Nineteenth Twentieth Centuries Research Articles

Art historical and scientific controversies about four easel paintings attributed to Kamal al-Molk, the renowned nineteenth-twentieth century Persian painter

Pigments on four easel paintings signed by Mohammad Ghaffari (latter Kamal al-Molk), the renowned Persian painter lived from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, kept at the Astan-e Qods-e Razavi Museum (AQRM) in Mashhad, Iran, were identified by micro-X-ray fluorescence (µ-XRF), scanning electron microscopy—energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (SEM–EDS) and micro-Raman spectroscopy (µ-Raman). Apart from chrome yellow, green chromium oxide and red ochre, four blue pigments including Prussian blue, artificial ultramarine blue, azurite, blue phthalocyanine PB:16 and seven white pigments including rutile, huntite, lead white, baryte, chalk, gypsum and zinc white were identified on the paintings. Based on the occurrence of rutile and blue phthalocyanine PB:16 and the fact that the signature of the paintings suggests 1875 as the date of executing the paintings, several hypotheses were argued to discuss the latter interventions and the authenticity of the works. Discussions on the birth date and other important milestones of Kamal al-Molk’s life accordingly posed serious questions on the authenticity of these paintings.

Religion in the 21st Century

Religion as a category and object of study in (Western) academia has undergone a sequence of upheavals over the last several decades, responding to significant transformations in global society and as a reflection of internal disciplinary developments. This paper focuses on such transformations and developments principally within the disciplines the sociology of religion and religious studies. After summarizing these transformations, it presents three interrelated arguments: a) Both transformations, in the disciplines and in the larger social context, are the latest versions of very long discussion and development that have their roots in the nineteenth-twentieth century foundation of religion as an analytic category, in the imperial/colonial spread and glocal appropriation of the category of religion, and in the “Westphalian” institutional modeling of religion with the modern nationstate. b) The current transformations in the “religious field” are a reflection of a decline in that modeling, yielding further uncertainty about how religion should be conceived. c) The ideas of religion and secularization should not be discarded, but should be contextualized in a broader diversity of categorization that goes beyond the binary modeling of religion/not-religion (or secular). A systems-theoretical approach informs all three arguments.

Safeguarding our dentistry heritage: a study of the history and conservation of nineteenth–twentieth century dentures

In the 1870s, dentures were one of the first products made with celluloid, the first semi-synthetic plastic. Despite the significance of denture development in the history of celluloid and plastics, the chemical characterization of dentures in museum collections has never been attempted. It is urgent to assess the extent of celluloid heritage in denture collections due to the high degradation risk that this material imposes. In this work, 21 dentures from the National Museum of American History and from the Dr. Samuel D. Harris National Museum of Dentistry were characterized using a multi-analytical methodology using handheld Raman, X-Ray fluorescence, and micro-Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopies. All dentures were successfully characterized: 12 are made of celluloid, 4 of vulcanized rubber, 2 of phenol–formaldehyde, 2 of polyvinyl chloride—polyvinyl acetate copolymer (PVC-PVAc) and 1 of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA). The identification of the dentures’ base materials allowed a better understanding of their history and posed new questions about their conservation. Handheld Raman was demonstrated as an excellent in-situ tool for the study of polymeric materials.

The diachronic trend of female and male stature in Milan over 2000 years

Stature is a biological trait directly determined by the interaction of genetic and environmental components. As such, it is often evaluated as an indicator for the reconstruction of skeletal biological profiles, past health, and social dynamics of human populations. Based on the analysis of 549 skeletons from the CAL (Collezione Antropologica LABANOF), a study of the diachronic trend of male and female adult stature in Milan (Italy) is being proposed here, covering a time span of about 2000 years, ranging from the Roman era to present-days. The skeletons, from necropolises dedicated to the less wealthy classes of Milanese society, were assigned to one of following five historical periods: Roman Era (first–fifth centuries AD), Early Middle Ages (sixth–tenth centuries AD), Late Middle Ages (eleventh–fifteenth centuries AD), Modern Era (sixteenth–eighteenth centuries AD) and Contemporary Era (nineteenth–twentieth centuries AD), and their stature was estimated according to the regression formulae of Trotter (1970). The collected data were then subjected to statistical analyses with ANOVA using R software. Although stature values showed an ample standard deviation in all periods, statistical analyses showed that stature did not significantly vary across historical periods in Milan for both sexes. This is one of the rare studies showing no diachronic changes in the trend of stature in Europe.

Altersstil novecentesco di Ettore Tito

The essay looks at the maturity of Ettore Tito, an artist of transition between the nineteenth-twentieth century, as an anti-Altersstil since in his case we are not dealing with discontinuities connected with a renewed attitude. His late international impressionism has been considered anachronistic as in the emblematic case of the antinomy between the two personal exhibitions of Tito and Modigliani at the 1930 Biennale of Venice. The essay aims to consider the Altersstil as a methodological ‘tool’, as opportunity to reflect on the history of official taste and of the first forty years of the Biennale, both around curatorial strategies and the display as story of taste.

COLONIAL RULE AND MUSLIM WOMEN

Relevant to any attempt for amelioration of woman’s conditions was the history of Muslim people in general and that of Muslims in the Indo-Pak Subcontinent in particular. This paper highlights Muslim women’s struggle for their rights movements in British India. Their continuous struggle altered educational and political institutions, allowing them to emerge from seclusion and participate more actively in the nation's public life.
 It is said that when women in the developed countries were agitating against their own male regarding their rights, a similar struggle had begun in the subcontinent where men started encouraging participation of women in education and politics, appreciated, and sometimes patronized it. The imperialists in India reversed the economic and social milieu. By strengthening system, British fortified the position of the feudal and tribal lords which not only contributed towards solidifying the struggle for Muslim Women’s Rights in the British India but also resulted in lowering the status of women. The British, on the other hand, did not believe it was necessary to extend their politics into all aspects of life. As a result, local laws continued to apply in family and personal matters like as marriage, guardianship, and inheritance, and the status quo between men and women was maintained. After a prolonged protests and struggle for women’s rights, the central legislature undertook legislation on issues relating to Muslim women such as child marriage, property rights, widow remarriage, divorce, etc. Muslim women had to resisted on the laws imposed by imperialists as most of it were the violation of their fundamental rights, and that they were mostly successful i.e., law of inheritance 1937. The paper shows that women's struggles for educational and political freedom had a significant impact in the British India Particularly in 1940s during Pakistan Movement. Everyone is aware of the social changes/developments that occurred at that time. However, few people acknowledge that women had a key role in bringing about these developments. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that women have achieved tremendous progress and have paved the way for more reforms in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

‘Real rape’ and the coverage of sexual violence in Dutch newspapers, 1880 to 1930

ABSTRACT Feminist criminologists have used the concept of ‘real rape’ – the understanding of rape as a violent act by a stranger – to explain the low prosecution of acquaintance rape in contemporary society. It is argued that the media perpetuates this understanding of rape by focusing on violent assaults by strangers. Systematic analyses of such distortions in press coverage in earlier periods are, however, lacking. This article considers the Netherlands in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, an interesting case because Dutch law explicitly criminalised certain forms of acquaintance assault. The article aims to determine and explain newspaper representations of the relationship between the perpetrator and victim in the coverage of sexual assault. The analysis is based on a dataset of all items on the sexual assault of women and girls in four newspapers and five sample years between 1880 and 1930. The results show that assaults by acquaintances made up only a small proportion of the cases reported in the newspapers. Many of the items match the ‘real rape’ concept. The evidence suggests the journalists were overreporting violent stranger rapes both because such stories were more easily available and because they carried a more appealing message for readers.

The Appeal of Urgency: Extinction Discourses, Myths and the Private Collectors of Australian Aboriginal Human Remains

Extinction presents as a narrative thread in the collecting of Australian Aboriginal human remains in Britain and Australia in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Examples of this narrative are in the correspondence, research and the cataloguing methodologies of private individuals and their interaction with collecting institutions. This article focuses on three case studies that present three different private collecting profiles and intellectual environment interactions: Joseph Barnard Davis (1801–1881), Frederic William Lucas (1842–1932), and William Colin MacKenzie (1877–1938). All three have collections held by major collecting institutions in either Australia or England. These separate and diverse individuals are an important conduit to understanding why the application of the extinction narrative was a factor in transforming Australian Aboriginal human remains into prized specimens, sought by private individuals and public collecting institutions.

The Art of Thai Diplomacy: Parables of Alliance

This paper argues that a pragmatist theory of international relations, combined with parables of alliance formation from local proverbs and literary classics, best explains the art of Thai diplomacy from a historical perspective. Notably avoiding Western colonization, the Thais have enjoyed relative sovereignty and independence throughout their history. Rather than balancing, bandwagoning, or hedging, our study finds that Thailand has deliberately leveraged asymmetrical partnerships between often-opposed great powers and more symmetrical partnerships with less powerful states and multilateral organizations in order to maintain its physical and identity- based ontological security. We draw our empirical evidence from four historical periods: the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, World War II, the Cold War, and the post-Cold War modern era. Our findings can be applied to other Southeast Asian states and their own parables of alliance.

Turner’s Frontier Doctrine and Its Impact on American Politics

Frederick Jackson Turner, a prominent American historian of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, published The Significance of the Frontier in American History in 1893, which received widespread attention after its publication, creating the Frontier School, which dominated American history for more than four decades. Turner’s “frontier doctrine” was informed by an expansionist ideology that profoundly influenced the governing philosophy of American dignitaries and the expansionist policies pursued by the United States.

Seeing Japan

This article examines the photography and writing of Cooper Robinson, who worked as a missionary in Japan between 1888 and 1925. Drawing from over 4,000 images, it analyzes how one missionary represented Japan, his religious project, and his personal life to Canadian audiences. Whether he used photographs to animate his lectures about Japan while in Canada on furlough, sent them as postcards to coreligionists, or saved them for his own memories, the question of representation was intimately tied to the question of audience. This article argues that Robinson’s photography and the broader Canadian missionary interaction with Japan in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries played an important role in shaping the vision that Canadians had of the country. The positive yet selective image that this missionary fostered of the country co-existed with widespread anti-Japanese agitation in North America; these photographs and the support for missionary work that they helped garner should be read with that broader context in mind.

Segregation and the Initial Provision of Water in the United States

US cities invested heavily in water and sewer infrastructure throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These investments improved public health and quality of life by helping US cities control typhoid fever and other waterborne diseases. We show that segregated cities invested in water infrastructure earlier but were slower to reach universal access and slower to eliminate typhoid fever. We develop a theoretical model that illustrates how segregation, by facilitating the exclusion of Black households from water and sewer systems, explains these seemingly paradoxical findings.

Irish Social Catholicism and the Development of the Living Wage Doctrine

Abstract This article traces the development of the living wage concept in the social thought of Irish Catholic intellectuals in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including Revs. John A. Ryan and Walter McDonald, and Edward Phelan, who helped establish the International Labour Organization. The debates in which these thinkers engaged highlight the importance of gendered understandings of work and the significance of the family unit in the development of a moral critique of the capitalist system. This led to their differing views on the role to be played by the state in regulating the economy, and revealed how inseparable religion and economics were in their social thought. Social Catholicism played an important role in framing social policy in Ireland after independence; through the living wage doctrine, it played a significant part in a wider transatlantic debate about the moral questions posed by capitalism, in ways that continue to reverberate today.

Mountain Grand Hotels at the Fin de Siècle

Grand hotels had been a metropolitan phenomenon before they emerged in remote regions of the Alps between the 1880s and the 1930s. This essay explores how these semi-public spaces and early places of modernity engaged with alpine scenery and shaped the very industry of mountain tourism. It analyzes the relationship between elite tourism and the natural and social environment of the Alps. The success of mountain grand hotels was tied to increasing industrialization and a new understanding of travel. Their thoughtful detachment from space, time, and society was an expression of a business as much as of social philosophy. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, mountains served as a backdrop for the narrative of the period's scientific and technical progress and became subject to rational interpretation and economic exploitation. Mountain grand hotels were not only a key component of tourism infrastructure but also the bold expression of a presumptuous occupation of spaces set away for tourism. Natural space had widely been turned into social space for visual and leisurely consumption, raising questions of authority, priority, appropriation, and imposition. By mapping the perception of mountains along the history of mountain grand hotels, this essay studies the sites, gazes, and environments of mountain tourism at the fin de siècle. It examines how the history of the mountain grand hotel conflates with the forces of nationalism, colonialism, and capitalism and showcases how these spaces reflect the socio-economic transformations that ultimately paved the way for mountain mass tourism.

Separate Spheres and Separate Roles: Christian Beliefs, Medical Ideology, and Women’s Sport and Physical Activity in the Late 19th and Early 20th Century United States

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the United States, women were limited in their ability to participate in sport and physical activity. The prevalent thinking of the time assigned (white, middle/upper class) women separate roles. Based on Christian religious beliefs rooted in Victorian era ideology, women were expected to maintain a level of domesticity and morality in order to remain feminine. Similarly, medical professionals often construed women as weak and frail, due to the energy demand of the reproductive system. These two ideologies together limited women’s participation in both physical education and competitive athletics. Focusing primarily on the role of women’s colleges, it is argued that these limitations have had long term effects on the development of women’s sport, from intercollegiate competitions to the Olympic games.

Captive Wives or Conjugal Slaves? The Slavery-Marriage Nexus in Northern Uganda Since the Mid-Nineteenth Century

ABSTRACT This article examines transformations in the marriage-slavery nexus in Northern Uganda from the late nineteenth century to the present. By historicizing the forced marriage of abducted girls in the Lord’s Resistance Army, the article contributes to explaining why the interpretation of these circumstances has been so disputed in Uganda and internationally. It starts by examining different interpretations of the relationship between Dominic Ongwen and his forced wives. The Ongwen case is then contextualized in the history of female captivity and conjugal violence in Lango and Acholi societies. It is argued that enslavement in the form of wartime captivity was not irreconcilable with marriage in Northern Uganda in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and that this history influences contemporary Lango and Acholi perceptions of these phenomena.

Betwixt and Between: Suicide, Sociology, and the Problem of Meaning

ABSTRACT In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, rising rates of suicide were widely held to be indicative of a pervasive crisis of meaning. This article examines the response to the problem of suicide in the thought of Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Fyodor Dostoevsky. It argues that their engagement with the problem captured what each of them felt to be core truths surrounding the human condition as well as the most pressing contemporary social ailments. Read together, their thought is illustrative of the fruitful relationship that sociology had with philosophy, literature and the other arts during its formation as a discipline. It was a relationship that was particularly conducive to the examination of the problem of meaning. The discussion of suicide during this period is illustrative of key themes within classical sociology that have become increasingly marginalised in contemporary sociology with the narrowing of its fields of inquiry.

Standardizing and Declining: The Fall of the One-Room Schoolhouse

The idea of the Midwestern one-room schoolhouse is cloaked in nostalgic national memory that paints an image of simplistic rural life. However, in the early twentieth century, this simplistic county school was not the reality; changes in national education in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries demanded more regulations in schools that directly opposed much of what made up the ideal of the one-room schoolhouse. This research explores the standardization of education the United States, addressing topics such as curriculum reform, sanitation, consolidation, and local resistance, to reveal how all of these factors contributed to the steady decline of the one room schoolhouse. Rather than isolating these factors, this paper argues that connections between requirements at both the state and national levels, actions and inaction conducted by the local Midwestern populations, as well as the impact of Progressive Era ideas transformed rural American education. Furthermore, this research encourages the growing development of this relatively new topic within educational history by discussing prominent contributions to the field and insisting on how significant the work of exploring political and social ramification of the standardization phenomena is to the history of the one-room schoolhouse.

Dress and Labor: An Intersectional Interpretation of Clothing and Adornment Artifacts Recovered from the Levi Jordan Plantation

Through an examination of clothing, adornment, and hygiene artifacts recovered from the Quarters area of the Levi Jordan Plantation, this article examines how racial, gendered, and classed operations of power and oppression shaped African American women’s sartorial practices, as an aspect of identity formation, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Texas. Through a Black feminist framework, this article focuses on the ways African American women dressed their bodies for the types of labor they performed to discuss how they negotiated ideologies of race, gender, and class, that shaped hegemonic notions of femininity during the post-emancipation era.

Honoring the Saint through Poetry Recitation: Pilgrimage and the Memories of Shaikh Abdurrahman Siddiq Al-Banjari in Indragiri Hilir

This paper is about poetry and pilgrimage in Tembilahan, Indragiri Hilir, where Abdurrahman Siddiq, a prominent alim who lived in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, is buried. In addition to his treatises on theology, mysticism, and ethics, Abdurrahman Siddiq is also renowned for his contribution to Islamic literature in Sumatra. He is a famous Islamic scholar and is respected in Indragiri Hilir for his spiritual messages delivered in the form of sya’ir (poetry). Malay Muslims have preserved the saint’s legacy through the act of pilgrimage and various cultural events and festivals. This paper argues that the recitation of Abdurrahman Siddiq’s poems during the pilgrimage to Tembilahan and Islamic festivals shows how Malay Muslims honor their respected saint.