Participant Info

First Name
Molly
Last Name
Ball
Affiliation
University of Rochester, History Department
Website URL
http://www.sas.rochester.edu/his/people/faculty/ball_molly/index.html
Keywords
Brazil, economic history, working class, standards of living, inequality, immigration, embedded narratives
Additional Contact Information
My expertise lies in the early 20th century.

Personal Info

Photo
About Me

My research embraces both quantitative and qualitative sources and methods and demonstrates how economic history methodologies can prove a powerful window into archival silences and aid in recovering embedded narratives. In my manuscript Living at the Margins (under contract with University Press of Florida), I investigate how the city of São Paulo’s working class encountered and adapted to rapid urbanization, labor market discrimination, inflation, and dramatic changes brought on by fluctuating (im)migration and the First World War. I demonstrate the varied experiences of the city’s diverse rank and file, which included former slaves, established families, recently arrived immigrants from Italy, Portugal, Germany, Lebanon, and Japan, and newly arriving migrants from northeastern Brazil. The study emphasizes the family-centered approach that residents embraced, shows how the war exacerbated existing working- class hierarchies, and establishes that the city’s immigrant receiving station played a decisive role in shaping the city’s working-class reality.

Recent Publications

“Embedded in the Archives: The Rochester Immigrant Perspective” Rare Books, Special Collections and Preservation Blog, University of Rochester (20 March 2019).

“Prices, Wages, and the Cost of Living in Old Republic São Paulo: 1891-1930” REH 34 (2017).

“Wife, Mother, and Worker: the Decision to Work in Early-Twentieth Century São Paulo” JWH 29.4 (Winter 2017)

Media Coverage
Country Focus
Brazil
Expertise by Geography
Latin America
Expertise by Chronology
19th century, 20th century
Expertise by Topic
Economic History, Family, Gender, Labor, Migration & Immigration, Urban History, Women, World War I