Baca zinn ch03-lecture

Copyright ©2011 by Pearson Education, Inc.Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458

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Diversity in Families, Ninth EditionMaxine Baca Zinn • D. Stanley Eitzen • Barbara Wells

Diversity In Families

Chapter ThreeThe Historical Making of Family Diversity

NINTH EDITION




Chapter Three Overview

• Industrialization and Family Life

• Immigration and Family Life

• Racial Control and Family Life




Industrialization and the Family

• Macrostructural Transformations:- Decade before the Civil War was a crucial transitional

period

- Sharp distinctions arose between the middle-class and the industrial working class

- Different levels of pay, prestige and power resulted from various positions within the economy.

• In Middle-class families:- Men engaged in productive work – Social Production is

the production of goods

- Women engaged in social reproductive work in the home – social reproduction is the maintenance of people




Industrialization and the Family

• Before Industrialization, both social production and social reproduction occurred only within a domestic setting

• After Industrialization, these two worlds became much farther apart

• Households at the time were self contained economic units that depended mostly on wages earned outside the home




Work and Family in Industrial Society

• The Doctrine of Two Spheres - Men were to follow production out of the household, and women were to remain responsible for reproduction at home

• Women were supposed to be pious, pure, submissive and domestic – these four virtues were required of many women of the age.

• Of course, women were excluded from political and other realms at the time so their powerlessness continued through the patriarchal system




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.




Women and Industrialization

• As class distinctions sharpened, social attitudes toward women became polarized and the image of a “lady” was elevated to a status symbol.

• This status was mainly accessible to white upper and middle class women.




Work and Family in Industrial Society

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

• The family wage was a victory for labor unions, but it sharpened the distinction between men and women and their responsibilities.

• Individuals of other races received wages insufficient to support a family, thus providing a material basis for race and gender discrimination.




Childhood and Adolescence

• In the 19th century, there were multiple childhoods that differed by class, ethnicity, gender, and region.

• Childhood was very diverse during the 19th century.

• Children from working class homes had to work to help support the family, while upper and middle class children had a rather protected childhood.




Childhood and Adolescence

• Family as an institution became more child centered.

• Adolescence was a new life stage recognized beginning in the 19th century.

• The urbanization that was taking place provided a chance for young people to come together to form a youth culture of their own for the first time.

• Children from working class families, however were “put out” to work for minimal wages.




The Accordion Household

• Households changed during this period in history. While many households tended to be nuclear (Mom, Dad and Kids under one roof), it became common practice under difficult economic times, to take in boarders, usually young men who came to the city to seek employment.

• It was more common for households to grow in this way than from taking in extended kin.

• Households grew during difficult economic times, then went back to being nuclear after the difficult times passed.




Immigration and Family Life

• Two Massive Waves of Immigration: - 1.) Between 1830 and 1882, large

numbers of English, Irish, German, and Scandinavian immigrants arrived.

- 2.) Between 1882 and 1930 southern and eastern Europeans arrived. Immigrant labor was crucial to the industrialization of the U.S.




The Social Breakdown Perspective

• Many immigrants were blamed for problems that originated within society itself.

• Problems of the economy and social status were wrongly blamed on immigrant groups who were seen as unstable and having no family ties.

• According to beliefs of the time if the immigrant families assimilated and adopted the “normal” family life, they could survive.




The Social Breakdown Perspective

• Immigrant families were major targets for reform.

• New studies emphasize the responsibility of an exploitative industrial society for the newcomer’s plight which would have been worse without the strong family ties that the immigrants had.




Industrial work and Immigrant Families

• The family was vital in recruiting new workers to the new world.

• Immigrants tended to migrate in groups.

• Instead of breaking their kinship ties, families used them to adapt to industrial life and encouraged other kin from their country of origin to migrate – called ”chain migration”




Industrial work and Immigrant Families

• Like working class women, immigrant women often joined their husbands in the workforce out of necessity.

• Often children from poor immigrant families worked to help make ends meet as well. Children over the age of 10 worked in factories out of necessity.




Racial Control and Family Life

• New Frameworks for Thinking About Minority Families: - Racial minority families who do not meet

the ‘standard family’ ideal are viewed as deviant

- New research investigates how families are connected with larger social and economic forces.




Connections Among Race, Labor, and Family Life

• The presence of racially-defined groups in the U.S. is tied to the demand for labor.

• Racial minorities were part of coercive labor systems such as slavery and contract labor which were organized to maximize economic productivity.

• The subordinated labor status of people of color cut them off from institutional and social supports provided to other families.





• Family forms emerged in relation to specific forms of labor that different groups provided in society

• Most racial groups were brought to this country for the purpose of providing cheap labor





• Racial inequalities were used to build the capitalist economy.

• Various forms of coercive labor like sharecropping and contract labor were reserved for people of color.

• Systems of racial control systematically disrupted family life for people of color.

• Assaults on African American families were common as were assaults on Chicano and Chinese families.




African American Families In Slavery and Freedom

• Adaptation, resistance, and agency are key themes in recent research on African American families.

• Two parent households prevailed both during slavery and after emancipation.

• The main reason for family breakup during slavery was forced separation following sale.




African American Families In Slavery and Freedom

• The gender system under which slaves worked was imposed by Whites.

• Men and women were laborers. Slave women were responsible for the domestic care of their owners’ children as well as their own families.

• Gender relations were more egalitarian in slave families than in White families.




Kinship in African American Families

• Strong kinship ties were foremost in the formation of slave families.

• Kinship was the single most powerful support among slaves.

• Kinship patterns connected unrelated slaves into families.




Chicano Families in the Southwest

• At end of the Mexican War, Mexicans became foreigners in their own land.

• The displacement of the indigenous people, new laws, and new labor systems disrupted family life.

• Rapid economic growth set up a pattern of recruitment of new Chicano workers from Mexico by U.S. economic interests.




Family Life amidst Coercive Labor Systems

• Mexican families were forced to be flexible and adaptive.

• Extended family networks were crucial in dealing with migration.

• The compadrazgo system of godparents is an example of an adaptation to a largely inhospitable environment.

• Migratory labor families were highly susceptible to disruption.




Work and Gender

• Chicano family roles in the early nineteenth century were strongly gendered.

• Often times, Chicano men migrated to find agricultural work, therefore the women had triple roles as mother, father and wage earner.

• Often Chicano children were also involved in labor pursuits.

• During the harvest season, entire families migrated to find work.




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.




The Great Depression and Family Change

• Economic burdens were not equally shared across social classes and races.

• The poor were even poorer during the Great Depression mostly based on social status and the class system.

Baca zinn ch03-lecture

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