Households, kinfolk, and absent teenagers: The demographic transition in the Old South

Journal of Family History

Volumn 25, Issue 2, 2000, Pages 141-157

  Cashin, Joan E ^a  

^a OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0346044627     PISSN: 03631990     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/036319900002500201     Document Type: Article

References (120)

1. 1. Federal Census for 1860, Free Schedule, Virginia, Charlotte County, household 422, p. 247.
2. 2. Tamara K. Hareven, "The Home and the Family in Historical Perspective, "Social Research 58 (1991): 253-85; Robert V. Wells, Revolutions in Americans' Lives: A Demographic Perspective on the History of Americans, Their Families, and Their Society (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1982); James Davis, Frontier America, 1800-1840: A Comparative Demographic Analysis of the Frontier Process (Glendale, CA: Arthur H. Clark, 1977). Unlike other scholars, Ruggles emphasizes the significance of relationships with kinfolk beyond the nuclear family; see Steven Ruggles, Prolonged Connections: The Rise of the Extended Family in Nineteenth-Century England and America (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987). Ruggles also focuses on the elderly in the household and argues that a form of the extended family was common in the late nineteenth century (in 1880) and possibly in 1850; see Steven Ruggles, "The Transformation of American Family Structure, "American Historical Review 99 (1994): 103-28.
3. 2. Tamara K. Hareven, "The Home and the Family in Historical Perspective, "Social Research 58 (1991): 253-85; Robert V. Wells, Revolutions in Americans' Lives: A Demographic Perspective on the History of Americans, Their Families, and Their Society (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1982); James Davis, Frontier America, 1800-1840: A Comparative Demographic Analysis of the Frontier Process (Glendale, CA: Arthur H. Clark, 1977). Unlike other scholars, Ruggles emphasizes the significance of relationships with kinfolk beyond the nuclear family; see Steven Ruggles, Prolonged Connections: The Rise of the Extended Family in Nineteenth-Century England and America (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987). Ruggles also focuses on the elderly in the household and argues that a form of the extended family was common in the late nineteenth century (in 1880) and possibly in 1850; see Steven Ruggles, "The Transformation of American Family Structure, "American Historical Review 99 (1994): 103-28.
4. 2. Tamara K. Hareven, "The Home and the Family in Historical Perspective, "Social Research 58 (1991): 253-85; Robert V. Wells, Revolutions in Americans' Lives: A Demographic Perspective on the History of Americans, Their Families, and Their Society (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1982); James Davis, Frontier America, 1800-1840: A Comparative Demographic Analysis of the Frontier Process (Glendale, CA: Arthur H. Clark, 1977). Unlike other scholars, Ruggles emphasizes the significance of relationships with kinfolk beyond the nuclear family; see Steven Ruggles, Prolonged Connections: The Rise of the Extended Family in Nineteenth-Century England and America (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987). Ruggles also focuses on the elderly in the household and argues that a form of the extended family was common in the late nineteenth century (in 1880) and possibly in 1850; see Steven Ruggles, "The Transformation of American Family Structure, "American Historical Review 99 (1994): 103-28.
5. 2. Tamara K. Hareven, "The Home and the Family in Historical Perspective, "Social Research 58 (1991): 253-85; Robert V. Wells, Revolutions in Americans 'Lives: A Demographic Perspective on the History of Americans, Their Families, and Their Society (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1982); James Davis, Frontier America, 1800-1840: A Comparative Demographic Analysis of the Frontier Process (Glendale, CA: Arthur H. Clark, 1977). Unlike other scholars, Ruggles emphasizes the significance of relationships with kinfolk beyond the nuclear family; see Steven Ruggles, Prolonged Connections: The Rise of the Extended Family in Nineteenth-Century England and America (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987). Ruggles also focuses on the elderly in the household and argues that a form of the extended family was common in the late nineteenth century (in 1880) and possibly in 1850; see Steven Ruggles, "The Transformation of American Family Structure, "American Historical Review 99 (1994): 103-28.
6. 2. Tamara K. Hareven, "The Home and the Family in Historical Perspective, "Social Research 58 (1991): 253-85; Robert V. Wells, Revolutions in Americans' Lives: A Demographic Perspective on the History of Americans, Their Families, and Their Society (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1982); James Davis, Frontier America, 1800-1840: A Comparative Demographic Analysis of the Frontier Process (Glendale, CA: Arthur H. Clark, 1977). Unlike other scholars, Ruggles emphasizes the significance of relationships with kinfolk beyond the nuclear family; see Steven Ruggles, Prolonged Connections: The Rise of the Extended Family in Nineteenth-Century England and America (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987). Ruggles also focuses on the elderly in the household and argues that a form of the extended family was common in the late nineteenth century (in 1880) and possibly in 1850; see Steven Ruggles, "The Transformation of American Family Structure, "American Historical Review 99 (1994): 103-28.
7. 3. A few planters kept records on slave households, allowing one scholar to estimate that the nuclear family predominated among black southerners before emancipation and into the twentieth century; see Herbert G. Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1976). On the slave family, see Deborah Gray White, Ar'n't I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South (New York: Norton, 1985). Some white men in this article probably had illegitimate white or mulatto children who cannot be identified in the census.
8. 3. A few planters kept records on slave households, allowing one scholar to estimate that the nuclear family predominated among black southerners before emancipation and into the twentieth century; see Herbert G. Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1976). On the slave family, see Deborah Gray White, Ar'n't I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South (New York: Norton, 1985). Some white men in this article probably had illegitimate white or mulatto children who cannot be identified in the census.
9. 4. Hareven observes that many scholars focus on kinship relations beyond the household rather than on household structure; see Tamara K. Hareven, "The History of the Family and the Complexity of Social Change, "American Historical Review 96 (1991): 95-124. These two methods, using the individual as the unit of analysis versus using the household as the unit of analysis, are debated in Steven Ruggles, "Family Demography and Family History: Problems and Prospects, "Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 23 (1990): 22-32, and James E. Smith, "Method and Confusion in the Study of the Household: A Review, "Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 22 (1989): 57-60. I chose to look at planter households rather than child-woman ratios because I am interested in family life as a whole.
10. 4. Hareven observes that many scholars focus on kinship relations beyond the household rather than on household structure; see Tamara K. Hareven, "The History of the Family and the Complexity of Social Change, "American Historical Review 96 (1991): 95-124. These two methods, using the individual as the unit of analysis versus using the household as the unit of analysis, are debated in Steven Ruggles, "Family Demography and Family History: Problems and Prospects, "Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 23 (1990): 22-32, and James E. Smith, "Method and Confusion in the Study of the Household: A Review, "Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 22 (1989): 57-60. I chose to look at planter households rather than child-woman ratios because I am interested in family life as a whole.
11. 4. Hareven observes that many scholars focus on kinship relations beyond the household rather than on household structure; see Tamara K. Hareven, "The History of the Family and the Complexity of Social Change, "American Historical Review 96 (1991): 95-124. These two methods, using the individual as the unit of analysis versus using the household as the unit of analysis, are debated in Steven Ruggles, "Family Demography and Family History: Problems and Prospects, "Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 23 (1990): 22-32, and James E. Smith, "Method and Confusion in the Study of the Household: A Review, "Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 22 (1989): 57-60. I chose to look at planter households rather than child-woman ratios because I am interested in family life as a whole.
12. 5. Steven M. Stowe, Intimacy and Power in the Old South: Ritual in the Lives of Planters (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987); Orville Vernon Burton, In My Father's House Are Many Mansions: Family and Community in Edgefield, South Carolina (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985); Jane Turner Censer, North Carolina Planters and Their Children, 1800-1860 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984); Jan Lewis, The Pursuit of Happiness: Family and Values in Jefferson's Virginia (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983); Daniel Blake Smith, Inside the Great House: Planter Family Life in Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake Society (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980); Michael P. Johnson, Planters and Patriarchy: Charleston, 1800-1860, "Journal of Southern History 66 (1980): 45-72.
13. 5. Steven M. Stowe, Intimacy and Power in the Old South: Ritual in the Lives of Planters (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987); Orville Vernon Burton, In My Father's House Are Many Mansions: Family and Community in Edgefield, South Carolina (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985); Jane Turner Censer, North Carolina Planters and Their Children, 1800-1860 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984); Jan Lewis, The Pursuit of Happiness: Family and Values in Jefferson's Virginia (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983); Daniel Blake Smith, Inside the Great House: Planter Family Life in Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake Society (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980); Michael P. Johnson, Planters and Patriarchy: Charleston, 1800-1860, "Journal of Southern History 66 (1980): 45-72.
14. 5. Steven M. Stowe, Intimacy and Power in the Old South: Ritual in the Lives of Planters (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987); Orville Vernon Burton, In My Father's House Are Many Mansions: Family and Community in Edgefield, South Carolina (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985); Jane Turner Censer, North Carolina Planters and Their Children, 1800-1860 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984); Jan Lewis, The Pursuit of Happiness: Family and Values in Jefferson's Virginia (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983); Daniel Blake Smith, Inside the Great House: Planter Family Life in Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake Society (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980); Michael P. Johnson, Planters and Patriarchy: Charleston, 1800-1860, "Journal of Southern History 66 (1980): 45-72.
15. 5. Steven M. Stowe, Intimacy and Power in the Old South: Ritual in the Lives of Planters (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987); Orville Vernon Burton, In My Father's House Are Many Mansions: Family and Community in Edgefield, South Carolina (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985); Jane Turner Censer, North Carolina Planters and Their Children, 1800-1860 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984); Jan Lewis, The Pursuit of Happiness: Family and Values in Jefferson's Virginia (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983); Daniel Blake Smith, Inside the Great House: Planter Family Life in Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake Society (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980); Michael P. Johnson, Planters and Patriarchy: Charleston, 1800-1860, "Journal of Southern History 66 (1980): 45-72.
16. 5. Steven M. Stowe, Intimacy and Power in the Old South: Ritual in the Lives of Planters (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987); Orville Vernon Burton, In My Father's House Are Many Mansions: Family and Community in Edgefield, South Carolina (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985); Jane Turner Censer, North Carolina Planters and Their Children, 1800-1860 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984); Jan Lewis, The Pursuit of Happiness: Family and Values in Jefferson's Virginia (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983); Daniel Blake Smith, Inside the Great House: Planter Family Life in Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake Society (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980); Michael P. Johnson, Planters and Patriarchy: Charleston, 1800-1860, "Journal of Southern History 66 (1980): 45-72.
17. 5. Steven M. Stowe, Intimacy and Power in the Old South: Ritual in the Lives of Planters (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987); Orville Vernon Burton, In My Father's House Are Many Mansions: Family and Community in Edgefield, South Carolina (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985); Jane Turner Censer, North Carolina Planters and Their Children, 1800-1860 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984); Jan Lewis, The Pursuit of Happiness: Family and Values in Jefferson's Virginia (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983); Daniel Blake Smith, Inside the Great House: Planter Family Life in Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake Society (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980); Michael P. Johnson, Planters and Patriarchy: Charleston, 1800-1860, "Journal of Southern History 66 (1980): 45-72.
18. 6. Joan E. Cashin, A Family Venture: Men and Women on the Southern Frontier (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); Robert C. Kenzer, Kinship and Neighborhood in a Southern Community: Orange County, North Carolina, 1849-1881 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987); Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982).
19. 6. Joan E. Cashin, A Family Venture: Men and Women on the Southern Frontier (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); Robert C. Kenzer, Kinship and Neighborhood in a Southern Community: Orange County, North Carolina, 1849-1881 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987); Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982).
20. 6. Joan E. Cashin, A Family Venture: Men and Women on the Southern Frontier (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); Robert C. Kenzer, Kinship and Neighborhood in a Southern Community: Orange County, North Carolina, 1849-1881 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987); Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982).
21. 7. James C. Bonner, "Profile of a Late Ante-Bellum Community, "American Historical Review 49 (1944): 663-80; Randolph B. Campbell, A Southern Community in Crisis: Harrison County, Texas, 1850-1880 (Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1983); Burton, In My Father's House.
22. 7. James C. Bonner, "Profile of a Late Ante-Bellum Community, "American Historical Review 49 (1944): 663-80; Randolph B. Campbell, A Southern Community in Crisis: Harrison County, Texas, 1850-1880 (Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1983); Burton, In My Father's House.
23. 7. James C. Bonner, "Profile of a Late Ante-Bellum Community, "American Historical Review 49 (1944): 663-80; Randolph B. Campbell, A Southern Community in Crisis: Harrison County, Texas, 1850-1880 (Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1983); Burton, In My Father's House.
24. 8. Cashin, A Family Venture.
25. 9. Kenzer, Kinship and Neighborhood;, J. William Harris, Plain Folk and Gentry in a Slave Society: White Liberty and Black Slavery in Augusta's Hinterlands (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1985); Frank Lawrence Owsley, Plain Folk of the Old South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1949).
26. 9. Kenzer, Kinship and Neighborhood;, J. William Harris, Plain Folk and Gentry in a Slave Society: White Liberty and Black Slavery in Augusta's Hinterlands (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1985); Frank Lawrence Owsley, Plain Folk of the Old South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1949).
27. 9. Kenzer, Kinship and Neighborhood;, J. William Harris, Plain Folk and Gentry in a Slave Society: White Liberty and Black Slavery in Augusta's Hinterlands (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1985); Frank Lawrence Owsley, Plain Folk of the Old South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1949).
28. 10. Victoria E. Bynum, Unruly Women: The Politics of Social and Sexual Control in the Old South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992); Owsley, Plain Folk.
29. 10. Victoria E. Bynum, Unruly Women: The Politics of Social and Sexual Control in the Old South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992); Owsley, Plain Folk.
30. 11. Bill Cecil-Fronsman, Common Whites: Class and Culture in Antebellum North Carolina (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1992); Allan Kulikoff, The Agrarian Origins of American Capitalism (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1992); George C. Rable, Civil Wars: Women and the Crisis of Southern Nationalism (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989).
31. 11. Bill Cecil-Fronsman, Common Whites: Class and Culture in Antebellum North Carolina (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1992); Allan Kulikoff, The Agrarian Origins of American Capitalism (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1992); George C. Rable, Civil Wars: Women and the Crisis of Southern Nationalism (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989).
32. 11. Bill Cecil-Fronsman, Common Whites: Class and Culture in Antebellum North Carolina (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1992); Allan Kulikoff, The Agrarian Origins of American Capitalism (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1992); George C. Rable, Civil Wars: Women and the Crisis of Southern Nationalism (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989).
33. 12. Bynum, Unruly Women; Steven Hahn, The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850-1890 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983); James A. Henretta, "Families and Farms: Mentalité in Pre-Industrial America, "William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Series, 35 (1978): 3-32.
34. 12. Bynum, Unruly Women; Steven Hahn, The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850-1890 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983); James A. Henretta, "Families and Farms: Mentalité in Pre-Industrial America, "William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Series, 35 (1978): 3-32.
35. 12. Bynum, Unruly Women; Steven Hahn, The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850-1890 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983); James A. Henretta, "Families and Farms: Mentalité in Pre-Industrial America, "William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Series, 35 (1978): 3-32.
36. 13. Bonner, "Profile"; Campbell, A Southern Community.
37. 13. Bonner, "Profile"; Campbell, A Southern Community.
38. 14. The exact size of the sample is 1, 162 households. This article uses the household as the unit of measure because southern historians have neglected this method. Both approaches are useful, however, as described by Miriam King and Samuel H. Preston, "Who Lives with Whom? Individual Versus Household Measures, "Journal of Family History 15 (1990): 117-32. I end the study with the census of 1860 because the Civil War disrupted many households and transformed family life.
39. 15. David Duncan Wallace, South Carolina: A Short History, 1520-1948 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1951); William S. Powell, When the Past Refused to Die: A History of Caswell County, North Carolina, 1777-1977 (Durham, NC: Moore, 1977); Joseph Nathan Kane, The American Counties (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1972); Lewis Cecil Gray, History of Agriculture in the Southern United States to 1860 (New York: Peter Smith, 1941); Federal Census, Manufactures Volume, 422, 554, 609.
40. 15. David Duncan Wallace, South Carolina: A Short History, 1520-1948 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1951); William S. Powell, When the Past Refused to Die: A History of Caswell County, North Carolina, 1777-1977 (Durham, NC: Moore, 1977); Joseph Nathan Kane, The American Counties (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1972); Lewis Cecil Gray, History of Agriculture in the Southern United States to 1860 (New York: Peter Smith, 1941); Federal Census, Manufactures Volume, 422, 554, 609.
41. 15. David Duncan Wallace, South Carolina: A Short History, 1520-1948 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1951); William S. Powell, When the Past Refused to Die: A History of Caswell County, North Carolina, 1777-1977 (Durham, NC: Moore, 1977); Joseph Nathan Kane, The American Counties (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1972); Lewis Cecil Gray, History of Agriculture in the Southern United States to 1860 (New York: Peter Smith, 1941); Federal Census, Manufactures Volume, 422, 554, 609.
42. 15. David Duncan Wallace, South Carolina: A Short History, 1520-1948 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1951); William S. Powell, When the Past Refused to Die: A History of Caswell County, North Carolina, 1777-1977 (Durham, NC: Moore, 1977); Joseph Nathan Kane, The American Counties (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1972); Lewis Cecil Gray, History of Agriculture in the Southern United States to 1860 (New York: Peter Smith, 1941); Federal Census, Manufactures Volume, 422, 554, 609.
43. 15. David Duncan Wallace, South Carolina: A Short History, 1520-1948 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1951); William S. Powell, When the Past Refused to Die: A History of Caswell County, North Carolina, 1777-1977 (Durham, NC: Moore, 1977); Joseph Nathan Kane, The American Counties (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1972); Lewis Cecil Gray, History of Agriculture in the Southern United States to 1860 (New York: Peter Smith, 1941); Federal Census, Manufactures Volume, 422, 554, 609.
44. 16. Eugene D. Genovese, The Political Economy of Slavery: Studies in the Economy and Society of the Slave South (New York: Pantheon, 1965).
45. 17. Mark M. Smith, Mastered by the Clock: Time, Slavery, and Freedom in the American South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997); Jonathan M. Bryant, How Curious A Land: Conflict and Change in Greene County, Georgia, 1850-1880 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996); Lacy K. Ford, Origins of Southern Radicalism: The South Carolina Upcountry, 1800-1860 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988); James Oakes, The Ruling Race: A History of American Slaveholders (New York: Knopf, 1982); Herbert Weaver, Mississippi Farmers, 1850-1860 (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1945).
46. 17. Mark M. Smith, Mastered by the Clock: Time, Slavery, and Freedom in the American South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997); Jonathan M. Bryant, How Curious A Land: Conflict and Change in Greene County, Georgia, 1850-1880 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996); Lacy K. Ford, Origins of Southern Radicalism: The South Carolina Upcountry, 1800-1860 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988); James Oakes, The Ruling Race: A History of American Slaveholders (New York: Knopf, 1982); Herbert Weaver, Mississippi Farmers, 1850-1860 (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1945).
47. 17. Mark M. Smith, Mastered by the Clock: Time, Slavery, and Freedom in the American South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997); Jonathan M. Bryant, How Curious A Land: Conflict and Change in Greene County, Georgia, 1850-1880 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996); Lacy K. Ford, Origins of Southern Radicalism: The South Carolina Upcountry, 1800-1860 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988); James Oakes, The Ruling Race: A History of American Slaveholders (New York: Knopf, 1982); Herbert Weaver, Mississippi Farmers, 1850-1860 (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1945).
48. 17. Mark M. Smith, Mastered by the Clock: Time, Slavery, and Freedom in the American South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997); Jonathan M. Bryant, How Curious A Land: Conflict and Change in Greene County, Georgia, 1850-1880 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996); Lacy K. Ford, Origins of Southern Radicalism: The South Carolina Upcountry, 1800-1860 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988); James Oakes, The Ruling Race: A History of American Slaveholders (New York: Knopf, 1982); Herbert Weaver, Mississippi Farmers, 1850-1860 (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1945).
49. 17. Mark M. Smith, Mastered by the Clock: Time, Slavery, and Freedom in the American South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997); Jonathan M. Bryant, How Curious A Land: Conflict and Change in Greene County, Georgia, 1850-1880 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996); Lacy K. Ford, Origins of Southern Radicalism: The South Carolina Upcountry, 1800-1860 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988); James Oakes, The Ruling Race: A History of American Slaveholders (New York: Knopf, 1982); Herbert Weaver, Mississippi Farmers, 1850-1860 (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1945).
50. 18. Ford, Origins of Southern Radicalism; Weaver, Mississippi Farmers; Blanche Henry Clark, The Tennessee Yeomen, 1840-1860 (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1942).
51. 18. Ford, Origins of Southern Radicalism; Weaver, Mississippi Farmers; Blanche Henry Clark, The Tennessee Yeomen, 1840-1860 (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1942).
52. 18. Ford, Origins of Southern Radicalism; Weaver, Mississippi Farmers; Blanche Henry Clark, The Tennessee Yeomen, 1840-1860 (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1942).
53. 19. Cecil-Fronsman, Common Whites; Kenzer, Kinship and Neighborhood; Harris, Plain Folk; Hahn, The Roots of Southern Populism.
54. 19. Cecil-Fronsman, Common Whites; Kenzer, Kinship and Neighborhood; Harris, Plain Folk; Hahn, The Roots of Southern Populism.
55. 19. Cecil-Fronsman, Common Whites; Kenzer, Kinship and Neighborhood; Harris, Plain Folk; Hahn, The Roots of Southern Populism.
56. 19. Cecil-Fronsman, Common Whites; Kenzer, Kinship and Neighborhood; Harris, Plain Folk; Hahn, The Roots of Southern Populism.
57. 20. Henretta, "Families and Farms"; Michael Merrill, "Cash is Good to Eat, "Radical History Review 4 (1977): 42-66, and "So What's Wrong with the 'Household Mode of Production'?" Radical History Review 22 (1979): 141-46.
58. 20. Henretta, "Families and Farms"; Michael Merrill, "Cash is Good to Eat, "Radical History Review 4 (1977): 42-66, and "So What's Wrong with the 'Household Mode of Production'?" Radical History Review 22 (1979): 141-46.
59. 20. Henretta, "Families and Farms"; Michael Merrill, "Cash is Good to Eat, "Radical History Review 4 (1977): 42-66, and "So What's Wrong with the 'Household Mode of Production'?" Radical History Review 22 (1979): 141-46.
60. 21. Arthur S. Alderson and Stephen K. Sanderson, "Historic European Household Structures and the Capitalist World-Economy, "Journal of Family History 16 (1991): 419-32.
61. 22. For discussion of this issue, see Ruggles, "The Transformation of American Family Structure."
62. 23. Angus McLaren, A History of Contraception: From Antiquity to the Present Day (Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell, 1990); Peter Laslett, The World We Have Lost, 3rd ed. (New York: Scribners, 1984).
63. 23. Angus McLaren, A History of Contraception: From Antiquity to the Present Day (Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell, 1990); Peter Laslett, The World We Have Lost, 3rd ed. (New York: Scribners, 1984).
64. 24. Robert V. Wells, Uncle Sam's Family: Issues in and Perspectives on American Demographic History (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985).
65. 25. Burwell H. Tucker to Levi Harris, May 15, 1845, Levi Harris Letters, Special Collections, Perkins Library, Duke University.
66. 26. See Federal Census for 1850, Compendium, 281, 323, 305; Federal Census for 1860, Agricultural Schedule, 105, 155, 129.
67. 27. Carl N. Degler, At Odds: Women and the Family in America from the Revolution to the Present (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980); Richard A. Easterlin, "Factors in the Decline of Farm Family Fertility in the United States: Some Preliminary Research Results, "Journal of American History 63 (1976): 600-12; Yasukichi Yasuba, Birth Rates of the White Population in the United States, 1800-1860 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1962).
68. 27. Carl N. Degler, At Odds: Women and the Family in America from the Revolution to the Present (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980); Richard A. Easterlin, "Factors in the Decline of Farm Family Fertility in the United States: Some Preliminary Research Results, "Journal of American History 63 (1976): 600-12; Yasukichi Yasuba, Birth Rates of the White Population in the United States, 1800-1860 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1962).
69. 27. Carl N. Degler, At Odds: Women and the Family in America from the Revolution to the Present (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980); Richard A. Easterlin, "Factors in the Decline of Farm Family Fertility in the United States: Some Preliminary Research Results, "Journal of American History 63 (1976): 600-12; Yasukichi Yasuba, Birth Rates of the White Population in the United States, 1800-1860 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1962).
70. 28. Peter D. McClelland and Richard J. Zeckhauser, Democratic Dimensions of the New Republic: American Interregional Migration, Vital Statistics, and Manumissions (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1982).
71. 29. Cashin, A Family Venture; Kenzer, Kinship and Neighborhood.
72. 29. Cashin, A Family Venture; Kenzer, Kinship and Neighborhood.
73. 30. Historians have wondered why more farmers and planters did not reform agricultural methods in the face of soil exhaustion; perhaps it was because they responded in another way, by taking in fewer dependents and increasing birth intervals between children.
74. 31. Cashin, A Family Venture; Harris, Plain Folk; Gray, History of Agriculture.
75. 31. Cashin, A Family Venture; Harris, Plain Folk; Gray, History of Agriculture.
76. 31. Cashin, A Family Venture; Harris, Plain Folk; Gray, History of Agriculture.
77. 32. Andrejs Plakans, Kinship in the Past: An Anthropology of European Family Life, 1500-1900 (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1984).
78. 33. On New England families, see Daniel Scott Smith, "'All in Some Degree Related to Each Other': A Demographic and Comparative Resolution of the Anomaly of New England Kinship, "American Historical Review 94 (1989): 44-79. I find no similar cultural transformations accompanying these changes in white southern families, although the secession movement, which bristled with references to overthrowing the Founding Fathers, could be described as the ultimate obligation transition.
79. 34. Federal census returns.
80. 35. Ruggles examines the 1850 Public Use sample from the census and finds that most elderly white Americans lived with kinfolk; see Ruggles, "The Transformation of American Family Structure."
81. 36. I noted these couples in marriage registers and church records in the respective state archives for the three counties and then checked their property holdings in the next federal census; they owned no slaves. Few couples can be traced in the next census, undoubtedly because of the white population's high geographic mobility.
82. 37. Burton, In My Father's House; Censer, North Carolina Planters. Compare with Richard H. Steckel, "Antebellum Southern White Fertility: A Demographic and Economic Analysis, "Journal of Economic History 40 (1980): 331-50, who notes six hundred households from twentynine counties in fifteen southern states, including Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, and argues that age at first birth was twenty-three for all white women, which suggests that age at first marriage was twenty-one or twenty-two.
83. 37. Burton, In My Father's House; Censer, North Carolina Planters. Compare with Richard H. Steckel, "Antebellum Southern White Fertility: A Demographic and Economic Analysis, "Journal of Economic History 40 (1980): 331-50, who notes six hundred households from twentynine counties in fifteen southern states, including Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, and argues that age at first birth was twenty-three for all white women, which suggests that age at first marriage was twenty-one or twenty-two.
84. 37. Burton, In My Father's House; Censer, North Carolina Planters. Compare with Richard H. Steckel, "Antebellum Southern White Fertility: A Demographic and Economic Analysis, "Journal of Economic History 40 (1980): 331-50, who notes six hundred households from twentynine counties in fifteen southern states, including Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, and argues that age at first birth was twenty-three for all white women, which suggests that age at first marriage was twenty-one or twenty-two.
85. 38. Federal census returns.
86. 39. Roderick Phillips, Putting Asunder: A History of Divorce in Western Society (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor.
87. 39. Roderick Phillips, Putting Asunder: A History of Divorce in Western Society (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor.
88. 40. Linda Gordon, Woman's Body, Woman's Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America (New York: Grossman, 1976).
89. 41. McLaren, A History of Contraception; Sally G. McMillen, Motherhood in the Old South: Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Infant Rearing (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990); John D'Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1988); Wells, Uncle Sam's Family; Degler, At Odds; Gordon, Woman 's Body; contrary to Steckel, "Antebellum Southern White Fertility, "and Stewart E. Tolnay, Stephen N. Graham, and Avery M. Guest, "Own-Child Estimates of U.S. White Fertility, 1886-99, "Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 15 (summer 1982): 127-38.
90. 41. McLaren, A History of Contraception; Sally G. McMillen, Motherhood in the Old South: Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Infant Rearing (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990); John D'Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1988); Wells, Uncle Sam's Family; Degler, At Odds; Gordon, Woman 's Body; contrary to Steckel, "Antebellum Southern White Fertility, "and Stewart E. Tolnay, Stephen N. Graham, and Avery M. Guest, "Own-Child Estimates of U.S. White Fertility, 1886-99, "Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 15 (summer 1982): 127-38.
91. 41. McLaren, A History of Contraception; Sally G. McMillen, Motherhood in the Old South: Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Infant Rearing (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990); John D'Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1988); Wells, Uncle Sam's Family; Degler, At Odds; Gordon, Woman 's Body; contrary to Steckel, "Antebellum Southern White Fertility, "and Stewart E. Tolnay, Stephen N. Graham, and Avery M. Guest, "Own-Child Estimates of U.S. White Fertility, 1886-99, "Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 15 (summer 1982): 127-38.
92. 41. McLaren, A History of Contraception; Sally G. McMillen, Motherhood in the Old South: Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Infant Rearing (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990); John D'Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1988); Wells, Uncle Sam's Family; Degler, At Odds; Gordon, Woman 's Body; contrary to Steckel, "Antebellum Southern White Fertility, "and Stewart E. Tolnay, Stephen N. Graham, and Avery M. Guest, "Own-Child Estimates of U.S. White Fertility, 1886-99, "Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 15 (summer 1982): 127-38.
93. 41. McLaren, A History of Contraception; Sally G. McMillen, Motherhood in the Old South: Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Infant Rearing (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990); John D'Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1988); Wells, Uncle Sam's Family; Degler, At Odds; Gordon, Woman 's Body; contrary to Steckel, "Antebellum Southern White Fertility, "and Stewart E. Tolnay, Stephen N. Graham, and Avery M. Guest, "Own-Child Estimates of U.S. White Fertility, 1886-99, "Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 15 (summer 1982): 127-38.
94. 41. McLaren, A History of Contraception; Sally G. McMillen, Motherhood in the Old South: Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Infant Rearing (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990); John D'Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1988); Wells, Uncle Sam's Family; Degler, At Odds; Gordon, Woman 's Body; contrary to Steckel, "Antebellum Southern White Fertility, "and Stewart E. Tolnay, Stephen N. Graham, and Avery M. Guest, "Own-Child Estimates of U.S. White Fertility, 1886-99, "Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 15 (summer 1982): 127-38.
95. 41. McLaren, A History of Contraception; Sally G. McMillen, Motherhood in the Old South: Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Infant Rearing (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990); John D'Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1988); Wells, Uncle Sam's Family; Degler, At Odds; Gordon, Woman 's Body; contrary to Steckel, "Antebellum Southern White Fertility, "and Stewart E. Tolnay, Stephen N. Graham, and Avery M. Guest, "Own-Child Estimates of U.S. White Fertility, 1886-99, "Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 15 (summer 1982): 127-38.
96. 41. McLaren, A History of Contraception; Sally G. McMillen, Motherhood in the Old South: Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Infant Rearing (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990); John D'Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1988); Wells, Uncle Sam's Family; Degler, At Odds; Gordon, Woman 's Body; contrary to Steckel, "Antebellum Southern White Fertility, "and Stewart E. Tolnay, Stephen N. Graham, and Avery M. Guest, "Own-Child Estimates of U.S. White Fertility, 1886-99, "Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 15 (summer 1982): 127-38.
97. 42. Federal Census for 1860, Free Schedule, Virginia, Charlotte County, household 238, p. 217.
98. 43. Michael Gordon, The American Family in Social-Historical Perspective, 2d ed. (New York: St. Martin's, 1978).
99. 44. Joseph F. Kett, Rites of Passage: Adolescence in America, 1790 to the Present (New York: Basic Books, 1977); Lloyd deMause, ed., The History of Childhood (New York: Harper & Row, 1975); Philippe Ariès, Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life, trans. Robert Baldick (London: Jonathan Cape, 1962).
100. 44. Joseph F. Kett, Rites of Passage: Adolescence in America, 1790 to the Present (New York: Basic Books, 1977); Lloyd deMause, ed., The History of Childhood (New York: Harper & Row, 1975); Philippe Ariès, Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life, trans. Robert Baldick (London: Jonathan Cape, 1962).
101. 44. Joseph F. Kett, Rites of Passage: Adolescence in America, 1790 to the Present (New York: Basic Books, 1977); Lloyd deMause, ed., The History of Childhood (New York: Harper & Row, 1975); Philippe Ariès, Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life, trans. Robert Baldick (London: Jonathan Cape, 1962).
102. 45. Cashin, A Family Venture; Kenzer, Kinship and Neighborhood; Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor.
103. 45. Cashin, A Family Venture; Kenzer, Kinship and Neighborhood; Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor.
104. 45. Cashin, A Family Venture; Kenzer, Kinship and Neighborhood; Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor.
105. 46. Federal census returns.
106. 47. Burton, In My Father's House; Censer, North Carolina Planters. Again, I matched marriage registers and church records for individuals married in the three counties with federal census returns to ascertain that the men owned at least twenty slaves in the first census taken after marriage.
107. 47. Burton, In My Father's House; Censer, North Carolina Planters. Again, I matched marriage registers and church records for individuals married in the three counties with federal census returns to ascertain that the men owned at least twenty slaves in the first census taken after marriage.
108. 48. Joan E. Cashin, Our Common Affairs: Texts from Women in the Old South (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996); McMillen, Motherhood in the Old South; Rable, Civil Wars; Steckel, "Antebellum Southern White Fertility." No author has discussed planter men.
109. 48. Joan E. Cashin, Our Common Affairs: Texts from Women in the Old South (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996); McMillen, Motherhood in the Old South; Rable, Civil Wars; Steckel, "Antebellum Southern White Fertility." No author has discussed planter men.
110. 48. Joan E. Cashin, Our Common Affairs: Texts from Women in the Old South (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996); McMillen, Motherhood in the Old South; Rable, Civil Wars; Steckel, "Antebellum Southern White Fertility." No author has discussed planter men.
111. 48. Joan E. Cashin, Our Common Affairs: Texts from Women in the Old South (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996); McMillen, Motherhood in the Old South; Rable, Civil Wars; Steckel, "Antebellum Southern White Fertility." No author has discussed planter men.
112. 49. McLaren, A History of Contraception. Steckel, "Antebellum Southern White Fertility, "also finds a swift drop in fertility among white women in southeastern states between 1840 and 1860 and believes that it was due to delaying marriage and increasing intervals between children.
113. 49. McLaren, A History of Contraception. Steckel, "Antebellum Southern White Fertility, "also finds a swift drop in fertility among white women in southeastern states between 1840 and 1860 and believes that it was due to delaying marriage and increasing intervals between children.
114. 50. Jan Lewis and Kenneth A. Lockridge, "'Sally Has Been Sick': Pregnancy and Family Limitation among Virginia Gentry Women, 1780-1830, "Journal of Social History 22 (1988): 5-19.
115. 51. Federal census returns.
116. 52. McMillen, Motherhood in the Old South; Ronald L. Numbers and Todd L. Savitt, Science and Medicine in the Old South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989); Judith Walzer Leavitt, Brought to Bed: Childbearing in America, 1750-1950 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Wells, Revolutions in Americans' Lives.
117. 52. McMillen, Motherhood in the Old South; Ronald L. Numbers and Todd L. Savitt, Science and Medicine in the Old South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989); Judith Walzer Leavitt, Brought to Bed: Childbearing in America, 1750-1950 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Wells, Revolutions in Americans' Lives.
118. 52. McMillen, Motherhood in the Old South; Ronald L. Numbers and Todd L. Savitt, Science and Medicine in the Old South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989); Judith Walzer Leavitt, Brought to Bed: Childbearing in America, 1750-1950 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Wells, Revolutions in Americans' Lives.
119. 52. McMillen, Motherhood in the Old South; Ronald L. Numbers and Todd L. Savitt, Science and Medicine in the Old South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989); Judith Walzer Leavitt, Brought to Bed: Childbearing in America, 1750-1950 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Wells, Revolutions in Americans' Lives.
120. 53. On the debate over adolescence, see Barbara A. Hanawalt, "Historical Descriptions and Prescriptions for Adolescence, "Journal of Family History 17 (1992): 341-51.