A Community-Based Sample of the Older Population from the 1880 and 1900 United States Manuscript Census

Abstract

Sources of nineteenth-century body mass index variation have received increased attention in economic and historical studies. Although modern body mass indexes increased during the twentieth century, nineteenth-century black and white body mass indexes were distributed symmetrically. Blacks in the Great Lakes and whites from the Southeast were more likely to be underweight, and blacks in Kentucky and whites in the Upper South and Far West were more likely to be overweight and obese. Farmers had greater body mass index values than workers in other occupations. Factors individuals did not control—such as age, race, and height—were the primary sources of nineteenth-century body mass index variation; choice characteristics—such as residence and occupations—had little to do with body mass index variation during U.S. economic development.     

Mortality differentials between rural and urban areas of states in the Northeastern United States 1890-1900.

Data from a number of countries show much higher mortality rates in urban than in rural areas in the nineteenth century. In this paper we examine the urban-rural mortality differential in the death registration states of the United States in 1890 and 1900. Before proceeding with the analysis, the data are evaluated and we determine that the data used for the 1900 analysis are more complete than data used in other analyses for the same date. An attempt is made to correct for the deficiencies in the 1890 data. When the urban and rural mortality levels are examined for individual states at both dates, urban mortality is generally higher than rural mortality. However, there is variability across states in urban mortality levels, rural mortality levels, and the urban-rural mortality differences. In general, the urban-rural mortality difference is larger in 1890 than in 1900. When the urban-rural mortality differences are examined in terms of the causes of death which account for the differential, we conclude that higher urban mortality rates are generally attributable to a few diseases—tuberculosis, diarrheal diseases and several other communicable diseases—the transmission of which depend heavily on close human contact or contamination of the environment.     

The decrease in socioeconomic differences in mortality from 1920 to 2000 in the United States and England

This study found that the effect of socioeconomic status (SES) on mortality decreased steadily during the twentieth century. It examined trends in age-specific adult mortality rates for employed men and infants in a number of social classes based on occupation in England and Wales and for black, white, and immigrant nationality groups of men, women, and infants in the United States. Both countries experienced continuing decreases in mortality rates and narrowing of SES differences in mortality rates from 1920 to the end of the century. Most of the decrease and narrowing in England and Wales occurred before the establishment of the National Health Service and the unprecedented improvements in clinical and preventive medicine after midcentury. Current cancer mortality rates in both countries show no consistent relationship with SES. The very low mortality rates of some low SES immigrant nationality groups in the United States throughout the century demonstrate that other social factors can have a greater effect on health than SES.     

Ethnic groups in the United States

Shirley Achor. Mexican Americans in a Dallas Barrio. Tucson, Arizona: University of Arizona Press, 1978. xii + 202 pp. $12.50 cloth, $6.95 paper.

Thomas Sowell. Ethnic America: A History. New York: Basic Books, 1981. 353 pp. $16.95.

Arnulfo D. Trejo, ed. The Chicanos: As We See Ourselves. Tucson, Arizona: The University of Arizona Press, 1979. $12.50 cloth, $7.50 paper.     

Africa and the United States

Peter J. Schraeder. United States Foreign Policy toward Africa: Incrementalism, Crisis, and Change . New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.     

Atlas of the United States

In an attempt to distinguish between regional physical geography and the Soviet school of landscape science, the author defines the study objects of the two disciplines and provides a useful review of the present state of landscape science in the Soviet Union. Physical geography is said to be concerned with study of the entire geographical shell of the earth, ranging from the troposphere to the bottom of the layer of sedimentary rocks in the earth's crust. Landscape science focuses on the so-called landscape sphere, which is defined as the portion of the geographical shell that lies at or near the surface of the earth and is imbued with present-day life. Although some Soviet geographers treat the term “landscape” as a broad conceptual term (similar to climate), most investigators tend to give the term a classificatory or typological connotation, regarding landscape as the basic unit in a classification of natural geocomplexes. One landscape school focuses on the morphological structure of landscape, the other on model-building of the landscape mechanism.     

Drinking-Place Names in the Central United States

Regional patterns in the names of commercial drinking establishments are explored with reference to the delimitation of culture areas in 15 states between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River. A data base of over 6.000 names, taken from 105 yellow-page telephone directories, represents some one-third of all establishments, with a focus upon cities of small and medium sizes

Four categories of names are examined: generic, environment-related, ethnic-social and "western." Quantitative expressions of nomenclature are augmented with a frequency measure of all establishments in constructing a set of nine drinking-place regions, the most definitive of which are titled Bar Bell, Beer Parlor Belt, Dixie Drought Belt and Drinking Club Belt.

Drinking-place regions are at greatest variance from recognized culture areas in respect to the West, the northern Middle West, the northern Rio Grande Valley and a tri-state zone from southern Kansas to northern Texas. More intensive studies of drinking-place names, as a possible prelude to full cultural reexaminations, are recommended for these four geographic sectors in particular.     

Cartography in the Universities of the United States

The Soviet Union's foremost university cartographer reviews the content of United States cartography training on the basis of Arthur H. Robinson's Elements of Cartography. He notes that relatively little attention is given to field methods of map compilation and to the problem of generalization. The division between geographical cartography and topography-geodesy is found to be a shortcoming that is reflected, in part, in what is regarded as poor geographic content of United States topographic maps.     

美国与1966年联合国中国代表权问题

1964年以后,国际社会支持中国恢复在联合国席位的力量日益增强。在1966年联合国关于中国代表权问题的讨论中,为阻止中国进入联合国,美国投入了极大的精力。在这一过程中,美国及其盟国和蒋介石集团发生了尖锐的矛盾,经过讨价还价,美国在盟国的压力下作了相应的让步,美蒋最终达成妥协,中国仍然被排除在联合国之外。     

关于1940年美英“驱逐舰换基地”协定的历史考察

1940年 9月美国和英国签订的“驱逐舰换基地”的秘密协定 ,是第二次世界大战爆发后美国尚处在战争之外的情况下 ,两国间达成的第一个重要双边军事协定。经过近 4个月的谈判 ,英国获得了迫切需要的驱逐舰 5 0艘 ,美国以此换取了租借英国在西大西洋和加勒比海上的 8个海空军基地 99年的权利 ,以及英国政府的重要保证 :英国一旦战败 ,皇家海军决不投降也不会被凿沉 ,而是开到海外继续保卫帝国     

News wire services in the nineteenth-century United States

News wire services were established in the United States in the mid-nineteenth century to gather and distribute news for local newspapers, using the new technology of the telegraph. With that early beginning in the era of electronic communication, the expansion of news wire services spans the change from a society of local communities to a more nationally integrated society. This paper assesses the importanceof changes in the medium's spatial organization which promoted national culture. The first wire services were local, ad hoc groups, organized to achieve greater efficiency in news-gathering. Formal services were first organized on a local basis, but in 1848 they began to sell news to the major urbanized portions of the United States. As the nation grew, the desire for greater efficiency conflicted with the desire for greater autonomy. Regional wire services persisted from the 1860s to the 1880s but after the 1880s, a tenuous national organization was achieved, cementing itself into a national system after the turn of the century. Efficiency in news collection was the primary reason for the increasing scale of news collecting groups. Each step toward larger spatial coverage, fed the growth of a complex interdependent urban system.