Joseph P. Ferrie

Paternalism in Agricultural Labor Contracts in the U.S. South: Implications for the Growth of the Welfare State

The authors examine paternalism as an implicit contract in which workers trade faithful service for nonmarket goods. Paternalism reduced monitoring and turnover costs in cotton cultivation in the U.S. South until the mechanization of the cotton harvest in the 1950s. Until then, the effectiveness of paternalism was threatened by government programs that could have substituted for paternalism; but large Southern landowners had the political power to prevent the appearance of such programs in the South. With mechanization, the economic incentive to provide paternalism disappeared and Southern congressmen allowed welfare programs to expand in ways consistent with their interests. Copyright 1993 by American Economic Association.

The Path to Convergence: Intergenerational Occupational Mobility in Britain and the US in Three Eras

Late nineteenth-century intergenerational occupational mobility was higher in the US than in Britain. Differences between them in this type of mobility are absent today. Using data on 10,000 US and British father and son pairs followed over two intervals (the 1860s and 1870s, and the 1880s and 1890s), we examine how this convergence occurred. The US remained more mobile then Britain through 1900 but the difference fell over the last two decades of the nineteenth century (as British mobility rose) and was erased by the 1950s (as mobility fell by more in the US than in Britain).

A new sample of males linked from the Public Use Microdata Sample of the 1850 U.S. federal census of population to the 1860 U.S. federal census manuscript schedules.

This article describes a new sample of 4938 males linked from the new [U.S.] Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) of the 1850 federal census of population to the manuscript schedules of the 1860 federal census of population....After reviewing the existing work on individuals linked across the 1850s I describe the collection of the new sample in detail. I then use these data to examine the geographic mobility of the population (in particular movement to the western frontier). The Appendix contains new life tables for the 1850s--based on manuscript data from the mortality schedules of the 1850 census--that were used to estimate how many survivors could be expected between 1850 and 1860 in the linkage process. (EXCERPT)

The Wealth Accumulation of Antebellum European Immigrants to the U.S., 1840–60

This article explores wealth accumulation among European immigrants who arrived in the United States between 1840 and 1850. It uses a new sample of immigrants linked from passenger-ship records to the 1850 and 1860 federal census manuscripts. These immigrants rapidly accumulated real and personal wealth. Their real wealth grew 10 percent with each year≈s residence in the United States. This was not because immigrants arriving in the early 1840s were wealthier at arrival than later arrivals, nor was the rapid accumulation of wealth confined to one nationality or occupation. Rather, it reflects these immigrants≈ abilities to adapt to new circumstances after their arrival.

Time on the ladder: Career mobility in agriculture, 1890-1938

We explore the dynamics of the agricultural ladder (the progression from laborer to cropper to renter) in the U.S. before 1940 using individual-level data from a survey of farmers conducted in 1938 in Jefferson County, Arkansas. Using information on each individuals complete career history (their tenure status at each date, in some cases as far back as 1890), their location, and a variety of their personal and farm characteristics, we develop and test hypotheses to explain the time spent as a tenant, sharecropper, and wage laborer. The pessimistic view of commentators who saw sharecropping and tenancy as a trap has some merit, but individual characteristics played an important role in mobility. In all periods, some farmers moved up the agricultural ladder quite rapidly while others remained stuck on a rung. Ascending the ladder was an important route to upward mobility, particularly for blacks, before large-scale migration from rural to urban places.

Cognitive disparities, lead plumbing, and water chemistry: Prior exposure to water-borne lead and intelligence test scores among World War Two U.S. Army enlistees

Higher prior exposure to water-borne lead among male World War Two U.S. Army enlistees was associated with lower intelligence test scores. Exposure was proxied by urban residence and the water pH levels of the cities where enlistees lived in 1930. Army General Classification Test scores were six points lower (nearly 1/3 standard deviation) where pH was 6 (so the water lead concentration for a given amount of lead piping was higher) than where pH was 7 (so the concentration was lower). This difference rose with time exposed. At this time, the dangers of exposure to lead in water were not widely known and lead was ubiquitous in water systems, so these results are not likely the effect of individuals selecting into locations with different levels of exposure.

Typhoid Fever, Water Quality, and Human Capital Formation

Investment in water purification technologies led to large mortality declines by helping eradicate typhoid fever and other waterborne diseases. This paper seeks to understand how these technologies affected human capital formation. We use typhoid fatality rates during early life as a proxy for water quality. To carry out the analysis, city-level data are merged with a unique dataset linking individuals between the 1900 and 1940 censuses. Parametric and semi-parametric estimates suggest that eradicating early-life exposure to typhoid fever would have increased earnings in later life by 1% and increased educational attainment by one month. Instrumenting for typhoid fever using the typhoid rates from cities that lie upstream produces similar results. A simple cost-benefit analysis indicates that the increase in earnings from eradicating typhoid fever was more than sufficient to offset the costs of eradication.

Vive la différence? Intergenerational Mobility in France and the United States during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Although rates of intergenerational mobility are the same in the United States and Europe today, attitudes toward redistribution, which should reflect those ratesat least in partdiffer substantially. An examination of the differences in mobility between the United States and France since the middle of the nineteenth century, based on data for both countries that permit a comparison between the socioeconomic status of fathers and that of sons throughout a period of thirty years, demonstrates that the United States was a considerably more mobile economy in the past, though such differences are far from apparent today.

The Law and Labor Strife in the United States, 1881-1894

This article examines the effect of state-level legal innovations governing labor disputes in the late 1800s. This was a period of legal ferment in which worker organizations and employers actively lobbied state governments for changes in the rules governing labor disputes. Cross-state heterogeneity in the legal environment provides an unusual opportunity to investigate the effects of these laws. We use a unique data set with information on 12,965 strikes to show that most of these law changes had surprisingly little effect on strike incidence or outcomes. Important exceptions were maximum hours laws and the use of injunctions.

Immigration and Entrepreneurship in the Nineteenth Century U.S.

The immigrant entrepreneur is ubiquitous in the U.S. of the 1990s. Whether they are Korean grocery store owners in the inner cities, Greek restaurateurs in the suburbs, or Taiwanese computer wizards in Silicon Valley, immigrants and their businesses are now such integral parts of life in some places that it is hard to imagine a world without them. Though only a handful have enjoyed the success of a Subramonian Shankar, a majority of Americans view immigrants as hard-working, enterprising additions to the U.S. economy(Business Week, 1992, p. 119).