4800 Course Syllabus, Fall 2013

This is the syllabus for HIST 4800, Fall 2013. All student papers followed the guidelines presented here

HIST 4800 Course Syllabus, Spring 2014

This is the course syllabus for HIST 4800.1001, Spring 2014. Students wrote papers that followed the guidelines presented in this syllabus

Mapping the Boston Poor: Inmates of the Boston Almshouse, 1795–1801

This article examines postrevolutionary Boston through evidence about its poorest inhabitants, those admitted to the town’s almshouse from 1795 to 1801. Charts and maps constructed from Boston Almshouse records and geographical data about Boston for these years reveal the characteristics of the Almshouse inmates, as well as their residential location before entering the facility and their mobility after entering it a ªrst time. This study is part of a broader project that applies Geographical Information Systems (gis) to analyze and visualize patterns evinced by the inmates of the Boston Almshouse during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Although the conclusions apply to a short time period and a particular subset of the population, they should elicit further research about how marginalized groups navigated the city of Boston, as well as other eighteenth-century cities

MARKETS FOR CHILDREN IN EARLY AMERICA: A POLITICAL ECONOMY OF PAUPER APPRENTICESHIP

After beginning as a kind of outdoor poor relief, long-term indenture of poor children evolved into a specialized form of craft apprenticeship. Analysis of indenture terms indicates that relationships between end payments ( freedom dues ) and education and training clauses varied by region. In Boston, education and training clauses were associated negatively with freedom-dues clauses, but in Rhode Island and Charleston the relationship was positive. Variation in freedom dues to suit the needs of the master or overseer of the poor, without reference to the worker-child s own interests, resulted from the child s lack of advocacy during contract formation.