Writing more than twenty five years ago, W. S. Robinson assailed the assumption implicit in much empirical work that statistical measures computed for aggregate units—states, provinces, counties, cities, wards, school districts—could be used in place of corresponding measures for the individuals comprising these units. Robinson was not the first scholar to expose the pitfalls of naive inferences from group level data to individual level behavior. But he first brought this problem forcefully to the attention of practicing social scientists. Focusing on the Pearson product moment correlation coefficient (r), Robinson proved that an aggregate level coefficient need not be equal in value to the corresponding individual level coefficient. Blending empirical examples with mathematical demonstration, Robinson showed that when the individual level correlation between being a native American and being able to read was computed for state level percentages of natives and literates, its value changed from .118 to -.526. Thus an investigator relying on correlations computed for the American states would not even correctly assess the direction of the relationship between nativity and literacy. Coining new jargon, Robinson used the term “ecological fallacy” to describe a naive inference from the group to the individual level of analysis.

The reverberations of Robinson’s work are still being felt by those interested in the past behavior of individuals. Historians without access to survey research and experimental techniques must rely on data that have already been collected. Because such data so often pertain to aggregate units, historians frequently must use cross-level inference to estimate the behavior of individuals. Having paid virtually no attention to the methodology of cross-level inference for almost twenty years after the publication of Robinson’s work, historians have suddenly discovered the “ecological fallacy.” Authors dread to see the term “ecological fallacy” scribbled in the margins of their work; to fall victim to this fallacy is to forfeit one’s claim to methodological legitimacy.

The historical study of imprisonment touches on various issues of a wider, theoretical significance. A major and ongoing discussion in social science concerns the nature of historical change. Authors writing from a structuralist or systems approach tend to emphasize rapid change followed by long periods of continuity. Opposed to this is a more developmental or longitudinal approach stressing long-term processes. Both approaches are represented in the historiography about imprisonment. They may be identified as modernization-oriented and process-oriented, respectively.

Several recent studies of the emergence of prisons in Europe and America dealt with the first half of the nineteenth century (see especially Rothman, 1971; Foucault, 1975; Ignatieff, 1978). These studies suggested that confinement was a relatively new phenomenon in that period.

Despite the emergence of social science history, the profession remains organized around the study of periods in the history of societies. Departments of history still structure their curricula mainly along national and temporal lines, and the same principle of socialization thereby defines most academic positions (Darnton, 1980). To judge by the sessions of the annual meetings of the Social Science History Association (SSHA), those sympathetic with that orientation focus on topics, approaches, and methodologies. Only one association network, that for the study of Asia, mentions a locale in its title, and none specifies a particular time period. This article will examine the findings and implications of social science history for one well-established national/period field, that of early American history.

The Rapid increase in public spending for white schools that occurred in North Carolina after the turn of the century led to a large racial disparity in the amount spent per child by 1910. Previous scholars have attributed this racial difference in school spending to the disfranchisement of the black voter (Margo, 1982). It was argued that once blacks were prevented from voting, the white members of the school boards were able to divert the public funds which were initially allocated for the education of black children. The most widely accepted version of this theory is credited to Horace Mann Bond (1934) who studied education expenditures for black children in Alabama. Bond argued that the governmental level at which schools were financed was important in determining the racial division of public school funds since the white members of the county school boards were particularly inclined to divert the funds allocated by the state government. The state funds which were allocated to the local school boards in Alabama were not required to be shared equally between black and white students. After blacks had been disfranchised, the county school boards responded by allocating a disproportionate share of these state funds for the education of white children.

A beta version of the machine-readable 1881 census of Canada is used to assess the efficacy of two proxy variables used to predict fertility: (1) the share of church seats held by various church denominations in an areal unit and (2) the proportion of children with biblical names. Weak evidence is found for both measures, although the article questions whether these relationships can be interpreted as evidence for the importance of religious liberalization as a factor in reducing fertility.

Studies of the institutional development of the presidency and popular leadership by presidents over time lead us to contrary expectations as to how a nineteenth-century president would react to a major political scandal. Scholarship on newspapers of the late 1800s is also unclear on how a quasipartisan media, with some outlets moving toward independence, would cover a White House scandal. I find that a close analysis of the case of President Ulysses S. Grant and the Whiskey Ring scandal forces us to reconsider what we assume to be firmly modern developments in both presidential studies and media history. Though a supposedly “premodern” president, Grant still mounted a concerted effort to mitigate the damage of the scandal. Further, although the president could get his version of events across in prominent newspapers, Republican newspaper coverage was hardly reliable. Newspapers also connected politicians’ character and psychology to mistakes made in office and made presidential strategies to shape public perception clear to their audiences—emphases on political gamesmanship considered hallmarks of the modern media environment.

This study focuses on Jewish refugee children who fled the Third Reich after the Kristallnacht in November 1938 either using the so-called Kindertransport (Children’s Transport) or by crossing the border illegally. Many parents, desperate after the Kristallnacht, sent their children abroad alone. About 1,800 arrived in the Netherlands. While for some the Netherlands was an intermediate stop, many stayed. We use a mixed-method approach with the aim of providing a better understanding of the survival rates of refugee children using information from several sources. The qualitative research provides illustrative individual experiences of child refugees and facilitates the formulation of hypotheses of settlement trajectories on risks of deportation and being killed, which are then tested using a quantitative approach. Gathering information into a database allows us to estimate the risk associated the living situation and place in the Netherlands. Among 863 Kindertransport children staying in the Netherlands in July 1942, 74 percent were deported and of those deported 81 percent were killed. Differences in settlement trajectories resulted in different risks of deportation and death. Children living with family or relatives had a higher risk of being deported than those living with foster parents or in institutions. Children living with foster parents had a similar risk of deportation to those living in institutions. Changing household type did not alter risk of deportation, while moving places increased this risk. Children deported from foster parents’ households had an increased risk of death after deportation compared to those deported from institutions, indicating an enduring effect of household type.

Research on immigrants and the eventual outcomes of immigration processes was at the very foundation of American sociology. But with the exception of a couple of studies on the Mexicans in the United States, such as Paul Taylor' (1932, 1934) monumental work on the life story of Mexican immigrant laborers in the Chicago and Calumet region during the late 1920s and early 1930s, Manuel Gamio' (1971 [1930], 1971 [1931]) anthropological studies of Mexican immigrants in the United States, and Edith Abbott' The Tenements of Chicago, 1908–1935 (1936), Latinos were remarkably absent from such studies. Instead, these studies focused on the European immigrant experience and the experience of black Americans as newcomers to America' cities. Scholarship on Latinos (much less by Latinos) simply did not put down roots as early as scholarship on Afro-Americans. Perhaps this was partly due to the smaller size of the population back then, coupled with its being largely immigrant—composed of people who thought they would one day return to where they came from.

In the decades before World War I, the United Kingdom was the pivot of a significant migratory phenomenon. While great swaths of the population were going abroad, multiple movements from the European continent (mainly from Germany, Italy, and Poland) were arriving on the British shores. To reappraise the impact of migration into the United Kingdom, this article focuses on Edinburgh in 1911, with the aim of moving beyond the initial movement of people and toward an analysis of the longer-term demographic trends. The main sources are the 1911 Census Enumerators’ Books, which are also the basis of the official census report and contain a plethora of information that were previously unavailable. Using a methodology that has been developed specifically for this study, the migrants’ households and their familiar links have been completely reconstructed. Moreover, the various communities have been examined in relation with all the other migrant groups, as well as with the local Scottish population. The resulting quantitative analysis paints a surprising picture of their impact, with significant differences between the various migrant groups, and highlights how the role played by the migrants in the development of the United Kingdom has been underestimated.

Party leaders and committee chairs are rarely studied side by side. This study takes a step toward resolving that shortcoming by using an approach developed by David Mayhew to content analyze 3,163 original leadership “actions” from the Washington Post to demonstrate how leadership is exercised in the US House before and after the 1970 reforms. Existing studies demonstrate a shift in the locus of power from committee chairs to party leaders. This study details that transformation by illustrating how these leaders operate and reveals a shift in the number and type of leadership maneuvers that capture the essence of the reforms. Mainly, committee chairs were more likely to lead by legislating and party leaders are shown to lead by taking stands. The results also provide comparative evidence that party leaders had a greater connection to the president than chairs.

For nearly two centuries the United States was a democracy that institutionalized in law inequality between racially defined segments of the population. This article shows that such racial closure was causally linked to the workings of a party system in which one party was organized as an interregional alliance for the principles and practices of white supremacy. It does so through a detailed analysis of three historical outcomes: (1) variation in the establishment of racial closure laws across the North during the antebellum period, (2) the elimination of racial closure laws in the North after the Civil War, and (3) the failed attempt in the postbellum South to overcome racial closure in voting. Throughout the analysis of these three outcomes, the article shows that the party model conforms to the empirical record better than three major alternatives that emphasize the causal power of public opinion (electorate model), elite bargaining and consensus (elite model), and the racial preferences of the white working class (class model).

One of Louise Tilly's most widely cited articles was “Women's Work and European Fertility Patterns” (1976), coauthored with Joan Scott and Miriam Cohen. The subject of the article was a major increase in female illegitimacy at the time of the Industrial Revolution, which Tilly regarded as an instance of female vulnerability caused by isolation and urban migration. Surveys of recent writings by American and British historians about this subject suggest the impact of contemporary attitudes toward female sexual autonomy. This literature offers a far more positive portrait of the causes and consequences of female illegitimacy than Tilly provided.

Conflicts resulting from the dual legitimacy problem of presidential systems (where the president and the legislature are elected by different majorities) sometimes result in legislative gridlock – a point made by those who criticize the alleged perils of presidentialism. The socialist government of Salvador Allende (1970–73), that ended with the breakdown of democracy, is often used as a poster child for legislative gridlock. With information on the 23,798 bills and 12,809 laws enacted in Chile between 1932 and 1973, we compare the passage of legislation in eight presidential terms and demonstrate that not to be the case. Legislative output showed an upward trend after the 1943 constitutional reform but was on a downward trend since the mid-1960s, before the 1970 constitutional reform restricted the scope of bills that legislators could introduce. Under Allende, while 1653 bills were introduced (438 of which were presidential bills), 642 laws were passed (38.8% and 68.2%, respectively) – compared to 53.8% and 39.9% for all presidents in the period, respectively. The evidence does not justify the claim that there was legislative gridlock under Allende. Instead, variations in legislative output across presidential terms in Chile can be explained by changes in the rules of the legislative process.

Over six decades ago, A. M. Carr-Sanders first identified the dramatic shift from a population regime of high mortality and high fertility before 1750 to one of low mortality and low fertility after 1900 (Carr-Sanders, 1925). Carr-Sanders had a simple explanation for these changes. Improved sanitation and advances in medicine had lowered mortality while an increase in the standard of living had triggered a temporary increase in fertility. As technological innovations reduced the economic utility of children, however, individuals responded by limiting their fertility.

In the Global North, mass warfare created a huge demand for social protection, pushing governments to provide income for invalids, war victims, and the survivors of fallen soldiers. Most European colonial powers, including France and Great Britain, recruited soldiers and other security forces not only from their metropoles but also from their colonies during both World Wars. However, the question of how mass warfare influenced social reforms in former colonies has not been systematically addressed, particularly with respect to how these influences varied across colonial powers. To begin to address this gap, this paper explores the warfare–welfare nexus in the context of British and French colonies of West Africa around World War I (WWI). The paper finds that, while Britain and France had similar overarching imperial and military objectives in West Africa of securing their colonies, enforcing order within them, and promoting commerce to increase profit, they went about achieving them very differently, with direct and indirect implications for social reforms after WWI. While only a first step, research on the distinct nature of the warfare–welfare nexus in colonial contexts is critical in order to historicize and close research gaps by widening and deepening our understanding of social policy trajectories in countries of the Global South.

With only a few exceptions, the historical study of individual-level correlates of child mortality in the United States has been limited to the period surrounding the turn of the twentieth century, when children ever born and children surviving data collected by the 1900 and 1910 censuses allow indirect estimation of child mortality. The recent release of linked census data, such as the IPUMS MLP datasets, allows a different type of indirect estimation over a longer period. By following couples across subsequent decennial censuses, it is possible to infer child mortality by measuring whether couples’ own children in the first census were still present in the second census. We focus our analysis on children aged 1–3 in the first of two linked censuses, who were less likely to be undercounted by the census than infants, and unlikely to be living apart from their parents in the second census. We estimate child mortality over the intervening decade and use OLS regression to correlate that mortality to the residence location and socioeconomic characteristics of their parents’ households. We limit our analysis to three panel datasets for married couples linked between the 1850–60, 1860–70, and 1870–80 censuses, when real estate and personal estate wealth data were collected. Our results indicate a significant negative relationship between wealth and child mortality across all regions of the United States and over the entire period examined.

This article asks a simple question that nevertheless has broad implications for historians of premodern continental Europe: What did notaries do? It answers it by applying descriptive statistics, principal component analysis, and clustering techniques to the typological distribution of all deeds preserved in the notarial collections of six French and Italian cities—Paris, Toulouse, Mende, Turin, Florence, and Livorno—for the year 1751, as well as smaller datasets for other dates and locations. The results of this analysis are surprising. In spite of a high degree of consistency in the notarial profession and terminology (a trait that facilitates our comparisons), the notarial style of each city varied greatly. Variations within a single state were sometimes greater than those across state borders. Both supply and demand of notarial services differed from city to city. Overall, our conclusions are as important as the methodology that we adopt to reach them. Our aim is to offer a replicable analysis that puts quantitative methods in the service not only of the study of a source (notarial records) that is widespread across late medieval and early modern continental Europe and its overseas empires but also of a renewed comparative social history that does not shy away from the heterogeneity of primary sources.

This article examines the growth of civil society in imperial Russia by focusing on voluntary associations, especially learned societies, closely watched by tsarist officialdom but neglected by historians. Although scholars often emphasize the peculiarities of Russian development, Russia's societies were part of a broader European phenomenon. A study of associations highlights the relationship between state and society in authoritarian regimes where civil society is most vigorously contested. Because authoritarian regimes close the channels of representative politics and make it difficult for their subjects to act freely in concert, associations demonstrate the potential for the self-organization of society. They cultivate the microspaces of initiative and autonomy not completely under state control where the capacity of citizenship can appear. This study conceptualizes the development of Russian civil society and the way in which the disenfranchised could enter public life by using the examples of six Russian learned societies. Owing to the mission of the learned societies, Russian civil society became inextricably linked to patriotism and the dissemination of scientific knowledge. Associations raised consciousness, accorded an opportunity for special-interest constituencies of men to enter the public arena, framed policy issues, and mobilized a public in the language of representation. Although civil society and the autocratic state are often described as bitter rivals, cooperation, not confrontation, in the project of national prestige and prosperity was more often the rule. However, an increasing public assertiveness challenged autocratic authority, as Russian officialdom was unwilling to relinquish its tutelary supervision of civil society. Thus, associations became a focal point of a contradictory political culture.

Political boundaries are the criterion scholars use most often to define American suburbs; a problematic approach when applied to the late nineteenth century. Annexation distended the boundaries of nineteenth-century cities so far as to obscure broad swaths of suburban and rural districts within their limits. The absence of a literature about these “suburbs in the city” is problematic, because it encourages historical researchers to consider newly annexed territory as urban equivalents of older city districts. This article argues that under the generally accepted definition of suburb, the condition of nineteenth-century urban overbounding obstructs a full appreciation of the historical breadth, ubiquity, and composition of working-class residence outside the urban core. Analysis of the socioeconomic characteristics of regions with suburban population densities within the 1880 city limits of Cleveland, Ohio; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Newark, New Jersey; and St. Louis, Missouri, indicate that researchers have underestimated the degree and diversity of blue-collar suburbanization during this period.