History Commons^™

Research Note: Without A Trace: The Disappearance Of Jeremiah Brophy, Patricia Fanning

Patricia J. Fanning

No abstract provided.

Influenza And Inequality: One Town’S Tragic Response To The Great Epidemic Of 1918, Patricia Fanning

Patricia J. Fanning

The influenza epidemic of 1918 was one of the worst medical disasters in human history, taking close to thirty million lives worldwide in less than a year, including more than 500,000 in the United States. What made this pandemic even more frightening was the fact that it occurred when death rates for most common infectious diseases were diminishing. Still, an epidemic is not merely a medical crisis; it has sociological, psychological, and political dimensions as well. The influenza epidemic of 1918 was one of the worst medical disasters in human history, taking close to thirty million lives worldwide in less …

An Intimate Affair: Women, Lingerie, And Sexuality, Margaret Lowe

Margaret Lowe

No abstract provided.

Collaborative Writing: History And Art History, Kathleen Ashley

Kathleen M. Ashley

No abstract provided.

Andrew Curran, “The Anatomy Of Blackness: Science And Slavery In An Age Of Enlightenment”, Marshall Poe, Andrew Curran

Andrew Curran

We've dealt with the question of how racial categories and conceptions evolve on New Books in History before, most notably in our interview with Nell Irving Painter. She told us about the history of "Whiteness." Today we'll return to the history of racial ideas and listen to Andrew Curran explain the history of "Blackness."

Doubtless Europeans have noted that different humans from different parts of the globe look different for millennia. But it was only relatively recently, as Curran explains in The Anatomy of Blackness: Science and Slavery in an Age of Enlightenment (Johns Hopkins UP, 2011), that they took …

The Babsonian 1925, Julian Woodcock, James Liddle, Henry Andretta, Charles Ross, Cyril Fitch, James Davis, James Keenan, E. Price

James G. Keenan

This is a digitized, downloadable version of the yearbook. Downloading the full yearbook will take a long time. We have divided it into sections for easier access.

Pathways To Power: Physicians In Charleston, South Carolina, 1790-1860, David Brown

David C. Brown

This dissertation tells of the efforts of a group of scientifically trained physicians in Charleston, South Carolina to gain power and authority within their profession, and their community, during the Antebellum Period. Physicians were not ultimately able to declare professional supremacy and near monopolistic authority in health care until scientists discovered microscopic pathogens during the bacteriological revolution of the last half of the nineteenth century. This work begins with a brief review of the medical history of Charleston and its physicians and recounts the difficulties faced as they tried to establish themselves as medical authorities in a new world. The …

How The Other Half Lives, Margaret Lowe

Margaret Lowe

No abstract provided.

Regional Labour Market Integration In England And Wales, 1850-1913, George R. Boyer, Timothy J. Hatton

George R. Boyer

[Excerpt] This chapter examines the integration of labour markets within the rural and urban sectors of England and Wales during the second half of the nineteenth century. Although there is a large literature on internal migration and emigration in Victorian Britain, historians typically have focused on the direction and causes of migration rather than on its consequences for the labour market. Broadly speaking, the literature has found that workers did indeed migrate towards better wage-earning opportunities, that most moves were short-distance moves, and that once certain patterns of migration were established they often persisted. The studies leave the strong impression, …

The Dramatic Tradition Of The Middle Ages, Clifford Davidson

Clifford Davidson

The twenty-five essays in this collection provide unusual insights into early European drama. Written by American, European, and Japanese scholars, the contributions focus on such subjects as recent discoveries of medieval music-dramas and the conditions of their composition and performance pictorial elements in English and Continental vemacular drama, the later history of medieval drama, and secular plays and playing. The articles first appeared in The Early Drama, Art, and Music Review, which was the official journal of the EDAM project at the Medieval institute Western Michigan University and are included here for their unique contribution to drama studies. Altogether, the …

The Politics Of Numbers: Zemstvo Land Assessment And The Conceptualization Of Russia's Rural Economy, David W. Darrow

David Darrow

Historians of statistics are only beginning to understand the politics of numbers that accompanied the rise of statistical thinking in the nineteenth century. In the Russian empire, this statistical awakening opened numerous possibilities for state servitors and the intelligentsia. To officials in St. Petersburg, especially the enlightened bureaucrats who shaped the Great Reforms, statistics held out the promise of providing hard data for the development of informed policies. For educated society, numbers had a profound impact on debates over the nature of Russia’s rural (particularly peasant) economy. Numbers provided a cloak of objectivity for polemics motivated by different visions of …

Census As A Techology Of Empire, David W. Darrow

David Darrow

A census is an example of the social construction of knowledge and the politics of measurement. Measuring people assumes a political significance because it entails converting heterogeneous populations into numbers—stable pieces of knowledge that can be easily combined and manipulated. In constructing such numerical representations, census officials claim to be creating an objective portrait of the population. Censuses, however, also contribute to something less tangible by playing a key role in the creation of what Benedict Anderson has termed an “imagined community.” General censuses provide states with a unique opportunity to unify space and populations with a single instrument. Furthermore, …

From Commune To Household: Statistics And The Social Construction Of Chaianov's Theory Of Peasant Economy, David W. Darrow

David Darrow

Categorization plays an integral part in how we see and interpret the world. This is especially true when we attempt to comprehend the complexities of human society, where the heterogeneity of human activity across time and space demands that some criterion (class, gender, age, profession, etc.) be used to reduce the number of variables examined. From the mid-nineteenth century—as statistics evolved from the simple “political arithmetic” of tax collectors and army recruiters into a potential science of human behavior—categorizing the population became a contentious issue that reflected the social and political agendas of data collectors. At the same time, when …

Statistics And Sufficiency: Toward An Intellectual History Of Russia's Rural Crisis, David W. Darrow

David Darrow

The article examines the impact of the ‘rise of statistical thinking’ and statistical measurement on elite perceptions of the condition of the Russian Empire's post-emancipation peasant economy. Using archival and published sources, it argues that the increased use of statistical measurement did much to concretize in numerical (‘objective’) terms the idea of rural crisis. In particular, the combination of traditional paternalistic concerns about the sufficiency of peasant resources and the use of cadastre measurement yielded an image of the peasant household economy in which the value (the income-producing capabilities) of post-emancipation peasant allotments nearly always fell short of subsistence requirements …

Emerging Identities In Colonial Tunisia: "Alliancist" And Zionist Representations In Tunis Prior To World War I, Joy Land

Joy A. Land PhD

By 1900 the Jewish community of Tunisia witnessed the emergence of new competing identities: “assimilationist” of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, termed “Alliancist,” and Zionist. Strikingly, two members of the same family in Tunis, Raymond Valensi, President of the AIU Regional Committee, and Alfred Valensi, President of the Zionist Federation, led the struggle for their separate causes. In his discussion of identity in the modern world, Homi Bhabha asks, "How do strategies of representation or empowerment come to be formulated in the competing claims of communities…where, despite shared histories of …discrimination, the exchange of values, meanings and priorities…may be profoundly antagonistic…?" …

Advocating For Mother Earth In The Undergraduate Classroom: Uniting Twenty-First Century Technologies, Local Resources, Art, And Activism To Explore Our Place In Nature, Christina Triezenberg, Ilse Schweitzer Vandonkelaar

Christina Triezenberg

Despite the growing evidence of humanity’s impact on the natural world and the urgent need to shape citizens who understand the impact that their choices and actions have on their local and global environments, colleges and universities throughout the United States have been slow to add environmental education as a core component of their undergraduate curricula. Harnessing our shared interest in environment issues and the humanities, we designed and taught an experimental course in environmental literature for the honors program at Western Michigan University that we hope will become a template of what is possible in postsecondary environmental education. Using …

Review Of The Duke’S Assassin: Exile And Death Of Lorenzino De’ Medici, By Stefano Dall'aglio, Trans. By Donald Weinstein., Brian J. Maxson

Brian J. Maxson

Preventing And Treating Narcotic Addiction — A Century Of Federal Drug Control, David Courtwright

David T. Courtwright

The Middle Landscape Of The Private College: A Bicentennial Perspective, George W. Geib

George W. Geib

America's Private Colleges and Universities have entered the bicentennial year expressing deep concern for their individual and collective futures. They seem constantly engaged in a search for new students and additional financial contributors; they darkly aver that they may be forced to close forever if their search fails; and they point to the dozens of others campuses that passed from the scene in the last decade as proof of the urgency of their case. To some observers these forebodings of doom may appear, like the associated press reports about Mark Twain's demise, greatly exaggerated. But the immediacy and intensity with …

"Indiana Territory And Early Statehood, 1800-1825", George W. Geib

George W. Geib

This handbook was developed to encourage more effective state citizenship through the teaching of state history. Attention is given to geographical factors, politics, government, social and economic changes, and cultural development.

The Restoration Of The Port Of Philadelphia, 1783-1789, George Geib

George W. Geib

George W. Geib's contribution to American Neptune, Vol. 32, No. 4.

The Power Of The Purse, George W. Geib

George W. Geib

The Army finance office was born two centuries ago in the midst of the American Revolution. From the golden orle insignia that legend reports was first authorized by George Washington, to the outline of its modern functions and limitations that emerged during the war, the service took form in the critical years of the struggle for independence.

The Horns Of The North: Historical Sources Of J. R. R. Tolkien's Trilogy, George Geib

George W. Geib

Few books have enjoyed the publishing success seen in the last decade by J. R. R. Tolkien's epic fantasy trilogy, The Lord of the Rings. Since the time of its paperback appearance in 1965 the work has not only attracted wide popular readership but has also stimulated a considerable body of scholarly criticism.1 As a work of fantasy, Tolkien's tale of struggle surrounding a ring of power has attracted most of its commentators to the areas of myth and linguistics, two of the sources upon which the author relied most heavily. Yet for all its epic dimensions, the trilogy has …

Development And Preservation, George W. Geib

George W. Geib

Details the history of two Marion County Courthouses.

Orwell's 1984 And The Lonely World Of Campaign Management, George W. Geib

George W. Geib

George Geib's essay discussing the relevance and humanistic appeal of George Orwell's 1984 in the advent of the 1984 political election.

The Land Ordinance Of 1785: A Bicentennial Review, George Geib

George W. Geib

Geroge Geib reviews the historical impact of the Land Ordinance of 1785 200 years after its passage.

Reviewed Work: Mr. Polk's Army: The American Military Experience In The Mexican War, George W. Geib

George W. Geib

Book review of Mr. Polk's Army: The American Military Experience in the Mexican War. By Richard Bruce Winders. (College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 1997. Pp. xvi, 284. Illustrations. Paper, $17.95.)

The Essex Bridge: Transportation And Politics In The Early Republic, George W. Geib

George W. Geib

THE years that followed the War for Independence are commonly viewed as a period of rapid economic expansion. Deriving from such elements as a growing population, new foreign markets, increased capital resources, and a confident public spirit, this expansion is known to include a variety of new business ventures, notably in manufacturing and in transportation. Such new ventures are normally pictured in their business context, showing few political overtones apart from sporadic opposition by rural legislators.1 This latter emphasis may be mistaken, however, because many of these early innovative business ventures faced challenges in the form of local political controversies …

"The Old Northwest Under British Control, 1763-1783" And "Indiana A Part Of The Old Northwest, 1783-1800", George W. Geib

George W. Geib

This handbook was developed to encourage more effective state citizenship through the teaching of state history. Attention is given to geographical factors, politics, government, social and economic changes, and cultural development.

Liberty's Legacy: A Review Essay, George Geib

George W. Geib

Review essay of Liberty's Legacy, a traveling exhibit chronicling documents pertaining to the Northwest Ordinance and the Constitution.