Smallpox vaccination was the paramount medical innovation of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. We exploit the introduction of the smallpox vaccine in Sweden to identify the causal effect of early-life mortality on fertility. Our analysis shows that parishes in counties with higher levels...

This study investigates the determinants of the fertility transition in the US from 1850 to the end of the 20th century. We find a negative relationship between years of schooling and fertility, which suggests that the rise in schooling accounts for at least 60 percent of the US fertility...

Public educators and philanthropists in the late 19th century United States promoted the establishment of kindergartens in cities as a remedy for the social problems associated with industrialization and immigration. Between 1880 and 1910, more than seven thousand kindergartens opened their...