TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
Reflections on the Early Indicators Project - Larry T. Wimmer
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226116198.003.0001
[project development, data collection, life cycle, Union Army]
This chapter narrates the beginnings and the development of the “Early Indicators of Later Work Levels, Disease, and Death” (EI) project, which proposed the collection of a life-cycle sample of 39,616 men mustered into 331 randomly selected companies of the Union Army. The sample is drawn from eight different federal record sources and is supported by additional information regarding local health, water conditions, and incidence of disease. Four of the eight records are the federal censuses of 1850, 1860, 1900, and 1910. The military records constitute the core of the sample, and include the Military Service Records, the Carded Medical Records, the Pension Records, and the Surgeons' Certificates. (pages 1 - 10)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
The Rich and the Dead - Joseph P. Ferrie
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226116198.003.0002
[mortality, socioeconomic status, occupation, family wealth]
This chapter introduces new evidence on the individual-level correlates of mortality, particularly socioeconomic status measured by occupation and family wealth, created by merging the mortality and population schedules of the 1850 and 1860 federal population censuses. Analysis of rural communities shows that socioeconomic status was an important force shaping the mortality rates experienced by Americans in the middle of the nineteenth century. Although occupation was a poor proxy for status among adult males in 1850, the effect of personal wealth on mortality was quite large in magnitude. (pages 11 - 50)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Prior Exposure to Disease and Later Health and Mortality - Chulhee Lee
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226116198.003.0003
[socioeconomic status, disease environment, health, mortality, Union Army recruits, enlistment, farmers, rural residents, disease risk]
This chapter, which explores the effects of socioeconomic status and local disease environment on the later health and mortality of Union Army recruits, shows that prior exposure to unfavorable epidemiological environments reduced the chances of contracting and dying from disease while in service. Farmers and rural residents, who were healthier on average prior to enlistment owing to a greater extent of isolation from other people, were more likely to succumb to illness and to be killed by disease than nonfarmers and urban dwellers, respectively. Native recruits were subject to a greater risk of illness than were foreigners, who had more chances of exposure to infectious diseases in the course of immigration. (pages 51 - 88)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Seasoning, Disease Environment, and Conditions of Exposure - Daniel Scott Smith
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226116198.003.0004
[disease mortality, Union Army, enlisted men, army volunteers]
This chapter examines the definition, scope, and functioning of disease environments. It combines both individual- and aggregate-level data and attempts to specify several of the correlates of disease mortality at a fine level of detail. An investigation of the incidence and timing of disease mortality among Union Army enlisted men in companies from New York state is placed in the context of a parallel study of mortality of regiments and other units of army volunteers that were organized in the Empire State. (pages 89 - 112)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
The Height of Union Army Recruits - Sven E. Wilson, Clayne L. Pope
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226116198.003.0005
[adult height, ordinary least squares, urban population, rural population, quantile regression]
This chapter investigates family and community influences on adult height using newly collected data on Union Army recruits. In addition to providing new estimates for family and community influences on adult height using ordinary least squares (OLS), the analysis employs a variety of alternative specifications. It explores potential differences between urban and rural populations and across occupational categories. The analysis also estimates the model using county-level fixed effects and compares these results to the OLS equations. Finally, it estimates the main specification using quantile regression, a technique that has received increasing recognition as a method of exploring the impact of covariates on the entire conditional distribution of the dependent variable (in this case, height), rather than simply estimating the conditional mean, which is what OLS achieves. (pages 113 - 146)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
The Prevalence of Chronic Respiratory Disease in the Industrial Era - Sven E. Wilson
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226116198.003.0006
[medical data, respiratory system, respiratory conditions, health, morbidity]
This chapter provides a detailed analysis of the medical data on the respiratory system covering the period from 1895 to 1910. It explores the variety of respiratory conditions that examining physicians identified and how the distribution of conditions varied by age, occupation, population, and place of birth at four points in time: 1895, 1900, 1905, and 1910. A system-based approach is very practical when using the pension data, since the examining physicians typically recorded their observations system by system and recommended financial compensation by body system as well. (pages 147 - 180)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
The Significance of Lead Water Mains in American Cities Some Historical Evidence - Werner Troesken, Patricia E. Beeson
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226116198.003.0007
[water supply, water pipes, lead exposure, morbidity, Union Army veterans]
By the turn of the twentieth century, cities throughout the United States were using lead service mains to distribute water. Despite the fact that many of these mains are still in use and that up to 20 percent of all lead exposure in young children comes from drinking water, the significance of lead service mains is poorly understood and there is little scientific evidence that allow the precise measurement of their effects on human health. The goals of this chapter are twofold. First, it explores how many cities in the United States used lead service mains during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and examines what factors influenced the choice to use them; and second, it explores how the use of lead service mains affected morbidity around the turn of the twentieth century. The evidence on morbidity is derived from a large sample of Union Army veterans whose health was assessed when they applied for pensions. The results suggest that the use of lead water mains probably did have some adverse effects on human health, but for the general population, these effects do not appear to have been very serious. (pages 181 - 202)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Internal Migration, Return Migration, and Mortality: Evidence from Panel Data on Union Army Veterans - Mario A. Sánchez
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226116198.003.0008
[intercounty migrants, hazard rate, migration costs, workers, life expectancy]
This chapter, which examines internal migration in the United States in the nineteenth century, studies the characteristics of intercounty migrants and estimates the hazard rate of changing county of residence within a year. It investigates whether return migration was common and the characteristics of return migrants, and finally, examines the costs of migration, in terms of mortality. The study uses a large longitudinal data set of residential histories for Union Army veterans, allowing the investigation of not just the migration decision through a richer specification than previous researchers have been able to use, but also the return migration decision, which may be workers' optimal reaction to temporary economic shocks. Longitudinal microdata is also used to study the relationship between migration and life expectancy. Because migration, particularly to urban areas, may have decreased the life expectancy of workers, a “mortality wage premium” may partly account for wage differentials between cities and rural areas. (pages 203 - 230)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Pensions and Labor Force Participation of Civil War Veterans - Tayatat Kanjanapipatkul
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226116198.003.0009
[Civil War pension data, pension income, labor force participation]
This chapter, which uses Civil War pension data to identify the effect of pension income on the labor force participation of veterans, is organized as follows. Section 9.2 discusses the estimation of the treatment effect by comparing the participation rates of Confederate and Union veterans. Section 9.3 attempts to identify the effect of pensions by using the variation in pension income among Union veterans to predict their participation status. Section 9.4 provides concluding remarks. It is shown that pension laws created systematic differences in the characteristics of pensioners and nonpensioners through eligibility requirements. Variations in pension income among the Union veterans also explain the differences in their participation rates by as much as 15 percent. (pages 231 - 252)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
The Effect of Hernias on the Labor Force Participation of Union Army Veterans - Chen Song, Louis L. Nguyen
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226116198.003.0010
[labor supply, chronic disability, hernia, retirement behavior]
This chapter focuses on the labor supply implications of hernias, a specific chronic disability that can be extremely debilitating, and examines the retirement behavior of 3,406 older men. The Union Army (UA) health data in the Surgeons' Certificates file are longitudinal, because veterans could apply for the UA pension several times and be examined at different points in their lives. The chapter is organized as follows. Section 10.2 provides a medical background for the history and the treatment of hernias; Section 10.3 describes the UA sample; Section 10.4 offers an empirical framework; Section 10.5 analyzes the results; and Section 10.6 concludes. (pages 253 - 310)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Conclusion - Dora L. Costa
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226116198.003.0011
[socioeconomic factors, health, infectious disease, environmental hazards, migration, morbidity, mortality]
This concluding chapter summarizes the discussions in the preceding chapters. The chapters shared common themes, namely the relationship between socioeconomic factors and health; the relationship between infectious disease, environmental hazards, and migration and subsequent morbidity and mortality; and the roles of income, health, and social class in the retirement decision. They brought new data to bear on these questions and shared a common methodological approach: Large data sets that cover the life histories of past populations who lived under very different institutions, disease environments, and technologies than populations today can help us understand long-run trends in health and in health differentials, the impact of disease on morbidity and mortality, and migration and retirement decisions. (pages 311 - 318)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Appendix A: Merged Mortality and Population Schedules from the U.S. Federal Censuses, 1850 and 1860
Appendix B: Properties and Availability of the Union Army Life-Cycle Sample
Contributors
Author Index
Subject Index
