About

Research

Links

Thanks for coming to find out a little more about me. You may be procrastinating, but that's OK. Structured procrastination is an effective way to spend your time.

If you're looking for copies of papers I've presented or published, you can find them immediately to the right, along with a copy of my cv.

If you're looking for information about the projects I work on, check out the links on the far side of the page!

And if you really want to know about me, here's a short biography.

I am an Assistant Professor in American history at the University of Minnesota. From 2007-10 I was a Lecturer (equivalent to an Assistant Professor) in the History Programme at Victoria University of Wellington.

My research interests are in the social and economic history of Australasia and North America in the 19th and 20th centuries. My research is on the United States and New Zealand, but I try to keep informed about Australian and Canadian history for its connections and comparisons with what I study. My current research projects are about (1) health and living standards in New Zealand from the early nineteenth century to the present, and (2) married women's work and the family economy in the United States between the Civil War and World War II.

The New Zealand research is jointly with Kris Inwood (Guelph) and Les Oxley (Canterbury). We are using anthropometric methods to create consistent measures of Maori (indigenous) and Pakeha (European descended) living standards. This work has been funded by the Health Research Council and Marsden Fund (equivalent of NIH and NSF for American readers).

My research on married women's work extends my dissertation research. I am currently digitizing state labor bureau surveys that are not available in the Historical Labor Statistics Project series. Please get in touch if you are interested in using data from this research. I plan to release public-use versions of the datasets eventually.

Since 2001 I have co-ordinated the the North Atlantic Population Project (NAPP) at the Minnesota Population Center. NAPP is an international collaboration co-ordinated by the MPC to harmonize and distribute historical (19th and 20th century) census data for social science and historical research. I am particularly interested (and have a lot of experience) in classifying occupations in historical census data. I coded hundreds of thousands of occupations in the IPUMS-USA census samples and the 1880 U.S. census complete-count dataset.

I did my PhD in history at the University of Minnesota. My dissertation looked at married women's labor force participation in the United States between 1860 and 1940. The main data sources I used were census samples from the IPUMS and the 1880 complete count census in the North Atlantic Population Project, as well as survey data from the 1888-90, 1917-19 and 1935-36 Cost of Living surveys and surveys of consumer expenditures. I also worked extensively with interviews of workers from the Hawthorne works of the Western Electric company for insight on public opinion about married women's work in the 1920s and 1930s. Please contact me if you are interested in reading any of this work.

Before going to the University of Minnesota on a Fulbright scholarship, I did a BA(Hons) degree in Economics and History, and a BSc (BS for American readers) in Mathematics and Statistics at Victoria University of Wellington.

I wrote my Honours thesis/research essay on the history of New Zealand department store employees -- publications from this work are listed in my CV to the right.

Besides my academic pursuits I do a lot of long-distance running -- if you really are procrastinating you can find my New Zealand running results at Wellington Scottish or Minnesota results on the extremely useful Raceberry Jam. I also listen to Bob Dylan, but would like to assure you I did not move to Minnesota for this reason. To my shame I have not yet made the pilgrimage to Hibbing.

CV

Evan Roberts' CV

Publications and conference papers

New Zealand health and livings standards (jointly with Kris Inwood and Les Oxley)

Please contact me if you are interested in discussing currently unpublished research.

Height, weight and mortality in the past: New evidence from a nineteenth century New Zealand cohort. Presented at the Social Science History Association meetings, November 2011.

Longitudinal studies of human growth and health: A review of recent historical research, November 2010. Journal of Economic Surveys.
Abstract: This paper reviews recent literature using stature and weight as measures of human welfare with a particular interest in cliometric or historical research. We begin with an overview of anthropometric evidence of living standards and the new but fast growing field of anthropometric history. This literature is always implicitly and often explicitly longitudinal in nature. We then discuss (i) systematic empirical research into the relationship between conditions in early life and later life health and mortality and (ii) historical evidence on the relationship between body mass, morbidity and mortality. We conclude with a discussion of the importance of historical sources and understandings to health economics and population health.

Physical stature and its interpretation in nineteenth century New Zealand, November 2010. Australian Economic History Review.

Please contact me to discuss recent work from our research on anthropometric history in New Zealand.

Married women's work

You are welcome to download and cite these papers on married women's work. However, I am working on revised versions of all these papers for a book manuscript. Please email me if you are interested in reading this research.

"Women's rights and women's labor: Married women’s property laws and labor force participation, 1860-1900. Economic History Association meetings, September 2006. (More recent version available on request. Please email me if you are interested)

"Give the single girls a chance!": Employees’ Views on Preference for Service and Layoffs at Western Electric in the Depression. Business History Conference, May 2005.

"Married women's work in war and depression, 1917-1940" European Social Science History paper, March 2004

"Labor Force Participation by Married Women in the United States: Results from the 1917/19 Cost-of-Living Survey and the 1920 PUMS", Social Science History Association conference, Baltimore, November 2003

Dissertation proposal (revised and extended, March 2005)

Historical statistics

Health economics

Tables from 2005 Medical Care Research and Review article, "A Review of Economic Evaluations of Community Mental Health Care."
Casual abstract: Economic evaluations of community mental health care could be a lot better.

Two articles about anti-depressant prescribing in New Zealand from the New Zealand Medical Journal.
Casual abstract: Antidepressant prescribing grew quickly and cost a lot more, because people switched to more expensive SSRIs.

Department stores

"Gender in Store: Salespeople’s Working Hours and Union Organisation in New Zealand and the United States, 1930-60" Labour History, Issue 83, November 2002, pp.107-130. (History Co-operative: May not be accessible to non-subscribers).
Casual abstract: The organization of the firm, and the relationship of workers to consumers restricted the effectiveness of retail workers' unions in both New Zealand and the United States. Firm and industry similarities were more important than differences in industrial relations laws.

"Don't Sell Things, Sell Effects": Overseas Influences in New Zealand Department Stores, 1909-1956. Business History Review, Volume 77, Summer 2003, pp.265-289. (Abstract only)
Casual abstract: New Zealand department stores looked to America for sales advice well before America supplied goods to New Zealand stores.

Other writing

Patient social reformers: Concordance between method and vision in the work of Richard T. Ely, and Sidney and Beatrice Webb (MA research paper, 2003).

Running

Running Times article on how to run for a long time (2 to 3 hours) in cold (below 10°F) weather.
Casual abstract: Bring fresh hats! See the article for details.

coffee grounds: my musings on the world

how to serve coffee

census data

IPUMS

North Atlantic Population Project

teaching

Fall 2011: Living, working and dying in Chicago

About the images at the top of the page
(left to right): Seward and Prospect Park neighborhoods in Minneapolis with the I-94 and Franklin Avenue bridges; Wellington from a long way up; me running my marathon PR in Philadelphia in 2005; Wellington again; A 1918 article from Factory and Industrial Management on nurseries for mothers working in factories during World War I; the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge in Bloomington (MN).