The social magic of correspondence: conceptions of the mails in early nineteenth century Ireland

From the beginning of the nineteenth century, the post in Ireland underwent fundamental changes in terms of its methods of operation, the scope of its delivery and the actual usage of the postal service. The volume of mail sent, the changing pattern of delivery routes and the time and expense of sending a letter all changed over the course of the century. The conceptions of the post were changing from that of being a purely functional instrument of limited appeal to that of being an acknowledged tool in the growth and development of industry and trade, in the operation of the structures of government and a vital link for individuals to people and places outside their immediate social circle. This paper draws upon various sources, both those of the state and of private individuals, and uses Bourdieu's theoretical perspectives, to build a framework for analysing the differing conceptions of the mails. These changing conceptions reveal how different groups positioned themselves in order to take advantage of and shape new forms of cultural capital in the early nineteenth century.     

A social geography of preindustrial labour migration in Japan: Tajima and Kurome villages in the nineteenth century

Labour migration to and from two preindustrial villages in Japan is examined over nearly three-quarters of the nineteenth century. The history and geography of migration are related to local and regional conditions, and to natural events. Natural disasters are demonstrated to offer the best single explanation for much of the movement of labour.     

A possible eighteenth to nineteenth century example of a popliteal aneurysm from Leicester

Examples of the impressions made on bones by arterial aneurysms are rare in the archaeological record. One such specimen was found in a collection of 5000 pieces of disarticulated human bone from a disturbed eighteenth to nineteenth century graveyard in Leicester. The distal end of an adult femur shows a lesion on the posterior surface that has been identified as that made by an aneurysm of the popliteal artery, by comparison with an authenticated museum specimen of that condition, also of eighteenth century data. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Wilderness and health in the nineteenth century

During the latter part of the nineteenth century a form of medical treatment often called a “wilderness cure” enjoyed considerable popularity in the United States, especially in California. This procedure involved little more than an open-air sojourn in wild country, usually wooded uplands. It was based on the belief that wild, timbered uplands exerted curative influences on sick persons, especially consumptives. The cure's effectiveness was supposed to derive from influences of climate, vegetation, and style of living as well as spiritual influences related to aesthetics. Wilderness therapy fell into desuetude in the twentieth century as the realization spread that the wilderness environment was of little value in combating microbial and other agents of disease. In its heyday, however, the wilderness treatment attracted much support and was undertaken by a great many invalids. It seems highly likely that the perception of the wilderness as a source of health softened pre-existing negative attitudes to wild landscapes in America.     

Hospitality at wakes and funerals in Ireland from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century: Some evidence from the written record

Several aspects of mortuary customs in Ireland have already been studied in detail. This paper focuses on the role of hospitality on the occasion of death from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. Based on a variety of written records, it discusses the attitudes of both lay and clerical commentators—officials, travellers and writers on the one hand, and the clergy on the other—to the provision of hospitality, particularly before the interment of the corpse. The meaning of hospitality for the bereaved family, the community, and the deceased is also explored.     

The cosmos of the Paris apartment: working-class family life in the nineteenth century

Drawing on Bachelard's notion of “cosmicity” this article investigates the living conditions of Parisian working-class families in the second half of the nineteenth century. Nineteenth-century social critics claimed that the lack of privacy in urban apartments made decent family life impossible. However, evidence from judicial dossiers concerning attentat à la pudeur (intimate assault against children) illuminates the lived experience of children and their families in Paris apartments. Rather than a sharp divide between public and private, children experienced their apartment homes as the core of a social and spatial world under the surveillance of parents, neighbors, and other children.     

The weight of nineteenth century Mexicans in the Western United States

When traditional methods for measuring economic welfare are scarce or unreliable, heights and BMIs are now well-accepted measurements that represent biological conditions during economic development. Weight, after controlling for height, is an additional measure for current net nutrition. Little is known about how weights varied among Mexicans living in the nineteenth century American West. Between 1870 and 1920, average Mexican weight was low and remained constant. Mexican farmers had the heaviest weights, and unskilled worker weights were low. Weight of Mexican-born individuals were higher than Mexicans born in the United States at low weights but lower at high weights. For combined characteristics, weight varied the most with age, an uncontrollable characteristic, indicating that nineteenth century Mexican current net nutrition varied the most with factors over which they had no control.     

The transatlantic Muslim diaspora to Latin America in the nineteenth century

Since the 16th century, African Muslims figured prominently among the slave population of the Americas. While the number of Muslims pulled into the trade has always been a matter of speculation, lists of Africans rescued from slave ships provide us with some clues about the size and direction of the Muslim diaspora to Latin America in the 19th century. Based on an analysis of tens of thousands of names recorded in these lists, this essay argues that the majority of Muslim captives leaving Africa departed from Upper Guinea and suggests that Cuba was the center of the forced Muslim diaspora in the Americas. It traces the transatlantic links that connected particular regions of embarkation in Africa to their counterparts in Latin America and considers the implications of those connections for religious and cultural change within 19th-century slave populations. The essay challenges in important ways the colonial/postcolonial divide in Latin American history and uses Islam to pose important questions about the dynamics of social change across slave societies.     

Brain physiology and the mind in the nineteenth century

This article explores the integration of research and theory in nineteenth-century neurophysiology. Four generalities combine to explain their integration. They are the core beliefs of the neurologists, the pervasive habit of perceiving mind when observing behavior, the criteria for the existence of mind, and mind as an efficient cause. These generalities help explain specific choices made by certain researchers to work within the traditional model of the nervous system, to reject materialism, and to find intelligence and voluntary behaviors in physiological systems.