Introduction

Author(s):  
Michael K. Rosenow

This book examines the rituals of dying and the politics of death among the working class during the period 1865–1920. It considers how wageworkers and their families experienced death in the United States between the Civil War and the end of World War I by focusing on John Henry—one of the hundreds of thousands of workers who died in service to industrialization—and the lack of surviving accounts about what happened to his dead body. The book draws on case studies to investigate how workers used the rituals of death to interpret, accommodate, and resist their living and working conditions; the ways social class shaped Americans' attitudes toward death; and the social and cultural contexts that shaped interpretations of workers' deaths resulting from work accidents. The book shows how rituals of death reflected the ways that working communities articulated beliefs about family, community, and class and negotiated social relationships—how common people interpreted their roles in the industrial republic.

Author(s):  
Catherine Robson

This chapter resurrects “The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna.” Charles Wolfe's poem, a reimagining of the hasty interment of a fallen general after one of the land battles in the Napoleonic wars, was repeatedly quoted by soldiers and other individuals during the American Civil War when they found themselves having to organize, or witness, the burials of dead comrades. In recent years, cultural historians of Great Britain have tried to account for the massive shift in burial and memorial practices for the common soldier that occurred between 1815 and 1915. The chapter argues that the presence of Wolfe's poem in the hearts and minds of ordinary people played its part in creating the social expectations that led to the establishment of the National Cemeteries in the United States, and thus, in due course, the mass memorialization of World War I.


1979 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elaine Glovka Spencer

The rise of heavy industry and its managerial elite in the German Empire and in the United States provides stimuhting parallels and contrasts. Professor Spencer discusses the social constraints under which a professional management class developed in the German coal, iron, and steel industry during the generation before World War I. Ranking distinctly below the landed aristocracy and the governmental bureaucracy (both of which they would gladly have emulated), and preoccupied with the maintenance of order in the midst of rapid economic and social change, German managers used their power and influence to sustain and manipulate existing systems of authority, and came to play no broader role in the development of their commonwealth than did their American counterparts.


2008 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 211-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID KHOUDOUR-CASTÉRAS

The rapid decline of German emigration before World War I constitutes a puzzle that traditional explanations have difficulty in solving. The article shows that the social legislation implemented by Bismarck during the 1880s—the most developed at the time—played a key role in this process. Indeed, candidates for migration considered not only the gap between “direct wages” (labor earnings) in the United States and Germany, but also the differential in “indirect wages,” that is, social benefits. In that way, Bismarck's insurance system partly offset low wage rates in Germany and furthered the fall of the emigration rate.O sprecht! warum zogt ihr von dannen?Das Neckartal hat Wein und Korn;Der Schwarzwald steht voll finstrer Tannen,Im Spessart klingt des Ålplers Horn.Wie wird es in den fremden WäldernEuch nach der Heimatberge Grün,Nach Deutschlands gelben Weizenfeldern,Nach seinen Rebenhügeln ziehn!Ferdinand Freiligrath1


Author(s):  
Catherine Robson

Abstract This article addresses the rubric of "memory and materiality" by considering how works of literature held within individual minds might have contributed to material changes in the world at large. For a good proportion of both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the most important relationship between literature and millions of English-speaking people was created by one particular pedagogical regimen: the memorization and recitation of short poetic pieces. I take as my test case a single work from the schoolroom canon—Charles Wolfe's 1817 poem, "The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna"—and examine the various ways in which lines and phrases from these verses were explicitly or implicitly cited by people caught up in the bloody turmoil of the American Civil War, the conflict which first witnessed the widespread development of state-sponsored practices to commemorate the corpses of common soldiers. I argue here that the presence of Wolfe's poem in the minds of ordinary individuals played its part in creating the social expectations that led to the establishment of the National Cemeteries in the United States, and thus, in due course, the mass memorialization of World War I.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soumyajit Mazumder

When do groups on the social periphery assimilate into the social core of a nation? Building on a diverse set of literatures, I argue that individual participation in military service creates a number of conditions that drive individuals to assimilate into a broader national culture. To test the theory, I focus on the case of World War I in the United States–a period that closely followed a massive wave of immigration into the United States. Using an instrumental variables strategy leveraging the exogenous timing of the war, I show that individuals of foreign, European nativity–especially, the Italians and Eastern Europeans–were more likely to assimilate into American society after serving in the U.S. military. The theory and results contribute to our understanding of the ways in which states make identity and the prospects for immigrant assimilation in an age without mass warfare.


1981 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 165
Author(s):  
Arthur S. Link ◽  
Paul L. Murphy

2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Rynkiewich

Abstract There was a time when mission studies benefitted from a symbiotic relationship with the social sciences. However, it appears that relationship has stagnated and now is waning. The argument is made here, in the case of cultural anthropology both in Europe and the United States, that a once mutually beneficial though sometimes strained relationship has suffered a parting of the ways in recent decades. First, the article reviews the relationships between missionaries and anthropologists before World War II when it was possible to be a ‘missionary anthropologist’ with a foot in both disciplines. In that period, the conversation went two ways with missionary anthropologists making important contributions to anthropology. Then, the article reviews some aspects of the development of the two disciplines after World War II when increasing professionalism in both disciplines and a postmodern turn in anthropology took the disciplines in different directions. Finally, the article asks whether or not the conversation, and thus the cross-fertilization, can be restarted, especially since the youngest generation of anthropologists has recognized the reality of local Christianities in their fields of study.


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