Does the Family Have a History?

Abstract

Whence and whither family history? In his bibliographic and programmatic essay, Hobsbawm (1971) did not mention family history as a subfield of what was then the relatively “new” social history. The closest he came was “demography and kinship.” In 1980, by which time social history was definitely mature, and according to some critics, even in decline, the proceedings of a conference on history in the 1980s included a 37-page essay by Stone (1981b; see also Stone, 1981a, 1978) on family history. Several bellwethers of the change may be noted in passing. One year after the 1968 conference for which Hobsbawm's comments were originally prepared, the Cambridge Group for the History of Population held a meeting whose subject—the comparative history of householdand family—went beyond strictly demographic history. In 1972, a family history newsletter was launched by Professor Tamara Hareven, in cooperation with the Newberry Library in Chicago; a special issue of theJournal of Interdisciplinary Historyon “The History of the Family” appeared in 1971; a special issue ofAnnales: Economies, Societes et Civilisationsdevoted to “Famille et Societé”was published in 1972. By the time theJournal of Family History, edited by Hareven, began publication in 1976, two more special issues on family history of theJournal of Interdisciplinary Historywere required reading for those calling themselves social historians.

Migration to rururban spaces in Popayan (Colombia) for the first decade of the 21st Century

“…Migración hacia los espacios rururbanos en Popayán (Colombia) para la primera década del siglo XXI de las migraciones (Stark, 1993) y los enfoques de la historia de familia (Tilly & Cohen, 1982;Anderson, 1988) y desde lo macro (Lewis 1954;Harris & Todaro 1970;Schultz, 1963;Becker, 1975), los modelos dualistas (Ranis & Fei, 1961), los nuevos modelos de equilibrio (Hunt, 1993), la teoría del sistema mundial (Piore, 1979;Portes & Walton, 1981) y la teoría del mercado de trabajo dual (Piore, 1979). Es de aclarar que los análisis micro y macro no son excluyentes, sino que responden a diferentes preguntas y ofrecen diferentes respuestas al estudio de un mismo fenómeno (García, 2003).…”

Family Enterprise in an Industrial City: Strategies for the Family Organization of Business in Detroit, 1880

“…In contrast, little comparative research on the family economy of middle-class families or nonmanual workers has been undertaken (Blumin 1980;Hareven 1987;Tilly and Cohen 1982). This study explores the family enterprise, as a mode of entrepreneurial family economy, as encompassing specific family strategies for the organization of work.…”

“…This study explores the family enterprise, as a mode of entrepreneurial family economy, as encompassing specific family strategies for the organization of work. Family strategies are the particular patterns of the allocation of family and work roles that characterize a family economy (Hareven and Plakans 1987;Moch et al 1987;Tilly and Cohen 1982). In the industrial era, family strategies incorporated decisions regarding employment, production and consumption, and practices of supplementing family income such as the taking in of boarders (Bose 1984;Goldin 1981;Hareven 1982Hareven , 1987Modell and Hareven 1973;Peel 1986).…”

Family History, Family Violence: A Review Essay

“…Lawrence Stone has estimated that between 1972 and 1976 researchers in England, France, and the United States published 802 books and articles on family history, a 400 percent increase from a decade earlier. 7 Approaches to the history of the family have been characterized principally by major studies, using diverse methodologies, that examine long time periods, large geographic units, and provide provocative, overarching interpretations. Michael Anderson has identified the various methods as "demographic," "sentiments," and "household economies."…”