The International Statistical Congress (1853—1876): Knowledge Transfers and their Limits

Abstract

Between 1853 and 1876 nine international statistical congresses were held in different European cities. The aim of the congresses was to bring about uniformity in the themes and methods of national statistics. However, this goal could not be attained overnight. Much of the failure to bring about rapid change was due to the difficulties in realizing effective knowledge transfers, that is, effective communication, in an age that was not quite ready for truly international activities. It has been shown that the second half of the nineteenth century was a period of numerous experiments in internationalism, but at the same time rampant nationalism nipped many initiatives in the bud. Increasing nationalism, however, is not the only explanation for the collapse of the international statistical congress. The implicit faith in the possibility of a neutral science of statistics also created huge difficulties. Realizing statistical uniformity presupposed that the underlying facts and figures were comparable. This uniformity was far removed from the rapidly changing administrative reality in nineteenth-century Europe.

Historical Studies of Hellin’s Law

“…Recently, Randeraad [8] directed attention to and even criticism of the international statistical congresses in the second half of the nineteenth century. He stated that it would be overly simplistic to assume that they were an outright success.…”

Shading, lines, colors: mapping ethnographic taxonomies of European Russia

“…These cartographers entitled their works "ethnographic map" (etnograficheskaia karta) so as to specifically position themselves within the emerging genre and to set up cultural expectations about the maps' form and content. Tacit rules and conventions governing the practices of imperial and colonial mapping were developed at international statistical congresses held between 1853 and 1876, in which common standards of measurement and notation were discussed with the aim of bringing about a scientific universalism (Palsky 1999;Randeraad 2011). 5 Petr Keppen (Peter von Köppen) (1793-1864) was the one of the first experts on statistical demography in the Russian Empire.…”

Florence Nightingale, William Farr and Competing Risks

“…There were nine international statistical congresses in Europe between 1853 and 1876, which are an interesting story in their own right. A good read on this early effort of knowledge exchange is Randeraad (), who discussed that these were among the first international research congresses. Randeraad also emphasized their relevance arguing—a statement hurtful for any modern statistician—that in the mid‐19th century statistics was ‘much more than the auxiliary science it is today’.…”