Late 19th Century America Research Articles

The impact of childhood sickness on adult socioeconomic outcomes: Evidence from late 19th century America

We use family fixed-effects models to estimate the impact of childhood health on adult literacy, labor force outcomes, and marital status among pairs of white brothers observed as children in the 1880 U.S. Census and then as adults in the 1900–1930 Censuses. Given our focus on the 19th century, we observed a wider array of infectious, chronic, and traumatic health problems than is observed using data that are more recent; our results thus provide some insights into circumstances in modern developing countries where similar health problems are more frequently observed. Compared to their healthy siblings, sick brothers were less likely to be located (and thus more likely to be dead) 20–50 years after their 1880 enumeration. Sick brothers were also less likely to be literate, to have ever been married, and to have reported an occupation. However, among those with occupations, sick and healthy brothers tended to do similar kinds of work. We discuss the implications of our results for research on the impact of childhood health on socioeconomic outcomes in developed and developing countries.

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Class Identification in Review: Past Perspectives and Future Directions

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Class Identification in Review: Past Perspectives and Future Directions

Can't a mother sing the blues? Postpartum depression and the construction of motherhood in late 20th-century America.

Popular depictions of 20th-century American motherhood have typically emphasized the joy and fulfillment that a new mother can expect to experience on her child's arrival. But starting in the 1950s, discussions of the "baby blues" began to appear in the popular press. How did articles about the baby blues, and then postpartum depression, challenge these rosy depictions? In this article, we examine portrayals of postpartum distress in popular magazines and advice books during the second half of the 20th century to examine how the unsettling pairing of distress and motherhood was culturally negotiated in these decades. We show that these portrayals revealed a persistent reluctance to situate motherhood itself as the cause of serious emotional distress and a consistent focus on changing mothers to adapt to their role rather than changing the parameters of the role itself. Regardless of whether these messages actually helped or hindered new mothers themselves, we suggest that they reflected the rarely challenged assumption that motherhood and distress should not mix.

Bishop Lamont and Hermeneutics of Play

This paper investigates the subject of hip-hop within the study of religion and the study of American religion and culture. In particular, the paper focuses on the corpus of California hip-hop artist Bishop Lamont in developing a "hermeneutics of play" through a combinative "lived religion" approach as a way of reading and reflecting on the larger religious significance of hip-hop in late 20th century America. As both a reading practice and a subject of study for both historians and religious studies scholars, hip-hop comes into view in this paper as an essential component in narrating an American religious history of the last three decades. Hip-hop and its study also reveals its own understandings of religion, America, and American religion as articulated through post-industrial and a variety of religious vocabularies that have been largely ignored by scholars of religion. In essence, this paper argues that by exploring the rhetorical, religious, and existential complexity found within hip-hop cultures, a more complex post-1965 American religious landscape emerges for both the historian and theorist of religion.

Racial Indigestion: Black Immigrant Identities in Late 19th and Early 20th Century America

Racial Indigestion: Black Immigrant Identities in Late 19th and Early 20th Century America

One hundred years of American botany: a short history of the Botanical Society of America

This paper offers highlights from the 100 (plus) years of the Botanical Society of America (BSA) and draws extensively on the archives of the BSA. In addition to examining the founding of the society and the attempt to "professionalize" botany in late 19th century America, the paper also explores the complex relations between the BSA and a number of related societies in the United States, the Society's struggle to create a coherent identity for itself, the place of botany as a whole in the context of the burgeoning biological sciences in the 20th century, and the changing role of the BSA in an international context. The paper assesses both the achievements and the challenges facing the BSA. It closes by offering some historical reflections on the status of "botany" as a science and the historical significance of terms like "plant biology" and "plant science."

“A Doctors’ War”: Expert Witnesses in Late 19th-Century America

“A Doctors’ War”: Expert Witnesses in Late 19th-Century America

Keeping Legal History Meaningful

This essay in constitutional history further explores the political context of constitutional law's failure to intervene in the massive disfranchisement that occurred in late 19th and early 20th century America. Contrary to deterministic views of the history of race in late 19th century America, the structure of the 20th century Southern racial order - segregation and the virtual elimination of black citizens from democracy - was not locked into place by some essential, fixed, organic structure of a monolithic, unified, the moment Reconstruction ended. This essay argues instead that the racial politics of this era involved deep conflicts among whites, that white supremacy was a political and social construction that had to be self-consciously built and fought for by its proponents, and that the racial politics of the disfranchisement era were more fluid and contingent than is sometimes recognized. The essay shows that constitutional disfranchisement required bypassing popular political processes, such as statewide referendum, that were otherwise used to adopt constitutional amendments. In states like Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, North Carolina, and South Carolina, disfranchisement was strongly resisted by several classes of whites and by blacks; succeeded only with thin, often fraudulent majorities, and was achieved by oligarchic domination of small political bodies, such as state constitutional conventions, rather than by popular support. This context is used to evaluate the Supreme Court's failure, in Giles v. Harris (1903), to find the massive disfranchisement of this period to raise any justiciable constitutional questions. In light of the fluidity of partisan and racial politics of this era, the essay defends the view that Giles was a momentous event, not just in Supreme Court history, but in the political history of American race relations more broadly. The essay builds upon earlier work and responds to questions others have raised about the role of the Supreme Court in tolerating the disfranchisement of this era, which lasted until 1965.

Evolution of disability in late 19th century America: Civil War pensions for Union Army veterans with musculoskeletal conditions.

This article examines the evolution of musculoskeletal (MSK) disability and its impact on mortality and work patterns in the late 19th century in America, in the context of the Civil War disability policy scheme. The study was conducted on 17,702 Union Army (UA) Civil War veterans. Of these, 10,789 were examined and diagnosed with major MSK conditions, rheumatism, sciatica, and spinal curvature, between 1862 and 1907. Analyses examine MSK (i) prevalence rates by birth cohort and age group; (ii) fatality rates as compared with other disabilities; (iii) risk rates by occupation type; and (iv) lifespan for MSK patients. MSK conditions are commonly claimed disabilities within the Civil War data set, with prevalence rates increasing with age. Regression studies show that working in clerical and professional (relative to manual labor) occupations decreases the likelihood of being examined for and diagnosed with MSK conditions. MSK patients examined at older ages tended to have longer lifespan than those examined at younger ages. The findings suggest that changes in age, environmental, and occupational conditions during the late 19th century affected MSK condition prevalence and the average lifespan of MSK patients. Implications for contemporary disability policy are discussed.

Fashion and Its Social Agendas: Class, Gender, and Identity in Clothing

It has long been said that clothes make the man (or woman), but is it still true today? If so, how has the information clothes convey changed over the years? Using a wide range of historical and contemporary materials, Diana Crane demonstrates how the social significance of clothing has been transformed. Crane compares 19th-century societies - France and the United States - where social class was the most salient aspect of social identity signified in clothing with late 20th-century America, where lifestyle, gender, sexual orientation, age and ethnicity are more meaningful to individuals in constructing their wardrobes. Today, clothes worn at work signify social class, but leisure clothes convey meanings ranging from trite to political. In today's multicode societies, clothes inhibit as well as facilitate communication between highly fragmented social groups. Crane extends her comparison by showing how 19th-century French designers created fashions that suited lifestyles of Paris elites but that were also widely adopted outside France. By contrast, today's designers operate in a global marketplace, shaped by television, film and popular music. No longer confined to elites, trendsetters are drawn from many social groups, and most trends have short trajectories. To assess the impact of fashion on women, Crane uses voices of college-aged and middle-aged women who took part in focus groups. These discussions yield fascinating information about women's perceptions of female identity and Fashion and Its Social Agendas stands out as a critical study of gender, fashion and consumer culture.

Directions, Magnitude, and Efficiency of Interregional Migration, 1970-1990: Jews and Whites in the United States Compared

This study presents a two-dimensional comparison, over time (1970 and 1990) and intergroup (Jews and total whites), of interregional migration streams. Both lifetime and five-year migration are examined. Data from the 1970/71 and 1990 National Jewish Population Surveys and from the U.S. Censuses of the same years show that the directions of internal migration of Jews and total whites were similar, i.e., from the Northeast and Midwest to the Sunbelt. By 1990, however, net migration for each region-both for the gaining region and for the losing region-had a more significant effect on the Jewish population than on the white population. The initial differences in regional dis-tribution between the two subpopulations have narrowed. Multivariate analy-sis shows that Jewish migration can largely be explained by educational attainment and employment opportunities. Over time, Jewish migration has become less selective, as seen, inter alia, in the declining importance of denominational identification. The findings are discussed in relation to the integration of Jews into the host society and, more generally, to the geographic dimension of minority status in late 20th century America.

Linking Clients and Policy: Social Work's Distinctive Contribution

Social work's unique and distinctive contribution to American life, often expressed as a dual focus on the person and his or her environment, resulted from a specific frame of reference that linked clients and social policy. From the earliest origins of the profession, social workers understood the relationships between individuals and primary groups and between primary groups anti forces in the larger environment. This frame of reference provided an orientation to action that placed interventions in the environment on a par with interventions with the client system (Gordon & Schutz, 1977). This dual focus, unique to social workers, was evident during the profession's formative years - the period between the 1890s and the coming of the New Deal in the 1930s - and continues to be important today. This article discusses social workers' linkage of clients - initially conceptualized as neighbors and charity cases - and social policy concerns during the profession's formative years. The article concludes with a case study of a social policy effort, the ultimately successful campaign to enact social standards for industry. Early Social Work: Settlements and Charity Organization Both of the institutions traditionally associated with, the origins of the social work profession - charity organization societies and settlement houses - began as efforts to organize the local community and to introduce a personal relationship among workers - settlement residents, district agents, and friendly visitors - and clients-neighbors and charity cases. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, industrialization, urbanization, immigration, and internal migration from rural areas to cities transformed American society. Previously a nation made up of small island communities, the United States increasingly became organized nationally (Weibe, 1967). Urbanization and industrialization characterized the emerging nation. The largest cities grew in size, and there were more of them. The proportion of urban dwellers increased from less than 20 percent in 1860 to nearly 40 percent in 1900 and more than 50 percent by 1920 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975). As industrial production replaced agriculture as the major source of national wealth, business institutions became larger and more influential. Concomitantly, the disparity between rich and poor increased, and the likelihood of a personal relationship between poor people and wealthy people lessened. Reformers created settlement houses and charity organization societies to respond to the changing American city. Both settlement residents and charity workers were quick to perceive the interrelationships between local and state movements, state and regional developments, and local and national phenomena. These formative professional institutions, which oriented members of the first generation of social workers to their new profession, had in common an orientation to the community and to viewing the person as embedded in the community system. Each movement was based on English precedents - London's Toynbee Hall and other English social settlements and the English Charity Organisation Societies - but each movement developed a distinctive American pattern. Both movements owed much to the example of Thomas Chalmers, an early 19th century Scottish critic of the Poor Laws, who organized a parish-based system of charity to replace the poor law in Glasgow during the early 19th century (de Schweinitz, 1943). Settlement Houses Settlement houses responded to two complementary social imperatives of late 19th century America. Settlements had objective value because they addressed the increasing fragmentation of American life that resulted from the growing contrasts between rich and poor people, native born and immigrants, and Protestants and Catholics in late 19th century America (Addams, 1893a). In addition, the settlements responded to a subjective necessity that resulted from the lack of meaningful opportunities for middle-class young people, especially women (Addams, 1893b). …

Intergenerational households headed by grandparents: Contexts, realities, and implications for policy

More than one in ten grandparents has primary responsibility for raising a grandchild at some point, with this care often lasting for a period of several years. This paper provides a critical look at the growing phenomenon of intergenerational households headed by grandparents. A brief review of the demographics of grandparent caregiving is followed by an exploration of several of the sociological contexts which help situate and explain the meaning and significance of such caregiving in late 20th century America. Key findings concerning the physical, emotional, and “economic health” of grandparent caregivers and their families are presented to further flesh out our understanding of this trend. The paper concludes by offering implications for policy and related areas, with special attention to the need to critically examine recent welfare reform efforts in terms of their impacts on intergenerational households headed by grandparents.

The Changed South, 1947-1997

This paper traces change in the South in recent decades that has resulted from industrialization, the Sunbelt attraction, urbanization, and development of the service economy. The "Boombelt" along 1-85 in the Piedmont region attracted much of the industrial expansion, particularly in North and South Carolina, and Georgia. The largest metropolitan areas in the region now account for the largest share of manufacturing output. City-building has also been propelled by the expansion of white-collar service industries, including headquarters locations which are disproportionately concentrated in Virginia, Florida, and Georgia. The role of Atlanta at the top of the urban hierarchy in the region and the tremendous rate of growth of urban corridors on the southeast and west coasts of Florida stand out. Along with dramatic socio-economic change, the South also experienced significant political realignment, agricultural restructuring, and ethnicity shifts in the past fifty years making the region more like the rest of the nation. The South has become a major global player in economic growth but rural areas still lag behind.

THE WISCONSIN APPROACH TO FACULTY DEVELOPMENT IN GERIATRIC DENTISTRY

Demographic and dental trends in late 20th century America have resulted in a great demand for expertise in geriatric dentistry. In schools of dentistry, this expertise has translated into increased focus on the needs and management of the older dental patient. The goal of the dental component of the Medical College of Wisconsin Faculty Training Project in Geriatrics for Physicians and Dentists was to recruit dentists committed to the health issues of the elderly and help them to acquire the clinical, research, education, and administrative skills and knowledge necessary for careers in academic dentistry. Each trainee received advanced training in dentistry; was under the mentorship of a fellowship‐trained dentist and geriatrics‐boarded physician; and shared numerous training experiences with a physician geriatric fellow, to the enrichment of trainees of both disciplines. Clinical experiences involved lecture and seminar‐based didactics and treatment of a variety of populations in several care settings. Research experiences centered around a mentored investigation and were supplemented by course work. Education and administration learning experiences included didactics in both subjects, opportunities to plan and provide lectures to different audiences, and an administration project. Program evaluation focused on progress, process, and product assessment; the results of a competency self‐assessment instrument developed by the project's evaluators demonstrated program efficacy in all areas.

A nation of salesmen: the tyranny of the market and the subversion of culture

A challenging, anecdotal history of selling. Shorris takes readers on a journey that starts in Eden and ends with a consideration of where we are and what we have become in late 20th-century America, where selling has become the dominant human activity.

Syphilis, Contagion, and the Place of Sexuality in Late 19th-Century America

Syphilis, Contagion, and the Place of Sexuality in Late 19th-Century America

Generation, Ethnicity, and Occupational Opportunity in Late 19th Century America

This paper investigates the influence of generation and country of origin on occupational mobility between 1880 and 1900 among a sample of U.S. white men. Father-to-son mobility is examined for males 5 to 14 years old in 1880, and career mobility is analyzed for men aged 25 to 34 in the same year. While generation and national-origin groups clearly differed in their occupational distributions at each date, we find minimal evidence of differences in overall opportunities or in the relationship between occupational origins and destinations. Thus, on the whole, generation and country of origin appear to have had little influence on the mobility process in the late 1800s. There is some evidence that the men in our sample, who were overwhelmingly of Northern and Western European heritage, gained occupationally from the incipient flow of migrants from Southern and Eastern Europe.

Causes of Shifts in Occupational Segregation of the Foreign-Born: Evidence from American Cities, 1870-1880

T7his article applies arguments about the dynamics of competition in an ethnic and racial job queue to an analysis of causes of changes in occupational segregation in late 19th century America. The evidence lends credibility to the hypothesis that the presence of lower-status blacks enabled some white ethnics to move up the job queue and out of segregated occupations. The findings are that cities that had initially large and growing numbers of blacks had decreasing occupational segregation for foreigners, while those with growing numbers of foreigners had increasing levels. Where there were a relatively larger number of illiterate blacks, levels of segregation for the foreign-born decreased, but the numbers of foreign-born who were illiterate did not affect occupational segregation for this group. Research on the late 19th and early 20th century finds that the structure of opportunity for blacks in the United States deteriorated sharply just as occupational mobility for white immigrants improved.' We know little about the mechanisms that produced these paths of opportunity, despite the fact that they undoubtedly have consequences for today's gaps in occupational attainment between blacks and whites (Farley 1984). In order to explore these issues, this article analyzes data on changes in levels of occupational segregation of the foreign-born population in cities in the late 19th century.

Prudent Checks: Physicians and Family Planning in Late 19th Century England and America

Prudent Checks: Physicians and Family Planning in Late 19th Century England and America