Journal of Social History articles from June 2003

Journal of Social History archives from June 2003

A "real man's ring": gender and the invention of tradition.(American double ring ceremony, 1920s male engagement ring)
June 22, 2003... In 1944, a Catholic priest turned to the American Ecclesiastical Review for advice on whether the "double ring" marriage ceremony was permitted. If it was allowed, he asked, "is the prayer for the blessing of the ring, as found in the Ritual,...

The structures of toy consumption: bourgeois domesticity and demand for toys in Nineteenth-Century Germany.
June 22, 2003... Consumption and consumerism are extraordinarily diverse phenomena defying easy definition. Scholars have generally focused on the individual consumer who enters the market to purchase items for him or herself. Writers as various as Werner...

Absolutism and class at the end of the Old Regime: the case of Languedoc.
June 22, 2003... This article is about nobles' opposition to royal absolutism at the end of the Old Regime. Discussion of this issue dates back to the late 1930s, when Georges Lefebvre showed that nobles exacerbated the crown's financial difficulties and...

Disabled veterans, the state, and the experience of disability in Western societies, 1914-1950.
June 22, 2003... Social scientists and historians have found it difficult to conceptualize the processes of identity and group formation among disabled veterans of military service. The inadequacy of their analysis is rooted in an inability to make sense of the...

The scandal of George Scalise: a case study in the rise of labor racketeering in the 1930s.
June 22, 2003... It started with a single column. In January 1940, the columnist, Westbrook Pegler exposed the criminal past and organized crime connections of George Scalise, the President of the Building Service Employees International Union (BSEIU). A...

At the Nexus of labor and leisure: baseball, nativism, and the 1919 Black Sox scandal.
June 22, 2003... As Chicagoans gathered outside the Cook County Courthouse on September 29, 1920 awaiting the departure of the White Sox players giving testimony about their role in throwing the 1919 World Series, a lone newsboy broke free from the crowd. When...

Children and globalization.
June 22, 2003... A Background Note This essay was written for a conference on globalization held at the University of Lodz in Poland during the Fall 2001. I thought that it would be useful to introduce matters relating to children into the discussion,...

Justice by paperwork: a day in the life of a court scribe in Bourbon Mexico City.
June 22, 2003... After recounting his seven years of loyal and unfailing service as a scribe (escribano) in Mexico City, Mariano Espinosa proceeded to express his concerns to the magistrates of the Sala del Crimen, the high criminal court of New Spain. In a...

Vine and oak: wives and husbands cope with the financial panic of 1857.
June 22, 2003... As the vine which has long twined its graceful foliage about the oak, and been lifted by it into sunshine, will, when the hardy plant is rifted by the thunderbolt, cling round it with its caressing tendrils and bind up its shattered boughs; so...

'Peace on earth-peace in Vietnam': the Catholic Peace fellowship and antiwar witness, 1964-1976.
June 22, 2003... Gentlemen, I am not in possession of my registration card or of a classification card. I burned them years ago. Please send me duplicates. Thank you. Thomas C. Cornell (1) When Tom Cornell informed his draft board that he...

A Centre of Wonders: The Body in Early America. .(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... A Centre of Wonders: The Body in Early America. Edited by Janet Moore Lindman and Michele Lise Tarter (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001. ix plus 283pp.). If, as historian Nancy Shoemaker remarks, the use of body metaphors to explain...

The Arts of Deception: Playing with Fraud in the Age of Barnum.(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... The Arts of Deception: Playing with Fraud in the Age of Barnum. By James W. Cook (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001. xv plus 314 pp. $45.00 cloth/$ 19.95 paper). James W. Cook's book on "artful deceptions" in nineteenth-century...

See America First: Tourism and National Identity, 1880-1940. .(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... See America First: Tourism and National Identity, 1880-1940. By Marguerite S. Shaffer (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001. 429pp. $55.00/cloth $18.95/paper). See America First examines tourism as an influence on nationalism...

On My Honor: Boy Scouts and the Making of American Youth.(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... On My Honor: Boy Scouts and the Making of American Youth. By Jay Mechling (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001. xxvi plus 323 pp. $30.00). Although "not a history of the Boy Scouts" (p. xix), On My Honor deftly incorporates much...

Beyond the Limits: The Concept of Space in Russian History and Culture. .(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... Beyond the Limits: The Concept of Space in Russian History and Culture Ed. Jeremy Smith (Helsinki: Suomen Historiallinen Seura, 1999. Pp. 276). In this stimulating collection published by the Finnish Historical Society (Suomen...

Kaspar Hauser: Europe's Child. .(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... Kaspar Hauser: Europe's Child. By Martin Kitchen (Basingstoke, England: Palgrave MacMillain, 2001. xv plus 237pp.). If the name Kaspar Hauser brings anything to mind today, it probably conjures up Werner Herzog's 1974 film of the same name,...

Daily Life in Renaissance Italy. .(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... Daily Life in Renaissance Italy. By Elizabeth S. Cohen and Thomas V. Cohen (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2001. xiv plus 316pp.). Clearly written as a textbook for undergraduates in renaissance survey classes, this volume fits...

German Women for Empire, 1894-1945. .(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... German Women for Empire, 1894-1945. By Lora Wildenthal (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001. xi plus 336 pp. Paper $19.95; Cloth $59.95). Since the fall of the Berlin Wall permitted greater access to the archives formerly housed in Potsdam...

The Other Enlightenment: How French Women Became Modern. .(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... The Other Enlightenment: How French Women Became Modern. By Carla Hesse (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001. xx plus 233 pp. $35.00). This stimulating study of French women and publishing between 1789 and 1800 contributes...

Celebrating Women. Gender, Festival Culture, and Bolshevik Ideology, 1910-1939. .(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... Celebrating Women. Gender, Festival Culture, and Bolshevik Ideology, 1910-1939. By Choi Chatterjee (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002. x plus 222 pp. $34.95). In this slim volume (the text comprises 161 pages), Choi...

The Virtuous Marketplace: Women and Men, Money and Politics in Paris, 1830-1870. .(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... The Virtuous Marketplace: Women and Men, Money and Politics in Paris, 1830-1870. By Victoria Thompson (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. viii plus 178pp.). In the Virtuous Marketplace, Victoria E. Thompson...

Prostitution: Prevention and Reform in England, 1860-1914.(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... Prostitution: Prevention and Reform in England, 1860-1914. By Paula Bartley (New York: Routledge, 2000. xi plus 229 pp. $85/cloth $25 .99/paperback). In Prostitution: Prevention and Reform in England, 1860-1914, Paula Bartley documents the...

Bound to Please: A History of the Victorian Corset. .(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... Bound to Please: A History of the Victorian Corset. By Leigh Summers (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2001. 302pp. $68/cloth $24.50/paper). The meanings and purpose of the corset generated heated debates among dress reformers, doctors, and...

Beloved Strangers: Interfaith Families in Nineteenth Century America. .(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... Beloved Strangers: Interfaith Families in Nineteenth Century America. By Anne C. Rose (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001. Xii plus 283 pp.). Historians have long understood that marriage has been both a powerful individual...

Aspiring Saints: Pretense of Holiness, Inquisition, and Gender in the Republic of Venice, 1618-1750.(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... Aspiring Saints: Pretense of Holiness, Inquisition, and Gender in the Re public of Venice, 1618-1750. By Anne Jacobson Schutte (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. xvi + 337 pp.). The last two decades have seen a...

Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia: The Regulation of Sexual and Gender Dissent. .(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia: The Regulation of Sexual and Gender Dissent. By Dan Healey (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001. xvi plus 392 pp. $40). Lenin decriminalized homosexuality, and Stalin recriminalized it. Dan...

Fabricating Women: The Seamstresses of Old Regime France, 1675-1791. .(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... Fabricating Women: The Seamstresses of Old Regime France, 1675-1791. By Clare Haru Crowston (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001. Xviii + 508 pp. $64.95 cloth/$21.95 paper). This extensive study of the activities, identity, and cultural...

An Irish Working Class: Explorations in Political Economy and Hegemony, 1800-1950. .(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... An Irish Working Class: Explorations in Political Economy and Hegemony, 1800-1950. By Marilyn Silverman (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001. xiii plus 566 pp. $85.00). Since the pioneering work of historians like Keith Thomas and...

Grasping at Independence: Debt, Male Authority, and Mineral Rights in Appalachian Kentucky, 1850-1915. .(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... Grasping at Independence: Debt, Male Authority, and Mineral Rights in Appalachian Kentucky, 1850-1915. By Robert S. Weise. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2001. xii plus 374 pp. $40.00). The "new social history" of the 70s is...

Making Social Science Matter. Why Social Inquiry Fails and How It Can Succeed Again. .(Book Review)(Brief Article)
June 22, 2003... Making Social Science Matter. Why Social Inquiry Fails and How It Can Succeed Again. By Bent Flyvbjerg (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001. x plus 204 pp.). Flyvbjerg seeks to position his argument on behalf of a social...

For Home, Country, and Race: Constructing Gender, Class, and Englishness in the Elementary School, 1880-1914. .(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... For Home, Country, and Race: Constructing Gender, Class, and Englishness in the Elementary School, 1880-1914. By Stephen Heathorn (Toronto, Buffalo and London: University of Toronto Press, 2000. xii plus 300 pp.). Mass schooling was the...

Schools and Work: Technical and Vocational Education in France since the Third Republic. .(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... Schools and Work: Technical and Vocational Education in France since the Third Republic. By Charles R. Day (Montreal and Kingston: McGill Queen's University Press, 2001. xii plus 236pp.). Historians of modern France are typically familiar...

Mexican Americans & the U.S. Economy: Quest for Buenos Dias and Moving From the Margins: A Chicana Voice on Public Policy.(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... Mexican Americans & the U.S. Economy: Quest for Buenos Dias. By Arturo Gonzalez (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2002. 165 pp. paper $14.95). Moving From the Margins: A Chicana Voice on Public Policy. By Adela de la Torre (Tucson:...

Fighting Poverty with Virtue: Moral Reform and America's Urban Poor, 1825-2000.(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... Fighting Poverty with Virtue: Moral Reform and America's Urban Poor, 1825-2000. By Joel Schwartz (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000. xxii plus 353 pp. $39.95). Joel Schwartz's book is a work of historical revisionism with a...

The Old Poor Law in Scotland: The Experience of Poverty, 1574-1845. .(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... The Old Poor Law in Scotland: The Experience of Poverty, 1574-1845. By Rosalind Mitchison (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000. 246pp. $28.00/paperback). The Scottish poor law system long had a reputation as both more rigorous and...

Mental Disability in Victorian England: The Earlswood Asylum, 1847-1901. .(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... Mental Disability in Victorian England: The Earlswood Asylum, 1847-1901. By David Wright (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. xii plus 244 pp. $65.00). Since the 1960s the histories of psychiatry and mental illnesses have become vibrant...

Bacchus and Civic Order: The Culture of Drink in Early Modern Germany. .(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... Bacchus and Civic Order: The Culture of Drink in Early Modern Germany. By B. Ann Tlusty (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 2001. Xii plus 288pp.). Anyone remotely familiar with Germany knows that beer, wine, and other...

Una Famiglia che Mangia Insieme: Cibo ed Eticita Nella Comunita Italoamericana di New York, 1920-1940. .(Book Review)(Brief Article)
June 22, 2003... Una Famiglia che Mangia Insieme: Cibo ed Eticita Nella Comunita Italoamericana di New York, 1920-1940. By Simone Cinotto (Torino: Otto Editore, 2001. 458 pp.). The book analyses the Italian American community in Harlem in the period...

Cardenas Compromised: The Failure of Reform in Postrevolutionary Yucatan. .(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... Cardenas Compromised: The Failure of Reform in Postrevolutionary Yucatan. By Ben Fallaw (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001. x plus 222 pp. $54.95/cloth $18.95/paper). As president of Mexico (1934-1940) Lazaro Cardenas attempted radical...

Crime and Punishment in Latin America: Law and Society since Late Colonial Times. .(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... Crime and Punishment in Latin America: Law and Society since Late Colonial Times. Edited by Ricardo D. Salvatore, Carlos Aguirre, and Gilbert M. Joseph (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001. xxiv plus 448 pp. $64.95/cloth $21.95/paper). ...

Labor in Retreat: Class and Community Among Men's Clothing Workers of Chicago, 1871-1929.(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... Labor in Retreat: Class and Community Among Men's Clothing Workers of Chicago, 1871-1929. By Youngsoo Bae (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. xiii plus 286pp.). Using men's clothing workers and their union in Chicago,...

An Economic History of London, 1800-1914. .(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... An Economic History of London, 1800-1914. By Michael Ball and David Sunderland (London and New York: Routledge, 2001. x plus 470p. $110.00). This book's cover image of late Victorian Ludgate Circus depicts a fleeting moment in the life of a...

The Making of Revolutionary Paris. .(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... The Making of Revolutionary Paris. By David Garrioch (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. xiv, plus 382 pp.). Showing a masterful command of a large historical literature, David Garrioch has accomplished the daunting task of...