Mom

The Transformation of Motherhood in Modern America

Bibliographic Data

ID5705377
AuthorsRima D Apple (University of Wisconsin–Madison, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume97
Issue4
Pages1166-1167
Publication date2011-03-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of American History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-8723 • E-ISSN: 1945-2314
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/jahist/jaq072
OpenAlexW2041946199
LanguageEN
Citations received4

In the nineteenth century, motherhood was a calling; by the mid-twentieth century, motherhood was considered a private experience, one of many facets of a woman's life. Rather than equating motherhood with moral superiority and duty to the state, twentieth-century commentators increasingly depicted motherhood within a narrow biological sphere. Rebecca Jo Plant labels the former maternalists—those who considered motherhood a civic duty—and the latter she designates antimaternalists—those who defined motherhood biologically and rejected the moral superiority of mothers. In her meticulously researched, richly footnoted, and engagingly written Mom: The Transformation of Motherhood in Modern America, Plant traces the interplay of the maternalists and the antimaternalists and mothers’ reactions to them over the period. The heart of Plant's analysis is the twentieth-century repudiation of the conceptual power of mother love. In the previous century, commentators had valued mother love because it could redeem the child, the family, and society from the ravages of modern life. Delving into psychological literature as well as popular culture (such as women's and general interest magazines, best sellers, and Hollywood films), Plant finds that the ideology of moral motherhood was demolished in the twentieth century with a growing emphasis on the child's biological needs; the power of maternal affection was seen as corrupting the development of a healthy, emotionally balanced adult

Aesthetics · Affection · Art · Art history · Duty · Hollywood · Ideology · Period (music · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · Gender Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · History · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology

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