acre park. In addition the suburbs of Brooklyn and Queens have been listed as areas needing insecticide spraying. Moreover Nassau County announced that for the first time two dead birds infected with the virus had been found in two communities in the Long Island area. Similar findings were reported by communities in Rockland Suffolk Westchester Staten Island North Jersey and Connecticut. There have also been signs that the virus has spread from the New York metropolitan area to other East Coast cities such as Boston Massachusetts.

Liverpool Merchants and American Shipping: William Brown and the Cope Line of Philadelphia-Liverpool Packets, 1822–1880

ALTHOUGH BRITAIN had by far the largest mercantile marine in the early nineteenth century, American ships dominated most transatlantic trade, and were the largest and smartest vessels entering Liverpool. They sailed on schedule to capture the most passengers and high quality manufactured goods taken across the Atlantic. They also carried the largest bulk import - raw cotton from the Southern states and New York. These ships were mostly owned by wealthy merchants in the leading east coast seaports of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, usually in alliance with leading British firms who superintended their interests in Liverpool.! This article examines the changing relationship between one such owner, Thomas Cope of Philadelphia, and his Liverpool agents for fifty years, the leading Liverpool merchants and bankers, William and James Brown [henceforth W&JB] later Brown-Shipley [BS]. It is based on the Cope collection in the Pennsylvania Historical Society [PHS] which holds all the Copes' out-letters including many to the Browns, and many letters from the Browns to Copes. The problem is to explain the origin and development of the relationship in a satisfactory factual and theoretical way.2 The Cope line was America's second packet line started in 1822 by Thomas Cope as Philadelphia's response to the New York to Liverpool Black Ball line. The Black Ball had been established in 1818 by New York and Leeds merchants in the Yorkshire woollen trade. The Black Ball and other lines were so successful that New York trade expanded at the expense of Philadelphia and the other east coast cities, 1815-60, and

Sentencing sex crimes against children: an empirical and policy analysis.

This study investigated factors that contributed to the sentencing outcomes of 387 sex crimes against children who were prosecuted in a large East Coast city. Hypothesized variables that were indexed to predict sentencing included several offense, victim, and perpetrator characteristics. The findings revealed that individual victims' experiences are generally less predictive of sentencing outcomes than perpetrators' characteristics, that sentences generally tend to be lenient, that intra-family and stranger abuse seem to be taken equally seriously, and that the criminal justice system does seem to incarcerate those society is most worried about-persistent predators who abuse several children. The article ends with suggestions for further research and policy development.

Waiting for Water: Service Discrimination and Polish Neighborhoods in Milwaukee, 1870-1910

Water supply is a necessary component of modern urban life. Nineteenth century American cities discovered this need and took steps to meet it in a variety of fashions. Several east-coast cities had some sort of supply available by 1830; by the Civil War many midwestern cities had followed suit.1 After experiments with private suppliers, which almost always failed to produce either a profit for the utility or an adequate supply for the citizens, many cities decided that providing water should be a function of municipal government. This decision came about as the cities found that private purveyors of water were unwilling or unable to expand their services to accommodate new sections of the city or areas of high elevation where expensive auxiliary pumps were needed. New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, and Chicago all recognized by the mid-nineteenth century that provision of a potable water supply was necessarily a municipal function, as serving all the citizens was rarely, if ever, a profitable enterprise.2 One difficulty that most cities faced was how to provide services amid rapid urban expansion. Typically the middle and professional classes moved to the city's periphery, obtaining respite from congestion and from the influx of new immigrants to the cities after 1840. As these residents relocated, they wanted the same access to services such as paved streets, water, and sewerage as they had enjoyed in their more central location. Since these citizens were well able to pay for the services, the major difficulty for city officials lay in determining which of the new peripheral settlements should receive attention first?a problem whose solution usually depended on the relative political clout of the neighborhoods.3 The new immigrants, in turn, occupied the space vacated by the exiting middle class, until they too achieved sufficient economic

A Biased Guide to Dining Out in Boston

Welcome to Boston, the Athens of America. Many of you are new to town, or haven't been back since long-ago grad school days, so this is a good opportunity to dispell some misconceptions you probably have about dining out in the Hub of the Universe.First of all, Boston-area cuisine is far more than clam chowda (with cream, and no tomato, thank you), pot roast, and baked beans with brown bread. You certainly can enjoy these fine regional delicacies, especially in places catering to tourists, but Boston's restaurant scene simply has exploded in the past decade to encompass a wide variety of foods and dining experiences. Indeed, Boston's reputation as insular and hidebound, while well-deserved in matters like sex, politics, and the Red Sox, no longer extends to food. You want nouvelle cuisine? Regional American? Japanese? Malaysian? Ethiopian? Mexican?! You got it—though, remember, this is Boston, not Austin.And don't worry about service. Despite what you've heard, we Bostonians aren't really rude to strangers—except when we drive. Besides, most of the restaurant staff you'll encounter are transplanted New Yorkers enrolled at the Berklee School of Music, so any lousy service isn't our fault. Just sit back and enjoy the attitude. We do.Above all, dining out in Boston these days is an exciting and pleasurable experience, especially if on someone else's expense account. If not, there still are plenty of reasonably-priced places to suit your fancy, though what strikes us East Coast city folks as “reasonable” may not exactly meet your definition.

A Synthesis for the New American Jewish Historiography

A Synthesis for the New American Jewish Historiography Jeffrey S. Gurock (bio) Gerald Sorin. Tradition Transformed: The Jewish Experience in America. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. xv + 294 pp. Figures, tables, bibliographical essay, and index. $40.00 (cloth); $14.95 (paper). As this century draws to a close, American Jewish historians find themselves reconsidering the basic themes, and reconfiguring the fundamental structure, of their discipline. For example, the periodization of that group’s experience in this country that was once so neatly sub-divided among Sephardic, German, and East European eras is now dated and obsolete. A new historiography speaks of a century of international migration (from roughly 1820–1920) that brought Jews to these shores from Western, Central and Eastern Europe and the Ottoman Empire even as they were part of an even larger Jewish mass relocation from towns and villages to cities within the Old World. Thus, scholars for the most part have begun to avoid designating the mid-nineteenth century as an uniquely German period. Our sense is now that Jews from a variety of Central and East European lands arrived between 1820–1880. Maybe a better way of identifying those newcomers would be to call them Jews from German-speaking lands. But even that classification might not be sufficiently broad. During these same decades, Yiddish-speaking Polish Jews, Hungarians, and even Jews from the Russian Empire were finding their way to the United States. Moreover, we now recognize that Jews from German-speaking lands continued to settle here after the 1880s, long after their emancipation in the Fatherlands. Their particular saga used to be overlooked by historians who focused so much on those who fled the Russian pogroms of the same era. Implicit in this new understanding is that political considerations—specifically the Central European Jews’ frustrations over the slowness of emancipation—was but one relatively minor factor in their opting for America. Contemporary scholarship has also begun to assess the migration, settlement, and acculturation patterns of American Jewry during the most recent fifty years. We now speak of a new epoch opening after 1945 as Jewish residential stagnation in East Coast and rust-belt inner cities ended while [End Page 385] third and fourth generation communities found their destinies manifested both in local suburbias and in sun-belt communities across the nation. It is presently being shown how this massive internal American migration is, in so many ways, as significant as the earlier foreign waves once were in shaping the character and determining the destiny of this particular ethnic community. Concomitantly, scholars who are still deepening our appreciation of the most intensive period of East European migration to America (1880–1920 still remains the most studied four decades in American Jewish history) continue to address new themes and are looking at different types of settlements. Today, when we speak of the history of the Jews’ economic progress, the focus is not so much on how these new Americans struggled to make their livings and how they organized to promote themselves as a laboring mass. Rather, attention increasingly is paid to how first generation Jews and their youngsters spent their hard earned incomes and what the conspicuousness of their consumption says about their social and cultural transformation. Meanwhile, other scholars are balancing the regnant New York-centric focus of this period’s history with perspectives from other larger cities and America’s small town Jewry. Of course, balance is also being sought in integrating the role and contribution of Jewish women both within and without the metropolis and as breadwinners, homemakers, and consumers. If these new appreciations of how American Jewish history can be understood and taught were not enough, other researchers have been refashioning the religious history of that community. Jewish denominational history used to be told from the point of view of an elite of reconcilers—rabbis primarily—who worked to adjust Judaism to the influences of the American environment. More often than not, that interest informed biographies of Conservative and Reform rabbis. Today’s revised historiography takes into account not only those who readily and visibly objected to changing the practices and teachings of that faith in America. It also...

May Games and Noble Savages: The Native American in Early Celebrations of the Tammany Society

This paper discusses the May Day celebrations of the “Sons of Saint Tammany,” an American holiday fraternity under the patronage of an historical Lenape (Delaware) Indian chieftain, which incorporated many Native American performative elements. Beginning in Philadelphia in the colonial period and quickly becoming a vehicle for republican sentiments, the Tammany idea spread to many other east coast cities. The May Day revels of the Society reached their heyday in the early years of the new nation (Federalist period). Two trends in the use of Native materials are identified, the “vaudevillian” and the more serious ethnographic. The latter led to incidents of what can be called “carnivalesque diplomacy,” with native American delegations to the U.S. capital. Dr Samuel Mitchill's elaborate mythopoetic oration for the New York chapter in 1795 is taken as an end point for the creative appropriation of Native American elements. New York's Tammany Society would eventually evolve into the famous political machine of the Democratic Party, leaving behind the original May Day idyll and Indian masquerade.

The history of American classical music: MacDowell through minimalism

American classical music has come a long way in a short time. From the European-style music that was the norm at the end of the 19th century, a body of music has evolved that at the end of the 20th can be termed authentically and distinctively American. The History of American Classical Music takes an in-depth, panoramic look at this amazing variety of music, how it developed and the often fascinating people who composed it. While the emphasis is on the 20th century, author John Warthen Struble goes back to colonial times to examine all the early influences: the hymns of the First New England School; the genteel musical traditions of the East Coast cities during the 18th and 19th centuries, the folk music of Appalachia and the Mississippi Valley imported by Scottish and Irish settlers; the indigenous music of the North American Indians; the African music brought over and adapted by slaves; the balladry, beginning in the 1820s and continuing even today; and the Creole and Gulf Coast music, an amalgam of French, Spanish, African, Cuban, Haitian and American influences. By the 1920s American classical music had reached its most active stage to date. Many conductors and musicians were willing to play it, enough dedicated patrons and promoters were willing to present it and a brilliant group of American composers existed who spoke a language that the public was, on the whole, willing and able to hear, a group that included the likes of Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, Roy Harris and George Gershwin. As university music departments expanded in the 1920s and 30s, Americans like Howard Hanson, Roger Sessions and Walter Piston became influential teachers along with many European composerswho had fled the Nazis. An entire generation of composers were taught and influenced by these academics, and many of these new composers produced music that, at worst, antagonized audiences who found it difficult to understand. The author lays the groundwork for the emergence in th

Leisure Activity, Life Satisfaction, and Perceived Health Status in Older Adults

This study sought to identify the leisure acticities of older adults and to determine if a relationship existed between life satisfaction and leisure activity and between perceived health status and leisure activity. Thirty-two men and women, who were at least 65 years of age and retired, were recruited from a geriatric assessment clinic located in a large, East Coast city and surveyed using three instruments, and Leisure Activities Inventory, the Life Satisfaction Index A, and the Perceived Health Status Scale. Subjects were engaged in a wide range of leisure activities. Those who were more satisfied with their life reported the greatest number of activities conducted at least weekly and more varied reason for leisure activity participation. There was no relationship between leisure activity participation adn perceived health status. Implications for counseling and teaching older adults about use of leisure time and benefits of leisure activity are discussed.

Influences on cigarette smoking quantity: Selection, stress, or culture?

How effective are restrictions on mobility in limiting COVID-19 spread? Using zip code data across five U.S. cities, we estimate that total cases per capita decrease by 19% for every ten percentage point fall in mobility. Addressing endogeneity concerns, we instrument for travel by residential teleworkable and essential shares and find a 25% decline in cases per capita. Using panel data for NYC with week and zip code fixed effects, we estimate a decline of 30%. We find substantial spatial and temporal heterogeneity; east coast cities have stronger effects, with the largest for NYC in the pandemic’s early stages.

Public hospitals--past, present, and future.

PUBLIC HOSPITALS—PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE FRED ALLISON, JR.* As defined by the National Association of Public Hospitals, a public hospital in the United States is an institution owned by federal, state, or local governments [I]. Facilities operated by organizations for nonprofit purposes, whether by churches or by fraternal organizations, represent a second important category of hospitals. Health maintenance organizations (HMO's) and for-profit hospitals, more recent arrivals on the American scene; i.e., since World War II; constitute a third, increasingly significant and, at times, controversial resources for delivery of inpatient health care. Neither nonprofit nor for-profit hospitals will be the focus of this discussion. Public hospitals have had a significant if not dominant past in caring for the sick in the United States, but they now struggle to survive in the increasingly complex and costly environment of today's society. Their future, in the face ofescalating operating costs; economic recession; and budgetary tightening at local, state, and federal levels; is a cause for genuine concern. In view of substantial changes that are being considered to provide universal access to health care for patient populations within this country that have traditionally relied upon public hospitals for their major source of health care, the struggle by public hospitals to prevail will surely become more intense. Some argue that public hospitals , the "safety net" for the poor in the past, have no justifiable place in either the present or the future as a vehicle for delivery of care in this country. It is helpful to look at their past briefly before surveying the present and attempting to project into the future. Historical Perspective The reality of public hospitals extends at least as far back as sixteenth century England. Prior to that time the great church-controlled abbeys, *Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University, Metropolitan Nashville General Hospital , Nashville, Tennessee 37210.© 1993 by The University of Chicago. AU rights reserved. 003 1-5982/93/3604-082 1$01 .00 596 Fred Allison, Jr. ¦ Public Hospitah wherein knowledge, great wealth, and other material resources were concentrated, provided almost all of the care for the population of a largely rural England. The church-connected system served the poor and underprivileged, whereas the wealthy few were treated at home. This source of care for the poor by the Church was destroyed by Henry VIII when the Church of England replaced Catholicism as the dominant religion for the British Isles. With the dissolution of the abbeys and their staff, there was a need for a new system to care for the poor. Thus, by default, it fell upon governments of municipalities and counties to furnish medical care as well as food and shelter for the sick, poor, and homeless [I]. It was in this vacuum that public almshouses began to evolve, specifically targeted for care of the poor, the aged, the chronically ill, the permanently disabled, women before and during childbirth, foundlings, orphans, alcoholics, the insane, the feeble-minded, and persons with medical and surgical illnesses. Needless to say, because these individuals were frequently wards of the community, they were not considered socially worthy, and, as a consequence, the surroundings provided were usually inferior to those available to the well-to-do. By providing only minimal resources and support, that is with few if any amenities, it was thought that inmates of almshouses would seek to return to more productive circumstances. Admission to or confinement in an almshouse , even for an illness, was widely regarded as a manifestation of social failure [I]. Almshouses, vividly portrayed by Charles Dickens and lately dramatized by movies and television, were also looked upon as workhouses where inmates provided some form oflabor to pay for their own support. With the settling of America, the almshouse concept was transplanted to the colonies, and the first recorded instance was noted in Henricopolis , Virginia. Henricopolis was probably in the present county of Henrico and near to the city of Richmond. Some forty years later a second almshouse was founded in New Amsterdam (New York City) and the city of Boston followed suit in 1665 [I]. Subsequently, almshouses appeared in almost all of the major East Coast cities, entry points for immigrant poor coming...

Teacher Absenteeism: What Administrators Can Do

Teacher absenteeism has increased dramatically in recent years, especially in large, urban districts. This writer, who studied trends in one East Coast city, draws on his findings to formulate recommendations for improvement.