This article introduces a special issue on “family, memory, and identity.” Beginning with a survey of previous research in this area, especially exploring family as a site for collective memory, and the ways that family memory work shapes national histories, it introduces the contribution made by this special issue to our understanding of how family memory and national memory intertwine in the production of individual identity. Highlighting the key findings of the special issue, it particularly notes how family history research has the potential to challenge and reform national memory, and in doing so allows for rich and complex rethinkings of the past for both historians and members of the public.
Early modern tugt workhouses are often seen as chaotic, multi-purposed institutions, mixing hardened criminals with marginal people like beggars and troublesome family members. In this article, I focus on the negotiation of family memory and identity between family and authority in cases when disobedient children were committed to these institutions for education and improvement. I argue that these negotiations provided an opportunity to restore parental authority by adjusting private family memory to the state’s expectations of good Christian households and responsible parents. Thereby, the private parental memory of disobedient children and the actions taken to deal with them also contributed to legitimizing the tugt institution by confirming its stated purpose in society, to provide improvement, and education.
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