Tin Pan Blues |
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Steckel's Rural to Rural migration provides a comprehensive empirical look at migration as assessed in a resource efficiency model. He suggests that latitudinal migration was a key operant variable, and explores the implications of occupational status, household composition, etc., on migration. Interestingly, he finds relatively little difference in the composition of movers and stayers and says that the 1850s were interesting because of the relatively high efficiency of migration information and the general levels of economic prosperity. He does not see much evidence of frontier/rural migration. He does find that the highest levels of mobility were in the midwest, which he explains as a consequence of the grain belt boom, land grants, RR development, etc. Using reverse migration as a sign of information inefficiency, he singles out the south for its high degrees of short distance (measured versus north) and reverse migration, and cites Hahn to the possible effects of kinship in this process. He challenges the McClelland/Zeckhouser emphasis on Southern outmigration to the midwest, finding only a small percentage of families exodusing. He says the data confirm Gavin Wright's argument that the South was relatively "insulated from interregional population movements." [A statement that bears pondering.] His discussion of the south, in conjunction with literacy, raises the question of whether southerners were information avoidant in their migration decisions. Tuesday, August 26, 2008
JSTOR: St. Mary's of Natchez: The History of a Southern Catholic ...Charles E. Nolan has written a monumental history of St. Mary's Catholic ... St. Mary's served as the Cathedral for the diocese of Natchez from 1837 to 1948 ...links.jstor.org/ |
