SOCIO-ECONOMIC HISTORY

This article looks at case studies of two British female lace 'entrepreneurs', Charlotte Treadwin (1821〜90) of Devon and Florence Vere O'Brien (1854〜1936) of Ireland. These women were typical of those responsible for the continuance of hand-lace trades during the age of predominance of machine-made lace. They were the reason for the endurance of female areas of manufacture when much of the work of lace making seemed to be increasingly male dominated. A close look at their working methods and work culture suggests that they did not innovate as much as imitate. Their business activities were partly for profit and partly philanthropic, but always with a strong interest in maintaining traditional techniques.

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The aim of this article is to investigate the formation of the urban electric power network in Frankfurt am Main during the transition from the direct-current to the alternating-current system. In the late nineteenth century, the 'System Controversy', that is, the conflict between advocates of the direct-current system and those of the alternating-current system, was proving to be a significant socio-economic issue in western countries, especially in large cities. This coincided with the deliberations of the Frankfurt municipality over the introduction of electricity services into the city, and the citizens decided to hold the International Exhibition of Electric Technology there in 1891, in order to produce a decision on the controversy. In the exhibition an experiment with long-distance transmission of electricity using the three phase alternating-current was carried out successfully and the controversy was terminated. The outcome of the exhibition determined which system would dominate, not only in Frankfurt but also all over the world. Therefore Frankfurt can be defined as the pioneering case of urban electrification using the alternating-current system, as the result of a successful experiment. This article shows furthermore that the municipality aimed throughout to control the electrical service for the development of rational urban planning and social policy.

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The urban graveyard theory has emphasized that mortality is higher in urban than in rural areas. Osamu SAITO has reviewed research on urban and rural mortality in Tokugawa Japan (1603〜1867), and concludes that the theory has not yet been confirmed but seems likely if Farr's law is applied. This conclusion seems to have been widely accepted. In this paper, I examine whether it is reasonable to conclude that the urban mortality rate was high by using the data for 1883 to test whether Farr's law holds in the Japanese case. The results of my analysis are as follows: First, the mortality rate depends on the distributional patterns of population density in urban areas. Second, Farr's law should only hold for areas with similar patterns. Third, since urban areas in Japan showed various patterns at the beginning of the Meiji period (1868〜1912), only large areas with similar patterns follow Farr's law. Fourth, the existence of the different patterns should lead us to expect a wider range of urban mortality.

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This paper is an attempt to estimate income elasticities of food expenditure in the farm sector, by using both original and published reports of farm household surveys conducted in 1935 and 1936. The parameters thus estimated indicate, first, that tenant farmers, who (according to my theory) represent the average nationwide farming population, spent much of their income on rice as their staple diet, and on fish and shellfish as subsidiary items. These were foods that had been favored by many since the seventeenth century, and the estimated results suggest that increased earnings were used for the consumption of such traditional items. This pattern seems to have continued until the mid-1950s since the elasticity estimates are similar to those computed by Yasuhiko YUIZE for the 1955 survey. Second, owner farmers, who were regarded as well above the average, spent their income not only on other staple foods, but also on items such as meat, dairy products and eggs. This pattern is similar to the one found for 1960, as revealed by YUIZE'S research. Third, the estimated elasticities on Western-style 'luxury' foods, non-traditional seasonings and fruits were greater than 1.0 for both the owner and tenant farmer classes. This implies that westernization of food expenditure began only on the periphery of food consumption.

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