Introduction and Diffusion: Useful and Reliable Knowledge in Early Modern Industrial Japan.

This article explores a key theme in recent scholarship: the impact of the circulation movement of ideas and information by examining, in this case focusing on the spread of weaving techniques across Japanese markets during the Tokugawa (1603-1868) reign. The dissemination of useful knowledge in this period relied on practitioners like artisans and merchants, on wealthy farmers, and family networks in regional communities also influenced this process, as did the conditions inhibiting or encouraging the development, adoption, adaptation, and elaboration of new technologies. Mobility, public culture, and networks played a significant role in the diffusion of knowledge in eighteenth-century Europe, and Japan's weaving in the Tokugawa period provides a non-Western parallel. Thus Japan's case suggests the necessity of further discussion about the "creation" of technological knowledge beyond the "introduction and diffusion" of ideas and information in the context of the Great Divergence debate.

The Thompson-McFadden Commission and Joseph Goldberger: contrasting 2 historical investigations of pellagra in cotton mill villages in South Carolina.

As pellagra reached epidemic proportions in the United States in the early 20th century, 2 teams of investigators assessed its incidence in cotton mill villages in South Carolina. The first, the Thompson-McFadden Commission, concluded that pellagra was likely infectious. The second, a Public Health Service investigation led by Joseph Goldberger, concluded that pellagra was caused by a dietary deficiency. In this paper, we recount the history of the 2 investigations and consider how the differences between the 2 studies' designs, measurements, analyses, and interpretations led to different conclusions. Because the novel dietary assessment strategy was a key feature of the Public Health Service's study design, we incorporated simulated measurement error in a reanalysis of the Public Health Service's data to assess whether this specific difference affected the divergent conclusions.

Bt cotton and farmer suicides in India: an evidence-based assessment.

Bt cotton is accused of being responsible for an increase of farmer suicides in India. In this article, we provide a comprehensive review of evidence on Bt cotton and farmer suicides. Available data show no evidence of a 'resurgence' of farmer suicides. Moreover, Bt cotton technology has been very effective overall in India. Nevertheless, in specific districts and years, Bt cotton may have indirectly contributed to farmer indebtedness, leading to suicides, but its failure was mainly the result of the context or environment in which it was planted.

Feet and fabrication: footbinding and early twentieth-century rural women's labor in Shaanxi.

The early twentieth-century transformations of rural Chinese women's work have received relatively little direct attention. By contrast, the former custom of footbinding continues to fascinate and is often used to illustrate or contest theories about Chinese women's status. Arguing that for rural women at least, footbinding needs to be understood in relation to rural economic conditions, the authors focus on changes in textile production and in footbinding in two counties in Shaanxi province. Drawing on historical sources and their own interview data from rural women who grew up in this period, the authors find evidence that transformations in textile production undercut the custom of footbinding and contributed to its rapid demise.

Oil on the water: Government regulation of a carcinogen in the twentieth-century Lancashire cotton spinning industry.

In the Lancashire cotton textile industry, mule spinners were prone to a chronic and sometimes fatal skin cancer (often affecting the groin). The disease had reached epidemic proportions by the 1920s, which necessitated action by the government, employers, and trade unions. In contrast to previous accounts, this article focuses on the government's reaction to mule spinners' cancer. Using official records in the National Archives, the slow introduction of health and safety measures by the government is explored in detail. Although obstructionism by the employers played a key role, one of the reasons for government inaction was the ambiguity of scientific research on engineering oils. On the other hand, prolonged scientific research suited a government policy that was framed around self regulation - a policy that had proved largely ineffective by the 1950s.

Sweat or no sweat: foreign workers in the garment industry in Malaysia.

In the last decade factory owners, in response to brand-name Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) parameters, have joined associations that verify (through a monitoring and audit system) that management does not exploit labour. There have been no reports of violations of codes of conduct concerning Malaysian workers but for foreign workers on contract there are certain areas that have been reported. These areas, including trade union membership, the withholding of workers' passports and unsuitable accommodation, generally escape notice because auditors who monitor factory compliance do not question the terms of contracts as long as they comply with national labour standards. This paper is based on research with foreign workers in Malaysia and argues that despite the success of the anti-sweatshop movement in a global context, the neo-liberal state in Malaysia continues to place certain restrictions on transnational labour migrants which breach garment industry codes of conduct. Available evidence does not support the assumption that CSR practices provide sufficient protection for both citizen and foreign workers on contract in the garment industry.

Toward an anthropometric history of provincial France, 1780-1920.

A sample of 237,782 individual observations was obtained in four areas of France: rural Alsace, urban Alsace, Limousin, and Brie (Ile-de-France). Trends in the biological standard of living of conscripts born in these regions between 1780 and 1920 fit well with the recently estimated trends for other parts of Europe. While heights were relatively low, they did not decline much preceding the Revolution in 1789. During the first half of the 19th Century heights varied considerably both spatially and longitudinally, indicating the contrasting effects of modernization among the four areas. Conscripts from the least productive agricultural area, Limousin, were the shortest. Heights in Alsace remained essentially unchanged during the first half of the 19th Century, but those in Brie increased after 1820 and those in Limousin after 1840. The positive trend became more general after 1870, though Brie alone showed the considerable negative impact of the agricultural depression of the last quarter of the 19th Century. Heights diverged until 1850 and converged thereafter. In Limousin, the annual height of conscripts is positively correlated with the weight of cattle. By the early decades of the 20th Century, a marked, long-term increase in anthropometric growth had occurred in these four regions, as elsewhere in Europe. The regional estimates correspond well to the national trends estimated by Komlos and Weir except that they show the great local variation in height until the turn of the 20th Century.

Characterization of historic silk by polarized attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy for informed conservation.

When assessing historic textiles and considering appropriate conservation, display, and storage strategies, characterizing the physical condition of the textiles is essential. Our work has concentrated on developing nondestructive or micro-destructive methodologies that will permit this. Previously, we have demonstrated a correlation between the physical deterioration of unweighted and "pink" tin (IV) chloride weighted silk and certain measurable spectroscopic and chromatographic signatures, derived from polarized Fourier transform infrared attenuated total reflectance (FTIR-ATR) spectroscopy (Pol-ATR) and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) microsampling analyses. The application of the Pol-ATR technique to aged silk characterization has now been extended to include a more comprehensive range of weighting methods and aging regimes. This was intended to replicate the full spectrum of states of deterioration observed in silk textiles, from pristine to heavily degraded. Breaking strength was employed as a measure of the physical integrity of the fibers, and, as expected, decreased with aging. An orientational crystallinity parameter, reflecting the microstructural ordering of the fibroin polymer within the fibers, was derived from the Pol-ATR spectra. A good correlation was observed between the breaking strength of the variety of fibers and this parameter. This suggests that the physical state of historic silk fabrics might be adequately characterized for conservation purposes by such indirect micromethodology.

[Mussolini's fight against occupational diseases (1922-1943): Italian leadership in the production of artificial silk]. / La lotta di Mussolini contro le malattie professionali (1922-1943). I lavoratori e il primato italiano nella produzione di seta artificiale.

After the end of the World War I Italy's economy was predominantly rural; industrialization had taken place only in the North-Western "Milan-Genoa-Turin triangle". Technological know-how and experience in developing the production cycles were scarce. The early experience in occupational medicine had been abruptly interrupted by the war. The attitudes of the Fascist regime with regard to work protection were ambiguous: work was claimed to be a sacred source of the national wealth worth being safeguarded by the regime, but the workers' potential to antagonize the regime was seen as a constant danger to public order. This scenery is well exemplified by a case study: Viscose-Ray-on Industry developed in synchrony with Mussolini's seizing power, in the early 20s. Thanks to the initiative of some manufacturers, Italy acquired a predominant role in this sector and became the second producer after the United States. Huge factories were created and complex equipment was imported from abroad. No attention was paid to health and safety at work. The major source of risk was carbon disulphide, used as a solvent in the production of xanthogenate starting from cellulose, the raw material; which produces progressive conditions following prolonged exposure. The slowness and the substantial inertia of the Fascist regime in the protection of workers' health contrasted with the reality in the Unit States, Italy's main competitor of Italy in the production of rayon. In order to exploit masses of workers, Fascism, unlike Nazism, needed no inferior "race": social discrimination was equally effective. Modern industrial development in Italy relied on masses of semiliterate farmers originating first from the Venetian region and later (after World War II) from Southern Italy. Shortly after 1945, during the so-called "Reconstruction-period", health protection developed slowly and circumspectly. National agencies supposed to have a proactive role in prevention, such as ENPI, confirmed their role as consultant of the employers for hygiene and prevention matters. Only the workers' fight around 1970 overcame the concept of the Corporative state introduced by the Fascism.

[Legal and organizational bases of health care in the textile industry of the Congress Kingdom of Poland in the 19th and beginning of 20th cent. (forms of insurance, work safety and sanitary regulations)]. / Podstawy prawno-organizacyjne opieki zdrowotnej w przemysle wlókienniczym królestwa Polskiego w XIX i na poczatku XX wieku (systemy ubezpieczenia i przepisy BHP).

The origins of state interventionism in the field of health care in the textile industry of the Congress Kingdom of Poland go back to the first half of the XIX-th century. It could not, however, be developed earlier than in the last quarter of this century, at which time it resulted from the class struggle of textile workers, mainly in Lódz and Zyrardów. Legal and organizational patterns of health care were of foreign origin, but soon they were modified and adapted to the local conditions of the Congress Kingdom of Poland. It has to be underlined that it was the textile industry that stimulated legal and organizational changes in the field of industrial health care, not only in the Congress Kingdom of Poland but also in the whole contemporary Europe.

[The yesterday and today of alloplastic materials]. / Wczoraj i dzis materialow alloplastycznych.

The authors present establishment and development of works connected with manufacturing of knitted materials for medicine in the Research and Development Centre of the Knitting Industry in Lódz. The range of products in the years of 1959-1978, the characteristic of research works and the in projects for the next years are described.

"Productivity on the cheap"? The "more looms" experiment and the Lancashire weaving industry during the inter-war years.

Two major debates in the literature, productivity performance and the decline of the cotton industry, are joined in the analysis presented in this article on the attempts to raise productivity through the introduction of the more looms per weaver system in cotton weaving in the inter-war years. We find that the limited resultant changes were the outcome of understandable predisposition to maintain co-operative behaviour which meant that productivity enhancing schemes with long term potential were sacrificed for more modest schemes which preserved consensus in the short term.

Francesco Saverio Amman: an Austrian cotton entrepreneur in Lombardy,1838-82.

This article examines the cotton manufacturing industry in Lombardy during the period when Austrian rule was being restored in the wake of the Congress of Vienna. It adopts Pollard's emphasis on the regional nature of industrialisation, drawing on the surviving accounts of Francesco Saverio Amman - the Austrian-born founder of a major cotton-mill - and attempts to identify differences and similarities between his career and achievements and those of his many counterparts in the rest of Europe. The article begins by looking at Amman's economic and social advancement, and then discusses the development of his business interests. It concludes by examining how he chose to invest his earnings, both within and without the cotton industry.

The sources of innovation in the woollen and worsted industry of eighteenth-century Yorkshire.

This article examines the economic developments that induced producers to seek our innovations during a transformative period in the Yorkshire woollen industry. The analysis examines both the increase in the scale of the typical operation and the tremendous effect that fashion had on the industry. Particular attention is given to the ways in which the workings of real markets and product innovation focused entrepreneurial energy on the production process, and what that tells us about the origins of the Industrial Revolution.

'For the convenience and comfort of the persons employed by them': the Lowell Corporation Hospital, 1840-1930.

The first industrial hospital in America opened in 1840 in Lowell, Massachusetts. The Lowell Corporation Hospital was sponsored by the town's textile employers for ninety years. This article analyses the contextual complications surrounding the employers' sustained funding of the hospital. Motivations for sustained sponsorship included paternalism, clinical excellence, business custom, the labour situation in Lowell, civic duty and the political advantages of paternalism. By analysing the changing local context of the hospital, this article argues that a broader, more integrated approach to healthcare histories and institution histories is needed if we are to fully understand the myriad of healthcare providers and their local and national importance.

Did factory girls make bad mothers? Women's labor market experience, motherhood, and children's mortality risks in the past.

Prior research has suggested that the quality of maternal care given to infants and small children plays an important role in the strong clustering of children's deaths. In this article, we investigate the quality of maternal care provided by those women who most nineteenth-century social commentators declared would never make good housewives or mothers: the young girls and women working in textile mills. We carried out this examination using an analysis of children's mortality risks in two textile cities in The Netherlands between roughly 1900 and 1930. Our analysis suggests that these children's clustered mortality risks cannot have resulted from either their mothers' labor market experience or biological or genetic factors.