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.

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.

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.

Between 1910 and 1940 the Angel Island Immigration Station was the primary port of entry for Asians into the United States, the place of enforcement of the Chinese Exclusion Act and other anti-Asian immigration policies. Even in the absence of substantiating data, it is frequently asserted that almost all entering Chinese were detained at Angel Island and that they were detained for weeks, months, even years. This article presents the first empirical evidence on how long people arriving at San Francisco were detained at the Angel Island Immigration Station. The use of newly discovered data on passengers of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company (PMSS) for the period 1913-19 adds an empirical basis to our understanding of how immigration laws were administered in classifying and detaining aliens seeking to enter the United States, which arrivals were detained at Angel Island, and for how long. Results show that many Chinese were not detained at all; there was great variation in length of detention for Chinese who were detained; only some of this variation can be explained by the type of “exempt” status claimed for admission under the Chinese exclusion laws; Japanese arrivals had an even higher incidence of detention; and many detainees were either non-Asian, had come on ships from Central or South America, or were not “immigrants” at all.

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.

During the past two decades, there has been an outpouring of research on the seaboard mortality associated with intercontinental migration during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. The focus of historical interest in this linkage between mortality and migration has been the Atlantic slave trade. We now have mortality rates on voyages from various regions in Africa to various destinations in the Americas, from the late seventeenth century to the mid-nineteenth century (see Curtin, 1968, 1969: 275-286; Klein and Engerman, 1976, 1979; Klein, 1978; Postma, 1979; Miller, 1981; Cohn and Jensen, 1982a, 1982b; Cohn, 1985; Eltis, 1984, 1987; Steckel and Jensen, 1986; Galenson, 1986). These slave studies have spawned renewed interest in the mortality associated with other seaborne populations, and mortality rates have been calculated on Dutch immigrant voyages to the East Indies during the eighteenth century, European convict and immigrant voyages to North America and European immigrant voyages to Australia during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and Indian and Pacific Islander indentured labor voyages to Fiji and Queensland, Australia, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (see Riley, 1981; Eltis, 1983; Cohn, 1984, 1985, 1987, 1988; Grubb, 1987; Ekirch, 1987; Morgan, 1985; Shlomowitz, 1986, 1987, 1989; McDonald and Shlomowitz, 1988, forthcoming).

In the years before professional image-building, few political groups managed to acquire a more enviable image than did the Republican insurgents of the Taft period. The Congressional insurgents, who first caught the country’s attention with the fight against the Payne-Aidrich tariff in the Senate and against the dictatorial rule of Speaker Joseph Cannon in the House, compensated for their failure to win control of their party by winning extravagant praise from contemporary journalists. They have had scarcely less appeal for historians. Thomas Dreier entitled his 1910 study of the rebellious Republicans, Heroes of Insurgency, and later writers have followed his spirit, and very nearly his terminology. In 1940, Kenneth W. Hechler provided a highly favorable portrait in Insurgency, and Russel Nye’s Midwestern Progressive Politics (1951) offered a sympathetic portrayal in the 1950s. Only in the most recent study, James L. Holt’s Congressional Insurgents and the Party System (1967), is there any critical discussion of the limitations of the insurgents’ ideas and political strategies.

Once a shining light among specialties pursued under the influence of the “new” social history, urban history, after falling out of favor in recent years, is attempting a return to prominence. Having witnessed the departure from the field of prominent contributors, including Richard Sennett and Theodore Hershberg, and noting a decline in enrollment as well as participation in scholarly conferences, a group of historians has formed a new American Urban History Association, with the purpose, as Kenneth Jackson put it in his call to membership, of stimulating “interest in the study of the city in history, both in the United States and around the world.” This effort is but one part of the urban history revival. Following the demise of urban history series at Oxford University and Kennikat presses in the 1970s, new series have recently emerged, at Ohio State, Columbia, and Temple universities. A major conference to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Arthur Schlesinger, Sr.’s (1940) groundbreaking article on urban history is slated for Chicago in 1990. These events notwithstanding, urban historians have much to do to reassert their rightful place among other specialists in American history.

This article examines the choice of draft animal in Southern agriculture in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century and shows that the preference for the mule over the horse reflected the South’s geography. The mule was well suited to the crops that dominated the region. The long, hot summers favored the heat-tolerant mule. The region’s geography made it difficult to produce good pastures and encouraged mule breeding to locate at considerable distances from Southern farms. The consequent variation in the price of mules relative to the price of horses across the South shaped the choice of work stock. Also important were the forms of labor organization on Southern farms. This research shows that the choice of the mule over the horse represented an important and progressive step for Southern agriculture.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

Using data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS), this analysis examines the economic activity of black and white southern-born female migrants participating in the Great Migration. Labor force participation and occupational SEI scores are investigated with specific focus on racial differences within and between migrant groups. Black migrants had a higher probability of participating in the labor force, yet their employment was concentrated among the lower SEI occupations throughout the period. Racial differences also were observed among the influence of personal, household, and location characteristics on economic activity such that the positive associations were less pronounced, while the negative impacts were differentially felt among black migrant women; education was less beneficial, and the deterring effects of marital status were less pronounced for black migrants. Racial differences narrowed at the end of the Great Migration for the southern migrants, reflecting a pattern most similar to nonmigrant northerners and more advantageous than that observed for nonmigrant southern women.

Many scholars have noted the theoretical importance of remarriage in twentieth-century American life (Burch 1995; Cherlin 1998; Furstenberg 1980; Glick 1980; Thornton 1977; Uhlenberg and Chew 1986), yet few historical studies have examined remarriage in the United States empirically. This gap in the literature is noteworthy for two reasons. First, the turn of the twentieth century seems to have marked a crossover in the remarriage transition of the United States, reflecting changes in the pool of persons eligible to remarry. This transition was characterized by decreases in remarriage resulting from declines inmortality and probability of widow(er)hood, followed by increases in remarriage resulting from higher divorce rates. The crossover in the transition was likely to have occurred when the pool of eligibles was at or near its nadir. Second, there is ongoing debate about the implications of remarriage for families and individuals (Booth and Dunn 1994), and about the impacts of remarriage on family functions (Cherlin 1978; Cherlin and Furstenberg 1994). In the light of these considerations, we believe it is important to examine remarriage and its consequences in the United States at the turn of the century so that we may better understand the ways that remarriage influences family life and shapes the life course of persons within families (see London and Elman 2001).

For most of the nineteenth century, French people associated hospitals with death and destitution. These institutions served as places where the poor went to die, not to be cured. As a result, hospitals (including maternity hospitals) were shelters of last resort for the poorest classes of society. Anyone who could avoid going to one of these institutions would shun them, at all possible costs. During the last decades of the nineteenth century, however, with the development of anesthesia and with the implementation of antiseptic and sterilization procedures, hospitals became safer places.