The Earnings of Skilled and Unskilled Immigrants at the End of the Nineteenth Century

Most historical studies of immigration in nineteenth-century America have failed to distinguish among the labor-market experiences of different immigrant groups. Using a sample of some 4000 wage earners from turn-of-the-century Iowa, we examine the relative earnings of skilled and unskilled immigrants and suggest the factors which contributed to their very different post-immigration experiences. The results indicate that prior knowledge of a trade conferred upon immigrants an initial earnings advantage, but that unskilled immigrants managed subsequently to close some but not all of the gap by reaping greater returns to experience on the job.

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Infidel Deathbeds: Irreligious Dying and Sincere Disbelief in Nineteenth-Century America

Church History ◽

10.1017/s0009640717000579 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 86 (2) ◽

pp. 427-457 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Bradley Kime

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Turn Of The Century ◽

Nineteenth Century America ◽

The Social ◽

American Society

This article inquires into the piecemeal, provisional de-marginalization of American irreligion and analyzes the social stakes and strategies of dis/belief's invocation during the long nineteenth century. It does so by considering the era's corpus of American deathbed narratives. It argues that late-century irreligionists mimed and subverted the deathbed strategies of their Christian detractors to convince a skeptical American audience to concede the contested sincerity of their disbelief. For much of the nineteenth century, Christian-produced infidel deathbed narratives mapped the mixture and multiplicity of inner irreligion and interrogated the sincerity of disbelief. In response, irreligionists—initially ambivalent about the interpretability of the deathbed—eventually came to invest it with as much power to prove sincerity as had American Christians. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, irreligionists developed a nationwide network of irreligious dying and selectively, strategically deployed the deathbed's accrued power to prove the uniform sincerity of their disbelief. By the turn of the century, they had largely neutralized the derisive force of the infidel deathbed genre, leaving disbelief a partially, provisionally less marginal and less multiplex marker in American society, and re-tethering themselves to their Christian detractors in the process.

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Portraying the Dead

OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying ◽

10.2190/hl4a-6vd6-pv42-lrwf ◽

1989 ◽

Vol 19 (1) ◽

pp. 1-20 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Jay Ruby

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Turn Of The Century ◽

The Body ◽

Place Of Death ◽

Post Mortem ◽

Nineteenth Century America ◽

The Dead ◽

As If ◽

Mourning Process

This article explores the custom of post-mortem photography. In nineteenth century America, this was a socially acceptable, publicly acknowledged form of photography. Professional photographers accepted commissions, advertised the service, and held professional discussions in their journals about the practice. The images were publicly displayed in wall frames and albums. Initially, death pictures were portraits which attempted to deny death by displaying the body as if asleep, or even conscious. By the turn-of-the-century, the deceased were displayed in a casket with an increasing emphasis upon the funeral. Today, families make their own photos; circulating them in a private manner so that many people assume that the custom has been abandoned. Counselors working with the parents of children who have died provide evidence that these images can be useful in the mourning process. The findings of this study suggest that a more thorough examination of the place of death-related photographs in the management of grief would be of value.

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OS SERTÕES ONSCREEN IN PAULO GIL SOARES’S O HOMEM DE COURO (1969/70)

Oficina do Historiador ◽

10.15448/2178-3748.2021.1.39582 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 14 (1) ◽

pp. e39582

Author(s):

Victoria Broadus

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Labor Market ◽

Social Order ◽

Documentary Film ◽

Turn Of The Century ◽

Military Dictatorship ◽

The Past ◽

New Perspective ◽

Os Sertoes ◽

The 1960S

This article examines filmmaker Paulo Gil Soares’s early work with a particular focus on the documentary O Homem de Couro (1969/70), in the context of Brazil’s military dictatorship (1964-85), the documentary-film initiative known as the “Farkas Caravan,” and 1960s-era Brazilian documentary more broadly. I argue that Soares’s O Homem de Couro represents an audiovisual renewal and revision of Euclides da Cunha’s portrayal of the northeastern vaqueiro in Os Sertões (1902). In the film, Soares’s depiction of the vaqueiro served as both a tribute to these national folk heroes and a reminder to viewers that da Cunha’s scathing turn-of-the-century portrait of the northeastern social order should not be considered a relic of the past. Timeless northeastern verses drive the narrative, reinforcing that message. In this way, Soares made a film that was both beautiful and denunciatory without resorting to pedagogical voiceovers or orthodox dogma. He meanwhile updated key elements of Os Sertões for the 1960s and ‘70s. Soares offered subjectivity that was lacking in da Cunha’s account, discrediting da Cunha’s nineteenth-century biological and geographical determinism. He also documented inauspicious shifts in this labor market that threatened the vaqueiro’s future. In the early 1970s, Soares would go on to found the influential documentary-journalism program Globo Repórter. By focusing on his work with the Farkas Caravan, this article contributes a new perspective on a key but previously overlooked element in the formation of the Brazilian school of documentary film and journalism, and on the enduring legacies of da Cunha’s work.

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