Project Overview
Urban/Rural Accident Risk in the Late 19th/Early 20th-Century United States
Department(s)
Geography
Abstract
The project will test the claim made by a number of writers that urbanization in the 19th- and early 20th-century United States led to increased levels of accidents and accidental death. The claim, though it sounds plausible, is surprising because it runs counter to the well-established present-day pattern of an urban advantage in accident safety in both high- and low-income countries. The main data source will be the database Massachusetts Death Records, 1841-1915, which assembles manuscript registers and certificates recording the primary and secondary cause and other details for all deaths occurring in Massachusetts (which was the earliest state to undertake the systematic collection of such data). The student(s) will collect records of all accidental deaths for urban and rural populations for selected years, which will then be corrected by community population size and age-adjusted, using Massachusetts state census data, to generate accidental death rates as a basis for comparison. The principal outcome, which should be of interest no matter what the results indicate, will be an article-length manuscript to be submitted to an academic journal for publication.
Student Qualifications
No formal qualifications, just diligence and accuracy.
Number of Student Researchers
1-2 student
Project Length
8 weeks
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