Readings:

Steven Ruggles, “The Revival of Quantification: Reflections on Old New Histories,” Social Science History 45, no. 1 (2021): 1–25.
P. Baskerville et al., “Mining microdata: Economic opportunity and spatial mobility in Britain and the United States, 1850–1881,” 2014 IEEE International Conference on Big Data (Big Data), 2014, pp. 5-13, doi: 10.1109/BigData.2014.7004446.

Lab: Working with historical database in Excel (or Google Drive Sheets).

Quantitative history and spreadsheets workshop

Part 1: Clifford’s British Imports Database

Which country supplies the most “Copper Unwrought” in 1886? How much and does it cost per ton?
How much does the total “Copper Unwrought” imports increase between 1856 and 1906?
- Create a bar chart showing this trend. Do you know how to add the years as labels on the x-axes?
How do the “Cotton Raw” imports change?
- Which year is it most expensive?
- How much cotton does the West Coast of Africa export to the UK in 1866? When is the last year the West Coast of Africa sends cotton to the UK? Why does it end (the answer is in the spreadsheet)?
What are the top 10 commodities imported by value in 1901?
What are the top 10 commodities imported by quantity?
- Tips:
  - A load is about the equivalent to an Imperial ton of timber
  - A tun is about the equivalent of an Imperial ton of train (whale) oil
  - There are 20 Hundredweights (CWTS) in an Imperial ton
  - There are 2240 Pounds (LBS) in an Imperial ton
  - A gallon of petroleum weighs about 6.1 lbs
- What is the best approach? You need to normalize the data to Imperial Tons. Can you use an IF statement? https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/if-function-69aed7c9-4e8a-4755-a9bc-aa8bbff73be2

Analysis 1950:

Bring the relevant data into this tab.
Calculate Corn bushels/acre, wheat bushels/acre and corn for grain, kilograms/hectare
Find the averages for Iawa

Analysis 1900 to 1997

Week 6: Quantitative History and Historical Databases