The Aftermath of the February Flood of 1825 in the Krummhörn Region – Salinised Soil, Dead Cows, and the Later Life of the Survivors

Kai Willfuehr, University of Oldenburg
Andreas Filser, Institute for Employment Research (IAB)

Early adverse living conditions and early crisis experience are known to be associated with negative life course changes. Beyond the immediate short-term impact on mortality and morbidity, studies reveal that crises have a long-term scarring effect on individuals that bring along consequences later in life. In this paper, we investigate how the February flood of 1825 affected the life courses of the people of the Krummhörn region in East-Frisia (Germany). The 1825 February flood was one of the worst natural disasters of the 19th century in the coastal regions of North-Western-Europe. In the Krummhörn region, newly built effective levees kept direct casualty numbers of the natural disaster comparatively moderate. However, long-term consequences from field salinization and livestock loss deteriorated life conditions in this agricultural society for a long time. We use family reconstitutions in combination with information on socio-economic-status derived from tax rolls, and grain prices to systematically investigate the consequence of the flood for 5,251 male and 5,187 life courses. We further focus on the geographical context since parishes located directly at the coast faced the flood with full harshness in comparison to inland parishes. Preliminary results of an event history analysis suggest increases in infant and child mortality in the five years after the flood in comparison to the pre-flood period. One potential explanation for this finding are increases of grain prices in response to the crop failures. So far, we find only little evidence that survivors' age at marriage or age at first childbirth were affected by flood experience early in life.

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 Presented in Session 213. Demographic Response to Economic Circumstances