The transmission of two new scientific disciplines from Europe to North America in the late nineteenth century

1977 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 287-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
R.G.A. Dolby
2017 ◽  
Vol 86 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hillary Kaell

A century ago, the mite box (penny collection box) was ubiquitous in North America as a religious fundraising tool, especially for women and children. Using the Methodist Woman's Foreign Missionary Society as a case study, I ask what these boxes reveal about the intersection of gender, consumerism, and capitalism from circa 1870–1930. By cutting across traditional Weberian and Marxist analyses, the discussion engages a more complex understanding of religion and capital that includes emotional attachments and material sensations. In particular, I argue that mite boxes clarify how systematic giving was institutionalized through practices that created an imaginative bridge between the immediacy of a sensory experience and the projections of social policies and prayers. They also demonstrate how objects became physical points of connection that materialized relationships that were meant to be present, but were not tangible. Last, they demonstrate the continued salience of older Christian ideas about blessings and sacrifice, even in an era normally associated with the secularization of market capitalism and philanthropy.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 28-41
Author(s):  
Laurie K. Bertram

This article explores the history of vínarterta, a striped fruit torte imported by Icelandic immigrants to North America in the late nineteenth century and obsessively preserved by their descendants today. When roughly 20–25 percent of the population of Iceland relocated to North America between 1870 and 1914, they brought with them a host of culinary traditions, the most popular and enduring of which is this labor-intensive, spiced, layered dessert. Considered an essential fixture at any important gathering, including weddings, holidays, and funerals, vínarterta looms large in Icelandic–North American popular culture. Family recipes are often closely guarded, and any alterations to the “correct recipe,” including number of layers, inclusion or exclusion of cardamom or frosting, and the use of almond extract, are still hotly debated by community members who see changes to “original” recipes as a controversial, even offensive sign of cultural degeneration. In spite of this dedication to authenticity, this torte is an unusual ethnic symbol with a complex past. The first recipes for “Vienna torte” were Danish imports via Austria, originally popular with the Icelandic immigrant generation in the late nineteenth century because of their glamorous connections to continental Europe. Moreover, the dessert fell out of fashion in Iceland roughly at the same time as it ascended as an ethnic symbol in wartime and postwar North American heritage spectacles. Proceeding from recipe books, oral history interviews, memoirs, and Icelandic and English language newspapers, this article examines the complex history of this particular dessert.


1970 ◽  
pp. 21
Author(s):  
Anders Ekström

Different types of statistical representations were among the most prolific visual media in late nineteenth century museums and temporary exhibitions. From the 1890s to the 1930s, several ”social” or ”statistical museums” were founded in Europe and North America, the most famously of which were established by the sociologist Patric Geddes in Glasgow, and by the philosopher Otto Neurath in Vienna. The first part of this paper gives a survey of the development of graphic representations in the nineteenth century, with particular emphasis on the visual pedagogics involved in statistical display. The second part of the paper is dedicated to two statistical displays developed by the Swedish architect Ferdinand Boberg at exhibitions in Helsingborg in 1903 and Stockholm in 1909. In particular, the analysis is focused on the ways in which Boberg’s ”machinery of statistics” – a series of moving, figurative and three-dimensional representations of statistics – related to other media presented at the exhibitions, and to the ways in which the audience was invited to interact with the displays. In the conclusion, the development and use of statistical media in early twentieth century museums are discussed in relation to an intermedial discourse on visual realism and the utopian idea of a universal visual language. 


Author(s):  
Gregory P. A. Levine

Chapter One describes the uncertain beginnings of Zen and Zen art within modern intercultural encounters between Japan and Europe and North America. The representations and perceptions of Zen in the West arising from initial contacts in the sixteenth century and thereafter from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth were not uniform with what we discover from the 1920s and 1930s onward, and certainly not identical to those of the postwar Zen boom. As a genealogical sketch, this history of Zen art before “Zen art,” suggests a sensibility of ambivalence or nascent interest during the mid-to-late nineteenth century leading to one of infatuation in the early twentieth, at which time there emerged a range of geo-political conditions and a group of active Zen campaigners promoting the formation of a specifically differentiated and instrumentalized Zen and Zen art.


1973 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ged Martin

The movement for imperial federation has traditionally been regarded as a late nineteenth century phenomenon, which grew out of a supposed reaction against earlier ‘anti-imperialism’. J. E. Tyler set out to trace its growth ‘from its first beginnings… in and around 1868’. Historians were aware of the suggestions made before the American War of Independence that the colonies should send M.P.s to Westminster, but tended to dismiss them as of antiquarian rather than historical interest. A few also noted apparently isolated discussions of some Empire federal connexion in the first half of the nineteenth century, but no attempt was made to establish the existence of a continuous sentiment before 1870. C. A. Bodelsen did no more than list a series of examples he had discovered in the supposed age of anti-imperialism. In fact between 1820 and 1870 a debate about the federal nature of the Empire can be traced. Like the movement for imperial federation after 1870, there was only the vaguest unity of aim about the mid-century projects, and before 1870, as after, the idea was never consistently to the fore, but enjoyed short bursts of popularity. It is, however, fair to think of one single movement for a federal Empire throughout the nineteenth century. There is a clear continuity in ideas, in arguments, and in the people involved. Ideas of Empire federalism were influential, not so much for themselves as for their relationship to overall imperial thinking: to ignore the undercurrent of feeling for a united Empire is to distort the attitudes of many leading men. In the mid-nineteenth century general principles of imperial parliamentary union were argued chiefly from the particular case of British North America, the closest colonies to Britain and the most constitutionally advanced. This Canadian emphasis strengthened the analogies with the United States which occurred in any case.


This chapter describes the opportunity Liverpool gave to people wishing to travel across the Atlantic in order to achieve a better life in North America. It charts Liverpool’s success in maintaining a dominant position as the main transatlantic and emigrant transhipment port from the early nineteenth century until the late nineteenth century, when ports with greater geographical advantages such as Southampton, Naples and Bremerhaven began to supersede Liverpool as the busiest emigrant ports in Europe. The article acknowledges the lack of sufficient official records on Liverpool’s emigration history, including passenger lists, but details the existing records, lists and images provided by the Merseyside Maritime Museum, which concern specific ships, sailing dates and the conditions of a journey. The chapter concludes with a detailed list of further resources regarding the emigration experience, including passenger diary extracts, surviving lists, advertisements and newspaper clippings.


Author(s):  
Nancy Yunhwa Rao

This chapter shifts our focus to the thriving community of Cantonese opera theaters in Canada, from as early as the late nineteenth century. Despite anti-Chinese initiatives growing toward the end of the century, Chinese opera performers were admitted into Canada with regularity, and Chinese theaters continued to find success. Beginning with the troupes, popular performers and theaters of the 1910s, the chapter traces the trajectories of their performing circuit and theaters into the 1920s. In particular, the 1921 opening of Le Wannian theater in Vancouver marked the beginning of a new era, whose performers, such as Guan Yinglian, had an enormous impact on the community. Finally, the Victoria/Vancouver-based Lun On company led Cantonese opera troupe to return to United States, which in turn commenced the golden era of Cantonese opera in North America. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the significance of Triangle Route between Victoria, Vancouver and Seattle.


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