Wilbur Zelinsky
Biographic Data
| ID | 3619792 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Wilbur Zelinsky |
| GIVEN NAMES | Wilbur |
| FAMILY NAME | Zelinsky |
| SIGNATURE | ZELINSKY W |
| AFFILIATIONS | Pennsylvania State University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 115 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1086 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 115 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1949 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| H-INDEX | 13 |
Seeing Beyond the Dominant Culture
The World And Its Identity Crisis
Thanking Donald Meinig
If you happen to be a masochist and are willing to try a truly nasty thought experiment, then imagine the state of American human geography today if Donald Meinig had never been born or had failed to survive World War II. Give up? What flashed into my mind's eye when I gave this counterfactual exercise a whirl (but admittedly overstating the case a bit) was a classic New Yorker cartoon entitled Life without Mozart: a desert plain strewn with debr…
The Gravestone Index: Tracking Personal Religiosity Across Nations, Regions, and Periods
Given shortcomings in traditional methods of gauging levels of religious sentiment in national or local communities—affiliation with a congregation, church attendance, responses to opinion polls—this exploratory article proposes a novel, arguably more sensitive measure of personal religiosity, the Gravestone Index; that is, the incidence of religious symbols, iconography, or text on permanent memorials. Its application to 58,490 grave markers obs…
A Companion to Cultural Geography
James S. Duncan, Nuala C. Johnson, and Richard H. Schein, eds. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004. xiii and 529 pp., maps, diags., photos, notes, and index. $124.95 cloth (ISBN 0-631-23050-5). Those reade
Buyways: Billboards, Automobiles and the American Landscape and Signs in America's Auto Age: Signatures of Landscape and Place
Key Words: automobilitybillboardslandscapesigns Additional informationNotes on contributorsWilbur ZelinskyReviewed by
Globalization Reconsidered: The Historical Geography of Modern Western Male Attire
This venture into geographic terra incognita treats the historical geography of Modern Western Male Attire (MWMA). After tracing its evolution, from the fourteenth-century invention of Western Fashion and the introduction of form-fitting garments, we arrive at the Standard Suit in England and France ca. 1800 via the confluence of several cultural and political factors. The rationale for a sober, classless style is compatibility with the capitalis…
The Names of Chicago's Churches: A Tale of at Least Two Cultures
This is a study of the generic and specific terms appearing in the English-language names of all the houses of worship/congregations in Cook County, Illinois (Chicago and its immediate suburban periphery) it was feasible to observe during the period 1999l–2001. The central question posed was what these linguistic patterns can disclose about the similarities and differences between the religious cultures of the Black and the Non- Black (largely Eu…
Slouching Toward a Theory of Names: A Tentative Taxonomic Fix
Despite the accumulation of immense quantities of empirical treatments, the development of a genuine theory of names remains woefully mired at the primitive level of specifying the distinction between proper and common nouns. As an initial step forward, this paper sets forth, for the first time, a comprehensive taxonomy of the entire universe of names. In so doing, it draws attention to the many name-types that have been seriously or totally negl…
The Enigma of Ethnicity: Another American Dilemma
Journal Article The Enigma of Ethnicity: Another American Dilemma Get access The Enigma of Ethnicity: Another American Dilemma. By Zelinsky Wilbur. (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2001. xx, 315 pp. Cloth, $39.95, isbn0-87745-749-2. Paper, $19.95, isbn0-87745-750-6.) Philip Gleason Philip Gleason Emeritus University of Notre DameSouth Bend, Indiana Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American H…
The Geographer as Voyeur
The Uniqueness of the American Religious Landscape
The assemblage of objects that constitute the publicly visible religious landscape of the United States—houses of worship and a variety of church‐related enterprises—deviates so markedly from its counterparts in other lands that we can regard its uniqueness as a significant argument for American exceptionalism. The diagnostic features in question include the extraordinary number and variety of churches and denominations, their special physical at…
The Place of Music
Heterolocalism: An alternative model of the sociospatial behaviour of immigrant ethnic communities
This paper evaluates critically the applicability of the well-known assimilation and pluralist models to the contemporary ethnic landscape of the U.S.... We then consider an alternative model, labelled heterolocalism, which suggests that members of certain newly arrived groups may be able to sustain their identity as an ethnic community despite immediate or rapid spatial dispersion. The applicability of the heterolocal perspective to non-metropol…
The Shape of Texas: Maps as Metaphors
Richard Edes Harrison, 1901–1994
Gathering Places for America's Dead: How Many, Where, and Why
Recent availability of a place-specific roster of 99,625 named cemeteries appearing on USGS quadrangles renders possible for the first time the study of such places at more than the state or localized scale. County-level plotting of named sites for the eastern United States yields two unexpected results: a band of exceptionally high densities of named cemeteries traversing much of the Upper South and a parallel tract of low densities dominating t…
Conventionland USA: The Geography of a Latterday Phenomenon
The recent productions of social history include, among others, the staging of those ephemeral gatherings known as conventions. As one of the pioneers in this important mode of circulation and communication, the United States offers an apt case study of conventioneering's ascent and locational flux. The paper begins by defining a convention; it then (1) examines the selection of convention sites; (2) documents the surge in convention activity; (3…
Zelinsky, W. 1971: The hypothesis of the mobility transition. Geographical Review 61, 219-49
Parsing Greater Washington's Namescape
Successive strata over time of a locality's placename cover provide insights into shifting toponymic fashions and, more deeply, into our collective subconscious – a principle amply evident in the case of Greater Washington with its intense episodes of nationalistic terms. Examining both the localistic and national significance of the temporal layering of placenaming, this study breaks new ground by considering names of businesses as well as the c…
The Emergency Evacuation of Cities: A Cross-National Historical and Geographical Study
Selected by Choice as an Outstanding Academic Book for 1992. In this landmark study, two eminent geographers present the first comparative, cross-national analysis of emergency evacuations engendered by every sort of disaster: military, natural, and industrial. Zelinsky and Kosinski have selected 27 evacuations of cities due to actual or anticipated emergencies during the past fifty years, from the Ohio River Flood of 1937 to the Chernobyl nuclea…
Rock Fences of the Bluegrass
The cultural geography of the United States
A classic exploration of the role of geography in shaping the people and destiny of the United States. Presenting the author's view of the role of geography in shaping the people and destiny of the US, this revised edition (1st ed., 1973) features a new chapter on the changes in American cultural patterns during the 1970s and 1980s and updated factual information.
News in the mail: The press, post office, and public information, 1700–1860s
The Twinning of the World: Sister Cities in Geographic and Historical Perspective
Absstract Although there are unmistakable signals of the advent of a truly planetary society in the late Twentieth Century, the subject has received nothing like the scholarly attention devoted to the development of a world economy or various problems in the global ecosystem. The intent of this paper is to begin redressing the imbalance by exploring the evolution and geography of an especially symptomatic people-to-people movement. The findings g…
The Hypothesis of the Mobility Transition
OCIAL scientists are guided in their gropings toward pattern and regularity in human activities by their small hoard of paradigms. In the fields of geography and demography, such broad intellectual designs have been especially scarce.' Indeed, there are probably no more than three major geographical paradigms in active use today. The first, which might be called the geographic axiom, so basic and instinctive as to be seldom articulated, is the co…
The cultural geography of the United States
A classic exploration of the role of geography in shaping the people and destiny of the United States. Presenting the author's view of the role of geography in shaping the people and destiny of the US, this revised edition (1st ed., 1973) features a new chapter on the changes in American cultural patterns during the 1970s and 1980s and updated factual information.
On Some Patterns in International Tourist Flows
(1970). On Some Patterns in International Tourist Flows. Economic Geography: Vol. 46, No. 4, pp. 549-567
The Twinning of the World: Sister Cities in Geographic and Historical Perspective
Absstract Although there are unmistakable signals of the advent of a truly planetary society in the late Twentieth Century, the subject has received nothing like the scholarly attention devoted to the development of a world economy or various problems in the global ecosystem. The intent of this paper is to begin redressing the imbalance by exploring the evolution and geography of an especially symptomatic people-to-people movement. The findings g…
The Uniqueness of the American Religious Landscape
The assemblage of objects that constitute the publicly visible religious landscape of the United States—houses of worship and a variety of church‐related enterprises—deviates so markedly from its counterparts in other lands that we can regard its uniqueness as a significant argument for American exceptionalism. The diagnostic features in question include the extraordinary number and variety of churches and denominations, their special physical at…
An Approach to the Religious Geography of the United States: Patterns of Church Membership in 1952 1
North America's Vernacular Regions
The vernacular, or popular, region, “the product of the spatial perception of average people,”is a phenomenon that remains too poorly known in North America. It promises to gain importance as the general level of public and scholarly interest in regional, ethnic, and historical questions continues to rise. The larger, subnational North American vernacular regions are studied through an analysis of the frequency of selected regional and locational…
The Middle West: Its Meaning in American Culture
In the introduction to this absorbing volume, James Shortridge suggests that his "unconventional geography" (xiii) has been influenced by a small group of humanists within the profession.Certainly Shortridge's study of the Middle West is not what the lay reader ordinarily expects to encounter in the work of a geographer.In part this is because the scope and methodology of the discipline is broader than often believed, and in part because the auth…
The roving palate: North America's ethnic restaurant cuisines
Nationalism in the American Place-Name Cover
Students of the American scene can document the intensity and exuberance of nationalism in the young United States in a surprising variety of ways. The challenge of inventing of what was indeed the first new nation in the modem world and doing so almost instantly within a large, thinly occupied territory created certain opportunities for expressing patriotic fervor that were rare or nonexistent in contemporary Europe or later ventures in nation-s…
Classical Town Names in the United States: The Historical Geography of an American Idea
T HE Classic Revival-in essence the notion (sometimes articulate, more often subliminal) that the United States is the latter-day embodiment of the virtues and ideals of ancient Greece and Rome-has been one of several pervasive elements in American mythology that have helped make our cultural history and geography distinctively American. The important legacy of the Classical World has been bestowed on all the countries comprising the Greater Euro…
Some Problems in the Distribution of Generic Terms in the Place-Names of the Northeastern United States∗
Nation into State: The Shifting Symbolic Foundations of American Nationalism
A UNC Press Enduring Edition - UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value
The Dimigod's Dilemma∗
In a quite literal sense, science has become the dominant religion of the late twentieth century, effectively displacing the traditional faiths of the supernatural. Yet, despite the rapidity and near-totality of its triumph, the reign of the Church of Science may be quite brief because of basic defects in its theology (methods and philosophy) and many practical shortcomings when its tenets and findings are applied to biophysical reality and the s…
Human Ecology: A Theory of Community Structure
Zelinsky, W. 1971: The hypothesis of the mobility transition. Geographical Review 61, 219-49
Nation into State: The Shifting Symbolic Foundations of American Nationalism
Journal Article Nation into State: The Shifting Symbolic Foundations of American Nationalism. By Wilbur Zelinsky. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989. xvi + 350 pp. $29.95.) Get access Barry Schwartz Barry Schwartz University of Georgia Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 76, Issue 4, March 1990, Pages 1241–1242, https://doi.org/10.2307/2936610 Published: …
The Pennsylvania Town: An Overdue Geographical Account
E KNOW surprisingly little about the form and appearance of the vast majority of the cities and towns of North America. We know even less about the meaning of these phenomena in the cultural scheme of things. Although each of our major metropolises has generated its own iconography and body of writing-some of them quite masterly1-and although a corps of cultural geographers, distinctly rural in their leanings, have told us much about the look of …
Cultural Variation in Personal Name Patterns in the Eastern United States
The hypothesis that patterns in choice of given-names may prove to be the single most nearly ideal measure for analyzing spatial and temporal variation in total cultural systems has been explored through the statistical manipulation of sample data on frequency of principal male names in sixteen counties in the Eastern United States in 1790 and 1968. This material appears to meet quite admirably at least five of the criteria for such a measure: ub…
Changes in the Geographic Patterns of Rural Population in the United States 1790-1960
IF ANY theme dominates in the human geography of the United States, it is certainly that of vigorous, accelerating change. The population patterns of this nation have been particularly volatile and symptomatic of the rapid transformation of its total geographical character; hence any approach to American population geography-and through this seminal topic to the broader aspects of our human scene-must necessarily treat dynamics as a central issue
The Historical Geography of the Negro Population of Latin America
Conventionland USA: The Geography of a Latterday Phenomenon
The recent productions of social history include, among others, the staging of those ephemeral gatherings known as conventions. As one of the pioneers in this important mode of circulation and communication, the United States offers an apt case study of conventioneering's ascent and locational flux. The paper begins by defining a convention; it then (1) examines the selection of convention sites; (2) documents the surge in convention activity; (3…
Gaia: An Atlas of Planet Management
An interdisciplinary team served as consultants to an analytical formula outlined in this atlas to manage the Earth wisely so as to prevent its and our own demise. It reminds us that Earth is a living planet composed of numerous interconnected parts. Considerable environmental data statistical predictions and sometimes opposing opinions and solutions are organized into an easy logical framework. This framework allows us to scrutinize any crucial …
The Shape of Texas: Maps as Metaphors
This Remarkable Continent: An Atlas of United States and Canadian Society and Cultures
Population Analysis
The Historical Geography of the Negro Population of Latin America
The Population Geography of the Free Negro in Ante-Bellum America
The population geography of the free Negro inAnte-BellumAmerica
This paper deals with the overall aspects of the demography and geography of this small yet significant element in the American population before the Civil War. By means of maps and graphs, the history of the distribution of the free Negro in both the north and the south in the years 1790–1860 is traced and analysed. After the areal and demographic characteristics of this distinctive group have been determined (this includes a delineation of popu…
The Indochinese Peninsula: A Demographic Anomaly
It is a commonplace that the great majority of the world's inhabitants are concentrated within a few demographic areas covering only a small portion of the surface of the earth. Of these, perhaps only three are of a first order of magnitude, while easily the greatest of these, the agglomeration in Monsoon Asia, may contain as much as 50 per cent and certainly more than 40 per cent of the world's population. Within this crescent of favored littora…
Where the South Begins: The Northern Limit of the Cis-Appalachian South in Terms of Settlement Landscape
Journal Article Where the South Begins: The Northern Limit of the Cis-Appalachian South in Terms of Settlement Landscape Get access Wilbur Zelinsky Wilbur Zelinsky University of Georgia Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Social Forces, Volume 30, Issue 2, December 1951, Pages 172–178, https://doi.org/10.2307/2571629 Published: 01 December 1951
Essays in Geography
Human Ecology: A Theory of Community Structure
The Population Upsurge in the United States
The Problem of Food and Hunger
Introduction a L'Etude Geographique de la Population du Monde
The Log House in Georgia
The Population Geography of Belgian Africa
(1954). The Population Geography of Belgian Africa. Annals of the Association of American Geographers: Vol. 44, No. 2, pp. 163-193
Population Patterns in Tropical Africa
(1954). Population Patterns in Tropical Africa. Annals of the Association of American Geographers: Vol. 44, No. 2, pp. 135-162
The Population Geography of Belgian Africa
Population Patterns in Tropical Africa
La Densite de la Population au Ruanda-Urundi: Esquisse d'une etude geographique
Some Problems in the Distribution of Generic Terms in the Place-Names of the Northeastern United States∗
Population Distribution and Change in Korea 1925-1949
The Urban South
La Ville; Le Fait Urbain a Travers Le Monde
The Industrial Structure of American Cities: A Geographic Study of Urban Economy in the United States
(1957). The Industrial Structure of American Cities: A Geographic Study of Urban Economy in the United States. Economic Geography: Vol. 33, No. 3, pp. 275-276
Recent Publications on the Distribution of Population in the United States
American Barns and Covered Bridges
The New England Connecting Barn
Geography (91 works) · Sociology (55 works) · Economic geography (40 works) · History (35 works) · Demography (32 works) · Political science (30 works) · Population (29 works) · History (28 works) · Archaeology (24 works) · Regional science (21 works)