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Frontiers in Sociology and Social Research
Series Editor: John DeLamater

Duane F. Alwin
Diane H. Felmlee
Derek A. Kreager Editors

Social Networks
and the Life Course
Integrating the Development of Human
Lives and Social Relational Networks
Frontiers in Sociology and Social Research

Volume 2

Series editor
John DeLamater
Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA
Frontiers of Sociology and Sociological Research publishes a series of edited
volumes that will focus on new directions in (sub)specialties of sociology as these
are reflected in novel theoretical paradigms, innovative methodologies, and
contemporary substantive findings that exemplify and anticipate trends in these
fields. The volumes will parallel and complement the volumes in the Handbooks of
the Sociology and Social Research series. Frontiers of Sociology and Sociological
Research series begins where the Handbooks leave off by looking to the future. The
series is predicated on the observation that any field of knowledge in contemporary
times is a dynamic, rapidly changing body of perspectives and understanding that
continuously builds upon the foundation of extant scholarship.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/8690

Duane F. Alwin · Diane H. Felmlee
Derek A. Kreager
Editors

Social Networks and the Life

Course
Integrating the Development of Human Lives
and Social Relational Networks
Editors
Duane F. Alwin Diane H. Felmlee
Department of Sociology and Criminology Department of Sociology and Criminology
Pennsylvania State University Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA, USA University Park, PA, USA

Derek A. Kreager
Department of Sociology and Criminology
Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA, USA

Frontiers in Sociology and Social Research

ISBN 978-3-319-71543-8    ISBN 978-3-319-71544-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71544-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017964511

© Springer International Publishing AG 2018

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of
the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,
broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
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We dedicate this book to those whose lives
we are linked and whose support made it
possible
Foreword

When I was in graduate school at the University of Minnesota many years ago, two
then junior scholars – a sociologist and a statistician, Joe Galaskiewicz and Stanley
Wasserman – initiated what seemed to me a most exciting and productive working
group on social networks (they continued collaborating; see Wasserman and
Galaskiewicz 1994). In this working group, I learned about the measurement of
such concepts as network density and network centrality, even as I was simultane-
ously being heavily influenced by Glen Elder’s seminal work on the life course,
Children of the Great Depression (1974). I was drawn to what seemed to be two
important strands of social research, but I never thought about putting the two – net-
work and life-course framings – together. Rather, I felt I had to choose one over the
other in order to define my own field of specialization. Picking up Glen Elder at the
airport when he came to Minnesota, and talking to him while getting lost on the way
to Reuben Hill’s house, served to seal my identity as a (gendered) life-course
scholar – a small biographical example of linked lives.
In hindsight and after reading Social Networks and the Life Course, it is readily
apparent that social network and life-course theoretical and empirical approaches
address relationships in overlapping ways. Both focus on the importance of social
context. Both delineate descriptive patterns of and heterogeneity in social relations,
as well as their antecedents, mechanisms, and consequences. Both often move back
and forth across levels of analysis. Both are frequently dynamic in presuming, if not
empirically examining, continuities and changes over time. Both capture dispari-
ties, what Tilly (1998) called durable inequalities. But prior to this book, with a few
key exceptions (e.g., Cornwell et al. 2008; Cornwell and Schafer 2016), both
remained remarkably isolated from one another.
That is what makes Social Networks and the Life Course pathbreaking. It is not
simply a compilation of conference papers; rather, it breaks new ground by demon-
strating how concepts and methodologies from these two fields can be integrated in
ways that advance both social theory and social research.
Social relations are the stuff of social networks, to be sure, but they have also
been the mechanisms for understanding individual lives, beginning as early as
Thomas and Znaniecki (1918–1920), a hundred years ago as a way of capturing

vii
viii Foreword

social change, and further fleshed out by Elder’s advances in life-course inquiry
spanning two centuries (e.g., Elder 1974; Elder and George 2016).
Fruitful collaborations, concepts, methods, and propositions could well be the
resulting impacts of such integration (c.f. Alwin 2012). In his 25th anniversary edi-
tion of Children of the Great Depression (Elder 1999), Elder identifies four key
principles, all of which can inform the integration of network and life-course
perspectives.
The first principle is “The life course of individuals is embedded in and shaped
by the historical times and events they experiences over their lifetime” (Elder
1999:304). The network/life-course synergy exemplified in Social Networks and the
Life Course is coming at a time when disruptions in institutions, technologies, and
lives are commonplace, reminiscent of the period when The Polish Peasant was
written (Thomas and Znaniecki 1918–1920). Change may indeed be constant in
societies, social relationships, and biographies, but the pace of disruption acceler-
ates at certain times and places. I would argue this is just such a moment in history
and that studies of social relations need grounding in this whirlwind of multilayered
and multilevel transformations.
Elder’s second principle is “The developmental impact of a succession of life
transitions or events is contingent on when they occur in a person’s life” (Elder
1999: 306). Time and age are fundamental to life-course analysis (Settersten and
Mayer 1997); social relations change with changing roles, risks, and resources of
individuals as they age (biographical and social time). “Linked lives” and “network
ties” are isomorphic, but not quite the same. The concept of “linked lives” in life-­
course research often invokes the idea of “linked lives through time,” while “net-
work ties” typically refers to “network ties at one point in time.” But when in the life
course? Timing matters. It shapes contexts, mechanisms, and meanings, as well as
the pathways and processes of relating to one another.
The third principle is “Lives are lived interdependently and social-historical influ-
ences are expressed through this network of shared relationships” (Elder 1999: 307).
This life-course principle is explicitly about shared relationships occurring in the
contexts of history – wars and economic downturns to be sure, but also changing
technologies, demographies, organizations, cultures, and social policies (historical
and social time). Witness, for example, the impact on virtually all relationships of the
introduction and widespread adoption of the smartphone, which is only 10 years old.
Elder’s fourth life-course principle is “Individuals construct their own life course
through the choices and actions they take within the opportunities and constraints of
history and social circumstances” (Elder 1999: 308). The ebb and flow of social
relationships are both personally and socially constructed. It is important to remem-
ber that the so-called conventional life course of schooling, work and family, and
then retirement is itself socially constructed. Scholars like me are arguing for
nascent life-course stages, emergent (or early) adulthood and encore adulthood
(Arnett 2004, 2010; Moen 2016; Mortimer and Moen 2016; Settersten and Ray
2010) with corresponding shifts in opportunities and constraints around entering,
remaining in, or exiting relationships and roles, as well as the risks, costs, and
rewards of doing so. The social organization of education, labor markets, occupa-
Foreword ix

tions, neighborhoods, consumption, and health care perpetuate differential access to

and quality of information, medical treatments, the latest technologies, “good” jobs
(e.g., Kalleberg 2011), and other resources, along with different lifestyle behaviors
(such as smoking, exercise, sleeping, and diet/eating habits).
The chapters in Social Networks and the Life Course make a compelling case for
new ways of collecting data to capture social relations from several vantage points,
not just through surveys of individuals. What is required are group-level data on
couples, parents and children, neighbors, work teams, managers and their direct
reports, medical practitioners and patients, care recipients, and care providers. And
we need to capture these group-level data at different ages and stages of a more
varied and disparate twenty-first-century life course. Data are also required on the
simultaneously shifting and intransigent structural contexts of relationships, the fre-
quently outmoded policies and practices at odds with the driving forces of disrup-
tion touching every aspect of the lives and networks of individuals.
Finally, in-depth, qualitative studies as well as creative survey questions are
needed to get to the meanings of social ties: Are they voluntary or involuntary? Are
they supportive, stressful, or some of each? And why are some people entering or
remaining in certain types of social relationships, while others (or the same people
at different points in their biographies) are exiting or avoiding them altogether? This
gets to the selection issue of agency (Hitlin and Elder 2007a, b: Hitlin and Kwon
2016). What relations are “optional” as it were, and which ones seem thrust upon
us? These are only a few suggestive examples of the rich and varied agenda Social
Networks and the Life Course invokes.

Department of Sociology Phyllis Moen

University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN, USA

References

Alwin, D. F. (2012). Integrating varieties of life course concepts. Journals of Gerontology, Series
B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 60(Special Issue II), 7–14.
Arnett, J. J. (2004). Emerging adulthood: The winding road from late teens through the twenties.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Arnett, J. J. (2010). Adolescence and emerging adulthood: A cultural approach (4th ed.). Upper
Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
Cornwell, B., & Schafer, M. (2016). Social networks in later life. In L. K. George & K. F. Ferraro
(Eds.), Handbook of aging and the social sciences (Eighth ed., pp. 181–201). Waltham:
Academic Press.
Cornwell, B., Laumann, E. O., & Philip Schumm, L. (2008). The social connectedness of older
adults: A national profile. American Sociological Review, 73, 185–203.
Elder, G. H., Jr. (1974). Children of the great depression: Social change in life experience. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Elder, G. H., Jr. (1999). Children of the great depression: Social change in life experience (25th
anniversary ed.). Boulder: Westview Press.
x Foreword

Elder, G. H., Jr., & George, L. K. (2016). Age, cohorts, and the life course. In M. J. Shanahan, J. T.
Mortimer, & M. K. Johnson (Eds.), Handbook of the life course (Vol. II, pp. 59–86). New York:
Springer International Publishing.
Hitlin, S., & Elder, G. H., Jr. (2007a). Agency: An empirical model of an abstract concept. Advances
in Life Course Research 11: 33-67.
Hitlin, S., & Elder, G. H., Jr. (2007b). Understanding ‘Agency’: Clarifying a curiously abstract
concept. Sociological Theory, 25(2), 170–191.
Hitlin, S., & Kwon, H. W. (2016). Agency across the life course. In M. J. Shanahan, J. T. Mortimer,
& M. K. Johnson (Eds.), Handbook of the life course (Vol. II, pp. 431–449). New York:
Springer International Publishing.
Kalleberg, A. L. (2011). Good jobs, bad jobs: The rise of polarized and precarious employment
systems in the United States, 1970s–2000s. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Moen, P. (2016). Encore adulthood: Boomers on the edge of risk, renewal, and purpose. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Mortimer, J. T., & Moen, P. (2016). The changing social construction of age and the life course:
Precarious identity and enactment of ‘Early’ and ‘Encore’ stages of adulthood. In M. J.
Shanahan, J. T. Mortimer, & M. K. Johnson (Eds.), Handbook of the life course (Vol. II,
pp. 111–129). New York: Springer International Publishing.
Settersten, R. A., Jr., & Mayer, K. U. (1997). The measurement of age, age structuring the life
course. Annual Review of Sociology, 23, 233–261.
Settersten, R. A., Jr., & Ray, B. (2010). Not quite adults: Why 20-somethings are choosing a slower
path to adulthood, and why It’s good for everyone. New York: Random House.
Thomas, W. I., & Znaniecki, F. (1918/1920). The polish peasant in Europe and America volumes I
and II. New York: Dover Publications.
Tilly, C. (1998). Durable inequality. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Wasserman, S., & Galaskiewicz, J. (Eds.). (1994). Advances in social network analysis: Research
in the social and behavioral sciences. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Preface

This book is based on papers initially presented at a conference held in University

Park, Pennsylvania, on May 1–2, 2015, sponsored by the Center for Life Course and
Longitudinal Studies (C2LS). The latter organization, formed in collaboration
between the College of the Liberal Arts and the Department of Sociology and
Criminology, was established to foster the development of research and scholarship
at Penn State University in the study of the life course. The focus of the conference,
titled “Together Through Time: Social Networks and the Life Course,” was to
develop a set of presentations that would serve as the basis of thought and discus-
sion regarding the potential of life-course theories, in combination with innovative
social network approaches and methodology, to advance the development of knowl-
edge at the intersection of the two subfields. The organization of the conference was
implemented through a committee made up of faculty from the Department of
Sociology and Criminology, made up of Duane Alwin, Diane Felmlee, Michelle
Frisco, Derek Kreager, and Jeremy Staff. The “Together Through Time” conference
was held over a two-day period at the Penn Stater Conference Center in University
Park, Pa, with over 20 nationally representative participants present to discuss the
life-course concept of “linked lives” and its connection to the field of social net-
works. As noted, the overarching objective of the conference was to encourage dis-
cussion regarding the intersections between the life-course perspective, its concept
of “linked lives,” and the field of social networks, as well as the incorporation of
other network concepts into life-course discourse. Based on the success of the con-
ference, we actively commissioned a set of papers that promised to provide further
theoretical, methodological, and substantive developments in the overlap between
life-course studies and social network analyses, and these papers form the basis for
this book’s chapters. These papers collectively focus explicitly on life-course per-
spectives on social networks, as well as social network perspectives on the life
course. As a result, we believe there is much to be gained for both life course and
network research in the publication of the chapters of this volume. Last but not least,
we wish to acknowledge the assistance of Judy Bowes, C2LS staff member, for her

xi
xii Preface

assistance in implementing the goals of the “Together Through Time” conference

and Kerri Weitzel for her help in tracking the papers for this volume. Finally, this
book and the project on which it is based owes an enormous debt to Susan Welch,
Dean of the College of the Liberal Arts, Pennsylvania State University, and Associate
Dean Eric Silver, whose financial support of the C2LS made all of this work
possible.

State College, PA, USA Duane F. Alwin

June
 2017 Diane H. Felmlee
 Derek A. Kreager
Contents

Part I Theoretical Perspectives on Social Networks and the Life Course

1 Together Through Time – Social Networks
and the Life Course����������������������������������������������������������������������������������    3
Duane F. Alwin, Diane H. Felmlee, and Derek A. Kreager
2 Nine Ways That Social Relationships Matter
for the Life Course ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������   27
Richard A. Settersten Jr.
3 The Linked Lives Principle in Life Course Studies:
Classic Approaches and Contemporary Advances�������������������������������   41
Deborah Carr

Part II Social Network Perspectives on the Life Course

4 Life Course and Network Advantage: Peak Periods,
Turning Points, and Transition Ages������������������������������������������������������   67
Ronald S. Burt
5 Life Course Events and Network Composition������������������������������������   89
Peter V. Marsden

Part III Marriage and Family Networks

6 Calling on Kin: The Place of Parents and Adult Children
in Egocentric Networks �������������������������������������������������������������������������� 117
Shira Offer and Claude S. Fischer
7 Changes in Spousal Relationships over the Marital
Life Course ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 139
Paul R. Amato and Spencer L. James

xiii
xiv Contents

Part IV Childhood and Adolescent Social Networks

8 The Evolution of Youth Friendship Networks from 6th
to 12th Grade: School Transitions, Popularity and Centrality��������    161
Diane H. Felmlee, Cassie McMillan, Paulina Inara Rodis,
and D. Wayne Osgood
9 Best Friends for Now: Friendship Network Stability
and Adolescents’ Life Course Goals������������������������������������������������������ 185
Robert Faris and Diane H. Felmlee
10 Problems at Home, Peer Networks at School,
and the Social Integration of Adolescents���������������������������������������������� 205
Robert Crosnoe, Julie Skalamera Olson, and Jacob E. Cheadle

Part V Gender and Social Networks

11 Who Wants the Breakup? Gender and Breakup
in Heterosexual Couples�������������������������������������������������������������������������� 221
Michael J. Rosenfeld
12 Gendered Life Course Transitions: The Case of Driving
Cessation and Social Networks �������������������������������������������������������������� 245
Markus H. Schafer
13 How Much Can Be Expected of One Child? Consequences
of Multiplexity of Mothers’ Support Preferences
on Adult Children’s Psychological Well-Being�������������������������������������� 263
J. Jill Suitor, Megan Gilligan, Siyun Peng, and Marissa Rurka

Part VI Race and Social Networks

14 Race, Social Relations and the Life Course ������������������������������������������ 285
Duane F. Alwin, Jason R. Thomas, and Kyler J. Sherman-Wilkins
15 Can Extracurricular Activities Reduce Adolescent
Race/Ethnic Friendship Segregation?���������������������������������������������������� 315
David R. Schaefer, Sandra D. Simpkins, and Andrea Vest Ettekal

Part VII Tracking Social Networks Through Time

16 Structure by Death: Social Network Replenishment
in the Wake of Confidant Loss���������������������������������������������������������������� 343
Benjamin Cornwell and Edward O. Laumann
17 Changes of Personal Network Configuration Over the Life
Course in the USA: A Latent Class Approach�������������������������������������� 367
Yoosik Youm, Edward O. Laumann, and Keunbok Lee
Contents xv

Part VIII Inter-generational Social Networks

18 Trajectories of Mother-Child Relationships Across
the Life Course: Links with Adult Well-Being�������������������������������������� 391
Jennifer L. Doty and Jeylan T. Mortimer
19 Linked Religious Lives Across Generational Time in Family
Lineages: Grandparents as Agents of Transmission���������������������������� 415
Merril Silverstein and Vern L. Bengtson

Part IX Exploring the Potential of Social Networks

as Mechanisms for Prevention
20 A Life Course and Networks Approach to Prison
Therapeutic Communities���������������������������������������������������������������������� 433
Derek A. Kreager, Martin Bouchard, George De Leon,
David R. Schaefer, Michaela Soyer, Jacob T. N. Young,
and Gary Zajac
21 Impact of School-Based Prevention Programs on Friendship
Networks and the Diffusion of Substance Use and Delinquency�������� 453
Kelly L. Rulison, Scott D. Gest, Mark Feinberg,
and D. Wayne Osgood

Part X Conclusions
22 Strategies for Integrating Network and Life
Course Perspectives �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 479
Derek A. Kreager, Diane H. Felmlee, and Duane F. Alwin

Index������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 487
Contributors

Duane F. Alwin Department of Sociology and Criminology, Pennsylvania State

University, University Park, PA, USA
Paul R. Amato Department of Sociology, Pennsylvania State University, State
College, PA, USA
Vern L. Bengtson School of Social Work, University of Southern California, Los
Angeles, CA, USA
Martin Bouchard School of Criminology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby,
Canada
Ronald S. Burt University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Chicago, IL,
USA
Deborah Carr Department of Sociology, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
Jacob E. Cheadle Department of Sociology, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE,
USA
Benjamin Cornwell Department of Sociology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY,
USA
Robert Crosnoe Department of Sociology, University of Texas, Austin, TX, USA
George De Leon Department of Psychiatry, New York University, New York, NY,
USA
Jennifer L. Doty Division of General Pediatrics and Adolescent Health,
Department of Pediatrics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
Andrea Vest Ettekal Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Sciences, Texas
A&M University, College Station, TX, USA
Robert Faris Department of Sociology, University of California at Davis, Davis,
CA, USA

xvii
xviii Contributors

Mark Feinberg Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center, Pennsylvania State

University, State College, PA, USA
Diane H. Felmlee Department of Sociology and Criminology, Pennsylvania State
University, University Park, PA, USA
Claude S. Fischer Department of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley,
CA, USA
Scott D. Gest Department of Human Development and Family Studies,
Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, USA
Megan Gilligan Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Iowa
State University, Ames, IA, USA
Spencer L. James School of Family Life, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT,
USA
Derek A. Kreager Department of Sociology and Criminology, Pennsylvania State
University, University Park, PA, USA
Edward O. Laumann Department of Sociology, University of Chicago, Chicago,
IL, USA
Keunbok Lee Department of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley, CA,
USA
Peter V. Marsden Department of Sociology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA,
USA
Cassie McMillan Department of Sociology and Criminology, Pennsylvania State
University, University Park, PA, USA
Phyllis Moen Department of Sociology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis,
MN, USA
Jeylan T. Mortimer Department of Sociology, University of Minnesota,
Minneapolis, MN, USA
Shira Offer Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Bar Ilan University,
Ramat Gan, Israel
Julie Skalamera Olson Department of Sociology, University of Texas, Austin,
TX, USA
D. Wayne Osgood Department of Sociology and Criminology, Pennsylvania State
University, University Park, PA, USA
Siyun Peng Department of Sociology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA
Paulina Inara Rodis Department of Sociology and Criminology, Pennsylvania
State University, University Park, PA, USA
Contributors xix

Michael J. Rosenfeld Department of Sociology, Stanford University, Stanford,

CA, USA
Kelly L. Rulison Department of Public Health Education, University of North
Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC, USA
Marissa Rurka Department of Sociology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN,
USA
David R. Schaefer Department of Sociology, University of California, Irvine, CA,
USA
Markus H. Schafer Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, Toronto,
ON, Canada
Richard A. Settersten Jr. College of Public Health and Health Sciences, Oregon
State University, Corvallis, OR, USA
Kyler J. Sherman-Wilkins Department of Sociology and Criminology,
Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA
Merril Silverstein Department of Sociology, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY,
USA
Sandra D. Simpkins School of Education, University of California, Irvine, CA,
USA
Michaela Soyer Department of Sociology, Hunter College, New York, NY, USA
J. Jill Suitor Department of Sociology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN,
USA
Jason R. Thomas Department of Sociology and Criminology, Pennsylvania State
University, University Park, PA, USA
Yoosik Youm Department of Sociology, Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea
Jacob T. N. Young School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Arizona State
University, Tempe, AZ, USA
Gary Zajac Department of Sociology and Criminology, Pennsylvania State
University, University Park, PA, USA
 Part I
Theoretical Perspectives on Social
Networks and the Life Course
Chapter 1
Together Through Time – Social Networks
and the Life Course

Duane F. Alwin, Diane H. Felmlee, and Derek A. Kreager

Introduction

The life course perspective has made important contributions to many substantive
disciplines in recent decades. Indeed, the increase in life course thinking has been
remarkable in its abundance and diversity, and in recent years the key principles in
this work have drawn the attention of numerous scholars from several different dis-
ciplines. These observations are supported by a review of literature published in the
recent edition of the Handbook of the Life Course, which drew upon the Thomson/
Reuters Web of Science database of publications (Shanahan et al. 2016, pp. 2–3).
The authors provided trend lines for publications using the concept of life course for
three fields: sociology, psychology and epidemiology since the early 1990s, making
a persuasive case for the proliferation of the term “life course” in research over the
past 2–3 decades, especially in the field of epidemiology. Their data revealed very
little publication activity prior to 1990, and through 1998 the activity was not sub-
stantial, but from then on, the number of publications using the “life course” topic,
title or theme increased exponentially. So pervasive has the life course concept
become in the social and behavioral sciences in recent years that it was recently
adopted by the World Health Organization as its conceptual approach to under-
standing the determinants of health in older age (Beard et al. 2015, p. 7).
Applications of the life course concept can be seen across a wide range of disci-
plines and sub-disciplines, from the social sciences (economics, anthropology, soci-
ology and political science), to the epidemiological and clinical sciences (psychology,
epidemiology and the health sciences). It has been usefully applied across diverse
fields, including the study of child health and development (e.g., Case et al. 2002;
Braveman and Barclay 2009), health and aging (e.g., Ferraro 2011; Moen and

D. F. Alwin (*) · D. H. Felmlee · D. A. Kreager

Department of Sociology and Criminology, Pennsylvania State University,
University Park, PA, USA
e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer International Publishing AG 2018 3

D. F. Alwin et al. (eds.), Social Networks and the Life Course, Frontiers in Sociology
and Social Research 2, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71544-5_1
4 D. F. Alwin et al.

Spencer 2006; Herd et al. 2011), health disparities across the life span (e.g., Alwin
and Wray 2005; Wadsworth and Kuh 2016; Ferraro 2016), demography (e.g., Rindfus
1991; Willekens 1999), criminology (e.g., Laub and Sampson 2003; Sampson and
Laub 1996; Wakefield and Apel 2016), family (e.g., Pavalko and Elder 1990; Amato
and Keith 1991; Hofferth and Goldscheider 2016), education (e.g., Entwistle et al.
2003; Pallas 2003; Crosnoe and Benner 2016), public health (Halfon and Hochstein
2002; Halfon et al. 2014; Berkman et al. 2011), and epidemiology (Ben-Shlomo and
Kuh 2002; Kuh and Ben-Shlomo 2004, 1997). Only recently have life course
researchers begun to integrate social network concepts with the study of life course
dynamics (see Cornwell and Silverstein 2015; Cornwell and Schafer 2016).
These trends in the use of the “life course” concept mentioned above raise ques-
tions about the potential for growth in understanding the dynamics of human lives
and the ways in which we may increase our knowledge about the connections
between social networks and the life course. The life course perspective assumes
that people’s lives are uniquely shaped by the timing and sequencing of life events
(both intended and unintended), and that lives are embedded in historical contexts,
institutional structures and social networks. A key component of the life course
perspective is that individual lives are linked both intra-generationally and inter-­
generationally, and distinctive birth cohort experiences are considered to reflect
many of these exogenous influences (Ryder 1965; Alwin and McCammon 2003,
2007). Such social network phenomena are captured within the life course perspec-
tive via the concept of “linked lives,” which emphasizes the fact that lives are lived
interdependently, within and between generations (Elder 1994). The life course
framework further assumes that early life events and exposures contribute in mean-
ingful ways to later life outcomes, and that events and transitions occurring in the
life course of one individual often entail transitions for other people as well. Various
strands of individual life trajectories, (such as schooling, work, military service,
marriage, family, criminal histories, wealth and health) are interconnected to one
another, and to the life trajectories of persons within the interpersonal contexts and
micro-level settings inhabited by multiple people, hence, the concept of “linked
lives” (Elder et al. 2003; Elder and O’Rand 1996; Elder and Shanahan 2006).
Our intention in this chapter is both to reinforce the broad appeal of the life
course concept and life course perspectives for the study of human behavior, but
also to suggest how the integration of ideas about the life course and the understand-
ing of social networks can further the study of both. Our purpose in this chapter is
to present the overarching framework within which the understanding of social net-
works can improve the understanding of the life course, and vice versa. Individuals
are often the primary focus of sociologists and others, and yet individual lives are
linked to one another. People inhabit a multi-layered environment, a set of uniquely
nested structures, like a set of Russian Matryoshka dolls. In short, lives are lived
interdependently. People inhabit what are called N + 2 systems—dyads, triads, tet-
rads, and larger interpersonal structures (Bronfenbrenner 1979, p. 47; Felmlee and
Faris 2013). At the same time, a large portion of contemporary research on the life
course relies on data and methods for studying individuals singly (Belli et al. 2009;
Freedman et al. 1988), which rarely includes information on the environments they
1 Together Through Time – Social Networks and the Life Course 5

inhabit and their social networks. Social network analysis has developed into its
own field, existing at the intersection of several different disciplines, and there is an
important opportunity to capitalize on the developments in the field of social net-
works and apply these results to the study of lives (see Cornwell and Silverstein
2015). Cross-fertilization among fields, or even sub-disciplines often provides the
means by which knowledge is advanced, and we see a significant increase in
research that integrates life course theory and social network concepts.
At the same time, most social network studies focus on social structure, that is,
the relationships among people in a particular group as represented by their social
ties and how they produce structures of relationships. Students of social networks
do not always incorporate data on individual characteristics and those of their net-
work ties; similarly, studies of individuals typically do not include the characteris-
tics of other persons who are in their social networks. Yet, the topics that social and
behavioral scientists study, e.g., marriage, friendship, kinship, caregiving, work,
organizational memberships, and neighborhood ties are all relevant to outcomes for
individuals, and increasingly, sociological studies are focusing on the social net-
work ties, or the social structures, that bind individuals together over their lives (see,
e.g., Cornwell and Silverstein 2015; Cornwell and Schafer 2016; Morgan 1988;
Adams 1987; Alwin et al. 1991; Wrzus et al. 2013). Still, greater integration of
social network science and sociology is needed, and innovative methodological
approaches (especially with respect to gathering data) are necessary to advance
knowledge about the interplay of human development and social structures as medi-
ated by social environments and cultural norms. It would be invaluable if sociologi-
cal theory and methodology were to draw more upon the mathematical and other
contributions of social network science (graph theory, visualization tools, block
modeling, etc.) with applications to the study of people’s lives examined longitudi-
nally (Alwin et al. 2016; Alwin et al. 2006).
Within life course studies, the concept of “linked lives” appears to be less devel-
oped than other aspects of the life course perspective, at least as compared to the
concepts of life transitions, trajectories, and historical change (see Deborah Carr’s
chapter in the present volume). Moreover, the concept of linked lives may be opera-
tionalized relatively narrowly as the connections between children and their parents,
for instance, but not likely to extend to include the potentially powerful school net-
work in which those children are located, for much of the waking hours. A social
network perspective, therefore, stretches the concept of “linked lives” to include
far-ranging sets of ties, such as those of the school, the neighborhood, friendships,
an extended kin network, the workplace, or the institutional setting. A number of
sophisticated methodological advances within the social network field are useful for
life course perspectives, such as the focus on network centrality, cliques or sub-­
clusters, weak ties, brokerage, as well as recent exponential random graph models
(ERGM).
The field of social networks also could benefit from a more serious consideration
of life course concepts and research problems. Social network research often focuses
narrowly on specific, methodological innovations and often fails to integrate
­theoretically with broader sociological approaches. It would be useful if network
6 D. F. Alwin et al.

specialists were to further develop the ways in which their approach overlaps with
general, sociological theory; the life course perspective, with its emphasis on
“linked lives,” appears to be a particularly useful sociological perspective for such a
task. Life course theory offers novel avenues of investigation for network research-
ers. Its dynamic focus on social change, for instance, highlights the notions that the
linked lives of networks will seldom remain stable over time and that historical
events shape social ties, as well. The life course focus on turning points, further-
more, points to potential stages in time when people’s networks are apt to change
abruptly, such as when young people exit school.

The Life Course

The life course concept emerged in sociology more than 50 years ago, beginning
with Leonard Cain’s chapter on “life course and social structure” published in the
1964 Handbook of Modern Sociology (Cain 1964). He defined the life course as
“those successive statuses individuals are called upon to occupy in various cultures
and walks of life as a result of aging” (p. 278). It was not a new idea, as the age-­
graded nature of stages of human life has been recognized for millenia. For exam-
ple, Cain noted the writings of Solon, the Athenian poet and lawmaker born in the
seventh century, B.C., who suggested a 10-stage life course of 7 years each, begin-
ning with “the boy as the unripe man,” and ending with “the time to depart on the
ebb-tide of Death” (Cain 1964, p. 277). There are other examples (e.g. Erikson’s
“Eight Ages of Man,” 1950).
Contemporary uses of the life course concept are in many ways more refined and
complex. In order to reduce some potential confusion, we distinguish between the
life course and the life course perspective(s). The former—the life course—consists
of a complex set of interlocking trajectories, or pathways, across the entire life span
of an individual (from conception to death). These pathways occur within several
domains, (e.g., region and nation, gender, race, residence, household, family,
schooling, work, health (physical, mental, diet and nutrition), economic conditions,
etc.) that are marked by sequences of events, transitions and exposures (ETXs)
across (and within) the biologically- and socially-defined life stages (or phases) that
comprise the human life span, embryo, infancy, childhood,adolescence, adulthood,
etc. These sequences and transitions are socially defined and institutionalized
(Kohli 1988, 2007). Traversing the life stages and moving between them, while
experiencing unique sets of ETXs at every stage essentially defines an individual’s
life course, theoretically producing differential outcomes (Clausen 1986).
On the other hand, life course perspectives are disciplinary or sub-disciplinary
lenses on the life course (as defined above), focusing on people’s lives with a par-
ticular interest in either one phase of life (e.g., adolescence, or older age) or the
connection between two or more phases (e.g., the transition to adulthood, e.g.
Hogan 1981; Hogan and Astone 1986; McLeod and Almazan 2003), or the transi-
tion to old age (e.g., Ferraro 2001), and/or outcomes within one particular domain
1 Together Through Time – Social Networks and the Life Course 7

Fig. 1.1 Domains of relevance and key life course concepts

(e.g., health, or education, etc.) (e.g., Ferraro 2016). These elements may combine
in such a way that the particular sub-discipline may focus on one set of outcomes
during a particular life phase (e.g., chronic disease in adulthood). It is important to
emphasize, however, that there is more than one life course perspective, each attend-
ing to different aspects of the individual’s life course. For example, there is a socio-
logical perspective on the life course (e.g., Elder 1994), an epidemiological
perspective (e.g. Kuh et al. 2003; Kuh and the New Dynamics of Aging 2007), and
so on. In general, life course analysis focuses on the nature and determinants of
particular transitions, their timing, their links to events and exposures in earlier life
stages, and their consequences for outcomes of human development, for example,
health, well-being and mortality in adulthood (e.g., Blackwell et al. 2001; Case
et al. 2002; Haas 2007, 2008; Hayward and Gorman 2004; Montez and Hayward
2011; Schafer et al. 2011).
The life course perspectives of today transcend the original notions of age-graded
life stages (see Cain 1964). There are several recognizable and distinct life course
perspectives and/or paradigms that motivate the study of human lives across many
different fields. Each approach relies on its own concepts, which are often mistak-
enly applied inter-changeably across fields, but each makes a distinctive contribu-
tion that deserves notice in mapping this domain (Elder 2000; Alwin 2012). Life
course research has made major inroads in understanding the connections between
lives, time, and place, and how to handle these complexities in theory and research.
Conceptually, these areas are roughly nested within one another, and extend from
the species level (which establishes certain fixed parameters) down to the level of
the individual life course (where lower-level concepts are nested within the one
above). These substantive domains and associated life course concepts are shown in
Fig. 1.1. This scheme emphasizes the biological roots of relevant domains (see
8 D. F. Alwin et al.

Finch and Kirkwood 2000; Olshansky et al. 2002), life history perspectives (Charnov
1993; Roff 1992; Stearns 1992; Carey 2003, 2009; Lee 2003), as well as the cultural
and societal contributions to understanding how lives develop (Ellis et al. 2009;
Kaplan et al. 2000; Kaplan and Robson 2002; Hogan 2000; Alwin 2015; Sewell
1992), and life-span developmental perspectives (Baltes 1987, 1997; Baltes and
Baltes 1980; Baltes et al. 1999; Featherman 1983; Staudinger et al. 1995; Alwin and
Wray 2005). Ultimately, the relevant domains include aspects of social networks
that are based in society, the family, and individual trajectories. By nesting these
concepts across levels of discourse and disciplines, as in Fig. 1.1, we can achieve a
much more integrated framework that amplifies meaning and creates a holistic
interpretation of lives within a multidisciplinary context (Alwin 2012). Because of
space limitations, we do not expand upon the distinctiveness of each of these several
different approaches to the study of the life course, as they are thoroughly discussed
elsewhere (see Alwin 2012, 2016).

Social Networks

A social network perspective points to the interconnections among actors as a key

component of social interaction, with a primary focus on the relational aspects of
social processes. Network data then differs from individual surveys typical to
social sciences in that there is an equal emphasis on individual attributes and the
ties that connect individuals into a web of social relations. The science of net-
works, similar to the study of the life course, represents a multidisciplinary field
that extends to multiple domains, including the social sciences, as well as the phys-
ical and biological sciences, computer science and engineering, and in some
instances, the humanities.
Not unlike the life course paradigm, social network research also has experi-
enced remarkable growth in recent years. Scholarship in the field demonstrated con-
sistent increases over the past couple of decades, a trend noted consistently across
multiple literature searches. For example, in a search of three databases, including
Sociological Abstracts, Medline Advanced, and PsychINFO, Otte and Rousseau
(2002) detected a largely linear growth in yearly publications on the topic of social
networks over approximately a 25-year period from 1974 until 1999. A recent
examination of Scopus and PsychINFO continued to document a noteworthy expan-
sion in social network publications, with accelerated growth over the last decade
(Felmlee and Sinclair, in press). In 1985, for instance, there were 628 new publica-
tions on “social networks”; there were close to three times as many in 2005 (1761),
and in 2015 a search on the same topic yielded a total of 9324 novel publications,
representing over 12 times as many as 10 years earlier.
1 Together Through Time – Social Networks and the Life Course 9

Historical Roots of Network Analysis

The roots of modern network models began with the work of Jacob Moreno (1934)
and Helen Jennings (1943). Early work focused on the use of sociometric analysis
in conjunction with psychotherapy and psychodrama. Barnes (1954) is normally
credited with the first use of the term “social network” to refer to a set of social
relationships. Divergences occurred in students of networks who studied them from
an “ego centric” versus a “socio centric” point of view, that is, taking the perspective
of individual actors versus a “social structure” that characterizes the group of net-
work ties. There are several comprehensive reviews of the topic of social networks
that follow its development. Freeman (2004) traces the history of the development
of social network analysis. Wasserman and Galaskiewicz (1994) discuss a range of
substantive applications. Marsden (1990) reviews the literature on the measurement
of social networks. Wasserman and Faust (1994) discuss the analytic methods.
The social network perspective shares several common characteristics with those
of the life course and dovetails nicely with that approach to social life. Both have
conceptual and theoretical elements and implications, for example, but each repre-
sents more of a guiding approach to scholarship than a pure theory, per se. In addi-
tion, each approach takes a fundamentally social perspective on human behavior,
embedding individual actors within a larger social sphere. Both point to intercon-
nectedness among actors as a key to understanding social life, building on the con-
cept of a “network of ties” within the social network tradition and the life course
concept of “linked lives.”
At the same time, the two approaches contrast in a number of ways. Perhaps the
most major point of departure between the two traditions is that the social network
approach represents not only a set of theoretical concepts and principles, but it also
brings with it a distinct set of methodological procedures to examine social interac-
tion. Network analysis involves a series of unique concepts and an array of method-
ological tools designed to investigate and incorporate the lack of independence
among actors in an extended set of social ties. In addition, the social network per-
spective generally takes a narrower focus on social interaction than does that of the
life course. It points to the interconnectedness of actors, as does aspects of the life
course approach, but the social network approach deems this relational nature of
interaction as preeminent. Relational ties represent the focus of investigation.
Research on the life course might attend to “linked lives,” in some cases, but often
focuses instead on other concepts such as those of trajectories, turning points, and
historical changes. On the other hand, social networks encompass a more extensive
notion of actors. Actors in the life course tradition tend to be individuals, whereas
those in social networks often consist of a range of alternative entities, such as larger
collections of people, including small groups, schools, organizations, and nation
states. Social network actors also may entail objects of social value, including books
purchased on Amazon, tweets on the social media website, Twitter, and central top-
ics in political discussions.
10 D. F. Alwin et al.

Principles of a Social Network Perspective

A social network perspective emphasizes that interconnections among sets of

actors need to be considered in order to better understand social processes. This
approach differs from that of a more individualistic or dyadic viewpoint, because
these interconnections consist of actors one step away and reach out to those con-
nected at farther distances, that is, extended ties. Note, too, that two genres of
network data exist—egocentric networks and global, or sociocentric, networks.
Ego networks, or personal networks, are made up of a set of actors, “egos,” and the
ties that emanate from that set. Global networks, on the other hand, contain infor-
mation regarding all the possible ties between a set of actors and global networks
tend to be more extensive than ego networks; ego networks typically do not contain
data on the ties between the various egos. The chapters in this book represent both
types of network data.
According to several network scholars (e.g., Wasserman and Faust 1994;
Wellman 1998), a number of propositions comprise a social network perspective.
Several key principles include: (1) The relationships, or sets of ties, among actors
serve as the focal point of theoretical and empirical analysis. (2) The behavior of
one actor is interdependent with that of actors to whom they are connected. (3)
Elements of the structure of the broader network influence actors’ behavior. (4)
Networks act as conduits for the spread of resources, support, information, rumors,
social norms, and other types of positive and negative interchanges among actors.
These principles serve as the foundation for much of social network research,
­pointing to the central relational and structural elements of the network perspective.
These network concepts have been useful in life course research focusing on net-
work transitions in older age, e.g., the bridging potential of social networks
(Cornwell 2009a, b).

Social Network Concepts and Theories

A number of key concepts characterize a social network approach to scholarship,

and we briefly describe several of these. Degree refers to the number of edges, or
ties, that connect one network node, or actor, to another in a symmetric, or undi-
rected network graph. In a directed network or graph, nodes possess both an inde-
gree and outdegree, where indegree measures the number of ties leading towards a
node, and outdegree is the number of edges that originate with a node and lead
outwards. Network density measures the overall level of connectedness in a graph,
and in a binary network it represents the proportion of all edges that are present, out
of all possible edges.
Network centrality represents one of the focal concepts for social network
research and has stimulated a considerable amount of scholarship in the field.
Centrality identifies actors who are the most prominent, influential, or the most
1 Together Through Time – Social Networks and the Life Course 11

c­ onnected to others in the network. Numerous measures of actor, network centrality

exist (Freeman 1979), and here we focus on three key measures—degree centrality,
closeness, and betweenness. Degree centrality is the simplest, and it enumerates the
number of others to whom each actor is linked. Closeness centrality depends upon
the shortest path, or geodesic, between all other actors, with those who are at shorter
distances from others having the highest level of closeness. Actor betweenness cen-
trality measures the number of times in which a node occurs as a bridge along the
geodesic connecting other nodes (Freeman 1979). Each of these centrality measures
taps into a different conceptualization of node prominence, or importance. Network
centrality relates significantly to numerous positive and negative outcomes, includ-
ing job perceptions (e.g., Ibarra and Andrews 1993), performance of individuals and
groups (Sparrowe et al. 2001), adolescent drinking (Kreager et al. 2011), school
victimization (e.g., Felmlee and Faris 2016), and student satisfaction and perfor-
mance (e.g., Baldwin et al. 1997).
A focus on network centrality emphasizes strong interconnections in a graph.
Granovetter (1973), however, argues that it is the weak ties, rather than those that
are strong, that play a crucial role in social networks, where weak ties refer to net-
work bridges that provide a link between otherwise disconnected nodes. Because
strong ties, such as family and friendship connections, tend to possess similar types
of information, novel forms of communication and influence are apt to originate
from contacts that are weak and distant (e.g., Ellison et al. 2007; Kreager and
Haynie 2011).
Burt’s (1992) theory of structural holes extends the notion of weak connections
to a focus on the actors that serve as bridges, or gatekeepers, in a work organization.
A structural hole refers to a gap between people in an ego network, and it is indi-
viduals that bridge these holes that occupy advantageous positions in firms. Such
brokers can transfer or gate keep useful information between groups, or combine
information in innovative ways. Structural constraint, on the other hand, measures
the degree to which a manager’s connections are located within a single group of
interconnected colleagues, that is, they possess no ability to broker structural holes.
The degree to which managers were social brokers in a firm corresponded directly
to their level of wages, valued ideas, performance evaluations, and the likelihood of
promotion (Burt 2004).
These various network concepts and theories can be combined with a life course
perspective in intriguing ways. The notion of “linked lives” can be extended, for
example, to note that certain connected lives are more central and influential than
others, and that the locus of centrality no doubt shifts considerably over the life
course. In addition, people’s lives can be influenced by their ties to third parties, not
only by direct family and friends, and that such extended ties are worthy of atten-
tion. Links between individuals also likely vary in strength, and perhaps surpris-
ingly, it may be their weak, rather than strong, ties that substantially shape life
transitions and trajectories over time. Furthermore, having many, deeply intercon-
nected, linked lives may constrain, rather than enhance, peoples’ opportunities and
innovativeness as they progress through life’s stages.
12 D. F. Alwin et al.

This should not be interpreted to mean that life course researchers have ignored
social network concepts. There have been several applications of social network
concepts in the study of life course and aging. Due to the importance of social net-
work change in older age, gerontological research has been interested in the extent
to which network structure and composition differences in older age impact upon
the individual in suboptimal ways (see Ferraro 2001), contributing to the long stand-
ing interest of social gerontologists in phenomena relating to health, family, com-
munity and other domains in which it offers a fruitful set of avenues for research
(Cornwell and Silverstein 2015). There has been considerable research on the social
integration of older adults, suggesting that with age there is a decline in access to
social support, community involvement and network connectedness (see Alwin
et al. 1985; Morgan 1988; Cornwell 2011a, 2012; Cornwell et al. 2008). These
results are consistent with other findings, which suggest that both core and periph-
eral networks decline with age, although some more recent results suggest that fam-
ily networks are stable in size from adolescence through old age (Wrzus et al. 2013).
These results have stimulated more dialogue between social network researchers
and social gerontologists, and has focused on older adults’ bridging prospects, and
while age is unrelated to bridging, some of the phenomena that accompany old age
reduce bridging potential. Individual’s cognitive and physical health play an impor-
tant role in social network bridging, making it less likely for those of poorer health
to span structural holes (Cornwell 2009a, b). This work raises important questions
about the relational advantages that women and men have in older age, c­ ontradicting
to some extent the traditional stereotypes about women having more close-knit kin-
centered networks than men (Cornwell 2011b).
At the same time, the life course perspective nudges social network research in a
number of critical directions, one of which is to attend to variation over time.
Although recent network methodological advances, and the availability of longitu-
dinal network data sets, enable the study of changing networks, the bulk of work in
the field has focused on network structure at one point in time. Furthermore, life
transitions, such as shifts between levels of schooling, transitions in and out of mar-
riage, and geographic mobility, often portend considerable fluctuations in one’s
social network. Life transitions, thus, are also network transitions (Roberts and
Dunbar 2015). Moreover, social life is not only embedded within a distinctive social
network, according to the life course approach, it is located within a particular cul-
tural and historical framework that, too, fundamentally shapes personal outcomes.

Organization of This Volume

The volume is organized into nine parts, extending from theoretical perspectives to
practical applications of social networks and life course perspectives to prevention
and social amelioration. The volume begins with theoretical perspectives—life
course perspectives on social networks and social network perspectives on the life
course. Lives do not exist independently, because they are linked and relationships
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
 COUNT RUMFORD’S COOKING-
STOVES.
In the preceding chapter I described Count Rumford’s
modification of the English open firegrate which eighty years ago
was offered to the British nation without any patent or other
restrictions. Its non-adoption I believe to be mainly due to this—it
was nobody’s monopoly, nobody’s business to advertise it, and,
therefore, nobody took any further notice of it; especially as it
cannot be made and sold as a separate portable article.
An ironmonger or stove-maker who should go to the expense of
exhibiting Rumford’s simple structure of fire-bricks and a few bars,
described in the last chapter, would be superseding himself by
teaching his customers how they may advantageously do without
him.
The same remarks apply to his stoves for cooking purposes.
They are not iron boxes like our modern kitcheners, but are brick
structures, matters of masonry in all but certain adjuncts, such as
bars, fire-doors, covers, oven-boxes, etc., which are very simple and
inexpensive. Even some of Rumford’s kitchen utensils, such as the
steamers, were cheaply covered with wood, because it is a bad
conductor, and therefore wastes less heat than an iron saucepan lid.
Rumford was no mere theorist, although he contributed largely
to pure science. His greatest scientific discoveries were made in the
course of his persevering efforts to solve practical problems. I must
not be tempted from my immediate subject by citing any examples
of these, but may tell a fragment of the story of his work so far as it
bears upon the subject of cooking-ranges.
 He began life as a poor schoolmaster in New Hampshire, when it
was a British colony. He next became a soldier; then a diplomatist;
then in strange adventurous fashion he traveled on the Continent of
Europe, entered the Bavarian service and began his searching
reform of the Bavarian army by improving the feeding and the
clothing of the men. He became a practical working cook in order
that they should be supplied with good, nutritious, and cheap food.
But this was not all. He found Munich in a most deplorable
condition as regards mendicity; and took in hand the gigantic task of
feeding, clothing, and employing the overwhelming horde of
paupers, doing this so effectually that he made his “House of
Industry” a true workhouse; it paid all its own expenses, and at the
end of six years left a net profit of 100,000 florins.
I mention these facts in conformation of what I said above
concerning his practical character. Economical cookery was at the
root of his success in this maintenance of a workhouse without any
poor-rates.
After doing all this he came to England, visited many of our
public institutions, reconstructed their fireplaces, and then cooked
dinners in presence of distinguished witnesses, in order to show how
little need be expended on fuel, when it is properly used.
At the Foundling Institution in London he roasted 112 lbs. of
beef with 22 lbs. of coal, or at a cost of less than threepence. The
following copy of certificate, signed by the Councillor of War, etc.,
shows what he did at Munich: “We whose names are underwritten
certify that we have been present frequently when experiments have
been made to determine the expense of fuel in cooking for the poor
in the public kitchen of the military workhouse at Munich, and that
when the ordinary dinner has been prepared for 1000 persons, the
expense for fuel has not amounted to quite 12 kreutzers.” Twelve
kreutzers is about 4½d. of our money. Thus only 1-50th of a
farthing was expended on cooking each person’s dinner, although
the peas which formed the substantial part of the soup required five
hours, boiling. The whole average daily fuel expenses of the kitchen
of the establishment amounted to 1-20th of a farthing for each
person, using wood, which is much dearer than coal. At this rate,
one ton of wood should do the cooking for ten persons during two
years and six days, or one ton of coal would supply the kitchen of
such a family three and a half years.
The following is an abstract of the general principles which he
expounds for the guidance of all concerned in the construction of
cooking stoves.
1. All cooking fires should be enclosed.
2. Air only to be admitted from below and under complete
control. All air beyond what is required for the supply of oxygen “is a
thief.”
3. All fireplaces to be surrounded by non-conductors, brickwork,
not iron.
4. The residual heat from the fireplace to be utilized by long
journeys in returning flues, and by doing the hottest work first.
5. Different fires should be used for different work.
The first of these requirements encounters one of our dogged
insular prejudices. The slaves to these firmly believe that meat can
only be roasted by hanging it up to dry in front of an open fire; their
savage ancestors having held their meat on a skewer or spit over or
before an open fire, modern science must not dare to demonstrate
the wasteful folly of the holy sacrifice. Their grandmothers having
sent joints to a bakehouse, where other people did the same, and
having found that by thus cooking beef, mutton, pork, geese, etc.,
some fresh, and some stale, in the same oven, the flavors became
somewhat mixed, and all influenced by sage and onions, these
people persist in believing that meat cannot be roasted in any kind
of closed chamber.
Rumford proved the contrary, and everybody who has fairly tried
the experiment knows that a properly ventilated and properly heated
roasting oven produces an incomparably better result than the old
desiccating process.
Rumford’s roaster was a very remarkable contrivance, that
seems to have been forgotten. It probably demands more
intelligence in using it than is obtainable in a present-day kitchen.
When the School Boards have supplied a better generation of
domestic servants we may be able to restore its use.
It is a cylindrical oven with a double door to prevent loss of heat.
In this the meat rests on a grating over a specially constructed gravy
and water dish. Under the oven are two “blow-pipes,” i.e., stout
tubes standing just above the fire so as to be made red hot, and
opening into the oven at the back, and above the fireplace in front,
where there is a plug to be closed or open as required. Over the
front part of the top of the oven is another pipe for carrying away
the vapor. It is thus used: The meat is first cooked in an atmosphere
of steam formed by the boiling of water placed in the bottom of the
double dish, over which the meat rests. When by this means the
meat has been raised throughout its whole thickness to the
temperature at which its albumen coagulates, the plugs are removed
from the blow-pipes, and then the special action of roasting
commences by the action of a current of superheated air which
enters below and at the back of the oven, travels along and finds
exit above and in front of the steam-pipe before named.
The result is a practical attainment of theoretical perfection.
Instead of the joint being dried and corticated outside, made tough,
leathery, and flavorless to about an inch of depth, then fairly cooked
an inch further, and finally left raw, disgusting, and bloody in the
middle, as it is in the orthodox roasting by British cooks, the whole is
uniformly cooked throughout without the soddening action of mere
boiling or steaming, as the excess of moisture is removed by the
final current of hot dry air thrown in by the blow-pipes, which at the
same time give the whole surface an uniform browning that can be
regulated at will without burning any portion or wasting the external
fat.
 Rumford’s second rule, that air be admitted only from below,
and be limited to the requirements, is so simple that no comment
upon it is needed. Although we have done so little in the
improvement of domestic fireplaces, great progress has been made
in engine furnaces, blast furnaces, and all other fireplaces for
engineering and manufacturing purposes. Every furnace engineer
now fully appreciates Rumford’s assertion that excess of cold air is a
thief.
The third rule is one which, as I have already stated, stands
seriously in the way of any commercial “pushing” of Rumford’s
kitchen ranges. Those which he figures and describes are all of them
masonic structures, not ironmongery; the builder must erect them,
they cannot be bought ready-made; but, now that public attention is
roused, I believe that any builder who will study Rumford’s plans and
drawings, which are very practically made, may do good service to
himself and his customers by fitting up a few houses with true
Rumford kitcheners, and offering to reconstruct existing kitchen
ranges, especially in large houses.
The fourth rule is one that is sorely violated in the majority of
kitcheners, and without any good reason. The heat from the fire of
any kitchener, whether it be of brick or iron, should first do the work
demanding the highest temperature, viz., roasting and baking, then
proceed to the boiler or boilers, and after this be used for supplying
the bed-rooms and bath-room, and the housemaid, etc., with hot
water for general use, as Rumford did in his house at Brompton
Row, where his chimney terminated in metal pipes that passed
through a water-tank at the top of the house.
Linen-closets may also be warmed by this residual heat.
The fifth rule is also violated to an extent that renders the words
uttered by Rumford nearly a century ago as applicable now as then.
He said, “Nothing is so ill-judged as most of those attempts that are
frequently made by ignorant projectors to force the same fire to
perform different services at the same time.”
 Note the last words, “same time.” In the uses above mentioned
the heat does different work successively, which is quite different
from the common practice of having flues to turn the flame of one
fire in opposite directions, to split its heat and make one fireplace
appear to do the work of two.
Every householder knows that the kitchen fire, whether it be an
old-fashioned open fireplace, or a modern kitchener of any improved
construction, is a very costly affair. He knows that its wasteful work
produces the chief item of his coal bill, but somehow or other he is
helpless under its infliction. If he has given any special attention to
the subject he has probably tried three or four different kinds
without finding any notable relief. Why is this? I venture to make a
reply that will cover 90 per cent, or probably 99 per cent of these
cases, viz., that he has never considered the main source of waste,
which Rumford so clearly defines as above, and which was
eliminated in all the kitchens that he erected.
Let us suppose the case of a household of ten persons, but
which in the ordinary course of English hospitality sometimes
entertains twice that number. What do we find in the kitchen
arrangements? Simply that there is one fireplace suited for the
maximum requirements, i.e., sufficient for twenty, even though that
number may not be entertained more than half a dozen times in the
course of a year. To cook a few rashers of bacon, boil a few eggs,
and boil a kettle of water for breakfast, a fire sufficient to cook for a
dinner party of twenty is at work. This is kept on all day long,
because it is just possible that the master of the house may require
a glass of grog at bedtime. There may be dampers and other
devices for regulating this fire, but such regulation, even if applied,
does very little so long as the capacity of the grate remains, and as a
matter of ordinary fact the dampers and other regulating devices are
neglected altogether; the kitchen fire is blazing and roaring to waste
from 6 or 7 A.M. to about midnight, in order to do about three hours
and a half work, i.e., the dinner for ten, and a nominal trifle for the
other meals.
 In Rumford’s kitchens, such as those he built for the Baron de
Lerchenfeld and for the House of Industry at Munich, the kitchener is
a solid block of masonry of work-bench height at top, and with a
deep bay in the middle, wherein the cook stands surrounded by his
boilers, steamers, roasters, ovens, etc., all within easy reach, each
one supplied by its own separate fire of very small dimensions, and
carefully closed with non-conducting doors. Each fire is lighted when
required, charged with only the quantity of fuel necessary for the
work to be done, and then extinguished or allowed to die out.
It is true that Rumford used wood, which is more easily
managed in this way than coal. If we worked as he did, we might
use wood likewise, and in spite of its very much higher price do our
cooking at half its present cost. This would effect not merely “smoke
abatement” but “smoke extinction” so far as cooking is concerned.
But the lighting of fires is no longer a troublesome and costly
process as in the days of halfpenny bundles of firewood. To say
nothing of the improved fire-lighters, we have gas everywhere, and
nothing is easier than to fix or place a suitable Bunsen or solid flame
burner under each of the fireplaces (an iron gaspipe, perforated
below to avoid clogging, will do), and in two or three minutes the
coals are in full blaze; then the gas may be turned off. The writer
has used such an arrangement in his study for some years past, and
starts his fire in full blaze in three minutes quite independent of all
female interference.
I have no doubt that ultimately gas will altogether supersede
coal for cooking; but this and all other scientific improvements in
domestic comfort and economy must be impossible with the present
generation of uneducated domestics, whose brains (with few
exceptions) have become torpid and wooden from lack of systematic
exercise during their period of growth.
 THE “CONSUMPTION OF SMOKE.”
A great deal has been spoken and written on this subject, but
practically nothing has been done. At one time I shared the general
belief in its possibility, and accordingly examined a multitude of
devices for smoke-consuming, and tried several of the most
promising, chiefly in furnaces for metallurgical work, for steam
boilers and stills. None of them proved satisfactory, and I was driven
to the conclusion that smoke-consumption is a delusion, and further,
that economical consumption of smoke is practically impossible.
When smoke is once formed, the cost of burning it far exceeds the
value of the heat that is produced by the combustion of its very
flimsy flocculi of carbon. It is a fiend that once raised cannot be
exorcised, a Frankenstein that haunts its maker, and will not be
appeased.
To describe in detail the many ingenious devices that have been
proposed and expensively patented and advertised for this object,
would carry me far beyond the intended limits of this paper. I must
not even attempt this for a selected few, as even among them there
is none that can be pronounced satisfactory.
The common idea is that if the smoke be carried back to the fire
that produced it, and made to pass through it again, a recombustion
or consumption of the smoke will take place. This is a mistake, as a
little reflection will show. First, let us ask why did this particular fire
produce such smoke? Everybody now-a-days can answer this
question, as we all know that smoke is a result of imperfect
combustion, and, knowing this, it can easily be understood that to
return the carbonic acid and excess of carbon to the already
suffocated fire can only add smother to smotheration, and make the
smoky fire more smoky still.
There is, however, one case in which a fire appears to thus
consume its own smoke, but the appearance is delusive. I refer to
fires lighted from above. These, if properly managed, are practically
smokeless, and it is commonly supposed that smoke passes from the
raw coal below through the burning coal above, and is thereby
consumed. The fact is, however, that no such smoke is formed. That
which under these conditions comes from the coal beneath, when
gradually heated by the fire above, is combustible gas, and this gas
is burned as it passes through the fire. In this case the formation or
non-formation of smoke depends mainly on how this gas is burned,
whether completely or incompletely. If the air supplied for its
combustion is insufficient, smoke will be formed as it is when we
turn up an Argand gas-flame so high that the gas is too great in
proportion to the quantity of air that can enter the glass chimney.
Herein lies the fundamental principle. We may prevent smoke,
though we cannot cure it, and this prevention depends upon how we
supply air to the gas which the coal gives off when heated, and upon
the condition of this gas when we bring it in contact with the air by
which its combustion is to be effected. We must always remember
that coal when its temperature is sufficiently heated, whether in a
gas retort or fireplace, gives off a series of combustible hydrocarbon
gases and vapors, and all we have to do in order to obtain
smokeless fires is to secure the complete combustion of these.
Now we know that to burn a given quantity of gas we must
supply it with a sufficient quantity of oxygen, i.e., of the active
principle of the air; but this is not all: we all know well enough that if
cold coal-gas and cold air be brought together in any proportion
whatever no combustion occurs. A certain amount of heat is
necessary to start the chemical combination of oxygen with
hydrogen and carbon, which combination is the combustion, or
burning.
 Therefore, when the coal gas and the air are brought together
one or the other, or both, must be heated up to a certain point in
order that the combustion be complete. If cold there is no
combustion; if insufficiently heated, there is imperfect combustion,
however well the supplies may be regulated.
A very simple experiment that anybody may make illustrates
this. When an ordinary open fire is burning brightly and clearly
without flame, throw a few small pieces of raw coal into the midst of
the glowing coals. They will flame fiercely, but without smoking.
Then throw a heap of coal or one large lump on a similar fire. Now
you will have dense volumes of smoke, and little or no flame, simply
because the cooling action of the large bulk of coal in the course of
distillation brings the temperature of its gases below that required
for their complete combustion.
This simple experiment supplies a most important practical
lesson, as well as a philosophical example. The best of all smoke-
abatement machines is an intelligent and conscientious stoker, and
every contrivance for smoke abatement must, in order to be
efficient, either be fed by such a stoker or provided with some
automatic arrangement by which the apparatus itself does the work
of such a stoker by supplying the fresh fuel just when and where it is
wanted.
Cornish experience is very instructive in this respect. The
engines that pump the water from the mines do a definitely
measurable amount of work, and are made to register this. The
stoker is a skilled workman, and prizes are given to those who
obtain the largest amount of “duty” from given engines per ton of
coal consumed. Instead of pitching his coal in anyhow, cramming his
fire-hole, and then sitting down to sleep or smoke in company with
his chimney, the Cornish, or other good fireman, feeds little and
often, and deftly sprinkles the contents of his shovel just where the
fire is the brightest and the hottest, and the bars are the least thickly
covered. The result is remarkable. A colliery proprietor of South
Staffordshire was visiting Cornwall, and went with a friend to see his
works. On approaching the engine-house and seeing a whitewashed
shaft with no smoke issuing from its mouth, he expressed his
disappointment at finding that the engine was not at work. To all
who have been accustomed to the “Black Country,” where coal is so
shamefully wasted because it is cheap, the tall clean whitewashed
shafts of Cornwall, all so smokeless, present quite an astonishing
appearance.
This is not a result of “smoke-consuming” apparatus, but mainly
of careful firing. It was in the first place promoted by the high price
of coal due to the cost of carriage before the Cornish railways were
constructed, and it brought about a curious result. Horse-power for
horse-power the cost of fuel for working Cornish pumping engines
has been brought below that of pumping engines in the places
where the price of coal per ton was less than one-half. Another coal
famine that should raise the price of coal in London to 60s. per ton,
and keep it there for two or three years, would effect more smoke
abatement than we can hope to result from the present and many
future South Kensington efforts. I need scarcely dwell upon the
necessity for a due supply of air. This is well understood by
everybody. An over supply of air does mischief, by carrying away
wastefully a proportionate quantity of heat. The waste due to this is
sometimes very serious.
After reviewing all that has been done, the conclusion that
London cannot become a clean, smokeless, and beautiful city, so
long as we are dependent upon open fire-grates of anything like
ordinary construction, and fed with bituminous coal, is inevitable.
The general use of anthracite would effect the desired change, but
there is no hope of its becoming general without legislative
compulsion, and Englishmen will not submit to this.
One of the most hopeful schemes is that which was propounded
a short time since by Mr. Scott Moncrieff. Instead of receiving our
coal in its crude state he proposes that we should have its smoke-
producing constituents removed before it is delivered to us; that it
should be made into a sort of artificial semi-anthracite at the gas-
works by a process of half distillation, which would take away not all
the flaming gas as at present, but that portion which is by far the
richest to the gas-maker and the most unmanageable in common
fires. We should thus have a material which, instead of being so
difficult to light as coke and anthracite, would light more easily than
crude coal, and at the same time our gas would have far greater
illuminating power, as it would all be drawn off during the early
period of distillation, when it is at its richest. From a given quality of
coal the difference would be as twenty-four candles to sixteen. The
ammonia which we now throw into the air, the naphtha and coal-tar
products, which we waste, are so valuable that they would pay all
the expenses at the gas-works and leave a handsome profit. We
should thus get gas so much better that two burners would do the
work now obtained from three. We should get all we require for
lighting purposes and plenty more for heating; the intermediate
profits of the coal merchant would be abolished, and our solid fuel of
far better quality could be supplied twenty or thirty per cent cheaper
than at present, provided always that the gas monopoly were
abolished, “a consummation most devoutly to be wished for.”
Mr. Moncrieff (who brought forward his scheme without any
company-mongering, or claims for patent rights) estimates the
saving to London at £2,125,000 per annum, over and above the far
greater saving that would result from the abolition of smoke.
In connection with this scheme I may mention a fact that has
not been hitherto noted, viz., that we have perforce and
unconsciously done a little in this direction already. Formerly London
was supplied almost exclusively with “Wallsend” and other sea-borne
coals of a highly bituminous composition—soft coals that fused in
the grate and caked together. Partly owing to exhaustion of the
seams, and partly to the competition of railway transit, we now
obtain a large proportion of hard coal from the Midlands. This is less
smoky and less sooty, and hence the Metropolitan smoke nuisance
has not increased quite as greatly as the population.
 But I will now conclude by repeating that whatever scheme be
chosen, “smoke abatement” is to be achieved, not by smoke-
consumption, but by smoke-prevention.
THE AIR OF STOVE-HEATED ROOMS.
Whatever opinions may be formed of the merits of the exhibits
at South Kensington, one result is unquestionable—the exhibition
itself has done much in directing public attention to the very
important subject of economizing fuel and the diminution of smoke.
We sorely need some lessons. Our national progress in this direction
has been simply contemptible, so far as domestic fireplaces are
concerned.
To prove this we need only turn back to the essays of Benjamin
Thompson, Count of Rumford, published in London just eighty years
ago, and find therein nearly all that the Smoke Abatement Exhibition
ought to teach us, both in theory and practice—lessons which all our
progress since 1802, plus the best exhibits at South Kensington, we
have yet to learn.
This small progress in domestic heating is the more remarkable
when contrasted with the great strides we have made in the
construction and working of engineering and metallurgical furnaces,
the most important of which is displayed in the Siemens
regenerative furnace. A climax to this contrast is afforded by a
speech made by Dr. Siemens himself, in which he defends our
domestic barbarisms with all the conservative inconvincibility of a
born and bred Englishman, in spite of his German nationality.
The speech to which I refer is reported in the “Journal of the
Society of Arts,” December 9, 1881, and contains some curious
fallacies, probably due to its extemporaneous character; but as they
have been quoted and adopted not only in political and literary
journals, but also by a magazine of such high scientific standing as
Nature (see editorial article January 5, 1882, p. 219), they are likely
to mislead many.
Having already, in my “History of Modern Invention, etc.,” and in
other places, expressed my great respect for Dr. Siemens and his
benefactions to British industry, the spirit in which the following
plain-spoken criticism is made will not, I hope, be misunderstood
either by the readers of “Knowledge” or by Dr. Siemens himself.
I may further add that I am animated by a deadly hatred of our
barbarous practice of wasting precious coal by burning it in iron fire-
baskets half buried in holes within brick walls, and under shafts that
carry 80 or 90 per cent of its heat to the clouds; that pollute the
atmosphere of our towns, and make all their architecture hideous;
that render scientific and efficient ventilation of our houses
impossible; that promote rheumatism, neuralgia, chilblains,
pulmonary diseases, bronchitis, and all the other “ills that flesh is
heir to” when roasted on one side and cold-blasted on the other;
that I am so rabid on this subject, that if Dr. Siemens, Sir F.
Bramwell, and all others who defend this English abomination, were
giant windmills in full rotation, I would emulate the valor of my
chivalric predecessor, whatever might be the personal consequences.
Dr. Siemens stated that the open fireplace “communicates
absolutely no heat to the air of the room, because air, being a
perfectly transparent medium, the rays of heat pass clean through
it.”
Here is an initial mistake. It is true that air which has been
artificially deprived of all its aqueous vapor is thus completely
permeable by heat rays, but such is far from being the case with the
water it contains. This absorbs a notable amount even of bright solar
rays, and a far greater proportion of the heat rays from a
comparatively obscure source, such as the red-hot coals and flame
of a common fire. Tyndall has proved that 8 to 10 per cent of all the
heat radiating from such a source as a common fire is absorbed in
passing through only 5 feet of air in its ordinary condition, the
variation depending upon its degree of saturation with aqueous
vapor.
Starting with the erroneous assumption that the rays of heat
pass “clean through” the air of the room, Dr. Siemens went on to say
that the open fireplace “gives heat only by heating the walls, ceiling,
and furniture, and here is the great advantage of the open fire;”
and, further, that “if the air in the room were hotter than the walls,
condensation would take place on them, and mildew and
fermentation of various kinds would be engendered; whereas, if the
air were cooler than the walls, the latter must be absolutely dry.”
Upon these assumptions, Dr. Siemens condemns steam-pipes
and stoves, hot-air pipes, and all other methods of directly heating
the air of apartments, and thereby making it warmer than were the
walls, the ceiling, and furniture when the process of warming
commenced. It is quite true that stoves, stove-pipes, hot-air pipes,
steam-pipes, etc., do this; they raise the temperature of the air
directly by convection, i.e., by warming the film of air in contact with
their surfaces, which film, thus heated and expanded, rises towards
the ceiling, and, on its way, warms the air around it, and then is
followed by other similarly-heated ascending films. When we make a
hole in the wall, and burn our coals within such cavity, this
convection proceeds up the chimney in company with the smoke.
But is Dr. Siemens right in saying that the air of a room, raised
by convection above its original temperature, and above that of the
walls, deposits any of its moisture on these walls? I have no
hesitation in saying very positively that he is clearly and
demonstrably wrong; that no such condensation can possibly take
place under the circumstances.
Suppose, for illustration sake, that we start with a room of which
the air and walls are at the freezing point, 32° F., before artificial
heating (any other temperature will do), and, to give Dr. Siemens
every advantage, we will further suppose that the air is fully
saturated with aqueous vapor, i.e., just in the condition at which
some of its water might be condensed. Such condensation, however,
can only take place by cooling the air below 32°, and unless the
walls or ceiling or furniture are capable of doing this they cannot
receive any moisture due to such condensation, or, in other words,
they must fall below 32° in order to obtain it by cooling the film in
contact with them. Of course Dr. Siemens will not assert that the
stoves or steam-pipes (enclosing the steam, of course), or the hot-
air or hot-water pipes, will lower the absolute temperature of the
walls by heating the air in the room.
But if the air is heated more rapidly than are the walls, etc., the
relative temperature of these will be lower. Will condensation of
moisture then follow, as Dr. Siemens affirms? Let us suppose that
the air of the room is raised from 30° to 50° by convection purely;
reference to tables based on the researches of Regnault, shows that
at 32° the quantity of vapor required to saturate the air is sufficient
to support a column of 0·182 inch of mercury, while at 50° it
amounts to 0·361, or nearly double. Thus the air, instead of being in
a condition of giving away its moisture to the walls, has become
thirsty, or in a condition to take moisture away from them if they are
at all damp. This is the case whether the walls remain at 32° or are
raised to any higher temperature short of that of the air.
Thus the action of close stoves and of hot surfaces or pipes of
any kind is exactly the opposite of that attributed to them by Dr.
Siemens. They dry the air, they dry the walls, they dry the ceiling,
they dry the furniture and everything else in the house.
In our climate, especially in the infamous jerry-built houses of
suburban London, this is a great advantage. Dr. Siemens states his
American experience, and denounces such heating by convection
because the close stoves there made him uncomfortable. This was
due to the fact that the winter atmosphere of the United States is
very dry, even when at zero. But air, when raised from 0° to 60°,
acquires about twelve times its original capacity for water. The air
thus simply heated is desiccated, and it desiccates everything in
contact with it, especially the human body. The lank and shriveled
aspect of the typical Yankee is, I believe, due to this. He is a
desiccated Englishman, and we should all grow like him if our
30
climate were as dry as his. The great fires that devastate the cities
of the United States appear to me to be due to this general
desiccation of all building materials, rendering them readily
inflammable and the flames difficult of extinction.
When an undesiccated Englishman, or a German endowed with
a wholesome John Bull rotundity, is exposed to this superdried air,
he is subjected to an amount of bodily evaporation that must be
perceptible and unpleasant. The disagreeable sensation experienced
by Dr. Siemens in the stove-heated railway cars, etc., were probably
due to this.
An English house, enveloped in a foggy atmosphere, and
encased in damp surroundings, especially requires stove-heating,
and the most inveterate worshipers of our national domestic fetish,
the open grate, invariably prefer a stove or hot-pipe-heated room,
when they are unconscious of the source of heat, and their prejudice
hoodwinked. I have observed this continually, and have often been
amused at the inconsistency thus displayed. For example, one
evening I had a warm contest with a lady, who repeated the usual
praises of a cheerful blaze, etc., etc. On calling afterwards, on a
bitter snowy morning, I found her and her daughters sitting at work
in the billiard-room, and asked them why. “Because it is so warm
and comfortable.” This room was heated by an eight-inch steam-
pipe, running around and under the table, to prevent the undue
cooling of the indiarubber cushions, and thus the room was warmed
from the middle, and equally and moderately throughout. The large
reception-room, with blazing fire, was scorching on one side, and
freezing on the other, at that time in the morning.
The permeability of ill-constructed iron stoves to poisonous
carbonic oxide, which riddles through red-hot iron, is a real evil, but
easily obviated by proper lining, The frizzling of particles of organic
matter, of which we hear so much, is—if it really does occur—highly
advantageous, seeing that it must destroy organic poison-germs.
 Under some conditions, the warm air of a room does deposit
moisture on its cooler walls. This happens in churches, concert-
rooms, etc., when they are but occasionally used in winter time, and
mainly warmed by animal heat, by congregational emanations of
breath-vapor, and perspiration—i.e., with warm air supersaturated
with vapor. Also, when we have a sudden change from dry, frosty
weather to warm and humid. Then our walls may be streaming with
condensed water. Such cases were probably in the mind of Dr.
Siemens when he spoke; but they are quite different from stove-
heating or pipe-heating, which increase the vapor capacity of the
heated air, without supplying the demand it creates.
 VENTILATION BY OPEN
FIREPLACES.
The most stubborn of all errors are those which have been
acquired by a sort of inheritance, which have passed dogmatically
from father to son, or, still worse, from mother to daughter. They
may become superstitions without any theological character. The
idea that the weather changes with the moon, that wind “keeps off
the rain,” are physical superstitions in all cases where they are
blindly accepted and promulgated without any examination of
evidence.
The idea that our open fireplaces are necessary for ventilation is
one of these physical superstitions, which is producing an
incalculable amount of physical mischief throughout Britain. A little
rational reflection on the natural and necessary movements of our
household atmospheres demonstrates at once that this dogma is not
only baseless, but actually expresses the opposite of the truth. I
think I shall be able to show in what follows, 1st, that they do no
useful ventilation; and, 2d, that they render systematic and really
effective ventilation practically impossible.
Everybody knows that when air is heated it expands largely,
becomes lighter, bulk for bulk, than other air of lower temperature;
and therefore, if two portions of air of unequal temperatures, and
free to move, are in contact with each other, the colder will flow
under the warmer, and push it upwards. The latter postulate must
be kept distinctly in view, for the rising of warm air is too commonly
regarded as due to some direct uprising activity or skyward affinity
of its own, instead of being understood as an indirect result of
gravitation. It is the downfalling of the cooler air that causes the
uprising of the warmer.
Now, let us see what, in accordance with the above-stated
simple laws, must happen in an ordinary English apartment that is
fitted, as usual, with one or more windows more or less leaky, and
one or more doors in like condition, and a hole in the wall in which
coal is burning in an iron cage immediately beneath a shaft that
rises to the top of the house, the fire-hole itself having an extreme
height of only 24 to 30 inches above the floor, all the chimney above
this height being entirely closed. (I find by measurement that 24
inches is the usual height of the upper edge of the chimney opening
of an ordinary “register” stove. Old farm-house fireplaces are open
to the mantlepiece.)
Now, what happens when a heap of coal is burning in this hole?
Some of the heat—from 10 to 20 per cent, according to the
construction of the grate—is radiated into the room, the rest is
conveyed by an ascending current of air up the chimney. As this
ascending current is rendered visible by the smoke entangled with it,
no further demonstration of its existence is needed.
But how is it pushed up the chimney? Evidently by cooler air,
that flows into the room from somewhere, and which cooler air must
get under it in order to lift it. In ordinary rooms this supply of air is
entirely dependent upon their defective construction—bad joinery; it
enters only by the crevices surrounding the ill-fitting windows and
doors, no specially designed opening being made for it. Usually the
chief inlet is the space under the door, through which pours a rivulet
of cold air, that spreads out as a lake upon the floor. This may easily
be proved by holding a lighted taper in front of the bottom door-
chink when the window and other door—if any—are closed, and the
fire is burning briskly. At the same time more or less of cold air is
poured in at the top and the side spaces of the door and through the
window-chinks. The proportion of air entering by these depends
upon the capacity of the bottom door-chink. If this is large enough it
will do nearly all the work, otherwise every other possible leakage,
including the key-hole, contributes.
But what is the path of the air which enters by these higher level
openings? The answer to this is supplied at once by the fact that
such air being colder than that of the room, it must fall immediately
it enters. The rivulet under the door is thus supplemented by
cascades pouring down from the top and sides of the door and the
top and sides of the windows, all being tributaries to the lake of cold
air covering the floor.
The next question to be considered is, what is the depth of this
lake? In this, as in every other such accumulation of either air or
water, the level of the upper surface of the lake is determined by
that of its outlet. The outlet in this case is the chimney hole, through
which all the overflow pours upwards; and, therefore, the surface of
the flowing stratum of cold air corresponds with the upper part of
the chimney hole, or of the register, where register stoves are used.
Below this level there is abundant ventilation, above it there is
none. The cat that sits on the hearth-rug has an abundant supply of
fresh air, and if we had tracheal breathing apertures all down the
sides of our bodies, as caterpillars have, those on our lower
extremities might enjoy the ventilation. If we squatted on the
ground like savages something might be said for the fire-hole
ventilator. But as we are addicted to sitting on chairs that raise our
breathing apparatus considerably above the level of the top of the
register, the maximum efficiency of the flow of cold air in the lake
below is expressed by the prevalence of chilblains and
31
rheumatism.
The atmosphere in which our heads are immersed is practically
stagnant; the radiations from the fire, plus the animal heat from our
bodies, just warm it sufficiently to enable the cool entering air to
push it upwards above the chimney outlet and the surface of the
lower moving stratum, and to keep it there in a condition of
stagnation.
 If anybody doubts the correctness of this description, he has
only to sit in an ordinary English room where a good fire is burning—
the doors and windows closed, as usual—and then to blow a cloud
by means of pipe, cigar, or by burning brown paper or otherwise,
when the movements below and the stagnation above, which I have
described, will be rendered visible. If there is nobody moving about
to stir the air, and the experiment is fairly made, the level of the cool
lake below will be distinctly shown by the clearing away of the
smoke up to the level of the top of the register opening, towards
which it may be seen to sweep.
Above this the smoke-wreaths will remain merely waving about,
with slight movements due to the small inequalities of temperature
caused by the fraction of heat radiated into the room from the front
of the fire. These movements are chiefly developed near the door
and windows, where the above-mentioned cascades are falling, and
against the walls and furniture, where feeble convection currents are
rising, due to the radiant heat absorbed by their surfaces. The
stagnation is the most complete about the middle of the room,
where there is the greatest bulk of vacant airspace.
When the inlet under the door is of considerable dimensions,
there may be some escape of warmer upper air at the top of the
windows, if their fitting is correspondingly defective. These, however,
are mere accidents; they are not a part of the vaunted chimney-hole
ventilation, but interferences with it.
There is another experiment that illustrates the absence of
ventilation in such rooms where gas is burning. It is that of
suspending a canary in a cage near the roof. But this is cruel; it kills
the bird. It would be a more satisfactory experiment to substitute for
the canary-bird any wingless biped who, after reading the above, still
maintains that our fire-holes are effective ventilators.
Not only are the fire-holes worthless and mischievous ventilators
themselves, but they render efficient ventilation by any other means
practically impossible. The “Arnott’s ventilator” that we sometimes
see applied to the upper part of chimneys is marred in its action by
the greedy “draught” below.
The tall chimney-shaft, with a fire burning immediately below it,
dominates all the atmospheric movement in the house, unless
another and more powerful upcast shaft be somewhere else in
communication with the apartments. But in this case the original or
ordinary chimney would be converted into a downcast shaft pouring
air downwards into the room, instead of carrying it away upwards. I
need not describe the sort of ventilation thus obtainable while the
fire is burning and smoking.
Effective sanitary ventilation should supply gentle and uniformly-
diffused currents of air of moderate and equal temperature
throughout the house. We talk a great deal about the climate here
and the climate there; and when we grow old, and can afford it, we
move to Bournemouth, Torquay, Mentone, Nice, Algiers, etc., for
better climates, forgetting all the while that the climate in which we
practically live is not that out-of-doors, but the indoor climate of our
dwellings, the which, in a properly constructed house, may be
regulated to correspond to that of any latitude we may choose. I
maintain that the very first step towards the best attainable
approximation to this in our existing houses is to brick up, cement
up, or otherwise completely stop up, all our existing fire-holes, and
abolish all our existing fires.
But what next? The reply to this will be found in the next
chapter.
 DOMESTIC VENTILATION.
A Lesson from the Coal-Pits.

We require in our houses an artificial temperate climate which

shall be uniform throughout, and at the same time we need a gentle
movement of air that shall supply the requirements of respiration
without any gusts, or draughts, or alternations of temperature.
Everybody will admit that these are fundamental desiderata, but
whoever does so becomes thereby a denouncer of open-grate
fireplaces, and of every system of heating which is dependent on
any kind of stoves with fuel burning in the rooms that are to be
inhabited. All such devices concentrate the heat in one part of each
room, and demand the admission of cold air from some other part or
parts, thereby violating the primary condition of uniform
temperature. The usual proceeding effects a specially outrageous
violation of this, as I showed in the last chapter.
I might have added domestic cleanliness among the desiderata;
but in the matter of fireplaces, the true-born Briton, in spite of his
fastidiousness in respect to shirt-collars, etc., is a devoted worshiper
of dirt. No matter how elegant his drawing-room, he must defile it
with a coal-scuttle, with dirty coals, poker, shovel, and tongs, dirty
ash-pit, dirty cinders, ashes, and dust, and he must amuse himself
by doing the dirty work of a stoker towards his “cheerful,
companionable, pokeable” open fire.
It is evident that, in order to completely fulfil the first-named
requirements, we must, in winter, supply our model residence with
fresh artificially-warmed air, and in summer with fresh cool air. How
is this to be done? An approach to a practical solution is afforded by
examining what is actually done under circumstances where the
ventilation problem presents the greatest possible difficulties, and
where, nevertheless, these difficulties have been effectually
overcome. Such a case is presented by a deep coal mine. Here we
have a little working world, inhabited by men and horses, deep in
the bowels of the earth, far away from the air that must be supplied
in sufficient quantities, not only to overcome the vitiation due to
their own breathing, but also to sweep out the deadly gaseous
emanations from the coal itself.
Imagine your dwelling-house buried a quarter of a mile of
perpendicular depth below the surface of the earth, and its walls
giving off suffocating and explosive gases in such quantities that
steady and abundant ventilation shall be a matter of life or death,
and that in spite of this it is made so far habitable that men who
spend half their days there retain robust health and live to green old
age, and that horses after remaining there day and night for many
months actually improve in condition. Imagine, further, that the
house thus ventilated has some hundreds of small, very low-roofed
rooms, and a system of passages or corridors with an united length
of many miles, and that its inhabitants count by hundreds.
Such dwellings being thus ventilated and rendered habitable for
man and beast, it is idle to dispute the practical possibility of
supplying fresh air of any given temperature to a mere box of brick
or stone, standing in the midst of the atmosphere, and containing
but a few passages and apartments.
The problem is solved in the coal-pit by simply and skilfully
controlling and directing the natural movements of unequally-heated
volumes of air. Complex mechanical devices for forcing the
ventilation by means of gigantic fan-wheels, etc., or by steam-jets,
have been tried, and are now generally abandoned. An inlet and an
outlet are provided, and no air is allowed to pass inwards or
outwards by any other course than that which has been pre-
arranged for the purposes of efficient ventilation. I place especial
emphasis on this condition, believing that its systematic violation is
the primary cause of the bungling muddle of our domestic
ventilation.
Let us suppose that we are going to open a coal-pit to mine the
coal on a certain estate. We first ascertain the “dip” of the seam, or
its deviation from horizontality, and then start at the lowest part,
not, as some suppose, at that part nearest to the surface. The
reason for this is obvious on a little reflection, for if we began at the
shallowest part of an ordinary water-bearing stratum we should have
to drive down under water; but, by beginning at the lowest part and
driving upwards, we can at once form a “sumpf,” or bottom
receptacle, to receive the drainage, and from which the accumulated
water may be pumped. This, however, is only by the way, and not
directly connected with our main subject, the ventilation.
In order to secure this, the modern practice is to sink two pits,
“a pair,” as they are called, side by side, at any convenient distance
from each other. If they are deep, it becomes necessary to
commence ventilation of the mere shafts themselves in the course of
sinking. This is done by driving an air-way—a horizontal tunnel from
one to the other, and then establishing an “upcast” in one of them
by simply lighting a fire there. This destroys the balance between
the two communicating columns of air; the cooler column in the
shaft without a fire, being heavier, falls against the lighter column,
and pushes it up just as the air is pushed up one leg of an U tube
when we pour water down the other. Even in this preliminary work,
if the pits are so deep that more than one air-way is driven, it is
necessary to stop the upper ways and leave only the lowest open, in
order that the ventilation shall not take a short and useless cut, as it
does up our fireplace openings.
Let us now suppose that the pair of pits are sunk down to the
seam, with a further extension below to form the water sumpf.
There are two chief modes of working a coal-seam: the “pillar and
stall” and the “long wall,” or more modern system. For present
illustration, I select the latter as the simplest in respect to
ventilation. This method, as ordinarily worked, consists essentially in
first driving roads through the coal, from the pits to the outer
boundary of the area to be worked, then cutting a cross road that
shall connect these, thereby exposing a “long wall” of coal, which, in
working, is gradually cut away towards the pits, the roof remaining
behind being allowed to fall in.
Let us begin to do this by driving, first of all, two main roads,
one from each pit. It is evident that as we proceed in such
burrowing, we shall presently find ourselves in a cul de sac so far
away from the outer air that suffocation is threatened. This will be
equally the case with both roads. Let us now drive a cross-cut from
the end of each main road, and thus establish a communication from
the downcast shaft through its road, then through the drift to the
upcast road and pit. But in order that the air shall take this
roundabout course, we must close the direct drift that we previously
made between the two shafts, or it will proceed by that shorter and
easier course. Now we shall have air throughout both our main
roads, and we may drive on further, until we are again stopped by
approximate suffocation. When this occurs, we make another cross-
cut, but in order that it may act we must stop the first one. So we
go on until we reach the working, and then the long wall itself
becomes the cross communication, and through this working-gallery
the air sweeps freely and effectually.
In the above I have only considered the simplest possible
elements of the problem. The practical coal-pit in full working has a
multitude of intervening passages and “splits,” where the main
current from the downcast is divided, in order to proceed through
the various streets and lanes of the subterranean town as may be
required, and these divided currents are finally reunited ere they
reach the upcast shaft which casts them all out into the upper air.
In a colliery worked on the pillar and stall system—i.e., by taking
out the coal so as to leave a series of square chambers with pillars
of coal in the middle to support the roof—the windings of the air
between the multitude of passages is curiously complex, and its
absolute obedience to the commands of the mining engineer proves
how completely the most difficult problems of ventilation may be
solved when ignorance and prejudice are not permitted to bar the
progress of the practical applications of simple scientific principles.
Here the necessity of closing all false outlets is strikingly
demonstrated by the mechanism and working of the “stoppings” or
partitions that close all unrequired openings. The air in many pits
has to travel several miles in order to get from the downcast to the
upcast shaft, though they may be but a dozen yards apart.
(Formerly the same shaft served both for up and down cast, by
making a wooden division (a brattice) down the middle. This is now
prohibited, on account of serious accidents that have been caused
by the fracture of the brattice.)
But it would not do to carry the coal from the workings to the pit
by these sinuous air-courses. What, then, is done? A direct road is
made for the coal, but if it were left open, the air would choose it:
this is prevented by an arrangement similar to that of canal locks.
Valve-doors or “stoppings” are arranged in pairs, and when the
“hurrier” arrives with his corve, or pit carriage, one door is opened,
the other remaining shut; then the corve is hurried into the space
between the doors, and the entry-door is closed; now the exit-door
is opened, and thus no continuous opening is ever permitted.
Only one such opening would derange the ventilation of the
whole pit, or of that portion fed by the split thus allowed to escape.
It would, in fact, correspond to the action of our open fireplaces in
rendering effective ventilation impossible.
The following, from the report of the Lords’ Committee on
Accidents in Coal Mines, 1849, illustrates the magnitude of the
ventilation arrangements then at work. In the Hetton Colliery there
were two downcast shafts and one upcast, the former about 12 feet
and the latter 14 feet diameter. There were three furnaces at the
bottom of the upcast, each about 9 feet wide with about 4 feet
length of grate-bars; the depth of the upcast and one downcast 900
feet, and of the other downcast 1056 feet. The quantity of air
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