history

We owe the term “sociological imagination” to C. Wright Mills, a fundamental figure in sociology. He defined it as the intersection of history and biography. In his book by the same name, he writes:

The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society

I couldn’t help but think of Mills’ words when I came across this video at Crooked Timber.  In it, French children are asked to interpret technologies that, though just a few years out of date, pre-date their biography. While their guesses are creative and humorous, they also neatly demonstrate that, no matter how unique we are, we are also products of our time.

UPDATE: Unfortunately the version of this video that had English subtitles has been made private and we haven’t been able to find another version. Here’s a version without any subtitles:

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Tipped off by Dmitriy T.M., I enjoyed a Slate slideshow depicting and contextualizing the shrinking of the middle class and the growing advantage of the very top earners in the U.S. over time.  We’ve highlighted this slideshow before, but I thought this image deserved its own post.  Drawing on data from 1948 to 2005, put together by Larry Bartels, Slate shows that all income brackets prosper under both Democratic and Republican leadership, despite the idea that Republicans are fiscally responsible and Democrats irresponsible.  Under Democrats, however, nearly everyone is much more prosperous.  The highest income brackets are, given the margin of error, equally prosperous and all other brackets are significantly more so.

The figure reminds us that stereotypes about Republicans and Democrats don’t reflect reality and economic prosperity isn’t a zero sum game.

More slides at Slate.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Many Americans are familiar with “female genital mutilation.”  The term is typically applied to practices occurring in some parts of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, but not to genital cutting practices that happen in the U.S. and other Western societies (including cosmetic surgeries on the genitals, surgeries on children with ambiguous genitalia, and transsexual surgery) and, by definition, not to genital cutting practices that happen to men in both Western and non-Western countries (male circumcision and other rare but more extreme practices).  “Female genital mutilation” elsewhere, then, is widely condemned by Americans, but rarely condemned in light of these other genital cutting practices, nor America’s own history of genital cutting.  In fact, it was not unusual to subject women in the U.S. to proper circumcision (removal of the clitoral prepuce, or foreskin) until the 1960s and these procedures remained legal until 1996 (though, as far as I’m concerned, their legality is still up in the air).

In any case, RabbitWrite gives us a glimpse into this era in American history. Reading from a Playgirl published in 1973, she recounts the confessions of a woman who chose to be circumcised and offers a short critique.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Nils G. drew my attention to a fascinating now-abandoned America educational practice that nicely illustrates how ideas about ideal parenting shift over time.  Between 1919 and 1969, the Home Economics departments of about 50 colleges and universities served as foster homes for orphans. Writes Emily Anthes at Wonderland:

During this time, homemaking… was considered to be something that could be conquered by science. Running a home based on instinct was considered to be woefully old-fashioned; the idea that raising a child and maintaining a home could be optimized by following a set of scientific rules was gaining currency.

Accordingly, getting a degree in Home Economics included a labratory set up exactly like a home: “practice apartments.”  And what better to fill these homes with than “practice babies!”  Students would practice applying the latest science-endorsed parenting techniques on orphans.  An article published in the Journal of Home Economics in 1920, by Elizabeth Vermilye, explained the rotation of care:

Each girl, in rotation, carried the work of “baby manager” for one week… The “baby manager” assumed the entire responsibility for the care of the child during her period. She herself did the actual work of caring for him between the hours of 6.00 to 8.00 a.m. and from 4.30 to 6.00 p.m. During the day the child was in the care of three or four other students during the time they were not in class, the manager making the program for this care, giving instructions regarding food and other matters needing attention. The baby manager did the baby’s laundry work.

A student taking care of a practice baby:

Far from being exploited, it was believed that these babies would get not just excellent, attentive care, but the best, most scientifically-valid care.  Vermilye claims that the examining physician was highly impressed with the children’s development during their stay with the students.  She quotes him saying, “The improvement in the condition of these children speaks highly for your cooperative motherhood.”

These pictures of orphan and practice baby Bobby Domecon (surnamed after his role in the Domestic Economics department) reveal his chubbification.

A skinny 6 pounds at 2 months old:

Perking up at age 10 months:

Nice and chubby 5 months later:

Because these children were believed to be benefiting from the latest science of parenting, they were highly adoptable; many couples were eager to get their hands on a child that had such a good start in life (source).

Eventually, however, ideas about mothering began to change.  In particular, scholars began to talk about Attachment Disorder and argue that a child’s development required that it strongly bond to one unique person.  In 1954, a short Time magazine article on the subject included experts suggesting that the program was harmful.  Starting with the Superintendent of the Illinois State Child Welfare Division, the author writes:

“It is not a normal family setting,” said he. “There are just too many persons involved in the handling of that child.”  Heaven only knows, added the superintendent, how many neuroses little David might develop. Other officials seemed to agree. “Imagine.” cried Mrs. Babette Penner, director of the Women’s Services Division of United Charities, “what anxieties there are in a child who is given a bottle in twelve or more pairs of arms.”

The scientific consensus eventually changed and, as a result, by 1969, then, “practice babies” were a thing of the past.

In this video from ABC Doris Mitchell, Cornell University graduate and Home Economics major, sweetly remembers her experience helping raise a practice baby at Cornell University:

For another fantastic example of historic management of children without parents, see our post on the Orphan Trains.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

A while back Kale let us know that the New York Public Library had made their images collection available online.The collection has images on a huge array of topics, from fashion to the military to slavery to insects to a whole category for stilts, and including political cartoons, illustrations from publications, photographs, and so on.

Kale found the collection particularly interesting as a way to look at historical racism and rhetoric about race relations in publications aimed at White readers. This 1875 cartoon, titled “A Privilege?”, presents segregation as actually protecting African Americans from the scourge of alcohol:

Text:

A PRIVILEGE?

Wife, “I wish you were not allowed in here.”

It’s a fascinating example of the use of institutionalized racial inequalities that hurt African Americans to, instead, garner sympathy for White women and children and present African Americans as, really, better off.

Another, published in Life in 1899, implies African American men are burdens on their families, making their wives take on the role of providing for everyone:

Text:

Parson Featherly: De Lawd hab took yo’ husban’ an’ lef’ yo’ wid six chilluns; but ‘membah, Sistah, dat dar’s some good in all de Lawd does.

“I does, Parson. I realizes dat dar’s one less for me to perwide foh.”

This 1860 cartoon from Harper’s Weekly shows an African American woman (presumably a slave) in the South using the “Bobolitionists” — that is, abolitionists, who wanted to outlaw slavery — as a threat, a type of monster that will come steal him if he’s not good:

Text:

“Now den Julius! If yer ain’t a good litte nigger, mudder’l call de big old Bobolitionist and let um run away wid yer.”

I’m sure it must have been very comforting to some readers to think of slaves viewing abolitionists as threats rather than potential allies.

Other cartoons mock African Americans’ physical attributes, marking them as laughable or even grotesque:

Text:

“Would de gemman in front oblige by removing de hat?”

“Would de same gemman oblige by puttin’ de hat on agin?”

(Details.)

Text:

“Now we’ll see ef dat sawed off Peterson man kin escape de issue dis time.”

(Details.)

There are also examples that criticized U.S. race relations, such as this 1848 cartoon from Punch [Note: a reader thinks this might be about France, which banned slavery in 1848, but the NYPL has it listed as relevant to U.S. slavery, so there may be so lost context here]:

Enjoy!

[Note: A commenter has expressed concern that I ended this post with “Enjoy!” I apologize for my insensitivity. I meant it in terms of “Enjoy browsing this fascinating archive,” of which racist imagery is only a small part, not, I hope it would be clear, “Enjoy looking at racist cartoons!” I wasn’t thinking about how it might appear immediately after those set of images, and I should have been more careful.]

Iconic Photos documents at least two instances in which the U.S. postal service rewrote history, so to speak, taking smoking out of the stamp:

Pollack and Johnson are important figures in American history, who smoked before it carried the stigma it carries today, and whose smoking represents the time and culture that inspired their genius.  How do you balance the desire to be historically accurate and true to the individual, with the desire to avoid endorsing a habit newly framed as a social problem?

Via BoingBoing.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

FiveThirtyEight has up a post about attitudes toward gun ownership in the U.S. Drawing on General Social Survey data, they show actual ownership of guns has gone down over time; less than 40% of American households now report having one:

You might expect that, as fewer Americans own guns themselves, support for the right to own personal firearms might decrease, as fewer people might feel a strong personal interest in the issue and restricting or banning access to guns wouldn’t, presumably, affect them directly or bring up an emotional image of agents storming into their homes.  Yet we don’t see this at all. In fact, Gallup poll data indicate that support for banning handguns has decreased over time as well, with fewer than one third of Americans supporting such a policy:

Silver suggests that changes in political rhetoric, particularly more vocal and unequivocal support for gun rights by the Republicans and less emphasis on banning guns by Democrats, may explain some of this change. I’m sure that’s part of it; but that leaves unanswered why the political rhetoric changed, particularly after 1992 (when, as Silver demonstrates, the Republican Party platform became more pro-gun/anti-restriction, while the Democrats made sure to start stressing their overall support for some basic right to gun ownership by individuals, though still pushing for some regulations). And aside from that, the biggest drop in support for banning handguns came during the ’60s and ’70s, before the change in party rhetoric, so what do we make of that?

Also see our post on concealed weapon laws, increases in gun sale background checks, and changing images of guns in pop culture.

Emory University has a very detailed database about the Atlantic slave trade, titled Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, which I don’t believe we’ve posted before (my apologies if we have). It includes nine maps providing information on major points of departure and destination ports for the trans-Atlantic trade; here’s a general overview:

Initially the vast majority of slave voyages were organized by firms or individuals in Spain and Portugal; however, over time the slave trade was dominated by groups from northern Europe. Great Britain eventually played a major role, and over 1/3 of documented slave voyages were organized there.The description of Map 6 explains, “vessels from the largest seven ports, Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Liverpool, London, Nantes, Bristol, and Pernambuco carried off almost three-quarters of all captives removed from Africa via the Atlantic Ocean.”

This map shows where voyages were organized, and the % of all documented African slaves that voyages from that country/area transported:

In the U.S., students generally learn about slavery in relation to cotton plantations and, to a lesser extent, tobacco. However, overall those two crops played a relatively minor role in the growth of the global slave trade. It was the growing taste for sugar, and the creation of sugar plantations, particularly in the Caribbean and South American coastal areas, that produced such an enormous demand for African slaves in the Americas. According to the Voyages website, less than 4% of all Africans captured were sold in North America.

The website also has a database of thousands of documented trips in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, including everything from point of origin, destination, number of slaves, % who died during voyage, length of trip, and so on. Some include many more details than others, as you’d expect. You can also create tables to display the variables you’re interested in. Here’s the table showing the slave trade, broken into 25-year intervals and by destination. We can clearly see that the slave trade made one big jump in the late 1500s (going from 4,287 in the 1551-1575 interval to 73,865 between 1576 and the end of the century) and another huge jump in the late 1600s, with the height of the slave trade occuring in the 1700s through the mid-1800s:

You can also create various graphs and charts. Here is a graph of the % of slaves who died during the trip, by year:

I presume the extremely high numbers in the 1550s must be skewed by some ships that sank or met some other disaster that led to the death of everyone aboard.

Over time, ships carried larger numbers of individuals per trip:

The individuals taken as part of the slave trade were predominantly male:

Documented types of resistance from captives or from Africans trying to free them:

You can spend quite a bit of time on this, I warn you — creating timelines, graphs, and so on. It’s taken me an hour to write this post because I keep getting distracted creating charts and tables. Overall, the site is a fantastic resource for both specific information and for helping illuminate the enormity of the Atlantic slave trade. Thanks to Shamus Khan for the tip.