The Explosion of Family History

Bibliographic Data

ID11610322
AuthorsMary P Ryan (0000-0001-8582-3003, corresponding author)
Year1982
Volume10
Issue4
Pages181-181
Publication date1982-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueReviews in American History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0048-7511 • E-ISSN: 1080-6628
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2701826
OpenAlexW2334487227
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited13

Not the least of the novelties of the 1980 presidential election was the attention which politicians and party platforms bestowed on the American An institution whose major role in the campaigns of the past was to inspire platitudes and garnish a candidate's folksy image became the explicit topic of political discussion. In more secluded corners of the United States government the family was being subjected to another sort of scrutiny. A memorandum that circulated through the offices of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, for example, proposed this remarkably loose definition of the family: any combination of individuals who combine in willingness to meet each other's needs and provide mutual support, emotionally and/or financially may meet the test of the family. 1 Meanwhile the Bureau of the Census quietly but audaciously broke with a precedent that dated back to 1790. The category head of household was struck from the schedule of the 1980 census of population. The more neutral term householder took its place on the censustaker's form, and beside it could now be found roommate or partner as well as spouse. When the results of the 1980 census were tabulated these alterations in the conventional notation of family relationships proved to be more than justified. Only a small fraction (11.5 percent) of the new households formed in the late 1970s sheltered a married couple, and thus conformed to minimal definitions of a conventional family.2 Clearly, the attention which politicians are paying to the family in the 1980s is inspired by genuine social change and would seem to herald a fundamental point of transition in American social history. Where politicians dare to tread, historians often follow, sooner or later. In the case of the family, historians have actually taken up an unfamiliar position at the vanguard of public discussion. It was in 1970 with the publication of three innovative studies, John Demos's A Little Commonwealth, Philip Greven's Four Generations, and Richard Sennett's Families Against the City, that historians began an intensive examination of the American family.3 Each of these books introduced its novel historical subject with such interpretative flair and methodological ingenuity (often borrowed from European demographers and social historians) that together they inspired a hive of young researchers. Soon studies of the family, often quantitative, localized, and highly specialized, began to fill the historical journals

Genealogy · American Environmental and Regional History · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · History