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I decompose the market value of Colonial New Jersey's paper money into its component parts, namely its real-asset present value and transaction premium. Its market value was predominately determined by its real-asset present value. I also find a small transaction premium that is positively associated with the quantity of paper money in circulation and with the land-bank method of paper money injection. This paper money was not a fiat currency. It traded below face value due to time-discounting not depreciation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Colonial Virginia's legislature introduced an inside paper money into its domestic economy that was, at that time, primarily a barter economy without any government or bank-issued inside paper monies in circulation. I decompose Virginia's paper money into its expected real-asset present value, risk discount and transaction premium. The value of Virginia's paper money was determined primarily by its real-asset present value. The transaction premium was small. Positive risk discounts occurred in years when monetary troubles were suspected, namely worries that the government would not redeem the paper money as promised. Counterfeiting, however, was not one of these worries. The legislature had the tools and used them effectively to mitigate the effects of counterfeiting on the value of its paper money. Colonial Virginia's paper money was not a fiat currency, but a barter asset, with just enough transaction premium to make it the preferred medium of exchange for local transactions. It functioned like a zero-coupon bond and traded below face value due to time-discounting, not depreciation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on an extensive survey of French primary sources and a discussion of the recent literature on fiscal policy in France and Europe during Louis XIV's wars, this article revisits the rationale behind the first experiment with paper money undertaken by finance minister Michel Chamillart, comparing it to other belligerents’ strategies, in particular England's, to adjust their monetary regime to the challenges of funding long wars of attrition. The article shows how concerns about economic activity, coinage and the need to finance the war deficit led to a series of debasements of the French currency, the establishment of a bank in the form of a Caisse des emprunts and the introduction of mint bills, which became legal tender and caused the first experience of fiat money inflation in history. Whereas Chamillart's personal shortcomings have been recently suggested as the cause of Louis XIV's humbling in the War of the Spanish Succession, I argue on the contrary that the introduction of paper money in 1704 was key to the capacity of France to sustain its military effort, but that a succession of military defeats against a more powerful coalition led to inflation. I also argue that the introduction of paper money saved the Caisse des emprunts and its bonds which helped sustain the war effort up until the peace. By situating the use of paper money within the broader question of the exercise of power in the absolute monarchy, this article examines the formation of fiscal policy, paying attention to the ways in which government sought advice from experts. It concludes by calling for further studies on policy- and decision-making under Louis XIV. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Examines the rhythms of production in the Montgolfier paper mill, one of the largest in eighteenth-century France. View of historians on early industrial work; What Montgolfier output registers reveal.

Howey and O'Shea (2006) believe they have demonstrated the prehistoric manifestation of a particular Ojibwa Midewiwin origin story in the arrangement of features at an archaeological site in Michigan, thereby negating ethnohistorical arguments that the Midewiwin was of post-European-contact origin. The authors also believe they have shown that explaining past ritual behavior 'can be derived from archaeological data alone.' There is ample information in their own argument to disallow such claims. Howey y O'Shea creen haber demostrado las manifestaciones prehistoricas de una historia peculiar de los origenes de los Ojibwa Midewiwin en el arreglo caracteristico de un sitio arqueologico en Michigan negando, por ende, argumentos etnohistoricos que afirman que el origen de los Midewiwin se debe al contacto con los europeos. Los authores tambien creen haber probado que se pueden explicar los comportamientos rituales pasados en base, unicamente, a datos arqueo1ogicos. Hay amplia informacion en sus propios argumentos para negar tales afirmaciones., An element of empathy lies behind the desire of most archaeologists to inspirit renewed life into the abandoned places where people once thrived. This decent impulse makes possible the excavation [...]

The article discusses the papers of Rhodesian liberal Diana Mary Mitchell, known as the Mitchell collection, held at the Manuscripts and Archives Department of The University of Cape Town (UCT). It notes that the archive also contains papers concerning several opposition politicians in Rhodesia in the mid- to late-twentieth century, including Morris Hirsch, Pat Bashford, and Allan Savory. The author suggests that the archive is useful for the study of the historical role of women in Rhodesia and Zimbabwe.

This article revisits the motives behind the Czechoslovak scheme 'Russian Action', which granted thousands of Russian emigres residence and financial support in Czechoslovakia during the 1920s and 1930s. In particular, it looks at the efforts to bring to Czechoslovakia Russian civil war refugees living in Constantinople. Historians have conventionally focused on Prague as the home to intellectual and cultural exiles from Russia and have also decreed that the emigre policies of Czechoslovakia were driven principally by the humanitarian concerns of a liberal and democratic government. This article looks, instead, at the regime's deep-seated political motives, in particular its plans for a future, Bolshevik-free Russia, reconstructed under its guiding hand. In so doing, it raises questions about Czechoslovakia's self-image, ideology and place within the international hierarchy. Cet article examine a nouveaux frais les motivations qui ont guide le plan tchecoslovaque, appele Action russe, qui accorda a des centaines de refugies russes en Tchecoslovaquie une residence et des aides financieres durant les annees 1920 et 1930. On s'interesse particulierement aux efforts realises pour faire venir en Tchecoslovaquie les refugies russes de la guerre civile vivant a Constantinople. De facon conventionnelle, les historiens ont porte leur attention sur Prague decrite comme une capitale pour l'elite culturelle et intellectuelle russe en exil; ils ont juge que la politique de la Tchecoslovaquie avait principalement ete guidee par les preoccupations humanitaires d'un gouvernement democratique et liberal. A l'inverse, cet article examine les raisons politiques profondes du regime, et en particulier ses plans pour une future Russie liberee du bolchevisme et reconstruite sous sa houlette. Ainsi, cette recherche invite a examiner l'image qu'a d'elle-meme la Tchecoslovaquie, son ideologie et sa place au sein d'une hierarchie internationale. Dieser Artikel bietet eine Neueinschatzung der Grunde, welche die tschechoslowaklsche Regierung dazu veranlassten unter dem Namen 'Action Russe' ein Programm ins Leben zu rufen, im Zuge dessen sie in den 1920er und 1930er Jahren tausenden von russischen Emigranten ein Aufenthaltsrecht in der Tschechoslowakei gewahrte und ihnen finanzielle Unterstutzung zuteil werden liess. Der Artikel konzentiert sich dabei besonders auf die Bemuhungen, russische Fluchtlinge, die in Konstantinopel lebten, in die Tschechoslowakei zu bringen. Historiker haben sich bisher vor allem fur Prag als Zentrum fur die Aufnahme intellektueller und kultureller Eliten aus Russland interessiert. Sie haben ausserdem die humanitaren Motive der tschechoslowakischen Regierung hervorgehoben. Dieser Artikel legt sein Augenmerk dagegen vor allem auf die politischen Motive und analysiert vor allem die Plane der tschechoslowakischen Regierung, ein Russland ohne Bolschewiken zu schaffen, in diesem Zusammenhang. Dadurch kann der Artikel auch zu einem besseren Verstandnis von Fragen der tschechoslowaklschen Selbstbildes und Ideologie sowie zum Ort des Landes im internationalen System in der Zeit nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg beitragen.

For almost 25 years between 1797 and 1821, the gold standard in Britain was suspended in order to finance the Napoleonic Wars, creating a paper pound or a fiat currency. Suspension was accompanied by substantial inflation and the accumulation of public debt. By identifying shifts in the spot exchange rate of paper pounds for gold, I document how contemporaries' expectations of how debt would be stabilized in the future shaped the pound's internal value. Thus, it is argued that during the “paper pound” period, fiscal prospects provided a third mechanism, beyond monetary and real factors, affecting the price level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that Western impressions of the Chinese pre-modern monetary experience might have been excessively colored by Marco Polo’s favorable commentary on the stability of the Mongol polity and its dissemination of paper money. Experiments with unconvertible paper money had ultimately been no more successful in late-imperial China than they were in the early-modern West. By 1430, in fact, the Ming dynasty was forced to abandon the issuance of paper money altogether. The genesis of paper money both in China and it the West had originally emanated from private institutions. However, royally chartered banks of issue were conspicuously absent from the Chinese setting until the late nineteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Discusses paper money issues in the American colonies from 1720 to 1774. Misinterpretation of the colonial monetary policies; Overview of the political background of British monetary policies in the colonies; Controversy over colonial practices during the period.

The Catalogue of Scientific Papers, published by the Royal Society of London beginning in 1867, projected back to the beginning of the nineteenth century a novel vision of the history of science in which knowledge was built up out of discrete papers each connected to an author. Its construction was an act of canon formation that helped naturalize the idea that scientific publishing consisted of special kinds of texts and authors that were set apart from the wider landscape of publishing. By recovering the decisions and struggles through which the Catalogue was assembled, this essay aims to contribute to current efforts to denaturalize the scientific paper as the dominant genre of scientific life. By privileging a specific representation of the course of a scientific life as a list of papers, the Catalogue helped shape underlying assumptions about the most valuable fruits of a scientific career. Its enumerated lists of authors’ periodical publications were quickly put to use as a means of measuring scientific productivity and reputation, as well as by writers of biography and history. Although it was first conceived as a search technology, this essay locates the Catalogue’s most consequential legacy in its uses as a technology of valuation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the social currency of copper-plate charters on the basis of Persian copper-plates from the Deccan. Indic religious systems have a long tradition of conferring land grants using this medium, partially rooted in beliefs of metaphysical qualities attributed to metals. The objects from this region are highly unusual because there are no other recorded instances of a sultan issuing or authorizing land grants on copper-plates. The Persian-language copper-plates appear from the sixteenth century onwards, and seem to be later copies of (or extracts from) paper-based charters issued by Bahmani sultans and other kingdoms in the Deccan. Issues of authenticity and forgeries, fakes and copies are also raised in this paper. This study examines objects that combine material culture and textual content. While the textual content of these objects has always been privileged as being a source of history, the medium – which itself has a history of reception – has not been given its own historical narrative. The paper provides new perspectives on what we might call the “social life” of different documentary formats in medieval and early modern India, in particular the copper-plate grant. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Pliny the Elder in Natural History, xiii, 74 82,(1) described in detail specifications for the manufacturing of papyrus. However, there was a spurious omission pertaining to the height (the term [...]

This article considers British society's response to the suspension of cash payments in February 1797. Although this event marked the beginning of the so-called Bank Restriction Period, during which the Bank of England's notes were inconvertible, there have been no detailed studies on the social and political situation surrounding the suspension. This article provides an in-depth examination of the events leading up to and immediately following the suspension. It questions existing accounts of the suspension as a smooth transition into the nationwide use of paper money and describes the complex process that came into play to avert a nationwide financial collapse. The decision to suspend the Bank's cash payments stemmed from deep-rooted financial instability, exacerbated by recurrent invasion scares that heightened after the French attempt on Bantry Bay, Ireland, in December 1796. Under such circumstances, national support for drastic financial measures could not be taken for granted. The article demonstrates that the declaration movement, which was a form of consolidated and visualized trust in the financial system, played a crucial role in the 1797 suspension crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper analyzes the political dimension of Miguel Masriera's (1901–1981) science popularization program. In the 1920s, Masriera worked at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich – with Hermann Staudinger, the luminary of polymer chemistry – to later become a lecturer of theoretical and physical chemistry at the University of Barcelona. After living in exile in Paris, at the end of the Civil War he returned to Spain but never recovered his position. Instead, Masriera became an active popular science writer and adapted to the severe constraints of General Franco's military dictatorship (1939–1975). Inspired by the astronomer Arthur Eddington's world view, Masriera wrote and translated popular science books, and published articles in daily newspapers and journals. By examining Masriera's popular works, in particular his program for spreading “atomic culture” in Spain during the Cold War, this paper aims to contribute to the assessment of the role of science popularization in the domestic legitimization of that dictatorial regime and also its use as a vehicle for international recognition abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article explores the Nina Vance Alley Theatre Papers, held by the University of Houston Libraries special collections. A brief history of director Nina Vance and her work with the Alley Theatre in Houston, Texas is presented. Her contributions to American theatre are examined and include the promotion of American and European classics in theatre repertoire and early work in environmental theatre. Her papers include play programs, early reports on the Alley Theatre, interview tapes and transcripts, and travel diaries.

I reconstitute the spending obligations and revenue sources of colonial New Jersey's provincial government for the years 1704 through 1775 from primary sources using forensic accounting techniques. I identify and analyze the methods for raising revenue to meet normal peacetime and emergency wartime expenses. I calculate the provincial tax burdens imposed on New Jersey's citizens. I identify how Britain interfered with New Jersey's fiscal structure. I estimate what the revenues and tax burdens would have been without this interference. New Jersey paid for war expenses by issuing bills of credit, spreading the tax burden of redeeming these bills into the future. New Jersey paid its yearly administrative costs with current property taxes and with current interest earnings from loaning paper money. In the absence of British interference and wars, New Jersey could have driven tax burdens to zero by using interest earnings to pay for all its provincial administrative costs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the exact amount of the money issued by the United States Congress for the financing of the American Revolution. During the revolution, Congress released paper money otherwise called Continental dollars to finance its expenditures. Past literatures have claimed the exact amount spent but they left behind unclear and conflicting estimates. The article traces back the transactions that took place from the enactment to disbursement of the dollars. The article presents supporting tables on estimates and cumulative total net emissions of the continental dollars.

Before the Revolution American colonies issued paper money known as ‘bills of credit’. The bills issued in the Middle colonies held their value surprisingly well despite large wartime fluctuations in the quantity issued, but those issued in New England depreciated as the quantity in circulation increased. The bills' stable purchasing power in the Middle colonies has often been attributed to the redemption provisions enacted when the bills were issued. Similar provisions in New England supposedly failed because New England failed to enforce them. This article explores the comparative enforcement of redemption provisions in the two regions, and in New York in particular, and concludes that differential enforcement does not explain the disparity between the New England experience and that in the Middle colonies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article surveys the monetary history of Koryŏ from the eleventh to the thirteenth century. During the first century of the dynasty, Koryŏ was at war with the Liao, prohibited trade with the enemy and pursued a policy of protecting its metal reserves. During the ban on metallic coins, rice and cloth served as commodity monies, ensuring price stability in a phase of sustained growth of the rural economy. A second phase began after the victory over the Liao in 1018. Backed by military strength, the government issued iron, bronze and silver currencies to facilitate international trade. The Koryŏ ‘silver vase’ currency, which circulated for three centuries, partly bridges the ‘black hole’ in East Asian monetary history from the Late Tang to the Ming period. The intrinsic value of the metallic currencies in conjunction with state issuance provided monetary stability. In turn monetary instability characterised the late Koryŏ, when the country came under the influence of the Mongol Yuan. The destabilising effect brought about by the introduction of Yuan paper money demonetarised the economy. By framing monetary history within a wider perspective of struggles for sovereignty and political hegemony, the article allows a better understanding of domestic and regional dynamics in East Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Researchers in the mind sciences often look to the production and analysis of drawings to reveal the mental processes of their subjects. This essay presents three episodes that trace the emergence of drawing as an instrumental practice in the study of the mind. Between 1880 and 1930, drawings gained currency as a form of scientific evidence - as stable, reproducible signals from a hidden interior. I begin with the use of drawings as data in the child study movement, move to the telepathic transmission of drawings in psychical research and conclude with the development of drawing as an experimental and diagnostic tool for studying neurological impairment. Despite significant shifts in the theoretical and disciplinary organisation of the mind sciences in the early twentieth century, researchers attempted to stabilise the use of subject-generated drawings as evidence by controlling the contexts in which drawings were produced and reproduced, and crafting subjects whose interiority could be effectively circumscribed. While movements such as psychoanalysis and art therapy would embrace the narrative interpretation of patient art, neuropsychology continued to utilise drawings as material traces of cognitive functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]