A Century of Brickmaking at Berlin Junction: A History of the Alwine Brick Company

The Alwine family name had been associated with brickmaking in York and Adams Counties at least since the early 1850s, when Peter Samuel Alwine started his first brickyard on a farm in Paradise Township of York County.1 He learned the trade of brickmaking during his youth and by the age of seventeen had become a skilled artisan. He learned how to make bricks by working in the spring and summer months at a brickmaking operation in Peach Bottom Township, located in the southeastern corner of York County. He did not set up his own brickyard until later, and following his marriage to Catharine Dahlhammer in 1860, he moved his brickmaking facilities to the farm where they settled in Paradise Township, near the Borough of Berwick (now Abbottstown) in Adams County. During that time, Mr. Alwine also engaged for varying periods as a schoolteacher, country merchant, and farmer. Later, he established a brickyard at Spring Grove in York County, and eventually another at Berlin Junction, near New Oxford in Adams County. Over the years, he attained a reputation as a man of considerable learning and sound business judgment. After his death, in 1895, his sons William and Lewis Alwine continued the business under the name Alwine Brothers Brickyard, and later William’s son Charles Emory Alwine would become president of the firm. Following Charles Alwine’s retirement, and three generations of Alwine leadership, ownership of the company was transferred in 1978 to the Glen-Gery Corporation of Reading. This article chronicles the history of the Alwine Brick Company from its beginnings to its final years, including more than a century at Berlin Junction, Adams County, Pennsylvania. [excerpt

How the culture wars are driving political polarization

While there has been increasing comment and concern over the apparent polarization of the American electorate, recent research on culture and politics largely denies the existence of such polarization. In new research which focuses on Americans’ ideological identities, Duane F. Alwin and Paula A. Tufiş find that voters have indeed become polarized over time, and that their political identities are increasingly informed by cultural, rather than class or economic factors

Changes in qualities valued in children in the United States, 1964 to 1984

This paper examines changes that have occurred over the past few decades in parental assessments of qualities valued in children. Data are examined from eight NORC national surveys to assess the degree of change experienced in these parental values, and several explanations are considered for the observed changes. The major finding of this research supports earlier observations regarding changes in parental values. Those child qualities generally thought to be associated with obedience or conformity (to obey parents, to have good manners, to be neat and clean, and to act according to sex-role norms) are seen to have declined in importance, and the qualities generally associated with autonomy or self-direction (good sense and sound judgement, honesty, responsible, and considerate) have increased in their assessed importance to parents during this period. The potential sources of these changes are considered, and several explanations are examined. The results of these considerations suggest that changes in levels of schooling, a primary antecedent of parental autonomy versus conformity values, explains some of the change, and there appears to be support for the role of other cohort-related or "generational" factors. The results also provide evidence, as hypothesized, that an important source of change in parental autonomy vs. conformity values over this period is among persons of Catholic background, especially those persons born after the Great Depression.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/27771/1/0000165.pd

Problems in the estimation and interpretation of the reliability of survey data

In this paper I discuss several of the difficulties involved in estimating the reliability of survey measurement. Reliability is defined on the basis of classical true-score theory , as the correlational consistency of multiple measures of the same construct, net of true change. This concept is presented within the framework of a theoretical discussion of the sources of error in survey data and the design requirements for separating response variation into components representing such response consistency and measurement errors. Discussion focuses on the potential sources of random and nonrandom errors, including “invalidity” of measurement, the term frequently used to refer to components of method variance. Problems with the estimation of these components are enumerated and discussed with respect to both cross-sectional and panel designs. Empirical examples are given of the estimation of the quantities of interest, which are the basis of a discussion of the interpretational difficulties encountered in reliability estimation. Data are drawn from the ISR's Quality of Life surveys, the National Election Studies and the NORC's General Social Surveys . The general conclusion is that both cross-sectional and panel estimates of measurement reliability are desirable, but for the purposes of isolating the random component of error, panel designs are probably the most advantageous.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/43558/1/11135_2004_Article_BF00172447.pd

The separation of work and the family: attitudes towards women's labour-fource participation in Germany, Great Britain, and the United States

Recent trends indicate substantial changes in the labour-force status of women in Western industrialized societies. Many studies indicate that shifts in sex-role attitudes have apparently accompanied these changes, but research has not focused on the specific conditions under which men and women approve of non-familial roles for women. Moreover, virtually no comparative research exists on this topic. In this paper, data for three Western countries - the former West Germany, Great Britain, and the United States - are compared with respect to attitudes toward female labour-force participation. The data, taken from the 1988 ISSP (International Social Survey Program) module on the family, focus specifically on the conditions under which respondents approve of women working. Results indicate that the attitudes of both men and women reflect substantial preference for a primary familial role for women, especially when young children are present. Intra-country patterns of predictable variation in attitudes are quite similar in the countries considered: attitudes favouring the labour-force involvement of women are associated with gender, labour-force experience, schooling, and birth cohort. Inter-country differences can in part be explained by normative differences in labour-force participation rates of women and perceptions of the suitability of child-care resources, but most of the inter-country differences were unexplained by the factors considered and are thought to be due to unmeasured normative and institutional factors associated with the care and nurture of children

Twentieth Century Intercohort Trends in Verbal Ability in the United States

Vocabulary test score trends from the General Social Survey contradict the widespread conclusion that scores on standardized intelligence tests have systematically increased over the past century. We use a vocabulary test included in 20 nationally representative surveys administered since 1974 to test three hypotheses proposed to account for these trends, including changes in the formal measurement properties of the test, over-time changes in the meaning of education, and intercohort differences in exposure to words on the test. We find no support for the idea that test scores have declined because of changes in the structure of the test. Instead, our results show that education selectivity accounts for some cohort differences among prewar cohorts and that cohort-specific differences in exposure to words on the test account for nearly all variation in vocabulary scores of respondents born after 1945, suggesting different causal processes have influenced cohort verbal ability during distinct historical eras

Economic necessity of self-actualization? Attitudes toward women's labour-force participation in the east and west

In den westlichen Demokratien ist die Frauenerwerbstätigkeit in den letzten Jahrzehnten dramatisch angestiegen. Daraus resultieren Einstellungsänderungen, was sich in einer größeren Akzeptanz der Berufstätigkeit von Frauen zeigt. Die Autoren vergleichen in ihrer Untersuchung diese Einstellungen für kapitalistische Staaten (Großbritannien, BRD, USA) und ehemals sozialistische Staaten (Ungarn, Ostdeutschland). Die zugrundeliegenden Daten entstammen einer ALLBUS-Studie aus dem Jahre 1991 und einer ISSP-Studie aus dem Jahre 1988. Thematisiert werden die Folgen der Frauenerwerbstätigkeit, Geschlechtsrollen und die Bedeutung der Arbeit für die Frau. Es zeigt sich u.a., daß die Selbstverwirklichung der Frauen im Beruf in den früheren sozialistischen Staaten keine größere Bedeutung hatte als in den westlichen Demokratien. Gerade der Sozialismus, der die Gleichberechtigung der Frau forcierte, hatte wenig Erfolg bei der Überwindung des traditionellen Rollenverständnisses. (psz

Nichtkonventionelle Lebensformen in Ost- und Westdeutschland: zwischen Pragmatismus und Moral

"Auf der Grundlage der Umfrage des International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) von 1994 zum Thema 'Familie und sich ändernde Geschlechtsrollen', einer repräsentativen Befragung der Bevölkerung ab 18 Jahren, die in 22 Ländern durchgeführt wurde, werden Unterschiede und Gemeinsamkeiten im Bereich des faktischen Verhaltens und der Einstellung zwischen Ost- und Westdeutschen untersucht. Im Hinblick auf nichtkonventionelle Lebensformen scheinen die Unterschiede zwischen Ost- und Westdeutschen eher gering zu sein, und zwar sowohl was das eigene Verhalten als auch die Einstellungen betrifft. Auf der Verhaltensebene sind Erfahrungen mit zumindest einer Variante nicht-konventioneller Familienformen - dem Zusammenleben ohne Trauschein - in beiden Teilen Deutschlands in etwa gleich verbreitet (obgleich die Bedingungen, unter denen diese Erfahrungen erworben wurden, unterschiedlich sein dürften). Geringe Unterschiede auf der Einstellungsebene gibt es insbesondere bei der moralischen Bewertung des Zusammenlebens ohne Trauschein bzw. der Einstellung zu einer 'Probe-Ehe'. Größere Unterschiede treten lediglich bei den Fragen auf, ob Menschen, die Kinder wollen, heiraten sollten und ob ein alleinstehender Elternteil sein Kind genauso gut großziehen kann wie beide zusammen. Hier erweisen sich die Ostdeutschen - insbesondere wohl wegen der positiven Erfahrungen in der Vergangenheit - als weniger traditionell. Mit ausgewählten Vergleichsdaten aus anderen Ländern werden die deutschen Ergebnisse in eine international vergleichende Perspektive gesetzt." (Autorenreferat

Religious Identity, Religious Attendance, and Parental Control

Using a national sample of adolescents aged 10–18 years and their parents (N = 5,117), this article examines whether parental religious identity and religious participation are associated with the ways in which parents control their children. We hypothesize that both religious orthodoxy and weekly religious attendance are related to heightened levels of three elements of parental control: monitoring activities, normative regulations, and network closure. Results indicate that an orthodox religious identity for Catholic and Protestant parents and higher levels of religious attendance for parents as a whole are associated with increases in monitoring activities and normative regulations of American adolescents

The Factor Analysis of Ipsative Measures

This article deals with the problem of analyzing sets of ipsative variables using the common factor model. We demonstrate that the usual assumptions of the common factor model, especially the assumption of uncorrelated disturbances, are not appropriate for sets of ipsative variables. We develop a common factor model that takes into account the ipsative properties of such data and show how this model can be applied to any set of ipsative measures using the methods of confirmatory factor analysis. We then suggest that the application of this model may be useful in modeling the latent content of sets ofrankings and other measures that have the ipsative property as a result of the measurement procedure. Finally, we apply the model to Kohn's measures of parental values, using sample data from the General Social Surveys.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68736/2/10.1177_004912418000900206.pd