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We analyze how communications networks and social institutions influenced the growth of the antislavery movement in the U.S. from 1790 to 1840. Communications networks fueled by print media transmitted news about the movement to the public and so helped mobilize a broad base of support. Among social institutions, churches were especially supportive because their emphasis on morality and community was conducive to antislavery activism. Our analysis focuses on the founding of antislavery societies, the formal organizations that underpinned this movement, and makes three contributions to our understanding of social movement organizations in general and antislavery societies in particular. First, we show that the impact of mass media was strong as far back as the early nineteenth century and that the growth of magazines spurred antislavery society formation. Second, we demonstrate that theology, specifically an orientation toward this world or heaven, determined whether religious resources were available to antislavery organizations. This-worldly religions supported abolition organizing, while other-worldly religions undermined it. Third, we resolve an important causal ambiguity in debates about antislavery by showing that the development of the media was the cause, not merely a consequence of or companion to growth of antislavery organizations.

Although a substantial body of work has investigated drivers of tie formation, there is growing interest in understanding why relationships decay or dissolve altogether. The networks literature has tended to conceptualize tie decay as driven by processes similar to those underlying tie formation. Yet information that is revealed through ongoing interactions can exert different effects on tie formation and tie decay. This paper investigates how tie decay and tie formation processes differ by focusing on contentious practices. To the extent that information about dissimilarities in contentious practices is learned through ongoing interactions, it can exert diverging effects on tie formation and tie decay. Using a longitudinal data set of 141,543 physician dyads, we find that differences in contentious prescribing led ties to weaken or dissolve altogether but did not affect tie formation. The more contentious the practice and the more information available about the practice, the stronger the effect on tie decay and dissolution. Collectively, these findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of relationship evolution as an unfolding process through which deeper-level differences are revealed and shape the outcome of the tie.

Despite the rise of medical interventions to address behavioral issues in childhood, the social determinants of their use remain poorly understood. By analyzing a dataset that includes the majority of prescriptions written for stimulants in the United States, we find a substantial effect of schooling on stimulant use. In middle and high school, adolescents are roughly 30 percent more likely to have a stimulant prescription filled during the school year than during the summer. Socioeconomically advantaged children are more likely than their less advantaged peers to selectively use stimulants only during the academic year. These differences persist when we compare higher and lower socioeconomic status children seeing the same doctors. We link these responses to academic pressure by exploiting variation between states in educational accountability system stringency. We find the largest differences in school year versus summer stimulant use in states with more accountability pressure. School-based selective stimulant use is most common among economically advantaged children living in states with strict accountability policies. Our study uncovers a new pathway through which medical interventions may act as a resource for higher socioeconomic status families to transmit educational advantages to their children, either intentionally or unwittingly.