Showing papers in "Journal of Social History in 2000"
TL;DR: In the nineteenth century and after the First World War, there developed a new way of thinking about population resources and their importance to national power as discussed by the authors, and management of reproduction had been unthinkable, because it had been regarded as a natural phenomenon.
Abstract: Beginning in the nineteenth century and coming to fruition after the First World War, there developed a new way of thinking about population resources and their importance to national power. Previously, management of reproduction had been unthinkable, because it had been regarded as a natural phenomenon. But with the rise of demography, statistics (censuses), sociology, and other social sciences, reproduction became a subject of rational study and scientific management.
100 citations
TL;DR: The authors found that middle-class teenagers, younger unmarried men and those whose families had grown up were far more likely to fall for such temptations and certain occupational groups, such as artists, travelling salesmen or those in the drink trade, were also more likely than others to pursue a less respectable lifestyle.
Abstract: 'Respectability' had great ideological power in
Victorian society. But current analyses of
middle-class leisure are seriously flawed in
over-marginalising less respectable behavior. The paper begins by examining 'respectability' and
the non-work contexts where pressures for
compliance were strongest, such as the home and
the church. It then explores a range of leisure
contexts where pressures were far weaker, and
where more sinful pleasures such as the drinking of
alcohol, gambling, betting and sex outside marriage
were more likely to be found. First there were life cycle contexts.
Middle-class teenagers, younger unmarried men and
men whose families had grown up were far more
likely to fall for such temptations. Second, certain
middle-class occupational groupings, such as
artists, travelling salesmen or those in the drink
trade were also more likely to pursue a less
respectable lifestyle. Third, the hold of
respectability was less strong in locational
contexts away from the tyranny of neighbours. The
more liminal nature of locations such as the
racecourse and the seaside, or the anonymity of
large urban areas, and the range of pleasures on
offer, could open up multiple leisure identities.
69 citations
51 citations
TL;DR: A collective biography of 731 Russian Orthodox bishops consecrated between 1721 and 1917 explores the episcopate's regional and social origins, education, and career patterns and compares these with other European ecclesiastical elites.
Abstract: This collective biography of the 731 Russian Orthodox bishops consecrated between 1721 and 1917 explores the episcopate's regional and social origins, education, and career patterns and compares these with other European ecclesiastical elites. Apart from supplying extensive data on the Russian Orthodox episcopate, the article finds that by the end of the eighteenth century the regional heritage of a bishop ceased playing a role in shaping his identity. Likewise, from the mid-eighteenth century onward almost all bishops were from the clerical estate and the difference in social background stopped being a contested issue. Thus in the early nineteenth century the episcopate coalesced into a cohesive elite group, distinct from the caste-like clerical estate that it was drawn from and should logically have been closest to. Rather than attributing (as in the perception of the parish clergy and existing scholarship) the rift between episcopate and parish clergy to the frequent transfers of bishops from one diocese to another, this article argues that episcopate and parish clergy parted ways during the stratifying seminary years and that mobility--from home parish to seminary, from seminary to academy, and from diocese to diocese--came to characterize an episcopal career early on.
42 citations
TL;DR: In the last decades of the nineteenth century, the emergence of cheap ephemeral pornography in the form of postcards exceeded older literary representations and allowed for the widespread availability of pornography to those who had previously been denied access as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Before the 1880s, women, the poor, children, and people of color could seldom use pornographic representations even though they were often the subjects of these representations. In the last decades of the nineteenth century, the emergence of cheap ephemeral pornography in the form of postcards exceeded older literary representations and allowed for the widespread availability of pornography to those who had previously been denied access. This paper documents the rise of cheap ephemeral pornography in Britain, the consequent rise in access, and the subsequent policing of such ephemera in an attempt to restore a social order that governed both imperial and domestic relations.
40 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe how hunting was a growing source of white, male, autoworker's identity particularly after World War II, and how unions and groups of workers bargained with their employers for the time to hunt while groups of sportsmen lobbied their representatives for space and game to hunt.
Abstract: Throughout the twentieth century hunting was one of the fastest growing leisure activities of white working class men in the state that brought the automobile to the US and the world. The state of Michigan, the region that saw the birth of the second industrial revolution with mass production, mass consumption, 'Fordism' and 'Americanism' also provided for its worker/citizens to have historically unprecedented access to public land and game. Using auto workers records generally, and the materials from the Reo Motor Car Company of Lansing, specifically, this article describes how hunting was a growing source of white, male, autoworker's identity particularly after World War II. Hunting was not simply a rite of passage to adult malehood, but also was increasingly seen as a right; and, as such, unions and groups of workers bargained with their employers for the time to hunt while groups of sportsmen lobbied their representatives for space and game to hunt.
39 citations
TL;DR: For example, this paper argued that if a man could not support his family, he should not marry, and if a woman could not find a husband who earned enough, she must support herself and her children by earning wages.
Abstract: It has often been assumed that the nineteenth-century English New Poor Law enshrined women's dependence on men and upheld the breadwinner wage. However, three very distinct understandings of the breadwinner wage shaped poor law policy from 1834--1908, each with different implications for women's work. First, inspired by Malthus, the promulgators of the 1834 New Poor Law believed that if a man could not support his family, he should not marry, and if a woman could not find a husband who earned enough, she must support herself and her children by earning wages. Second, by the 1870s, poor law officials and social reformers understood the breadwinner wage as a reward ordinary working men should be able to earn by proving their respectability. Charities aided respectable wives of ill breadwinners so they would not have to go out to work, but they still expected "unrespectable" wives, and all single women and widows, to work to support themselves. The notion that working men had a right to earn a breadwinner wage and to keep their wives at home only became enshrined in the welfare system by 1908, and derived not from poor law traditions, but from trade union agitation, Liberal policies, and eugenic concerns.
37 citations
TL;DR: Using letters, diaries, memoirs, and biographies, this study documents women's decisions about marriage and work, as well as the changing cultural conceptualization of spinsterhood.
Abstract: The article explores the seemingly paradoxical connection between the idealization of love and marriage and the reluctance of many women to marry in nineteenth-century New England. Arguing against interpretations that view nineteenth-century singlehood as a proto-feminist stance, it situates spinsterhood in the context of the Victorian elevation and spiritualization of love and marriage as well as of a religiously grounded understanding of morality and usefulness. Searching for vocation in the world was a moral imperative for these spinsters who believed that their lives served a higher purpose. They drew on moral resources made available by their understanding of women's distinctive nature and special mission. Using letters, diaries, memoirs, and biographies, this study documents women's decisions about marriage and work, as well as the changing cultural conceptualization of spinsterhood.
32 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors studied the role of women in criminal cases of rape, incest, and maltreatment in seventeenth-century Holland and found that judges, neighbours, and plaintiffs made significant distinctions among these offenses.
Abstract: This article started with questions about the position of women in criminal cases of rape, incest, and maltreatment in seventeenth-century Holland. Did contemporaries consider women who suffered from rape, incest, and maltreatment as victims of sexual and physical abuse? Furthermore, did honour play any role in these court cases? The purpose of this study was to determine whether raped, assaulted, and maltreated women were viewed as victims by contemporaries. Criminal records show that judges, neighbours, and plaintiffs made significant distinctions among these offenses. According to current views of sexual abuse, raped, assaulted, or maltreated women are without any doubt the victims of their perpetrators. The modern perspective is that victim and perpetrator are prime subjects in such criminal cases. However, seventeenth-century lawyers, judges, plaintiffs, accused, and witnesses did not focus their attention on victim and perpetrator only. Egmond rightly pointed out that judges were also focused on the crime itself. This so-called 'offence-oriented' legal mentality implied that young girls were seen as accomplices or co-offenders in many cases of incest. Furthermore, criminal cases of rape, incest and maltreatment not only concerned the honour and reputation of the victim and the perpetrator, but also of neighbours and family members. Indeed, although the latter did not stand trial or risk conviction, their good reputation was endangered as well.
32 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explored the struggles by European women to gain access to the legal profession, the arguments that they used, and the resistance that they encountered from defenders of the status quo, arguing that access to law universally trailed access to medicine not because of issues related to the study or practice of law, but because the arguments put forward to justify admission to the bar appeared to many opponents to lead directly to women's suffrage and equality in other areas.
Abstract: This essay explores the struggles by European women to gain access to the legal profession, the arguments that they used, and the resistance that they encountered from defenders of the status quo. It argues that access to law universally trailed access to medicine not because of issues related to the study or practice of law, but because the arguments put forward to justify admission to the bar appeared to many opponents to lead directly to women's suffrage and equality in other areas. Such opposition came more from state authorities than from universities or practicing attorneys. The timing of admission to the bar in different countries followed no clear pattern related to economic development, legal systems, religion, or political regimes. The overwhelming majority of European countries allowed women to become lawyers between 1898 and 1923, a much shorter period than the process took in the United States or Canada.
26 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a discussion of the issue considered from a global perspective comparing social change within and between the advanced societies, developing societies and societies making the transition from socialism to capitalism is presented.
Abstract: With the end of the Cold War and the effective collapse of the socialist alternative, the question of 'convergence' has been reopened. It is now reasonable to ask whether recent events have led to a convergence of modern societies around a model of liberal capitalist development. The essay begins with a brief discussion of the issue considered from a global perspective comparing social change within and between the advanced societies, developing societies and societies making the transition from socialism to capitalism. It then turns to a more detailed focus on the advanced societies and, in particular, to the emergence of an 'Anglo-American model' of a liberal market economy. Despite continuing differences in society and culture, evidence exists for a significant convergence in matters of economic and social policy, sectoral growth and decline, industrial relations and the structure and culture of business in the two nations.
TL;DR: The authors examines African Americans' participation in the Louisiana Farmers' Union, a communist-led, interracial organization of tenant farmers and farm laborers that was active in the cotton and sugar plantation regions of Louisiana in the New Deal era.
Abstract: This article examines African Americans' participation in the Louisiana Farmers' Union, a communist-led, interracial organization of tenant farmers and farm laborers that was active in the cotton and sugar plantation regions of Louisiana in the New Deal era. It argues that rural black people saw the union as an ally in their ongoing struggles for economic justice, access to education, political participation, and protection from violence, and used their union locals to further those goals. The author suggests links between the rural unions of the 1930s and the civil rights movement of the 1960s by pointing out continuities in the objectives of African American activists in both decades.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors study the changing perceptions of sexual difference and emotions in the eighteenth century and find that the bad-tempered and imperious woman who causes havoc in sexual relations as well as in the social order in general was gradually replaced by the woman whose sensibility was considered to be a private and a social virtue.
Abstract: This article seeks to historicize the deep-seated notion of "emotional woman" and "rational man" by means of research into the changing perceptions of sexual difference and emotions in the eighteenth century. Texts from Dutch Enlightenment weeklies reveal a change in the gendered meanings of emotionalism. The bad-tempered and imperious woman who causes havoc in sexual relations as well as in the social order in general was gradually replaced by the woman whose sensibility was considered to be a private as well as a social virtue. This late eighteenth-century cult of sensibility was not restricted to women. It also produced the ideal of the man of feeling, a figure who, although part of "bourgeois" anti-aristocratic discourses, was molded after aristocratic examples. Towards the end of the century the rapprochement of gendered notions of emotionalism was undone by the rise of a binary model of sexual difference that relegated the emotions back to the female realm. The author explains these changes as, among other things, a conservative middle-class reaction to egalitarian ideals of sexual relations earlier in the century.
TL;DR: This article explored the history of gender and the African colonization reform movement during the antebellum era, examining both the actions and discourses of Northern white colonizers who supported the American Colonization Society (and its auxiliary societies) and of Northern free blacks who opposed colonization or proposed competing plans for black emigration and black nationalism.
Abstract: This article marks the first concerted effort to explore the history of gender and the African colonization reform movement during the antebellum era, examining both the actions and discourses of Northern white colonizationists who supported the American Colonization Society (and its auxiliary societies) and of Northern free blacks who opposed colonization or proposed competing plans for black emigration and black nationalism. From its outset, the colonization reform assumed a masculine character, fashioning a reform movement where public politics superseded moral suasion and adopting a gendered discourse that depicted colonizing as a masculine adventure, while also invoking a highly sexualized imagery of Africa and its colonists. Northern free blacks developed their own competing versions of manhood and womanhood within their critiques of white colonization schemes and within their own plans for emigration and national autonomy outside of the boundaries of the United States. The article also exposes the new insights a gendered history of colonization will bring to the history of antebellum abolitionism.
TL;DR: A number of social historians have challenged this orthodoxy by tracing continuities from the traditions of popular radicalism through Chartism and even on into various movements of the 1860s and 1870s as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Republicanism, Socialism, and Democracy: The Origins of the Radical Left By Mark Bevir The more powerful the state, and thus the more political a country is, the less it is inclined to look in the state itself, that is in the present organisation of society whose active, self-conscious, and official expression is the state, for the cause of social evils, and thus understand their general nature. Political intelligence is political just because it thinks inside the limits of politics. The sharper and livelier it is the less capable it is of comprehending social evils. 1 When Engels wrote about Chartism, he described the movement as the first to embody the true class consciousness of the workers, a consciousness focused, as Marx had implied, on social evils that had social causes and afflicted the workers as a class. 2 Many subsequent historians, whether Marxists or not, took a similar view. The chartists, they argued, broke with old traditions of popular radicalism to inaugurate the history of a working class movement progressing towards a mature socialist ideology. Recently, however, numerous social historians have challenged this orthodoxy by tracing continuities from the traditions of popular radicalism through Chartism and even on into various movements of the 1860s and 1870s. 3 Although the reasons for this challenge to orthodoxy are many and complex, two stand out. The first is the linguistic turn. An increasing reluctance among historians to define the nature of a movement in terms of the objective social position of its participants has encouraged a new interest in the beliefs and languages by which people constructed their world, and when historians have looked at the beliefs and languages of nineteenth-century radicals, they have found ample evidence of the continuing strength of popular radicalism. The second is the work of historians of political thought on the republican tradition. They have recovered a republican tradition centred on concepts such as virtue, corruption, and liberty as an important and persistent alternative to Enlightenment liberalism. 4
TL;DR: The causes for the popularity of nervous breakdown, ranging from shifts in standards in the 1920s, altered gender roles, and changing pharmacology, also help explain the concept's decline after the 1960s; but surprising persistence is discussed as well.
Abstract: This article traces the rise of the term and concept, nervous breakdown. It emphasizes the reasons the concept gained ground, particularly between the 1920s and 1950s, as an explanation for various new or newly-pronounced professional diagnoses and as a plea for some time and space for individual recovery. While nervous breakdown had medical overtones, it emphasized a collapse of personal understanding but also the possibility for personal reconstitution. The causes for the popularity of nervous breakdown, ranging from shifts in standards in the 1920s, altered gender roles, and changing pharmacology, also help explain the concept's decline after the 1960s; but surprising persistence is discussed as well.
TL;DR: Public and private child welfare institutions in Cleveland have provided for black children often separately, always unequally, and sometimes punitively, while the child welfare system that institutionalizes and sustains the city's racial inequities.
Abstract: Public and private child welfare institutions in Cleveland have provided for black children often separately, always unequally, and sometimes punitively. Created and sustained by the community, these institutions have reflected its racial mores. Private orphanages that initially accepted small numbers of black children barred them during the 1910s, and dependent black children consequently became the responsibility of public agencies, especially after the Great Depression. Orphanages remained racially segregated until the 1960s when political and financial imperatives compelled their integration. Racial inequalities remained, however, illustrated by the disproportionate number of black children in an overcrowded, dangerous public detention facility that became a public scandal and a symbol of a child welfare system that institutionalizes and sustains the city's racial inequities.
TL;DR: This article explored the conjuncture of historical trends and contentious repertoire at the Place de Greve to explain how the stonemasons suffered repression disproportionately during rebellions, and explained how workers moved to the suburbs and developed new ways to find jobs, and as migrants assimilated and police lost interest in the Place.
Abstract: A meaningful historical relationship existed between the Place de Greve, the open square fronting Paris' cityhall, and the migrant stonemasons who used it as a hiring fair in the nineteenth century. This spatial and social combination contributed to a "contentious repertoire" that helped make Paris the century's "capital of revolution." This article explores the conjuncture of historical trends and contentious repertoire at the Place to explain how the stonemasons suffered repression disproportionately during rebellions. The conjuncture broke down with the rebuilding of Paris under Prefect Haussmann. As workers moved to the suburbs and developed new ways to find jobs, and as migrants assimilated and police lost interest in the Place, apprehensions about the setting faded.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore both the nature of popular culture and its relationship to the dominant culture in Minas Gerais, the gold mining center of Brazil, during the eighteenth century.
Abstract: This essay explores both the nature of popular culture and its relationship to the dominant culture in Minas Gerais, the gold mining center of Brazil, during the eighteenth century. The main thesis of the essay is that the popular culture was able to resist modification by the dominant culture (the Catholic Church, the Portuguese state and key sectors of the colonial elite) in critical areas of life and thereby forced the dominant culture to accommodate to its values. The vehicle for the expression of the popular culture was the voz popular or peoples' voice which was articulated by murmuracao, murmurings or gossip. The values, power and functioning of the voz popular is explored in various social and cultural contexts.
TL;DR: In this paper, the transformation of the black elite in the sources is discussed and a book about the books from countries in the world is provided, which is one of the products to see in internet, this website becomes a very available place to look for the transformation.
Abstract: Following your need to always fulfil the inspiration to obtain everybody is now simple. Connecting to the internet is one of the short cuts to do. There are so many sources that offer and connect us to other world condition. As one of the products to see in internet, this website becomes a very available place to look for countless leading the race the transformation of the black elite in the sources. Yeah, sources about the books from countries in the world are provided.
TL;DR: The midwestern saloon in the late Nineteenth Century worked both to confirm and challenge the manhood of its customers as mentioned in this paper, and saloongoers considered "minding one's own business" to be one of the central tenets of manhood.
Abstract: The midwestern saloon in the late Nineteenth Century worked both to confirm and challenge the manhood of its customers. While it offered them a homosocial space to indulge in activities coded "male," men who frequented it risked both becoming intoxicated and losing authority at home. Saloongoers considered "minding one's own business" to be one of the central tenets of manhood, and talked about it endlessly. In their understanding, both intoxication and lost authority at home directly challenged their mastery of their own "business," and consequently undermined their male status. Their concern about their challenged manhood may explain their failure to make sufficiently energetic defenses of their saloongoing when confronted in courtrooms or by prohibitionists. Rather, they frequently attempted to distance themselves from or deny participation in saloon culture.
TL;DR: A unique source that reveals the minutiae of perceived differences in rank and status, and moreover on a gendered basis, is the record of Declarator of Marriage cases heard before Edinburgh Commissary Court.
Abstract: In the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, when entry into the professions was still fluid, and 'rank' rather than 'class' characterised social relationships, status depended on finely graded nuances. A unique source that reveals the minutiae of perceived differences in rank and status---and moreover on a gendered basis---is the record of Declarator of Marriage cases heard before Edinburgh Commissary Court. Scottish law continued to recognise (as 'irregular' but legal) marriages constituted by a promise of marriage followed by intercourse between the parties. If the man denied the promise the woman could sue him in court and, if unable to prove a marriage, still had the possibility of being awarded damages for seduction. In such cases it was in the interests of the man's lawyer to prove that the woman could not have expected marriage when she had sex with him since she was of a lower rank, while the woman's lawyer naturally disputed this. From these cases specific strands emerge: upward and downward mobility of fathers, occupations of the women themselves, and a surprisingly great stress on the woman's education.
TL;DR: Russia's unique social and economic structures produced a divergent Deaf identity, as well as alternative subversive activity in order to preserve their community, and this study challenges the narrow medical model of Deafness.
Abstract: Revisionist scholarship has redirected our interpretations of race, class, and gender, but has yet to fully address a fundamental component in our historical identity: physical ability and its underlying concept of normality. Studies in Deaf history offer one approach to this issue by assessing the community through a cultural lens rather than a medical or pathological interpretation. Many scholars in Deaf history have focused primarily on Western Europe and the United States in their work, inadvertently creating an image of a monolithic Deaf culture. This study, which compares experiences in late Imperial and early Soviet Russia, also challenges the narrow medical model of Deafness. By revealing a significantly different discourse between government and Deaf people, and unique interactions within the Deaf community, this paper also raises important questions about the factors which inform Deaf cultural identities. Russia's unique social and economic structures produced a divergent Deaf identity, as well as alternative subversive activity in order to preserve their community. The differences between the development of cultural Deaf history in the West versus Russia point out further ways in which historians can investigate the history of minorities, as well as disabilities.