Abstract We offer new evidence on the dynamics of wealth holding in the United States over the Civil War decade based on a hand-linked random sample of wealth holders drawn from the 1860 census. Despite the wealth shock caused by emancipation, we find that patterns of wealth mobility were broadly similar for northern and southern residents in 1860. Looking at the determinants of individual wealth holding in 1870, we find that the elasticity with respect to 1860 wealth was quite low in both regions – consistent with high levels of wealth mobility.
{"title":"Wealth mobility in the United States: 1860–1870","authors":"Brandon R. Dupont, Joshua L. Rosenbloom","doi":"10.1017/ssh.2022.19","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/ssh.2022.19","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract We offer new evidence on the dynamics of wealth holding in the United States over the Civil War decade based on a hand-linked random sample of wealth holders drawn from the 1860 census. Despite the wealth shock caused by emancipation, we find that patterns of wealth mobility were broadly similar for northern and southern residents in 1860. Looking at the determinants of individual wealth holding in 1870, we find that the elasticity with respect to 1860 wealth was quite low in both regions – consistent with high levels of wealth mobility.","PeriodicalId":46528,"journal":{"name":"Social Science History","volume":"46 1","pages":"801 - 829"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43567384","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Race and Ethnicity in Living on the Edge: Teaching about a White American Generation’s Journey through the Twentieth Century","authors":"Kelly Condit-Shrestha","doi":"10.1017/ssh.2022.23","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/ssh.2022.23","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46528,"journal":{"name":"Social Science History","volume":"46 1","pages":"896 - 899"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43940585","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Rural criminological literature on lethal domestic violence and feminist historical research on the patriarchal judgment of women accused of killing male intimate partners (IPs) have developed a dystopic image of the past for nonurban women. This paper questions that impression by asking whether women were more likely than men to be convicted of IP murder, and whether rural women were treated more harshly than urban women. Through quantitative analysis of 221 IP murder trials in New South Wales, 1901–1955, plus four representative case studies, it reveals that women tried for IP murders in rural areas were treated more leniently than their urban counterparts and significantly less harshly than male perpetrators of IP homicide. This paper demonstrates how historical criminological analysis of illustrative qualitative evidence, grounded in quantitative data on locational distinctions, can expose significant variations over time and place in the fate of abused women prosecuted for IP homicide.
{"title":"Gender, intimate partner homicide, and rurality in early-twentieth-century New South Wales","authors":"Carolyn Strange, Collin Payne, Fiona Fraser","doi":"10.1017/ssh.2022.18","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/ssh.2022.18","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Rural criminological literature on lethal domestic violence and feminist historical research on the patriarchal judgment of women accused of killing male intimate partners (IPs) have developed a dystopic image of the past for nonurban women. This paper questions that impression by asking whether women were more likely than men to be convicted of IP murder, and whether rural women were treated more harshly than urban women. Through quantitative analysis of 221 IP murder trials in New South Wales, 1901–1955, plus four representative case studies, it reveals that women tried for IP murders in rural areas were treated more leniently than their urban counterparts and significantly less harshly than male perpetrators of IP homicide. This paper demonstrates how historical criminological analysis of illustrative qualitative evidence, grounded in quantitative data on locational distinctions, can expose significant variations over time and place in the fate of abused women prosecuted for IP homicide.","PeriodicalId":46528,"journal":{"name":"Social Science History","volume":"46 1","pages":"777 - 800"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45393268","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This article analyzes the changing age structure of Swedish and Finnish sailors for almost 200 years. We show that the proportion of the youngest men increased during the age of sail (i.e., the older technology). The average age increased significantly during the early twentieth century as steam (i.e., the newer technology) replaced sail in Nordic shipping. Thus, a technological revolution did not displace the older workers, but rather diminished the demand for the younger ones. This study shows, however, that technological changes were not the only drivers of changes in the age structure of Nordic sailors. Institutional and societal changes also played an important role, though they were at least partly coevolving with the technological changes. This study also shows that the maritime industry experienced professionalization especially during the latter part of the period.
{"title":"Young Lads and Old Tars: Changing Age Structure of the Nordic Sailors, 1750s–1930s","authors":"J. Ojala, J. Eloranta, J. Pehkonen, Anu Ojala","doi":"10.1017/ssh.2022.16","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/ssh.2022.16","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article analyzes the changing age structure of Swedish and Finnish sailors for almost 200 years. We show that the proportion of the youngest men increased during the age of sail (i.e., the older technology). The average age increased significantly during the early twentieth century as steam (i.e., the newer technology) replaced sail in Nordic shipping. Thus, a technological revolution did not displace the older workers, but rather diminished the demand for the younger ones. This study shows, however, that technological changes were not the only drivers of changes in the age structure of Nordic sailors. Institutional and societal changes also played an important role, though they were at least partly coevolving with the technological changes. This study also shows that the maritime industry experienced professionalization especially during the latter part of the period.","PeriodicalId":46528,"journal":{"name":"Social Science History","volume":"46 1","pages":"861 - 886"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44931273","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The lynching literature often considers how the Populist Party affected lynching, yet the Southern Farmers’ Alliance—a short-lived but influential voluntary association that mobilized large numbers of white farmers—is overlooked. We argue that this is a critical oversight, as the Alliance was the origin of populism in the South. Specifically, we hypothesize that where the Alliance had more local organizations, the greater the likelihood of lynching from 1888 to 1895, the peak period of populism. To test this, we focus on two states with different experiences with the Alliance: North Carolina, in which the state’s Alliance was a strong supporter of the Populist Party, and South Carolina, where the Democrats sought to court Alliancemen and deter the creation of, and voting for, the Populist Party. Our empirical findings reveal that lynchings were more common in counties where the Farmers’ Alliance had more organizations in South Carolina, but no similar connection exists in North Carolina. These findings suggest that the Southern Farmers’ Alliance is, at times, pivotal to understanding populism’s connection to lynching in the late-nineteenth century American South.
{"title":"The Southern Farmers’ Alliance, Populists, and lynching","authors":"Adam Chamberlain, Alixandra B. Yanus","doi":"10.1017/ssh.2022.32","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/ssh.2022.32","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The lynching literature often considers how the Populist Party affected lynching, yet the Southern Farmers’ Alliance—a short-lived but influential voluntary association that mobilized large numbers of white farmers—is overlooked. We argue that this is a critical oversight, as the Alliance was the origin of populism in the South. Specifically, we hypothesize that where the Alliance had more local organizations, the greater the likelihood of lynching from 1888 to 1895, the peak period of populism. To test this, we focus on two states with different experiences with the Alliance: North Carolina, in which the state’s Alliance was a strong supporter of the Populist Party, and South Carolina, where the Democrats sought to court Alliancemen and deter the creation of, and voting for, the Populist Party. Our empirical findings reveal that lynchings were more common in counties where the Farmers’ Alliance had more organizations in South Carolina, but no similar connection exists in North Carolina. These findings suggest that the Southern Farmers’ Alliance is, at times, pivotal to understanding populism’s connection to lynching in the late-nineteenth century American South.","PeriodicalId":46528,"journal":{"name":"Social Science History","volume":"47 1","pages":"121 - 144"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47639406","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
has been beneficial to the development of American democracy. Although it is beyond dispute that these petitions facilitated American empire, it is unclear by what measure these petitions would be any less central to American democratic development than petitions that facilitated the spread of the franchise or the development of the party system. As the franchise and parties are still with us today, so too is American empire. In many ways, the answer to the first question carries over into the answer of the second. It is likely the case that a consequentialist argument rooted in nineteenth century transformations fails to make the normative case that petitions are necessary for democracy, because the struggle for equal representation is still ongoing. The gap between representative and represented will always exist and the nineteenth century created as many gaps as it filled. Although the petition campaigns of this period likely facilitated other forms of equal representation, like a universal franchise and a robust party system, these tools do little to protect entrenched minorities at the margins—especially colonized peoples who fight fiercely to remain outside of the political community of the imperial government. Democracy by Petition closes with the statement that “only a fool would surrender the right to vote for the right to petition” (481). But refusal to further the American colonial project with electoral participation is far from foolish. Nor would this refusal seem at all foolish if the United States finally offered the full-throated right to petition enshrined in the Constitution—a right that, as Carpenter persuades, gave birth to the democracy we now cherish.
{"title":"Democracy, Petitions, and Legitimation","authors":"A. Greer","doi":"10.1017/ssh.2022.35","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/ssh.2022.35","url":null,"abstract":"has been beneficial to the development of American democracy. Although it is beyond dispute that these petitions facilitated American empire, it is unclear by what measure these petitions would be any less central to American democratic development than petitions that facilitated the spread of the franchise or the development of the party system. As the franchise and parties are still with us today, so too is American empire. In many ways, the answer to the first question carries over into the answer of the second. It is likely the case that a consequentialist argument rooted in nineteenth century transformations fails to make the normative case that petitions are necessary for democracy, because the struggle for equal representation is still ongoing. The gap between representative and represented will always exist and the nineteenth century created as many gaps as it filled. Although the petition campaigns of this period likely facilitated other forms of equal representation, like a universal franchise and a robust party system, these tools do little to protect entrenched minorities at the margins—especially colonized peoples who fight fiercely to remain outside of the political community of the imperial government. Democracy by Petition closes with the statement that “only a fool would surrender the right to vote for the right to petition” (481). But refusal to further the American colonial project with electoral participation is far from foolish. Nor would this refusal seem at all foolish if the United States finally offered the full-throated right to petition enshrined in the Constitution—a right that, as Carpenter persuades, gave birth to the democracy we now cherish.","PeriodicalId":46528,"journal":{"name":"Social Science History","volume":"47 1","pages":"150 - 153"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42955599","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The question of how and why women committed crimes was a topic of hot debate in 1930s Republican China. Although men sociologists during this period largely framed the origins of both men’s and women’s crime as a social issue, they nonetheless still seriously considered biological and physiological factors in women’s motivation for crime. At the same time, women sociologists who authored the two most comprehensive 1930s studies on women’s crime – Zhou Shuzhao and research team Liu Qingyu and Xu Huifang – pushed back on the connections between biology and physiology in relation to crime for both women and men. Instead, they argued unconditionally for the social causes of all crime and particular social challenges for Chinese women. Their methodologies and frameworks were especially influenced by work from the Chicago school of sociology, a department which itself produced a number of prominent women social scientists. This article traces the transnational conversation on women’s crime in Republican China through the work of U.S. sociologists who were cited by Zhou, Liu, and Xu; research by Chinese men sociologists, especially prominent sociologist Yan Jingyue; and finally, Zhou, Liu, and Xu’s own rebuttals, conclusions, and contributions in developing a theory of Chinese women’s crime. By also comparing the work of Chinese and U.S. women social scientists, this article argues that both groups pushed back, with varying strategies, on their men colleagues’ inordinate focus on criminalized women’s biology and physiology. In this way, both Chinese and U.S. women social scientists spoke into a largely male-dominated conversation and provided novel theories of women’s crime as women themselves.
{"title":"‘Almost None’: Women Sociologists and the Study of Women’s Crime in Early 20th-Century China and the U.S.","authors":"Stephanie M. Montgomery","doi":"10.1017/ssh.2022.34","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/ssh.2022.34","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The question of how and why women committed crimes was a topic of hot debate in 1930s Republican China. Although men sociologists during this period largely framed the origins of both men’s and women’s crime as a social issue, they nonetheless still seriously considered biological and physiological factors in women’s motivation for crime. At the same time, women sociologists who authored the two most comprehensive 1930s studies on women’s crime – Zhou Shuzhao and research team Liu Qingyu and Xu Huifang – pushed back on the connections between biology and physiology in relation to crime for both women and men. Instead, they argued unconditionally for the social causes of all crime and particular social challenges for Chinese women. Their methodologies and frameworks were especially influenced by work from the Chicago school of sociology, a department which itself produced a number of prominent women social scientists. This article traces the transnational conversation on women’s crime in Republican China through the work of U.S. sociologists who were cited by Zhou, Liu, and Xu; research by Chinese men sociologists, especially prominent sociologist Yan Jingyue; and finally, Zhou, Liu, and Xu’s own rebuttals, conclusions, and contributions in developing a theory of Chinese women’s crime. By also comparing the work of Chinese and U.S. women social scientists, this article argues that both groups pushed back, with varying strategies, on their men colleagues’ inordinate focus on criminalized women’s biology and physiology. In this way, both Chinese and U.S. women social scientists spoke into a largely male-dominated conversation and provided novel theories of women’s crime as women themselves.","PeriodicalId":46528,"journal":{"name":"Social Science History","volume":"47 1","pages":"275 - 297"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43058426","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The complex relationship between the history of infectious diseases and social inequalities has recently attracted renewed attention. Smallpox has so far largely escaped this revived scholarly scrutiny, despite its century-long status as one of the deadliest and widespread of all infectious diseases. Literature has demonstrated important differences between rural and urban communities, and between cities, but has so far failed to address intra-urban disparities due to varying living conditions and disease environments. This article examines the last nationwide upsurge of smallpox in the Netherlands through the lens of Amsterdam’s 50 neighborhoods in the period 1870–72. We use a mixed methods approach combining qualitative spatial analysis and OLS regression to investigate which part of the population was affected most by this epidemic in terms of age and sex, geographic distribution across the city, and underlying sociodemographic neighborhood characteristics such as relative wealth, housing density, crude death rate, and birth rate. Our analyses reveal a significant spatial patterning of smallpox mortality that can largely be explained by the existing social environment. Lacking universal vaccination, the smallpox epidemic was not socially neutral, but laid bare some of the deep-seated social and health inequalities across the city.
{"title":"The Last Nationwide Smallpox Epidemic in the Netherlands: Infectious Disease and Social Inequalities in Amsterdam, 1870–1872","authors":"S. Muurling, T.G.M.W. Riswick, K. Buzasi","doi":"10.1017/ssh.2022.31","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/ssh.2022.31","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The complex relationship between the history of infectious diseases and social inequalities has recently attracted renewed attention. Smallpox has so far largely escaped this revived scholarly scrutiny, despite its century-long status as one of the deadliest and widespread of all infectious diseases. Literature has demonstrated important differences between rural and urban communities, and between cities, but has so far failed to address intra-urban disparities due to varying living conditions and disease environments. This article examines the last nationwide upsurge of smallpox in the Netherlands through the lens of Amsterdam’s 50 neighborhoods in the period 1870–72. We use a mixed methods approach combining qualitative spatial analysis and OLS regression to investigate which part of the population was affected most by this epidemic in terms of age and sex, geographic distribution across the city, and underlying sociodemographic neighborhood characteristics such as relative wealth, housing density, crude death rate, and birth rate. Our analyses reveal a significant spatial patterning of smallpox mortality that can largely be explained by the existing social environment. Lacking universal vaccination, the smallpox epidemic was not socially neutral, but laid bare some of the deep-seated social and health inequalities across the city.","PeriodicalId":46528,"journal":{"name":"Social Science History","volume":"47 1","pages":"189 - 216"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47469758","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}