“The Strength that Union Gives”: Western Women and Pragmatic Antislavery Politics

Western female antislavery organizations, including the Ohio State Female Anti‐Slavery Society, were characterized by pragmatism and cooperation. Unlike many eastern female antislavery societies, those in the old northwest organized at the local, county, and state levels to form a unified and inclusive antislavery voice. Movement leaders such as Betsey Mix Cowles, Lucy Wright, and Maria Sturges developed shrewd antislavery tactics that appeared to be well within the range of female activity but nonetheless challenged the social and legal status quo in ways that had political manifestations. The Ohio women engaged in a variety of local activities, including concerts, publications, education, and petitions that both nourished their own sense of accomplishment and raised the visibility of abolitionism. By combining their cooperative approach with a subtle political agenda, the women of Ohio initiated a campaign that would have a long‐term influence on antislavery and politics across the North.     

Temporal changes in diet: a stable isotope analysis of late Iron Age and Roman Dorset,Britain

This study investigates the relationship between diet and cultural change in late Iron Age and Romano-British populations from Dorset, England (1st century BC to the early 5th century AD). Dorset was the only region in Britain to exhibit continuity in inhumation burial rites through these periods and a wide array of environmental, archaeological and material culture evidence is available there. A sample of N = 77 human adult and N = 17 faunal rib samples were utilized for carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis to test the hypothesis that Romanization of the diet would result in greater dietary variation.     

Materializing Inequality: The Archaeology of Tourism Laborers in Turn-of-the-Century Los Angeles

This article traces the historical marginalization of tourism workers in Southern California, a region made popular in the late 1800s for its numerous leisurely activities. Workers employed in Southern California’s hotel industry continue to face discrimination, low wages, and dangerous and environmentally hazardous work conditions, policies that originated during the development of the region’s tourism industry. Using California’s most popular tourist site from 1893 to 1936, Mount Lowe Resort and Railway, as a case study, this article examines the historical spatial, ideological, and legal factors that have contributed to the contemporary stratification of Los Angeles’ hotel laborers. It concludes with an emphasis on how archaeological and archival research can be used to help modern day tourism laborers gain the attention and benefits they so direly deserve.     

Archaeomagnetic research in the Andean highlands

Eleven archaeomagnetic samples were collected from several sites near Porco, Bolivia as part of the Proyecto Arqueológico Porco-Potosí. These samples were collected in order to 1) explore the availability of appropriate sample materials in the Bolivian Andes, and 2) assess the feasibility of pursuing reference curve research for this region. In addition, this research explored the archaeomagnetic dating application of reference curves constructed from the global geomagnetic field model gufm1 (Jackson et al., 2000), which covers the period from AD 1590–1990. This model is particularly applicable to our project, since many of the project sites are late prehispanic (pre-AD 1532) and early historic (ca. AD 1532–1825) in age. Of the 11 samples, three appeared to contain an insufficient amount of ferromagnetic minerals to provide reliable results, while eight samples produced acceptable-to-good results. The data from the eight good samples were compared to a reference curve for the period of AD 1600–2000 that was calculated for this project from the global field model, gufm1. The archaeomagnetic dates obtained for two of the samples agreed with archaeological expectations, while those for four other samples marginally or greatly postdated the archaeological age expectations. Two additional samples produced significantly different directions and could not be dated against the reference curve. It is likely that the age discrepancies for four of the samples stem from inaccuracies in the archaeomagnetic data, the archaeological age expectations, the calculated reference curve, or some combination of these factors.     

Sex ratios and life tables: Historical demography of the age at which women outnumber men in seven countries, 1850–2016

Abstract

The male/female sex ratio (SR) and its age-specific patterns vary considerably across time and place. The SR generally begins male-biased at birth and becomes female-biased later in life, but this relationship should respond to historical trends and events. Temporal trends in SRs remain largely unstudied and formal demographic relationships are not well defined. We (1) define SRs in a life table framework, (2) estimate the age at which the number of males and females achieves parity—the sex ratio crossover (SRX)—using basic life table methods, and (3) explore historical and international patterns in these trends. Using publicly-available data from the Human Mortality Database, we construct SR and SRX measures from period and cohort life tables. Analyses explore temporal patterns for seven countries in different global regions since 1850. Overall temporal trends show the SRX advancing to older ages. The SRX also appears to respond to historical events such as wars and epidemics. The measure is simple to construct from life table data, and provides additional insight into the historical context of gender dynamics.