Journal of Social History articles from June 2002

Journal of Social History archives from June 2002

Age of consent law and the making of modern childhood in New York City, 1886-1921.
June 22, 2002... On the morning of January 4th, 1916, Rosa Colletti, a fifteen year old factory operative, and eighteen year old Anna Belsito, Colletti's friend and co-worker, seeking to escape beatings at the hands of their mothers, ran away their parents'...

The "woman question" in Russian Poland, 1900-1914.
June 22, 2002... By the beginning of the twentieth century, partitioned Poland and especially its territories under imperial Russian rule had experienced the initial phase of fundamental economic, social and political transformation from the agrarian to the...

Need, greed, and protest in Japan's black narket, 1938-1949.
June 22, 2002... Early one sunny April morning in 1947, Shukan Asahi journalist Akiyama Yoshinori boarded a black market train (yami ressha) in Chiba City to examine firsthand life in the black market (yami ichi). (1) His observations provide fascinating...

Work and identity in early modern Portugal: what did gender have to do with it? (1).
June 22, 2002... The first entry made by the scrivener for the town of Braga in northern Portugal, on Saturday, 5 February 1569, refers to a petition before the municipal council from Ilena Piriz. (2) She was noted as a widow who had been wife of Gaspar Diaz,...

"Justifiable provocation": violence against women in Essex County, New York, 1799-1860.
June 22, 2002... Four months after brutally murdering his wife, James Bishop mounted the newly-constructed wooden platform in the center of the Elizabethtown prison yard in Essex County. Displaying all the attributes of the repentant sinner, he climbed the four...

Disability in the family? New questions about the Southern Mill village.
June 22, 2002... While social historians, as Peter Stearns asserts, "mean to leave nothing out" in their retelling of the past, few have included disability issues as an integral part of their thinking and writing. (1) Rereading classic social history texts can...

Conceptions of idiocy in colonial Massachusetts.
June 22, 2002... Little is known about idiocy in colonial America. A condition analogous to mental retardation, idiocy has been neglected in studies of the American colonies partly because of the paucity of documentation and partly because of the disinterest of...

Witchcraft, female aggression, and power in the early modern community.
June 22, 2002... I. Introduction Almost a generation ago the study of European witchcraft was revolutionized by a "paradigm shift," as Wolfgang Behringer has termed it, that involved the adoption of anthropological and sociological methodologies, a greater...

Why America Stopped Voting: The Decline of Participatory Democracy and the Emergence of Modern American Politics. (Reviews).
June 22, 2002... Why America Stopped Voting: The Decline of Participatory Democracy and the Emergence of Modern American Politics. By Mark Lawrence Kornbluh (New York and London: New York University Press, 2000. xv plus 243pp. $40.00). "Electoral...

From Monuments to Traces: Artifacts of German Memory, 1870-1990. (Reviews).
June 22, 2002... From Monuments to Traces: Artifacts of German Memory, 1870-1990. By Rudy Koshar (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. xvi plus 352 pp. $45.00). After producing a wonderful monograph about preservation and national memory in...

Betting on Lives: The Culture of Life Insurance in England, 1695-1775. (Reviews).
June 22, 2002... Betting on Lives: The Culture of Life Insurance in England 1695-1775. By Geoffrey Clark (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1999. xiv plus 241 pp.). $69.95. In the global economy of our day London reigns as the world's...

The Languages of Edison's Light. (Reviews).(Thomas Edison )
June 22, 2002... The Languages of Edison's Light. By Charles Bazerman (Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 1999. x plus 416pp. $39.50). The story of how incandescent electric lighting was invented, developed, and commercialized by Thomas Edison and his...

Consumers in the Country: Technology and Social Change in Rural America. (Reviews).
June 22, 2002... Consumers in the Country: Technology and Social Change in Rural America. By Ronald R. Kline (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. xii plus 299pp.). In Consumers in the Country, Ronald R. Kline fills out the story of how...

The Story of A: The Alphabetization of America from The New England Primer to The Scarlet Letter. (Reviews).
June 22, 2002... The Story of A: The Alphabetization of America from The New England Primer to The Scarlet Letter. By Patricia Grain (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2001. x plus 315 pp. $45). This is a most unusual book: fascinating, original,...

Englishness Identified: Manners and Character, 1650-1850. (Reviews).
June 22, 2002... Englishness Identified: Manners and Character, 1650-1850. By Paul Langford (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. x plus 389pp.). What sort of people were the English, those folk who rose to world power between 1650 and 1850?...

Sex in the Heartland. (Reviews).
June 22, 2002... Sex in the Heartland. By Beth Bailey (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1999. vii 265 pp. $27.00). Beth Bailey provides a close examination of the emergence and impact of the sexual revolution in the heartland of America....

Sexual Liberation or Sexual License?: The American Revolt Against Victorian Sexuality. (Reviews).
June 22, 2002... Sexual Liberation or Sexual License?: The American Revolt Against Victorian Sexuality. By Kevin White (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000. ix plus 239 pp. $24.95). The title of Kevin White's new book--Sexual Liberation or Sexual License?- might be...

Nymphomania: A History. (Reviews).
June 22, 2002... Nymphomania: A History. By Carol Groneman (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000. xxiii plus 238pp. $24.95). In her clever and elegant little book, Nymphomania: A History, Carol Groneman explores the changing meaning of the word...

The Captain's Concubine: Love, Honor, and Violence in Renaissance Tuscany. (Reviews).
June 22, 2002... The Captain's Concubine: Love, Honor, and Violence in Renaissance Tuscany. By Donald Weinstein (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. 240 pp. $45.00). The Captain's Concubine: Love, Honor, and Violence in...

Courtship and Constraint: Rethinking the Making of Marriage in Tudor England. (Reviews).
June 22, 2002... Courtship and Constraint: Rethinking the Making of Marriage in Tudor England. By Diana O'Hara (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2000. xii plus 276 pp.). This is a very fine book. It is certainly the most important work...

Sexual Slander in Nineteenth-Century England: Defamation in the Ecclesiastical Courts, 1815-1855. (Reviews).
June 22, 2002... Sexual Slander in Nineteenth-Century England: Defamation in the Ecclesiastical Courts, 1815-1855. By S. M. Waddams (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000. xvi plus 3l5pp. $75.00). In the early nineteenth-century there were few better...

Kindheit und Jugend in der Neuzeit, 1500-1900. (Reviews).
June 22, 2002... Kindheit und Jugend in der Neuzeit, 1500-1900. Edited by Werner Buchholz (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2000. 330 pp.). This book is a collection of twenty essays centered on the theme of childhood and education in Pomerania from 1500 to...

Children of Facundo. Caudillo and Gaucho Insurgency during the Argentine State-Formation Process (La Rioja), 1853-1870. (Reviews).
June 22, 2002... Children of Facundo. Caudillo and Gaucho Insurgency during the Argentine State-Formation Process (La Rioja), 1853-1870. By Ariel de la Fuente (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2001. 249 pp. $18.95) Children of Facundo is a landmark...

Engendering the State: Family, Work, and Welfare in Canada. (Reviews).
June 22, 2002... Engendering the State: Family, Work, and Welfare in Canada. By Nancy Christie (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000. xiv plus 459 pp. $65.00/cloth $27.50/paperback). This is an ambitious book. It discusses the development of welfare...

The Gender Division of Welfare: The Impact of the British and German Welfare States. (Reviews).
June 22, 2002... The Gender Division of Welfare: The Impact of the British and German Welfare States. By Mary Daly (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. x plus 263pp. $64.95/cloth $23.95/paperback). That welfare states reproduce and reinforce...

Inventing the Criminal: A History of German Criminology, 1880-1945. (Reviews).
June 22, 2002... Inventing the Criminal: A History of German Criminology, 1880-1945. By Richard F. Wetzell (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000. xiv plus 348pp. $39.95). Were one to think about criminal-biologists and...

As Long As They Don't Move Next Door: Segregation and Racial Conflict in American Neighborhoods. (Reviews).
June 22, 2002... As Long As They Don't Move Next Door: Segregation and Racial Conflict in American Neighborhoods. By Stephen Grant Meyer (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc., 2000. x plus 344 pp. $29.95). As Long As They Don't Move...

Ojibwe Singers: Hymns, Grief, and a Native Culture in Motion. (Reviews).
June 22, 2002... Ojibwe Singers: Hymns, Grief, and a Native Culture in Motion. By Michael D. McNally (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. xiv plus 248 pp. $45.00). Historian Michael D. McNally has written a book that he describes, and rightly so, as...

Indigenous Mestizos: The Politics of Race and Culture in Cuzco, Peru, 1919-1991. (Reviews).
June 22, 2002... Indigenous Mestizos: The Politics of Race and Culture in Cuzco, Peru, 1919-1991. By Marisol de la Cadena (Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2000. xiii plus 408 pp. $64.95/cloth $21.95 paperback). The problem of race mixture and how...

Defiled Trades and Social Outcasts: Honor and Ritual Pollution in Early Modern Germany. (Reviews).
June 22, 2002... Defiled Trades and Social Outcasts: Honor and Ritual Pollution in Early Modern Germany. By Kathy Stuart (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. x plus 286pp.). This is a splendid book, carefully honed over several years, beautifully...

The Virgin, the King, and the Royal Slaves of El Cobre: Negotiating Freedom in Colonial Cuba, 1670-1780 and A Refuge in Thunder: Candomble and Alternative Spaces of Blackness. (Reviews).
June 22, 2002... The Virgin, the King, and the Royal Slaves of El Cobre: Negotiating Freedom in Colonial Cuba, 1670-1780. By Maria Elena Diaz (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000. xviii plus 440 pp.). A Refuge in Thunder: Candomble and Alternative...

Crimes against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves, and the Hidden History of American Conservation. (Reviews).
June 22, 2002... Crimes against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves, and the Hidden History of American Conservation. By Karl Jacoby (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001.xix + 305pp. $39.95). The conservation of public lands in...