German Village Research Articles

Demographic Behavior in the Past: A Study of Fourteen German Village Populations in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.John E. Knodel

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsDemographic Behavior in the Past: A Study of Fourteen German Village Populations in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. John E. Knodel Susan Cotts WatkinsSusan Cotts Watkins Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Sociology Volume 95, Number 2Sep., 1989 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/229297 Views: 2Total views on this site Copyright 1989 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Demographic Behavior in the Past: A Study of Fourteen German Village Populations in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.

Demographic Behavior in the Past: A Study of Fourteen German Village Populations in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.

Demographic behavior in the past: a study of fourteen German village populations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

Demographic behavior in the past: a study of fourteen German village populations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

Encountering the Irrational: Some Reflections on Folk Healers

IN 1985 I had the opportunity to make several visits to a small village in the district of Cloppenburg in Lower Saxony. This place has about 2,000 inhabitants. Low German is still ordinarily spoken, and the majority of the population are Roman Catholics. Only the ancient medieval gothic church would indicate to a stranger that this community has existed for hundreds of years, since the village was practically razed to the ground at the end of World War II. Post-war reconstruction and eager modernization during the 1970s were responsible for destroying the few buildings which the bombing had spared, thus giving the village a totally new appearance. Originally the population consisted chiefly of farming families, but now less than a third of those of working age are on the land. There are two textile factories, employing maybe a hundred workers between them. A high proportion of the villagers work in a small town a few kilometeres away, where they are employed in factories or in the service industries. However, work is not always easy to find; the region has, at present, the highest percentage of unemployment in the German Federal Republic. A further problem is alcoholism, which affects a good many men, both old and young. The work of the village farmers has seen many great changes during the last twenty years. Present-day agriculture is rationalized and mechanized; the new methods ensure higher profits on the crops, but at the same time the many-sidedness of old-style farming has been sharply curtailed, for the sake of increased productivity. Nobody now makes butter from his own milk, for instance; it is all sent to the dairies. Slaughtering pigs, and preparing pig-meat products is no longer a domestic activity. It is increasingly rare for farmers to keep rabbits or hens for home consumption. There is still, however, one thing which stands out in sharp contrast to this modern picture of farm life: the practice of old traditional folk medicine. As soon as one of the farm animals falls sick, one immediately sends for a healer who, by the help of special prayers, restores it to health. In this German village, modern life has not been able to drive out the age-old practice of folk medicine, even though many of the old beliefs associated with it have quite disappeared. Thus, for instance, supernatural forces are not nowadays considered a valid explanation of the origins of illnesses. Yet many of the younger villagers have seen how their grandparents would place a broom across the door of the house to protect them from the Evil Eye and the illnesses it could inflict. It is only a few years ago that an old woman died in the village who, it was said, could put the Evil Eye on people. As soon as I made enquiries from some villagers about traditional healing methods, I was told that I ought to ask the 'Treschen' family.' The head of this family, Herr H., a farmer aged fifty-six, is always sent for by the other farmers when they have any trouble with their livestock. Everyone knows he can heal them, with the help of certain prayers. He was described to me as being rather difficult to approach, but as I already knew Maria, one of his daughters, I asked her to ask her father if he would be willing

Familial Alzheimer's disease in American descendants of the Volga Germans: probable genetic founder effect.

Five families are described in which autopsy-confirmed presenile Alzheimer's disease (AD) has occurred in men and women over multiple generations consistent with autosomal dominant inheritance. All 5 families are descendants of a group of immigrants known as the Volga Germans who came to the United States between 1870 and 1920. Their ancestors moved from Germany to the southern Volga region of Russia in the 1760s. All 5 American families are descendants of persons originally living in two small adjacent Volga German villages and share several surnames known to have been present in the census records of those villages. Although a single affected common ancestor cannot be identified, it is likely that the AD in these families represents an autosomal dominant gene inherited from one ancestor (the founder effect). This information is of importance in the genetic study of AD in these families because it greatly increases the probability of genetic homogeneity. There are more than 300,000 American descendants of the Volga Germans, and the prevalence of AD has never been studied in this population.

Abraham Jacobi lecture. The study of tuberculosis in childhood. The evolution of pediatric pulmonology in North America.

While Abraham Jacobi is the recognized father and founder of American pediatrics, it is only in recent years that his wife, Mary Putnam Jacobi, has been acclaimed as an equally important pioneer in the promotion of the health and welfare of children. Perhaps, as has been suggested earlier, she should be recognized as the mother of American pediatrics. 1 ABRAHAM AND MARY JACOBI The backgrounds of this outstanding couple differed in the extreme. 2,3 Abraham Jacobi was born in a small German village, the son of an unsuccessful shopkeeper in an area in which both illiteracy and anti-Semitism flourished. On the other hand, Mary Putnam Jacobi was the daughter of a prominent New York and New England family. But both possessed one essential quality. Sir William Osler admired Mary Jacobi for what he called heliotropic potency. In his words, Position, wealth, reputation, are as nothing, compared with this truly solar

Starting, stopping, and spacing during the early stages of fertility transition: The experience of German village populations in the 18th and 19th centuries

Examination of the reproductive histories of a sample of German married couples during the 18th and 19th centuries provides insights into behavioral changes involved in the shift from natural fertility to deliberate marital fertility control. A simple accounting scheme is used to assess the relative contributions of starting, spacing, and stopping to changes in family size during the initial phases of the fertility transition. The results suggest that in rural Germany, attempts to terminate childbearing prior to the end of the reproductive span were far more important in initiating the onset of fertility transition than efforts to deliberately prolong intervals between births or changes in the timing of the start of childbearing.

From neustadt to Alaska, 1939: A failed attempt of community resettlement

Between 1939 and 1941, members of the Jewish community in the German village of Neustadt (Hesse) attempted to immigrate to Alaska under a resettlement plan proposed by the US Department of the Interior. The plan failed and no one from Neustadt reached Alaska. The situation of Neustadt Jews during the 1930s is examined, focusing particularly on the effects of anti‐Jewish measures. The two‐year attempt to resettle in Alaska is followed through correspondence between the spokesman of the community and officials in Washington. The article concludes with an account of the fate of the Neustadt Jews.

Determinants of Change and Response among Jews and Catholics in a Nineteenth Century German Village

Determinants of Change and Response among Jews and Catholics in a Nineteenth Century German Village

Interest and Emotion: Essays on the Study of Family and Kinship

Contributors Preface Introduction Hans Medick and David Warren Sabean Part I. Family and the Economy of Emotion: 1. Interest and emotion in family and kinship studies: a critique of social history and anthropology Hans Medick and David Warren Sabean 2. Putting kin and kinship to good use: the circulation of goods, labour, and names on Karpathos (Greece) Bernard Vernier Part II. Materna in Extremis: the Clash of Interests between Mother and Child: 3. Infanticide in rural Barvaria in the nineteenth century Regina Schulte 4. Possession and dispossession: maternity and mortality in Morocco Vanessa Maher Part III. Property in the Mediation of Family Relations: 5. 'Avoir sa part': sibling relations in partible inheritance Brittany Martine Segalen 6. Tensions, dissensions, and ruptures inside the family in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Haute Provence Alain Collomp 7. Young bees in an empty hive: relations between brother-in-law in a South German village around 1800 David Warren Sabean.

Local and Regional Studies on Notional Socialism: A Review

local and regional studies on National Socialism was Franz-Josef Heyen in an article published in 1960. He noted that most histories of German communities seemed to end with the first world war, or, at best, did little more than list the names of inhabitants who perished in Hitler's war. Indeed, judging from local histories, Heyen concluded that it would appear that National Socialism did not exist in German villages, cities, or districts, and even more astonishing, had no apparent impact on the daily lives of people. This appraisal of the available scholarship on National Socialism was generally shared by most specialists in the field and remained substantially the same during the 1960s, and, in some instances, the early 1970s.2 For almost two decades after the collapse of Hitler's Reich, scholars who attempted to study National Socialism on the local level faced several problems. Most of the local party records were destroyed by the nazis at the end of the war, and the remaining Central Party and police records were confiscated by the Allies. Among these captured German documents were numerous local and regional party histories which had been commissioned by nazi leaders during the 1930s, usually to commemorate 'ten-year' anniversaries of various local and district party organizations. Although these nazi publications were obviously designed to praise the 'accomplishments' of party leaders, they did include considerable factual information about local nazi personalities and activities.3 Finally, for obvious reasons, after 1945 many former nazis attempted to keep quiet about their previous political activities. The few scholarly local studies of National Socialism which appeared in the 1940s and 1950s dealt either with election results or specifically with the birthplace of nazism in Munich and Bavaria. The danger, of course, of focusing on Bavaria was to forget that National Socialism was

Effects of Birth Rank, Maternal Age, Birth Interval, and Sibship Size on Infant and Child Mortality: Evidence from 18th and 19th Century Reproductive Histories

There has been long-standing interest in the effects of maternal age, birth rank, and birth spacing on infant and child mortality. Contradictory inferences about the role of these factors have arisen on occasion because of the absence of adequate controls, the use of cross-sectional or incomplete reproductive histories, and inattention to the effect of family size goals and birth limitation practices. This study analyzes completed reproductive histories for German village populations in the 18th and 19th centuries, a period when deliberate fertility control was largely absent. Our results confirm previous studies of the association of infant mortality with maternal age, although in the present data these differentials are largely limited to neonatal mortality. They also confirm the importance of birth interval as a factor in infant mortality. Sibship size is positively related to infant mortality even when birth rank is controlled. However, once sibship size is controlled, there are no systematic differences in infant and child mortality by birth order. The mechanisms relating sibship size and mortality are explored.

The Decline of Remarriage: Evidence From German Village Populations in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

Family reconstitution data for fourteen German village populations permit the examination of remarriage during the eighteenth and nineteenth cen turies. The results provide compelling evidence for a secular decline in the tenden cy to remarry. Pronounced age and sex differentials in the likelihood of remar riage were evident: widows were far less likely to remarry than widowers, and the probability of remarriage declined rapidly with age, particularly for women. The probability of remarriage was also inversely associated with the number and age of children. There were, however, no clear differences in either the probability of remarriage or its tendency to decline over time among major occupational groups. The decline in remarriage probabilities was caused in part by declines in adult mortality, which gradually raised the ages of surviving spouses to levels at which remarriage has historically been rather unlikely. However, age-specific marriage probabilities also declined, affecting both men and women and all oc cupational groups, suggesting the presence of a social change of wide scope. Some comments on possible factors contributing to the decline of remarriage are presented. The need for a comprehensive explanation of remarriage trends and differentials remains an important challenge for family historians.

Effects of birth rank, maternal age, birth interval, and sibship size on infant and child mortality: evidence from 18th and 19th century reproductive histories.

There has been long-standing interest in the effects of maternal age, birth rank, and birth spacing on infant and child mortality. Contradictory inferences about the role of these factors have arisen on occasion because of the absence of adequate controls, the use of cross-sectional or incomplete reproductive histories, and inattention to the effect of family size goals and birth limitation practices. This study analyzes completed reproductive histories for German village populations in the 18th and 19th centuries, a period when deliberate fertility control was largely absent. Our results confirm previous studies of the association of infant mortality with maternal age, although in the present data these differentials are largely limited to neonatal mortality. They also confirm the importance of birth interval as a factor in infant mortality. Sibship size is positively related to infant mortality even when birth rank is controlled. However, once sibship size is controlled, there are no systematic differences in infant and child mortality by birth order. The mechanisms relating sibship size and mortality are explored.

The Engineer as Ideologue: Reactionary Modernists in Weimar and Nazi Germany

The dichotomy between Kultur and Zivilisation, so crucial for German nationalism in the decades preceding the nazi seizure of power, posed a serious dilemma: how could the Kulturnation be both powerful and true to its soul? How could its strong romantic anti-Enlightenment traditions be reconciled with technical advance? Nowhere else in Europe did modernity arrive so rapidly and intensely as in Germany. Nowhere else was the anti-modernist rejection so intense. Germany gave birth to the second industrial revolution based on the electrical and chemical industries just as it was experiencing the impact of the first industrial revolution based on steam. Germany was also the home of Volkish ideologues, castigating the Jews and idealizing the small German village and peasant virtues. This confrontation of Biedermeier and modernity became a commonplace in sociological theory, providing us with many of the familiar sociological dichotomies - tradition and modernity, community and society, etc. From Tonnies and Weber to Parsons and Dahrendorf, sociology has interpreted the Kultur-Zivilisation dichotomy as of central importance to the ideological roots of German politics. Yet, with a few important exceptions, less attention has been given to the problem of how the dilemmas of the Kulturnation was resolved in the modern world. Perceptions of technology are central to resolution of this dilemma, because a nation that is technologically backward is a weak nation, yet technical advance appeared to many of Germany's conservative cultural critics to pose a dire threat to the German soul. Could the romantic German soul and modern technology be reconciled and if

Aspects of Change in a Nineteenth-Century German Village

Using coordinated nineteenth-century birth, marriage, and death records for Catholics and Jews in Altdorf, this analysis investigates the relation between social, economic, and cultural factors and demographic behavior. The constraints of the village economy severely restricted the number of people who could make a livelihood in the village. Yet, improved adult mortality and high fertility created a potential population surplus. The Catholics-mostly farmers and craftsmen-responded not with a restriction of fertility but with the heavy out-migration of young people. Jews-primarily tradesmen and cattle dealers- exhibited mortality consistently lower than that of Catholics; Jewish fertility was initially high, but showed clear signs of limitation by 1870-1899. By midcentury, almost all the Jewish children born in the village who survived to adulthood had left Altdorf, as had a large proportion of their parents. The more dramatic response of the village's Jews is seen as a reaction both to their declining econom ic role in Altdorf and to their increasing assumption of more modern, urban values and life styles. Catholic response thus served to preserve the traditional village life styles whereas the Jewish response accelerated their modernization.

Child mortality and reproductive behaviour in German village populations in the past: A micro-level analysis of the replacement effect

Abstract Reproductive histories of couples married during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in a sample of 14 German villages are analysed in order to answer several questions regarding the relationship between child mortality and reproductive behaviour. An effort is made through selection of cases and use of multiple classification analysis to eliminate or control non-volitional or otherwise confounding influences on the relationship between a couple's experience with child mortality and their fertility. The results do not provide a decisive answer to the question of whether, under a regime of otherwise presumed natural fertility, previous experience of child mortality affected subsequent reproductive behaviour. The evidence was much clearer in indicating that behaviour consistent with replacement efforts emerged or strengthened as family limitation spread. Finally, the results indicated that though it was not necessary for overall child mortality to decline before family limitation practices were adopted, couples with the most favourable child mortality experience were most likely to practise family limitation and to reduce their fertility. Child mortality appeared at least to impede, if not totally prevent, efforts to reduce the number of children ever born or to cease childbearing at an earlier age or at a given parity.

Child Mortality and Reproductive Behaviour in German Village Populations in the Past: A Micro-Level Analysis of the Replacement Effect

Child Mortality and Reproductive Behaviour in German Village Populations in the Past: A Micro-Level Analysis of the Replacement Effect

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Dans un article important publié en 1969, Dupâquier et Lachiver ont proposé une nouvelle technique visant à mesurer la diffusion du contrôle des naissances dans les populations anciennes en utilisant des données de reconstitution des familles. On a parfois considéré leur approche comme un substitut ou un complément à la technique classique — mise au point par L. Henry — qui consistait à détecter la restriction volontaire des naissances en examinant l'âge de la mère à la naissance de son dernier enfant et la forme de la courbe de fécondité légitime.

The Secular Increase in Fecundity in German Village Populations: An Analysis of Reproductive Histories of Couples Married 1750-1899

The Secular Increase in Fecundity in German Village Populations: An Analysis of Reproductive Histories of Couples Married 1750-1899