"Fatal Years" is the first systematic study of child mortality
in the United States in the late nineteenth century. Exploiting
newly discovered data from the 1900 Census of Population, Samuel
Preston and Michael Haines present their findings in a volume that
is not only a pioneering work of demography but also an accessible
and moving historical narrative. Despite having a rich, well-fed,
and highly literate population, the United States had exceptionally
high child-mortality levels during this period: nearly one out of
every five children died before the age of five. Preston and Haines
challenge accepted opinion to show that losses in privileged social
groups were as appalling as those among lower classes. Improvements
came only with better knowledge about infectious diseases and
greater public efforts to limit their spread. The authors look at a
wide range of topics, including differences in mortality in urban
versus rural areas and the differences in child mortality among
various immigration groups. "Fatal Years is an extremely important
contribution to our understanding of child mortality in the United
States at the turn of the century. The new data and its analysis
force everyone to reconsider previous work and statements about
U.S. mortality in that period. The book will quickly become a
standard in the field."--Maris A. Vinovskis, University of
Michigan
Originally published in 1991.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand
technology to again make available previously out-of-print books
from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press.
These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these
important books while presenting them in durable paperback
editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly
increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the
thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since
its founding in 1905.
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