Government Publishing in the German Pacific 1885–1914

Germany’s colonial experience in the Pacific was both relatively short (1884–1914) and also quite dispersed. In addition to administrative staff and office, a well-functioning colonial administration also required the means to propagate and document its administrative regulations and decisions. This article examines how the administrative offices in German Samoa and German New Guinea went about their official printing needs. In the Samoa case, the Germans ‘inherited’ a well-established printing environment, facilitated by newspapers. Here the official publications of the colonial government were merely additional print-jobs. In German New Guinea, however, no such infrastructure pre-existed and the German administration had to start its own press. Over time, the government gazette added no official sections and, had World War I not intervened, was on track to became a local newspaper.     

Approaches to marsupial biochronology in Australia and New Guinea

Mammal (marsupial) palaeontology is useful for the correlation of non-marine strata of Australia and New Guinea. The geochronological framework constructed from marsupial data is based substantially in stage-of-evolution biochronology, which is not subject to the formal guidance of a code, or regulation by an authority. Instead, it has evolved through an informal consensus of usage. Principles and practices of stage-of-evolution biochronology and its historical development are reviewed from an Australian perspective. Amongst more recent developments in the discipline are the establishment of the first marsupial biostratigraphy for the continent, covering the Etadunna Formation of the Lake Eyre Basin (Woodburne et al., 1993), and the introduction of novel terminology to express marsupial succession in the Carl Creek Limestone of northwestern Queensland (Archer et al., 1989). The merits of the various approaches to biochronology are examined: stage-of-evolution biochronology has provided, and will continue to contribute to, a correlation framework for a continent with a sparse mammal record not generally amenable to biostratigraphic resolution. Terminology proposed by Archer et al. (1989) is shown to be unsatisfactory.     

Racial rent differences in U.S. housing markets: Evidence from the housing voucher program

This paper exploits an unusually rich data set to estimate racial differences in the rents paid for identical housing in the same neighborhood in U.S. housing markets and to show how they vary with neighborhood racial composition. Results suggest that black households pay more for identical housing in identical neighborhoods than their white counterparts and that this rent gap increases with the fraction of the neighborhood white. In neighborhoods with the smallest fraction white, the premium is about 0.6%. In neighborhoods with the largest fraction white, it is about 2.4%. This pattern holds across different types of areas.     

The Prophet and the Sorcerer: Becoming a Cunning-Man in Nineteenth-Century Norway

Cunning-folk offering a wide range of mostly supernatural services were a common part of European popular culture until at least the early twentieth century. Still, insight into how they established themselves as people with extraordinary abilities is limited. In this article I approach two of the best-documented cases of nineteenth-century Norwegian cunning-folk. The preacher-prophet, healer, and clairvoyant Knut Rasmussen (‘Vis-Knut’, 1792–1876) and the diviner and sorcerer Eilev Olsen (‘Spå-Eilev’, 1814–91) were ‘living legends’ who attracted clients from all over the country for more than fifty years. A wealth of historical and folkloristic sources allows us a rare glimpse into their early career stages and the dynamics by which two uneducated day labourers managed to become central actors in a local power play. An analysis of the local ‘folk religious fields’ details strategies, practices, and narratives used to cater to different factions, to convey claims of supernatural efficacy, and to create a regional market.     

The Trade in Individual Maps from Ortelius’s Theatrum orbis terrarum after 1612

In 1612, following the death of the Antwerp print publisher Jan Baptist Vrients, Balthasar I and Jan Moretus II, at the time the managers of the Plantin Press, bought the copper plates used to print Abraham Ortelius’s Theatrum orbis terrarium, together with the remainder of Vrients’s stock of the atlas. Subsequently, they reissued various editions of the Theatrum, selling them under their own names. They also traded in individual maps from the Theatrum, printing more when necessary. Hundreds of maps were sent to clients all over Europe. This article gives an overview of this so far unknown distribution of Ortelius’s maps in the first half of the seventeenth century.