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To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eeh.2007.06.002 Byline: Lee A. Craig (a), Matthew T. Holt (b) Keywords: C22; E32; N50; Q13 Abstract: This paper examines the role of mechanical refrigeration in seasonality and structural change in the U.S. hog-corn cycle, 1870-1940. This period covers an era in which the widespread adoption of mechanical refrigeration greatly affected the ability to store and transport perishable commodities. These developments in turn altered the seasonal production and price structure for many commodities, including pork. We use a new class of time series models, time-varying smooth transition autoregressions (TV-STARs), to document both the structural change and the nonlinear features observed in seasonal patterns for the U.S. hog-corn price relationship during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Author Affiliation: (a) Department of Economics, Box 8110, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-8110, USA (b) Department of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University, 403 W. State Street, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2056, USA Article History: Received 25 September 2006 Article Note: (footnote) [star] For helpful comments on earlier drafts, the authors thank the editor, two anonymous referees, and seminar participants at the University of Kansas, Purdue University, the Stockholm School of Economics, Ball State University, Eastern Carolina University, the Triangle Universities' Economic History Workshop, and the Washington, DC-area Universities' Economic History Workshop.

By Lance E. Davis, Robert E. Gallman, and Karin Gleiter (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1997) 550 pp. $80.00 And this is what ye have shipped for, men! to chase [...]

And this is what ye have shipped for, men! to chase that white whale on both sides of land, and over all sides of the earth, till he spouts black [...]

Doctoral students Garland L. Brinkley, Dora L. Costa and Andrew Seltzer have written their dissertations. Brinkley wrote on the economic impact of hookworm disease in the Southern States, Dora Costa's subject was old-age and disability pensions while minimum wage legislation was tackled by Seltzer. All threedissertations are well-written, tackle critical issues and make significant contributions to the field of economic history.

New evidence based on census data indicates that output per agricultural worker grew faster between 1860 and 1870 than during any other decade of the nineteenth century. Although this evidence seems to support the traditional view that the Civil War was a catalyst for an increasingly productive agricultural sector, we contend that this apparent robust performance results from a measurement problem that afflicts census-based labor force series. An alternative estimate of labor force performance during the decade reveals the importance of increased labor inputs of women and children, in numbers, effort, and--especially--time.

We test for wage discrimination and occupational crowding in the nineteenth-century American whaling industry. Although our results indicate little evidence of wage discrimination, we cannot reject the hypothesis that certain groups - specifically blacks and Portuguese - experienced some occupational crowding, though it was by no means complete and the minority-dominated occupations were not low-paying ones. In addition, we find that members of the majority group - white American and Northern European seamen - did accept a negative compensating wage differential for working with members of their own group.

A study was conducted to evaluate two propositions from the relative productivity hypothesis. The study focused on the ratio of female-to-male wages increased in the agricultural and manufacturing industriesfor the initial stages of industrialization and also on the geographical areas where these increases were more active. Results show that the antebellum periodwas characterized by such wage ration increases. In addition, the North exhibited faster growth than the South.

This article estimates the contribution of farm household members to agricultural output in the antebellum northern United States. I reject the hypothesis that children contributed more in the least settled regions. The contribution of young children and teenage females was greatest in the Old Northwest; teenage boys made their largest contribution in the Northeast. In the Midwest young males and females performed the same tasks, namely market production and land clearing, but in the Northeast males were more likely to specialize in market production and females in household production.

This volume represents the second set of essays by William Parker on the history of Western capitalism. Whereas the first volume focused on the development of capitalism in Europe, this [...]

Between 1830 and 1860 the United States experienced rapid economic growth but declining stature and rising mortality. Debate has centered on whether the American diet deteriorated in the mid-nineteenth century. Employing census and muster records, this article tests the hypotheses that adult height was positively correlated with local production of nutrients in early childhood and negatively correlated with local mortality conditions, urbanization, proximity to transport, and population mobility. Results indicate that antebellum economic growth was accompanied by an increasing nationalization and internationalization of the disease environment, which affected the health and longevity of the population.

An account of the economic impact of mechanical refrigeration is presented, and the spatial and fleeting aspects of market integration are studied. 31 years of monthly data is used to test the null hypothesis of no integration before and after the appearance and adoption of refrigerated shipping and warehousing.

SUSAN ELEANOR HIRSCH, After the Strike: A Century of Labor Struggle at Pullman (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2003. Pp.x + 292; illus. H/back ISBN 0 252 02791 4, [...]

CLIFFORD M. KUHN, Contesting the New South Order: The 1914-1915 Strike at Atlanta's Fulton Mills (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2001. Pp.xii + 320; illus; maps. H/back [...]