The Social Origins of Private Life

The Social Origins of Private Life

Author: Stephanie Coontz

Publisher: Verso Books

Published: 2016-02-23

Total Pages: 554

ISBN-13: 1786630001

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Current debates about the future of the family are often based on serious misconceptions about its past. Arguing that there is no biologically mandated or universally functional family form, Stephanie Coontz traces the complexity and variety of family arrangements in American history, from Native American kin groups to the emergence of the dominant middle-class family ideal in the 1890s. Surveying and synthesizing a vast range of previous scholarship, as well as engaging more particular studies of family life from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, Coontz offers a highly original account of the shifting structure and function of American families. Her account challenges standard interpretations of the early hegemony of middle-class privacy and "affective individualism," pointing to the rich tradition of alternative family behaviors among various ethnic and socioeconomic groups in America, and arguing that even middle-class families went through several transformations in the course of the nineteenth centure. The present dominant family form, grounded in close interpersonal relations and premised on domestic consumption of mass-produced household goods has arisen, Coontz argues, from a long and complex series of changing political and economic conjunctures, as well as from the destruction or incorporation of several alternative family systems. A clear conception of American capitalism's combined and uneven development is therefore essential if we are to understand the history of the family as a key social and economic unit. Lucid and detailed, The Social Origins of Private Life is likely to become the standard history of its subject.


The Way We Really Are

The Way We Really Are

Author: Stephanie Coontz

Publisher:

Published: 2008-08-06

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 0786725567

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Stephanie Coontz, the author of The Way We Never Were, now turns her attention to the mythology that surrounds today’s family—the demonizing of “untraditional” family forms and marriage and parenting issues. She argues that while it’s not crazy to miss the more hopeful economic trends of the 1950s and 1960s, few would want to go back to the gender roles and race relations of those years. Mothers are going to remain in the workforce, family diversity is here to stay, and the nuclear family can no longer handle all the responsibilities of elder care and childrearing.Coontz gives a balanced account of how these changes affect families, both positively and negatively, but she rejects the notion that the new diversity is a sentence of doom. Every family has distinctive resources and special vulnerabilities, and there are ways to help each one build on its strengths and minimize its weaknesses.The book provides a meticulously researched, balanced account showing why a historically informed perspective on family life can be as much help to people in sorting through family issues as going into therapy—and much more help than listening to today’s political debates.


The Social Origins of Private Life

The Social Origins of Private Life

Author: Stephanie Coontz

Publisher: Verso Books

Published: 1988-11-17

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 0860919072

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A highly original account of the evolution of the family unit Current debates about the future of the family are often based on serious misconceptions about its past. Arguing that there is no biologically mandated or universally functional family form, Stephanie Coontz traces the complexity and variety of family arrangements in American history, from Native American kin groups to the emergence of the dominant middle-class family ideal in the 1890s. Surveying and synthesizing a vast range of previous scholarship, as well as engaging more particular studies of family life from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, Coontz offers a highly original account of the shifting structure and function of American families. Her account challenges standard interpretations of the early hegemony of middle-class privacy and “affective individualism,” pointing to the rich tradition of alternative family behaviors among various ethnic and socioeconomic groups in America, and arguing that even middle-class families went through several transformations in the course of the nineteenth centure. The present dominant family form, grounded in close interpersonal relations and premised on domestic consumption of mass-produced household goods has arisen, Coontz argues, from a long and complex series of changing political and economic conjunctures, as well as from the destruction or incorporation of several alternative family systems. A clear conception of American capitalism’s combined and uneven development is therefore essential if we are to understand the history of the family as a key social and economic unit. Lucid and detailed, The Social Origins of Private Life is likely to become the standard history of its subject.


The Social History of the American Family

The Social History of the American Family

Author: Marilyn J. Coleman

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Published: 2014-09-02

Total Pages: 2111

ISBN-13: 1452286159

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The American family has come a long way from the days of the idealized family portrayed in iconic television shows of the 1950s and 1960s. The four volumes of The Social History of the American Family explore the vital role of the family as the fundamental social unit across the span of American history. Experiences of family life shape so much of an individual’s development and identity, yet the patterns of family structure, family life, and family transition vary across time, space, and socioeconomic contexts. Both the definition of who or what counts as family and representations of the “ideal” family have changed over time to reflect changing mores, changing living standards and lifestyles, and increased levels of social heterogeneity. Available in both digital and print formats, this carefully balanced academic work chronicles the social, cultural, economic, and political aspects of American families from the colonial period to the present. Key themes include families and culture (including mass media), families and religion, families and the economy, families and social issues, families and social stratification and conflict, family structures (including marriage and divorce, gender roles, parenting and children, and mixed and non-modal family forms), and family law and policy. Features: Approximately 600 articles, richly illustrated with historical photographs and color photos in the digital edition, provide historical context for students. A collection of primary source documents demonstrate themes across time. The signed articles, with cross references and Further Readings, are accompanied by a Reader’s Guide, Chronology of American Families, Resource Guide, Glossary, and thorough index. The Social History of the American Family is an ideal reference for students and researchers who want to explore political and social debates about the importance of the family and its evolving constructions.


The Family and Family Relationships, 1500-1900

The Family and Family Relationships, 1500-1900

Author: Rosemary O'Day

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 1994-10-26

Total Pages: 363

ISBN-13: 1349236543

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While historians have written with ease about the state and the church, the family has so far defied historical analysis. As the primary cell of human social organisation, upon which both state and church depend, it is of crucial importance. In this concise, informative and stimulating book, Rosemary O'Day seeks to explain the difficulties facing the historian of the family and to suggest strategies for their solution. She compares families and households in time, space and economy over the period 1500-1914 and draws together the important existing work.


The Production of Personal Life

The Production of Personal Life

Author: Joel Pfister

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 1991

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 0804719489

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This book aims both to demystify and to reconstitute 'Hawthorne' as an object of study by rereading Hawthorne's fictions, mainly those from the early 1840's to 1860, in the context of the emergence of a distinctively middle-class personal life (the domestic emotional revolution that accompanied the industrial revolution. Recent histories of middle-class private life, gender, the body, and sexuality now enable us to bring a more encompassing grasp of history to our reading of the 'psychological' in Hawthorne's writing. Rather than taking the conventional view that Freud explains Hawthorne's psychological themes, the author draws on the history of personal life to suggest that mid-century psychological fictions help, historically, to account for the surfacing of a bourgeois Freudian discourse later in the century. The production of Personal Life also asks why it was that women in mid-century fiction, especially that written by men, were represented as psychological targets of male monomaniacs in the home. By connecting the enforcement of middle-class 'feminine' roles to psychological tension between the sexes, Hawthorne's fiction at times implicitly critiques the sentimental construction of gender roles on which the economic and cultural ascendancy of his class relied.


On The Man Question

On The Man Question

Author: Mark Kann

Publisher: Temple University Press

Published: 2010-04-29

Total Pages: 379

ISBN-13: 1439904049

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Focusing on Seventeenth-Century English political philosophy and Nineteenth-Century American culture, Mark Kann challenges the widely-held view that American political institutions are grounded in the primacy of individualism. Liberal thinkers have long been concerned that men are too passionate and selfish to exercise individual rights without causing social chaos. Kann demonstrates how a desperate search to answer the man question began to revolutionize gender relations He examines "the other liberal tradition in America" which downplays the value of individualism, elevates the ongoing significance of an "engendered civic virtue," and incorporates classical republicanism into the fabric of modern political discourse. The author traces the cultural conditioning of the white middle class that produced the ideal of self-sacrificing wives whose lives were devoted to creating a haven for their husbands and a school of virtue for their sons. Upon leaving home, these young men were to be schooled in manliness in the military in order to be capable of assuming positions of power as they were vacated by their fathers’ generation. Thus, in the norms of fatherhood, fraternity, womanhood, and militarism, the male’s individualism was conditioned with a strong dose of civic virtue.


Sex Crimes and Offenders

Sex Crimes and Offenders

Author: Mary Clifford

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2022-05-02

Total Pages: 613

ISBN-13: 1538125188

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For decades, and in some cases centuries, individuals, families, and friends of victims sought out ways to help heal the hurts caused by sexual abuse and implement some way to protect against future harms. The recent very public conversations about victims standing up to perpetrators has expanded the reach and public platform of sexual violence prevention efforts in critical ways. What might appear a relatively simple task on the surface, to define “healthy” and “harmful” sexual practices, inevitably raises even more questions. When the questions and answers are framed and defined through historical, cultural, social, and individual lenses, solutions may seldom be simple. Structured in five parts, Sex Crimes and Offenders: Exploring Questions of Character and Culture uses healthy sexuality as a back drop for exploring the complicated issue of identifying and punishing sex crimes, defining the parameters of sexualized violence, and sexual violence prevention. The goal is to prevent harm, address hurts, hold perpetrators accountable, and eventually eliminate – to the degree possible—all future harms. The information presented explores individual treatment efforts, as well as the social and political responses designed to hold perpetrators accountable and help support victims. Essential resources made visible throughout this text are provided to help inform young people, families, faith communities and future practitioners, to raise important reflective questions, and to serve as a resource for anyone of any age who has suffered harm, or perpetrated harm, and is in need of support and healing. Finally, the book concludes by shining a light on the efforts each of us can take to identify, reduce, and work toward eliminating sexual violence and harms. Additional resources for Instructors, including PowerPoint Lecture Notes and Test Banks, are provided.


Encyclopedia of Local History

Encyclopedia of Local History

Author: Amy H. Wilson

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2017-02-06

Total Pages: 815

ISBN-13: 1442278781

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The Encyclopedia of Local History addresses nearly every aspect of local history, including everyday issues, theoretical approaches, and trends in the field. This encyclopedia provides both the casual browser and the dedicated historian with adept commentary by bringing the voices of over one hundred experts together in one place. Entries include: ·Terms specifically related to the everyday practice of interpreting local history in the United States, such as “African American History,” “City Directories,” and “Latter-Day Saints.” ·Historical and documentary terms applied to local history such as “Abstract,” “Culinary History,” and “Diaries.” ·Detailed entries for major associations and institutions that specifically focus on their usage in local history projects, such as “Library of Congress” and “Society of American Archivists” ·Entries for every state and Canadian province covering major informational sources critical to understanding local history in that region. ·Entries for every major immigrant group and ethnicity. Brand-new to this edition are critical topics covering both the practice of and major current areas of research in local history such as “Digitization,” “LGBT History,” museum theater,” and “STEM education.” Also new to this edition are graphics, including 48 photographs. Overseen by a blue-ribbon Editorial Advisory Board (Anne W. Ackerson, James D. Folts, Tim Grove, Carol Kammen, and Max A. van Balgooy) this essential reference will be frequently consulted in academic libraries with American and Canadian history programs, public libraries supporting local history, museums, historic sites and houses, and local archives in the U.S. and Canada. This third edition is the first to include photographs.