Midwestern States of Mind: Regionalism in American Historical Writing
Ian Tyrrell
Historically Speaking, Volume 11, Number 1, January 2010, pp. 30-31 (Review)
DOI: 10.1353/hsp.0.0083
Partial Access HTML Version | Partial Access PDF Version (620k)
Subject Headings:
Brown, David S. (David Scott), 1966- Beyond the frontier: the midwestern voice in American historical writing.
United States -- Historiography.
In lieu of an abstract, here is a preview of the article.
“As long as there is corn in Indiana and hogs to eat the corn, Charlie Beard will bow to no man.” Thus spoke Professor Charles Austin Beard, a larger-than- life figure who, armed with an independent and democratic attitude, walked out of Nicholas Murray Butler’s Columbia University in 1917 in protest against the victimization of anti-war activist colleague J. McKeen Cattell. Retiring to a Connecticut farm to raise dairy cows, Beard was freer than ever before to pepper the historical establishment with his irreverent views, which he did—promoting historical relativism, championing the role of “the people” against “the interests,” and opposing American foreign policy adventurism. He became the most influential historian in the United States and testified to the ascendance of the Midwest within American historiography in the 1920s and 1930s. Born in 1874, Beard hailed from near Knightstown, Indiana, a sleepy little farming community on the road to Indianapolis. His is but one story among several in this assuredly written and delightful book on the prominent bearers of a midwestern tradition of historical writing in the United States.
For David S. Brown, the sight of waving wheat, the sound of cornstalks rustling in the fields, and the energy of farmer protest and reform run deep in the emotional roots of American historiography. The tradition had its origins in the work of Frederick Jackson Turner and his frontier thesis announced so inauspiciously at the American Historical Association’s annual meeting in Chicago in 1893. Armed with this idea, historians from the Midwest gradually turned professional historical scholarship from an elitist practice centered in the Ivy League colleges to a more democratic one that made history useful to large social purposes. These historians, Brown tells us, were increasingly restive about liberalism’s expansive state and interventionist policies abroad, preferring an older
posted by Lloyd at 12:46 PM
Based on Frank Hobbs, "Examining American Household Composition: 1990 and 2000" (Washington, D.C.: Census 2000 Special Reports, 2005) Table A-1 "Most Common Household Combinations, 1990" We should be able to use the following typology:
Relationship to householder
1. Living Alone
2. Householder living with Spouse
3. Householder living with Spouse and Child(ren).
4. Widow or divorced with child(ren)
5. Multigenerational household
6. Householder living with unrelated partner(s); boardinghouse; inmates
Are boarders/employees a separate column?
Here is a result of a random sample from ancestry.com, Hinds 1850:
16 21 Householder with spouse and kids, 1 boarder (teacher).
17 32 Householder with spouse and kids, two non-surname boarders (one the MIL, clearly)
22 1 Widow with children and non-surname others (widowed sister and kids, looks like)
25 31 Householder with spouse and kids
45 2 Two Men, different surnames, probably business partners
51 2 Householder with spouse and kids
55 27 Householder with spouse and kids, MIL (F).
61 18 Widow, 1 child, 2 boarders
63 30 Householder with spouse and kids, 2 boarders
70 40 Householder with spouse and kids
87 3 Householder with spouse and kids, non-surname boarder
115 39 Householder with spouse
118 14 Widow (age 30) with ambiguous surname sharers (20, 19, 18,) and others
129 14 Householder with spouse and kids; non-surname boarder, age 61/F
138 35 Householder with spouse and kids
141 4 Householder with spouse and kids
157 42 Householder with spouse and kids, ambiguous late order kids?
164 23 Living alone
165 29 Householder with spouse and kids; non-surname boarders
171 38 Householder with spouse and kids
174 38 Householder with spouse and kids; non-surname boarder
178 22 Householder with spouse and kids
189 8 Householder with spouse and kids
200 21 Householder with spouse and kids
206 35 Penitentiary inmate
posted by Lloyd at 5:24 PM 