Thomas E. Jordan – författare

A quantitative analysis of the situation of Ireland's children during the famine era (1841-1861), this study utilizes census data to construct a series of indices to measure the quality of life for children in each of Ireland's 32 counties. While relatively little is known about the particular effects of the famine on childhood, census records from 1841, 1851, and 1861 do exist. Jordan also considers anthropometric data on military recruits, emigration figures, school enrollment, church records, and contemporary accounts to build a picture of Ireland's children.This comparative approach provides a wealth of information on family life in Ireland at both the county and the provincial levels. It addresses the role of home and school as a model of socialization and the use of emigration as a coping device. The author also explores the social climate created by the 1838 Poor Law. Ultimately, the stress of struggling to survive the natural disaster of the famine, combined with the political developments of the day, had a devastating effect on the young.

A book in the ecology of child development, The Degeneracy Crisis and Victorian Youth studies stress in the lives of children in the Victorian age (1837 - 1901). The term "degeneracy" is pursued in the context of biosocial problems, especially those involving the young.The book begins by presenting an overview of the nineteenth century, noting the changes in population, urbanization, the reform movement, and the rise of Darwinism. It next examines the social and health contexts in which human development took place, considering genetics, nutrition, health, mortality, and climate. Jordan then addresses empirically the nature of growth in Victorian children and young adults, presenting height and health data and using them as the dependent measure for descriptive and multivariate analysis of the Victorian economy. The concept of degeneracy, the evolution of social policy, and the efforts of specific reformers are discussed with attention to the role of government policy toward the end of the period.

This book presents a broad range of original data on childhood in Victorian Britain. It combines a social science approach to data with historical context, resulting in a highly readable account based on sound historiography.Against a backdrop of the industrial revolution, an expanding economy, and a rising standard of living, Victorian Childhood explores life and death, child development, the family, work, education, social life, cities, crime, and advocacy and reform. Presenting data on the deteriorating health of children during the nineteenth century and on their increasing displacement of adults in the workplace, the author demonstrates that they did not share proportionately in the increased standard of living.Jordan's book is a unique piece of scholarship in its range, focus, and presentation. Original sources such as diaries and memoirs not previously cited elsewhere, literature from the period, and anecdotes from the children themselves animate the statistical background and provide vivid pictures of their lives.

This book provides an examination of the quantitative and qualitative factors affecting mortality in two major cities of the British Isles: London and Dublin.

This birefs examines mortality among young children in the period from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. It does so using several types and sources of information from the census unit England and Wales, and from Ireland. The sources of information used in this study include memoirs, diaries, poems, church records and numerical accounts. They offer descriptions of the quality of life and child mortality over the three centuries under study. Additional sources for the nineteenth century are two census-derived numerical indexes of the quality of life. They are the VICQUAL index for England and Wales, and the QUALEIRE index for Ireland. Statistical procedures have been applied to the numbers provided by the sources with the aim to identify effects of and associations between such variables as gender, age, and social background. The briefs examines the results to consider the impact of children’s deaths upon parents and families, and concludes that there are differences and continuities across the centuries.