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C H A P T E R T H R E E

T H E H I S T O R I C A L M A K I N G O F F A M I L Y D I V E R S I T Y

Diversity In Families

Industrialization and the Family

Social Production vs. Social Reproduction Social Production: refers to the work that goes into making goods and services. Before Industrialization  Social Production: took place in the home (family- based economy). After Industrialization  Social Production: took place outside the home (family-wage economy).

Industrialization and the Family

Social Production vs. Social Reproduction Social Reproduction: refers to the maintenance of people, the work of caring for the family and the home. Before Industrialization  Social Reproduction: took place in the home. After Industrialization  Social Reproduction: remained in the home

Industrialization and the Family

The Doctrine of Two Spheres: A division of labor between public and private spheres based on gender. Women: responsible for reproduction in the home (private sphere) Men: responsible for production outside of the household in commercial economy (public sphere).

Industrialization and the Family

Cult of True Womanhood:

 This was the idealization of the woman’s sphere.  A woman judged herself and was judged by her

husband, neighbors, and society.

 She was to be pious, submissive, and domestic.

 Women were excluded from political and public life (their role was restricted to daughter, wife, mother).

Women and Industrial Work

 This cult of “true womanhood” was an ideal that not all women could attain.

 19th-century working class women engaged in both social production and social reproduction.

 Women worked in the factories with their husbands and

their children for family survival.

Work and Family in Industrial Society

 The Family Wage - an income sufficient to for a man to support his family at a decent standard, limited to White men.

 The family wage was a victory for labor unions.

 The family wage was not made available to minority workers or female workers. It was only received by white men.

Childhood and Adolescence

Middle Class:  Children were loved and nurtured  Adolescence emerged as distinct

stage in life.  A son’s fortune depended on his

performance in the labor market.  A daughter’s fortune depended on

her success in the marriage market.

Childhood and Adolescence

Poor & Working Class Families:  Childhood was not a separate stage in life. Children were expected

to “earn their keep” and worked at odd jobs and in factories.  In urban areas they scavenged in the streets, vacant lots, back alleys

for coal, wood, and other items.  Children participated in “huckstering” selling items in the street

(sweet potatoes, baked-pears, teacakes, fruit, candy, and hot corn).  They sold newspapers, were crossing-sweepers, errand runners,

and horse holders. They also sold items door to door.

The Accordion Household

Accordion Households: Families expanded and contracted according to family circumstances.  Economic need caused families to take in boarders (usually young men

seeking employment in cities) or relatives and extended family to make ends meet

 When conditions improved, families would become nuclear again.  Accordion households helped families adapt to changing economic and

social conditions

Immigration and Family Life

Two Massive Waves of Immigration: 1st Wave: 1830-1882 (10 million immigrants arrived) Northern & Western Europe: Irish, German, English, Scandinavian (Danish, Swedish, Norwegian), Finnish, Estonian, Latvian, etc.

Immigration and Family Life

2nd Wave: 1882-1930 (22 million immigrants arrived) Southern & Eastern Europe: Italian, Hungarian, Portuguese, Greek, Polish, Czechs, Russian, Croatian, Serbian, Albanian, Romanian, etc.

1905 – New York City, Lower East Side

The Social Breakdown Perspective

 Many immigrant families were blamed for problems in society (poverty & crime).

 Nativist Movements argued that America was being over run with immigrants who were not assimilating.

 There was anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish sentiment.

 Immigrant families were major targets for reform.

Industrial Work and Immigrant Families

Chain Migration: Families used ties to help facilitate immigration for other family members.  Poverty of newcomers was caused by the exploitation of their labor by

business.  Ethnic neighborhoods and family ties helped new immigrants and their

families survive.

Industrial work and Immigrant Families

 By 1910 the foreign-born made up 25% of the nation’s workforce.

 Certain professions were dominated by immigrants  48% of coal miners were immigrants  67% of iron miners were immigrants  76% of clothing factory workers were immigrants  46% of slaughter house workers were immigrants  51% of steel mill workers were immigrants

 The extent to which immigrant women worked outside the home varied, once married, approximately 10-15% of immigrant women worked outside of the home.

 It was common for immigrant families to “send children

out to work” as young as age 11. In some immigrant communities 70% of immigrant children between the ages of 11-15 held jobs. It was an adaption made by the family that allowed families to survive.

Racial Control and Family Life

Throughout American history race determined:  The kind of work people did  The wages they received  The legal, economic, political and social support

provided to their families.

Mexican American Farm Workers Chinese American Railroad Workers African American Sharecroppers

Connections Among Race, Labor, and Family Life

 Racial inequalities were used to build the capitalist economy.

 Various forms of coercive labor

(slavery, sharecropping, contract labor) were reserved for people of color.

 Systems of racial control

systematically disrupted family life for people of color.

African American Families in Slavery and Freedom

1670: African slaves were first brought to the American colonies. 1790: 20% of the U.S. population is black (92% slaves, 8% free). 1865: 13th amendment to the constitution (slavery abolished). 1910-1930: Great Migration (2 million African Americans go North).

African American Families during Slavery

Family Structure during Slavery  Common law marriages (men, women, children) living under the institution of

slavery.

 Family breakup – caused by forced sale of family members.

 Kinship networks between unrelated slaves grew and served as a powerful support system.

 Slaves devised various practices for

maintaining kin ties. For example naming children after blood kin (aunts, uncles, grandparents).

African American Families during slavery

Gutman (1976) study:

 Using historical documents, he found that two-parent households persisted during and after slavery.

 This counters the popular idea that Black men were absent from family households.

 After emancipation, many slave couples came forward to indicate they were married.

African American Families during slavery

Questions about Gutman’s Study  Some historians now question Gutman’s

analysis that two-parent households were the norm among slaves.

 Scholars have argued that while two-parent slave families existed, there was a great variety of family forms depending on whether or not they lived on large cotton or tobacco plantations, small farms, or villages.

 Gutman’s study was based on one historic period of time and only used data from certain areas.

African American Families In Slavery

Work and Gender Women:  Women did labor on plantations (in the fields) and

in the home cooking, cleaning, and doing housework.

 Some slave women were trained to sew, spin wool and cotton, and in dairy keeping.

 The women were responsible for two sets of children and often took on a “mammy” role.

 The women had no legal rights over their own bodies and rape by slave masters was common.

African American Families In Slavery

Work and Gender Men:  Labored on plantation (both in the fields and in

skilled labor as carpenters, stonemasons, millers, shoemakers).

 Many of the men hunted and trapped animals to supplement the meager food supplied by plantation owners.

 Many men served as surrogate fathers to young boys who did not have fathers. They taught them how to fish, trap animals, and instructed them on ways to survive in the white world.

Chicano Families in the Southwest

1848: End of Mexican American War  Families of Mexican decent who were

living in the Southwest (formerly under Spanish colonization) were now living in U.S. territory.

 This process disrupted family life.

Family Life amidst Coercive Labor Systems

 In the late 1880’s immigration from Mexico increased, many workers engaged in seasonal and migratory labor patterns

 When Chicano men migrated to find work, women were left with triple roles as mother, father and wage earner.

 In some cases during the harvest season,

entire families (husbands, wives, children) migrated to find work.

Work and Gender

 Family Structure (Nuclear, Extended Family, and Female Headed Households)

 Chicano family roles in the early 19th century were strongly

gendered.  The compadrazgo system of godparents provided social, economic,

and emotional support to families

Asian American Families in the West

 Asians (mostly Chinese, but also Japanese and Filipinos came to the west coast of America during the early 1800’s)

 According to U.S. census, first Asian immigrants arrived to the U.S. in 1820. Between 1850-1900 over 400,000 Asian immigrants came to the U.S. The majority (77%) came to California.

 Males were recruited as workers (gold mining, manual labor, building railroads) wives/children left in homeland. This resulted in split-family households.

Asian American Families in the West

 Chinese immigrants (which other Asian immigrants were lumped in with) experienced racism and discrimination during the 19th century.

 Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882: prohibited further entry of Chinese laborers, prohibited re-entry once people left the U.S., and barred resident laborers from bringing wives and children.

 After the act was passed, many Chinese men were faced

with a dilemma: stay in the United States alone or go back to China to reunite with their families.

 The Chinese Exclusion Act wasn’t repealed until 1943 during a time when China had become an ally of the U.S. against Japan in WWII.

The Great Depression and Family Change

 The Great Depression of the 1930’s profoundly influenced family life.

 Across the country men and women and children were unable to find work.

 The marriage and birth rate fell in the US during the 1930’s.  The depression shaped family structures tearing some

families and couples apart.