Personal Reflections on the 1982 Special Anthropometric Issue of Social Science History

2004 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 345-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley L. Engerman
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Human Growth ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Bureau ◽  
Science History ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
Christopher Lasch ◽  
Personal Reflections

Looking back at the more than 20 years that have gone by since the 1982 special issue of Social Science History, it is interesting to observe how important the study of anthropometric data has been in contributing to economic history and related disciplines.While there had been numerous earlier comments by contemporary observers as well as by scholars about heights and their implications as seen in JamesTanner's marvelous study, A History of the Study of Human Growth (1981), the systematic work that was reflected in the 1982 volume was then only about six or seven years old in the United States. It represented the early output of a study directed by Robert Fogel, primarily through the Development of the American Economy (DAE) project of the National Bureau of Economic Research.There had been a few previous publications including my own piece in Local Population Studies (Engerman 1976). My first use of the height-by-age data was in response to a dinnerparty conversation in 1974 with two ofmy colleagues in the Rochester history department:Herbert Gutman and Christopher Lasch.

Reflections on Local Population Studies and Social Science History

2018 ◽  
pp. 43-51
Author(s):  
Osamu Saito
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Population Studies ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Local Source ◽  
Personal Reflection ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Science History ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Source Materials

This personal reflection of more than 40 years' work on the supply of labour in a household context discusses the relationship between social science history (the application to historical phenomena of the tools developed by social scientists) and local population studies. The paper concludes that historians working on local source materials can give something new back to social scientists and social science historians, urging them to remake their tools.

Introduction: Forum on American Domestic Service

1991 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 363-365
Author(s):  
Joy K. Lintelman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Science ◽  
The United States ◽  
Domestic Service ◽  
Science History ◽  
Domestic Servants ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
New Information ◽  
Industrial Labor ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries

The articles on American domestic service that appear in this issue of Social Science History were part of a 1989 Social Science History Association Annual Meeting session. They reveal that, despite the investigations of Katzman (1978), Sutherland (1981), Dudden (1983), Glenn (1986), and others, there is still a great deal to know about domestic service in the United States. Each article offers a different perspective on transformations within domestic service in the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and provides new information about different demographic categories of domestic servants. Taken together, they suggest creative new ways of understanding the occupation and its relationship to race, ethnicity, gender, and the industrial labor market.

Migration and the Nation

2004 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Leslie Page Moch
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
Human Movement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Science History ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
International Perspectives ◽  
The Social ◽  
Global Movements

The theme of this year’s meeting, “International Perspectives on Social Science History,” rises out of two realities. The first is the recognized international character of phenomena under study, such as fertility decline, political contention, family strategies in response to changing conditions, gendered work, migration, labor, and policing. The second is the way in which the Social Science History Association (SSHA) operates across borders and among scholars in the Americas, Europe, and Asia to investigate common scholarly problems. The attention of migration scholars is now focused on global movements of people and international migrations, particularly immigration. The politics and policies of receiving newcomers are very important now–in the Americas and in Europe. The SSHA is giving its attention to the old and new international immigrants to the United States, as in last year’s session on Nancy Foner’s fine book on New York,From Ellis Island to JFK(2000), and the presidential address by Caroline Brettell (2002) on the quantitative and qualitative methods by which we can understand human movement.

Social Anthropology and Social Science History

2009 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
David I. Kertzer
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Cultural Anthropology ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Anthropology ◽  
Science History ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
The Social ◽  
Clifford Geertz ◽  
Simultaneous Movement

In the 1970s, when the social science history movement emerged in the United States, leading to the founding of the Social Science History Association, a simultaneous movement arose in which historians looked to cultural anthropology for inspiration. Although both movements involved historians turning to social sciences for theory and method, they reflected very different views of the nature of the historical enterprise. Cultural anthropology, most notably as preached by Clifford Geertz, became a means by which historians could find a theoretical basis in the social sciences for rejecting a scientific paradigm. This article examines this development while also exploring the complex ways cultural anthropology has embraced—and shunned—history in recent years.

Theory, Method, and Social Reproduction in Social Science History: A Short Jeremiad

1999 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 491-499
Author(s):  
Charles Wetherell
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Formal Methods ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Theory Method ◽  
Next Generation ◽  
Science History ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
Collective Enterprise

Let me begin with a simple theme, repentance, and a simple message: repent from complacency in the practice and defense of social science history (SSH). I say this because I do not see social science historians meeting three major challenges that must be overcome if the larger, collective enterprise is to survive with the same vitality it had a decade ago. Those challenges are, first, to bring social theory forcefully back into historical research; second, to take formal methods to a new, higher level; and, third, to seek to train the next generation of social science historians in the theory and methods they will need in the next century.

Life Cycles in Social Science History

1999 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 481-489
Author(s):  
Andrew Abbott
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Life Cycles ◽  
Science History ◽  
The Past ◽  
Social Science History ◽  
The Social ◽  
Definition Of

When one is asked to speak on the past, present, and future of social science history, one is less overwhelmed by the size of the task than confused by its indexicality. Whose definition of social science history? Which past? Or, put another way, whose past? Indeed, which and whose present? Moreover, should the task be taken as one of description, prescription, or analysis? Many of us might agree on, say, a descriptive analysis of the past of the Social Science History Association. But about the past of social science history as a general rather than purely associational phenomenon, we might differ considerably. The problem of description versus prescription only increases this obscurity.

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