Intra-ethnic diversity in Hispanic child mortality, 1890-1910.

Using a representative sample of the Hispanic population of the United States based on the manuscripts of the 1910 census, we estimate childhood mortality for the period from approximately 1890 to 1910. We find high child mortality in the Hispanic population, higher than for non-Hispanic whites but not significantly different than among nonwhite non-Hispanics (mostly African Americans). Hispanic rural farm populations in California, Texas, and Arizona experienced high mortality, but not as high as other Hispanic populations. Child mortality was very high among Hispanic residents of New Mexico and those in Florida outside Tampa; it was especially low in the Hispanic population in Tampa.

Long-term marriage patterns in the United States from colonial times to the present.

The author presents an overview of long-term trends in U.S. nuptiality. "Marriage in colonial North America was notable for being early (for women) and marked by low percentages never marrying.... Between 1800 and the present there have been long cycles in nuptiality. Since about 1800, female age at first marriage rose from relatively low levels to a peak around 1900. Thereupon a gradual decline commenced with a trough being reached about 1960 at the height of the baby boom. There then began another, and rapid, upswing in female marriage age. Proportions never married at ages 45-54 replicated these cycles with a lag of about 20-30 years. Since 1880 (when comprehensive census data became available), male nuptiality patterns have generally paralleled those of women. Male marriage ages were higher than those of females with proportions never marrying also usually higher."

American fertility in transition: new estimates of birth rates in the United States, 1900-1910.

This article presents new estimates of age-specific overall and marital fertility rates for the entire United States for the period 1900-1910. The estimation techniques are the two-census parity increment method and the own-children method. The data sources are the 1900 census public use sample and tabulations of 1910 census fertility data published with the 1940 census. Estimates are made for the total population, whites, native-born whites, foreign-born whites, and blacks. Low age-specific marital fertility at younger ages is consistent with a view of a distinctive American fertility pattern at this time.

New estimates of child mortality in the United States at the turn of the century.

"This article estimates levels of childhood mortality on the basis of new data derived from a nationally representative sample of manuscripts of the 1900 U.S. census. The data are responses to census questions on numbers of children ever born and numbers surviving. The results for a subsample corresponding to the small death registration area (DRA) in 1900/02 validate the procedures used." The findings suggest that the 1900-1902 DRA life tables seriously overestimate child mortality among blacks. "Evidence also indicates that child mortality was declining at a moderate pace in the late 19th century, but that little decline was occurring among blacks. The results suggest the need for revising accounts of American black demographic history, including birth rates. They also imply that 20th-century progress in narrowing black-white mortality differentials has been smaller than is commonly believed."

The use of model life tables to estimate mortality for the United States in the late nineteenth century.

This paper seeks to extend our knowledge about mortality in the late nineteenth century United States by using census mortality data for older children and teenagers to fit model tables. The same method can also be used with partially underregistered death data. The most commonly used model tables, the Coale and Demeny West Model, apparently do not adequately depict the changing shape of mortality over the period 1850--1910. An alternative model life table system is presented, based on the Brass two parameter logit system and available reliable life tables from the period 1850--1910. The two parameter system must be reduced to a one parameter system by means of estimated relationships between the parameters so that the fitting procedure can be used. The resulting model system is, however, heavily dependent on the experience of northern, industrial states, especially Massachusetts.

Mortality in nineteenth century America: estimates from New York and Pennsylvania census data, 1865 and 1900.

Given the lack of information on mortality in the nineteenth century United States, it seems appropriate to apply techniques which have been created for mortality estimation for developing nations with inadequate vital registration data, to the historical American experience. Two such related sets of techniques are the brass, Sullivan, and Trussell methods and the technique here called the Surviving Children Method, which utilizes the age structure of surviving children and the number of children ever born to women in various age or duration of marriage categories. Both techniques estimate child mortality. Coale and Demeny model life tables are used to extend child mortality estimates to adult mortality. The techniques are applied to census manuscript samples from seven New York counties in 1865 and seven Pennsylvania counties in 1900, both censuses having information on children ever born. The estimates confirm a drop in mortality between 1865 and 1900 in New York and large differentials between native and foreigh-born populations as well as between rural and urban populations.