Cultural History Commons^™

Inequality, Living Standards And Growth: Two Centuries Of Economic Development In Mexico, Ingrid Bleynat, Amilcar Challú, Paul Segal

History Faculty Publications

Historical wage and incomes data are informative both as normative measures of living standards, and as indicators of patterns of economic development. We show that, given limited historical data, median incomes are most appropriate for measuring welfare and inequality, while urban unskilled wages can be used to test dualist models of development. We present a new dataset including both series in Mexico from 1800 to 2015 and find that both have historically failed to keep up with aggregate growth: per worker GDP is now over eight times higher than in the nineteenth century, while unskilled urban real wages are only …

An Economic Interpretation Of Rhode Island’S 1788 Referendum On The Constitution, Ruth Wallis Herndon, John E. Murray

History Faculty Publications

In their 1788 popular referendum, Rhode Island voters overwhelmingly rejected ratification of the Federal Constitution: 92 percent against and 8 percent for adoption. The town-by-town voter lists, correlated with tax and estate records, show that "yea" voters were significantly wealthier than “nay” voters. Available data also indicates that "yea" wealth was concentrated in personal estate rather than real estate. Both these findings support Charles Beard's original economic interpretation of the Constitution. Our detailed data provides new evidence about town-level voters, supplementing the usual data Beard’s supporters and critics have used from state ratifying conventions and the Philadelphia constitutional convention. We …

Ambigüedad Y Rebeldía En El Tono Económico De El Periquillo Sarniento, Amilcar Challú

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Towards An Anthropometric History Of Latin America In The Second Half Of The Twentieth Century, Amílcar E. Challú, Sergio Silva-Castañeda

History Faculty Publications

We examine the evolution of adult female heights in twelve Latin American countries during the second half of the twentieth century based on demographic health surveys and related surveys compiled from national and international organizations. Only countries with more than one survey were included, allowing us to cross-examine surveys and correct for biases. We first show that average height varies significantly according to location, from 148.3 cm in Guatemala to 158.8 cm in Haiti. The evolution of heights over these decades behaves like indicators of human development, showing a steady increase of 2.6 cm from the 1950s to the 1990s. …

Paving The Way To Scandal: History Repeats Itself, Michael J. Birkner

History Faculty Publications

Presidential candidate Marco Rubio of Florida enjoyed an assist this week managing the fallout from New York Times stories about his personal finances by an unlikely ally: Comedy Central host Jon Stewart, who dismissed the information as an example of “gotcha” politics, unworthy of current discussion. “How is this front page news?” Stewart said, calling the Times reports “inconsequential gossip.” [excerpt]

Colonels, Hillbillies And Fightin’: Twentieth-Century Kentucky In The National Imagination, Anthony Harkins

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Lancastrians Marched With Dr. King In Selma, Michael J. Birkner

History Faculty Publications

Fifty years after he addressed a crowd in Lancaster’s Penn Square about “the idea that all men are one,” Wayne Glick remembers that moment as if it happened yesterday. Glick’s speech, inviting Lancastrians to participate in the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, on behalf of African-American voting rights, is a footnote to Lancaster County history. But the march itself, featured in the popular film “Selma,” helped to change America. [excerpt]

Mexico’S Real Wages In The Age Of The Great Divergence, 1730-1930, Amilcar Challú

History Faculty Publications

This study builds the first internationally comparable index of real wages for Mexico City bridging the eighteenth and the early twentieth century. Real wages started out in relatively high international levels in the mid eighteenth century, but declined from the late 1770s on, with some partial and temporal rebounds after the 1810s. After the 1860s real wages recovered and eventually reached eighteenth-century levels in the early twentieth century. Real wages of Mexico City’s workers slid behind those of high-wage economies to converge with the lower fringes of middle-wage economies. The age of the global great divergence was Mexico’s own age …

Book Review: Vacationland: Tourism And Environment In The Colorado High Country, J. Mark Souther

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Tennessee’S Black Postwar Emigration Movements, 1866–1880, Selena Sanderfer

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Mapping The Boston Poor: Inmates Of The Boston Almshouse, 1795–1801, Ruth Wallis Herndon, Amilcar Challú

History Faculty Publications

This article examines postrevolutionary Boston through evidence about its poorest inhabitants, those admitted to the town’s almshouse from 1795 to 1801. Charts and maps constructed from Boston Almshouse records and geographical data about Boston for these years reveal the characteristics of the Almshouse inmates, as well as their residential location before entering the facility and their mobility after entering it a ªrst time. This study is part of a broader project that applies Geographical Information Systems (gis) to analyze and visualize patterns evinced by the inmates of the Boston Almshouse during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Although the …

Italian American Collection At The Immigration History Research Center, Elizabeth Zanoni, Halyna Myroniuk, Daniel Necas

History Faculty Publications

The article discusses the Italian American collection at the University of Minnesota Immigration History Research Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Information at http://ihrc.umn.edu/research/ is noted. Aspects of the history of the center noted include the role of Rudolph Vecoli as its founding director, the archives of the fraternal organization Order Sons of Italy (OSIA), and microfilms of newspapers such as the socialist "Il Proletario" and the anarchist "Cronaca Sovversiva," which are related to Italian American labor history.

Little Founders On The Small Screen: Interpreting A Multicultural American Revolution For Children’S Television, Andrew M. Schocket

History Faculty Publications

From 2002 to 2004, the children’s animated series Liberty’s Kids aired on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), the United States’ public television network. It runs over forty half-hour episodes and features a stellar cast, including such celebrities as Walter Cronkite, Michael Douglas, Yolanda King, Whoopi Goldberg, Billy Crystal, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Liam Neeson, and Annette Bening. Television critics generally loved it, and there are now college students who can trace their interest in the American Revolution to having watched this series when they were children. At the turn of the twenty-first century, it is the most extended and in-depth encounter with …

American Revolution: New Directions For A New Century, Andrew M. Schocket

History Faculty Publications

This essay maps out the directions I believe we are going, gives examples of recent trailblazing work, and offers suggestions about how we might move forward as we enter another century of scholarship.

Book Review: Authentic New Orleans: Tourism, Culture, And Race In The Big Easy, J. Mark Souther

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Estatura Y Condiciones De Vida En Tiempos De Morelos, Amilcar Challú

History Faculty Publications

¿Cuánto medía Morelos? ¿Un metro y medio? ¿Era de estatura media? Lo que implica fi nalmente preguntar: ¿cuál era la estatura media en los tiempos de Morelos? Al fi nal de esta pesquisa la respuesta a esas preguntas quedará clara. Morelos medía cerca de 1.60 cm, unos cuatro centímetros más baja que la media de los nacidos en su año (1764). Pero comparado con los nacidos en el año de su muerte (1815), la estatura de Morelos hubiera estado casi en el promedio. El caso de la estatura de Morelos es una anécdota, pero el ejercicio que nos permite estimar …

Agricultural Crisis And Biological Well-Being In Mexico, 1730-1835, Amilcar Challú

History Faculty Publications

The article examines how adverse climatic conditions and high food prices influenced the opportunities of peasants in pre-industrial Mexico between 1730 and 1835. Particular attention is paid to data of soldier heights, global climate events, warm-season tree growth, and real food prices to determine how these factors may have affected urban and rural populations. Declines were seen in the general standard of living and average height, while the cost of food increased. It is argued that distribution and acquisition of food has an equal influence on biological well-being as the availability of food at any specific given time.

New Approaches To The Founding Of The Sierra Leone Colony, 1786–1808, Isaac Land, Andrew M. Schocket

History Faculty Publications

This special issue of the Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History consists of a forum of innovative ways to consider and reappraise the founding of Britain’s Sierra Leone colony. It originated with a conversation among the two of us and Pamela Scully – all having research interests touching on Sierra Leone in that period – noting that the recent historical inquiry into the origins of this colony had begun to reach an important critical mass. Having long been dominated by a few seminal works, it has begun to attract interest from a number of scholars, both young and established, from …

Queequeg's Tomahawk: A Cultural Biography, 1750-1900, Timothy J. Shannon

History Faculty Publications

Since the colonial era, the tomahawk has served as a symbol of Indian savagery in American arts and literature. The pipe tomahawk, however, tells a different story. From its backcountry origins as a trade good to its customization as a diplomatic device, this object facilitated European-Indian exchange, giving tangible form to spoken metaphors for war, peace, and alliance. The production, distribution, and use of the pipe tomahawk also illustrated contrasting Indian and European notions of value and utility in material objects, exposing the limits of such goods in promoting cross-cultural mediation and understanding.

Thinking About Elites In The Early Republic, Andrew M. Schocket

History Faculty Publications

This essay is a conceptual exploration designed not only to provoke further consideration and discussion of how we might better analyze elites, but also, by extension, to offer a framework for investigating class and class differences in the early years of America’s nationhood.

Making The "Birthplace Of Jazz": Tourism And Musical Heritage Marketing In New Orleans, J. Souther

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Consolidating Power: Technology, Ideology, And Philadelphia's Growth In The Early Republic, Andrew M. Schocket

History Faculty Publications

Considers how during the 1780's-1820's wealthy Philadelphians adopted the British institutional structure of the corporation for purposes of organizing Philadelphia's economic and political life and how the corporate form was used to reconstruct and consolidate economic and political power. The corporation was part of a variety of "nexus technologies" that included canals and markets. These new social technologies allowed the coordination of physical and financial activities across greater distances, without relying on older forms of face-to-face control and coordination, thus permitting new elites to gain power as older, local patrician elites were displaced. These new corporate forms needed the legal …

Spain's Enterprise Of Evil, Charlotte M. Gradie

History Faculty Publications

Book review by Charlotte Gradie.

Rabasa, José . Writing violence on the northern frontier: the historiography of sixteenth century New Mexico and Florida and the legacy of conquest. Durham: Duke University Press, 2000. ISBN 978-0-8223-2567-3.

The Ohio Company And The Meaning Of Opportunity In The American West 1786-1795, Timothy J. Shannon

History Faculty Publications

Founded in 1786 by former officers of the Continental Army to promote an orderly expansion of American society westward, the Ohio Company soon succumbed to the desire of many of its investors to make money. The aims of settlement warred with the desire to make a profit through land speculation; eventually the company dissolved, a casualty of its inability to reconcile the varied interests of shareholders and to manage westward development.