19th Century American Family Research Paper

There are many ways that the idea of the “traditional” family has changed over the past several centuries. For instance prior to the 19th century family was often considered anyone who lived within a household whether related by blood or not. This included employees and extended family. “The biological family was less sacrosanct, and less sentimentalized, than it would become in the nineteenth century.” (Coontz 35) In society at the time it was socially unacceptable to be separate and not included as part of a family household. Over time the term family came to encompass the immediate family, a husband, wife and their children. During the late 1800’s through the mid 1900’s there were emerging ideas of family that were not widely accepted as traditional or normal, these included single parent homes with only a Mom or Dad, Stepfamilies and

The essay starts with a very simple definition of a family, accompanied by an explanation of the relationship between family structure and the strength of the link between different people forming the family in question. The introduction has been put in a simple language to provide a fluid understanding of what the reader should expect throughout the text. Literal tools like proverbs and similes have been applied. There is a clear language connection of cultural legacy and a family unit where the authors explain that legacy in the society does not determine how different ethnicities connect with the family unit. Gertsel and Sarkasian believe that deliberations made on family responsibilities tend to pay more attention to nuclear family as opposed to the general family unit. The language used here implies that the general meaning of extended family unit is ignored or in some cases misrepresented.

From the roaring 20’s to the dirty 30’s, There has been major changes to the American family. Instead of reading newspapers, people now have radios to listen and tune in at. From watching plays, they now have movie theaters that they can attend with family.The old fashion way of watching sports in the stadium was no longer needed, they now have TV’s that broadcast everything. Sports, Music, and fun distractions were now the way to live in the 1900’s. The life of the typical American family was now characterized by the time spent with the radio, Music stars, and famous baseball sport legends.

As the roaring twenties captivated the lives of American families with its great profits, big business, and optimism, the thirties altered the nation’s economic dreams, values, fashion, and everyday life. After ending an abundant decade in the twenties, the 1930’s brought forth pain, poverty, and hardships.

One of the family-related reforms during the late 19th/ early 20th century is the shifting toward monogamy and away from polygamy. Because there was a movement where the Jiating yanjiu promoted xiao jiating, independent family, instead of the traditional da jiting, joint family, during the New Culture Movement, there seems to be no need for concubine or female servant since marriage was supposed to be love based and not on the family’s arrangements. The husband and wife come together with their own free will, there is more emotional satisfaction, which lead the married couple “more productive, and their increased productivity, in turn, made China stronger” ( Glosser 120). Liao Shu’An, a member of jiating yanjiu, offered eight rules as the

America developed as an industrial and agricultural colossal in the late nineteenth century. Beatified with limitless pure natural resources, remarkable technologies, ruthless population growth, entrepreneurial energy, and little to no government interference the United States cultivated very rapidly and changed perilously than ever before. Only within three or four generations after the Civil War the primarily base rural nation ranked fourth as the world’s main commercial, agricultural, and industrial power. In the 1900s the United States controlled global markets in steel, oil, wheat, and cotton. Businesses grew greatly in size and power. Social tensions and political corruption aggravated the rising scale of business enterprise.

Throughout the centuries, family life and dynamics have changed significantly. The way families function today is not how families functioned in the 1900’s or the 1800’s. Events happen and cause the typical family dynamic to change. The way families work will continue to change, but as long as it still carries out its essential functions of reproduction and the care and socialization of the young, it will continue to flourish (19:19). The first family pattern that stuck out to me was the one mentioning that games on Sunday’s were prohibited (6:00).

In this chapter of, Families as they really are, Coontz, a professor of history, asserts the theme of how as time went on the definition of a family has altered. Coontz begins this chapter by showing how every area in the world has a different definition of what is a family. Specifically, in the United States, the definition of a family has altered from the early colonial times to today. She explains the differences of the how every race has a different meaning for families. According to Coontz, originally a family could be considered anybody within the kin. Also, people in the early days did not marry because of love. People got married because of social and financial benefits. Another point that was emphasized by Coontz, was how originally there was not formalities for a marriage. A marriage was just two people that are close to each other. However, as time went on documentation was given out of a valid marriage. Coontz, goes on to state how in the 1950s all of this started to change. Families started to live together, the husband and wife got married because they both love each other. This was the time period where the nuclear family started to be the ideal family of a husband being the breadwinner, and the wife as a stay at home mother, and two children going to school. Coontz, concludes with how the definition and perspective of a family has changed over time, and will keep on changing.

Industrialism has changed the ways families of that particular time interacted and supported one another. With the rapid shift away from more localized agrarian or small business enterprises to one that required longer hours away from home, the impact on the early American family cannot be underestimated. Before the onset of the Industrial Revolution in early America, a household was a social center where its members drew satisfaction from working together.

This essay, The Myth of the Model American Family, is a discussion of the concept of an ideal family in the different perspective specifically social, cultural and economic. This is also an attempt to identify the structural changes in relation to the global development and the international economic crisis that immensely created impact on their lives. However, the discussion will limit itself on the different identifiable and observable transformations as manifested in the lifestyles, interrelationships and views of family members and will not seek to provide an assessment of their psycho-social and individual perceptions.

n the upcoming page’s I will answer the following questions. Why is family the most important agent of socialization? What caused the dramatic changes to the American family? What are the changes? I will discuss the differences in marriage and family, I will discuss how they are linked to class, race, gender, and personal choices. The purpose of this study is to explore the many different family functions and the paths that people are now choosing. I will give my opinion on whether these changes have had a positive or negative affect. I will finally discuss the trend of the modern family, back to pre-World War II family structure, how would that effect the strides that have been made in the progression of women rights.

The Old Regime was a time during the French Revolution where it became normal to make reference to the patterns of social, political, and economic relationships that were lasting in France prior to 1789. It is referred to as pre-revolutionary Europe. “Tradition, hierarchy, a corporate feeling, and privilege were the chief social characteristics of the Old Regime” (Page 450). This time period had a set organization of society and the economy in Europe during the 18th century.

In those days, so many people were forced into prostitution to earn an income. The living conditions were very low. People were poor, homeless, enemployed. There was crime and desperation. Mostly people were forced into prostitution to survive.

The families in America are steadily changing. While they remain our most valued and consistent source of strength and comfort, some families are becoming increasingly unstructured. In the past, the typical family consists of a working father, a stay at home mother and, of course, well-rounded children. Today, less than 20 percent of American families fit nicely into this cookie cutter image. American households have never been more diverse. Natalie Angier takes stock of the changing definition of family in an article for the New York Times.

The way in which the ‘family’ unit is perceived has changed immensely since the last quarter of the twentieth century. Over time, many factors have contributed to these changes including, and not limited to, the industrial revolution, the feminist movement, the period of modernity and technological advancements. As a result, these factors have influenced significant changes to the ‘family’, these include; the increasing rates of female occupation, mean age at marriage, divorce, unmarried couples, single parents, mean age at birth of first child, and a decline in marriage rates. Moreover, this essay will examine how the family has changed over time through discussing the factors that have contributed to these changes. It is for these reasons and observations made by sociologists that it could be inferred that the way the family unit is perceived has changed greatly over time.