The social nature of the mother's tie to her child: John Bowlby's theory of attachment in post-war America

British Journal for the History of Science

Volumn 44, Issue 3, 2011, Pages 401-426

  Vicedo, Marga ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; CHILD PSYCHOLOGY; CHILD WELFARE; FEMALE; HISTORY; HUMAN; INFANT; INFANT WELFARE; MOTHER CHILD RELATION; OBJECT RELATION; POLICY; PRESCHOOL CHILD; UNITED KINGDOM; UNITED STATES;

CHILD PSYCHOLOGY; CHILD WELFARE; CHILD, PRESCHOOL; FEMALE; GREAT BRITAIN; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; HUMANS; INFANT; INFANT WELFARE; MOTHER-CHILD RELATIONS; OBJECT ATTACHMENT; PUBLIC POLICY; UNITED STATES; WOMEN, WORKING;

EID: 82655186602     PISSN: 00070874     EISSN: 1474001X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0007087411000318     Document Type: Article

References (146)

1. John Bowlby, 'The nature of the child's tie to his mother', International Journal of Psychoanalysis (1958) 39, pp. 350-373, 367.
2. On Bowlby's influence in the United States see Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English, For Her Own Good: 150 Years of the Expert's Advice to Women, New York: Anchor Books, 1978, p. 229;
3. Mari Jo Buhle, Feminism and Its Discontents: A Century of Struggle with Psychoanalysis, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998, p. 162;
4. Ann Hulbert, Raising America: Experts, Parents, and a Century of Advice about Children, New York: Vintage Books, 2003, p. 205;
5. Julia Grant, Raising Baby by the Book: The Education of American Mothers, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998, p. 211;
6. Maxine L. Margolis, Mothers and Such: Views of American Women and Why They Changed, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984, p. 70;
7. Molly Ladd-Taylor and Lauri Umansky, 'Introduction', in Molly Ladd-Taylor and Lauri Umansky (eds.), 'Bad' Mothers: The Politics of Blame in Twentieth-Century America, New York: New York University Press, 1998, pp. 1-28, 14;
8. John Byng-Hall, 'An appreciation of John Bowlby: His significance for family therapy', Journal of Family Therapy (1991) 13, pp. 5-16;
9. Barbara Melosh, Strangers and Kin: The American Way of Adoption, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002, p. 75;
10. Ellen Herman, Kinship by Design: A History of Adoption in the Modern United States, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008, p. 133.
11. On Bowlby see Jeremy Holmes, John Bowlby and Attachment Theory, New York: Routledge, 1993;
12. Robert Karen, Becoming Attached: First Relationships and How They Shape Our Capacity to Love, New York: Oxford University Press, 1998;
13. Suzan van Dijken, John Bowlby: His Early Life: A Biographical Journey into the Roots of Attachment Theory, London: Free Association Books, 1998;
14. Inge Bretherton, 'The origins of attachment theory: John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth', Developmental Psychology (1992) 28, pp. 759-775;
15. Ben Mayhew, 'Between love and aggression: The politics of John Bowlby', History of the Human Sciences (2006) 19, pp. 19-35.
16. For a more critical discussion of Bowlby's work, see A. Dally, Inventing Motherhood: The Consequences of an Ideal, New York: Schocken, 1983;
17. Diane E. Eyer, Mother-Infant Bonding: A Scientific Fiction, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992;
18. Barbara Tizard, 'Employed mothers and the care of young children', in Ann Phoenix, Anne Woollett and Eva Lloyd (eds.), Motherhood: Meanings, Practices and Ideologies, London: Sage, 1991, pp. 178-194.
19. John Bowlby, 'The influence of early environment in the development of neurosis and neurotic-character', International Journal of Psycho-analysis (1940) 21, pp. 154-178, 154, 155, 156, original emphasis.
20. Bowlby, op. cit. (4), pp. 162, 163, 158.
21. Bowlby, op. cit. (4), pp. 163, 164.
22. John Bowlby, 'Forty-four juvenile thieves: Their characters and home-life', International Journal of Psycho-analysis (1944) 25, pp. 19-53, 107-128, 113.
23. Bretherton, op. cit. (3), p. 759.
24. John Bowlby, 'Maternal care and mental health', Bulletin of the World Health Organization (1951) 3, pp. 355-534;
25. idem, Child Care and the Growth of Love (based on idem, Maternal Care and Mental Health, abridged and ed. Margery Fry), Harmondsworth: Pelican, 1953. All references are to the 1953 abridged version.
26. Bowlby, op. cit. (8), p. 11.
27. Bowlby, op. cit. (8), p. 182, emphasis added. On p. 13, Bowlby stated, 'In what follows . . . little will be said of the father-child relation; his value as the economic and emotional support of the mother will be assumed'.
28. Bowlby, op. cit. (8), pp. 57-58.
29. Bowlby, op. cit. (4), p. 90.
30. Bowlby, op. cit. (8), pp. 75-76.
31. Bowlby, op. cit. (8), p. 76.
32. Bowlby, op. cit. (8), p. 84.
33. John Bowlby, 'Mother is the whole world', Home Companion, 17 January 1952, pp. 29-30.
34. Newspaper clippings in John Bowlby Papers, Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine, London, PP/BOW/A.4/1, press cuttings April 1952-May 1953 and PP/BOW/A.4/2, press cuttings 1953-1954.
35. British psychiatrists observe effects of missing mothers', New York Times, 10 April 1949.
36. Quote from 'Warping of child traced to family', New York Times, 12 April 1952.
37. 'Use of knowledge urged in child aid', New York Times, 27 March 1953.
38. On the turn to emotions after the Second World War see Marga Vicedo, The Nature and Nurture of Love: From Imprinting in Birds to Attachment in Infants (forthcoming, Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
39. Philip Wylie, Generation of Vipers, New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1942;
40. Geoffrey Gorer, The American People: A Study in National Character, New York: Norton, 1948;
41. Edward A. Strecker, Their Mothers' Sons: The Psychiatrist Examines an American Problem, Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1946;
42. Erik H. Erikson, Childhood and Society, New York: Norton, 1950.
43. On momism see Mari Jo Buhle, Feminism and Its Discontents: A Century of Struggle with Psychoanalysis, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998;
44. Ruth Feldstein, Motherhood in Black and White: Race and Sex in American Liberalism, 1930-1965, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000;
45. Rebecca Jo Plant, Mom: The Transformation of Motherhood in Modern America, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010.
46. Anna Freud and Dorothy T. Burlingham,War and Children: A Message to American Parents, New York: International University Press, 1943.
47. On Levy see 'David M. Levy, M.D.', American Journal of Orthopsychiatry (1938) 8, pp. 769-770.
48. On Benedek see Thomas G. Benedek, 'A psychoanalytic career begins: Therese F. Benedek, M.D. - a documentary biography', Annual of Psychoanalysis (1979) 7, pp. 3-15.
49. David M. Levy, 'Primary affect hunger', American Journal of Psychiatry (1937) 94, pp. 643-652, 643- 644.
50. René A. Spitz, 'Hospitalism: An inquiry into the genesis of psychiatric conditions in early childhood', Psychoanalytic Study of the Child (1945) 1, pp. 53-74;
51. idem, 'Anaclitic depression: An inquiry into the genesis of psychiatric conditions in early childhood, II', Psychoanalytic Study of the Child (1946) 2, pp. 313-342;
52. Margaret A. Ribble, 'Disorganizing factors of infant personality', American Journal of Psychiatry (1941) 98, pp. 459-463, 461, 460.
53. See also idem, The Rights of Infants: Early Psychological Needs and Their Satisfaction, New York: Columbia University Press, 1943.
54. Therese Benedek, 'The psychosomatic implications of the primary unit: Mother-child', American Journal of Orthopsychiatry (1949) 19, pp. 642-654, 649, 651, 650.
55. Bowlby, op. cit. (8), pp. 18, 50;
56. see also pp. 34-35.
57. On the history and significance of objectivity in science see Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison, Objectivity, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007.
58. Ashley Montagu (ed.), The Meaning of Love, New York: The Julian Press, 1953;
59. idem, 'The origins and meaning of love', in idem, op. cit., pp. 18, 19.
60. Pitirim A. Sorokin and Robert C. Hanson, 'The power of creative love', in Montagu, op. cit., 1953, p. 125.
61. Nancy Cott, Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000;
62. Steven Mintz and Susan Kellog, Domestic Revolutions: A Social History of American Family Life, New York: The Free Press, 1988.
63. On day care see also Mary Frances Berry, The Politics of Parenthood: Child Care, Women's Rights, and the Myth of the Good Mother, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1993.
64. Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era, New York: Basic Books, 1988.
65. See also Feldstein, op. cit. (19).
66. Gaile McGregor, 'Domestic blitz: A revisionist theory of the fifties', American Studies (1993) 34, pp. 5-33, 8.
67. Cott, op. cit. (24), p. 189.
68. See also Mintz and Kellog, op. cit. (24), pp. 170-171.
69. On delinquency and family life during the Cold War see James Gilbert, A Cycle of Outrage: America's Reaction to the Juvenile Delinquent in the 1950s, New York: Oxford University Press, 1986;
70. Mintz and Kellogg, op. cit. (24).
71. Alfred C. Kinsey et al., Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, Philadelphia, PA: W.B. Saunders, 1953;
72. Mirra Komarovsky, Women in the Modern World: Their Education and Their Dilemmas, Boston: Little, Brown, 1953;
73. Ashley Montagu, The Natural Superiority of Women, New York: Macmillan, 1953;
74. Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, New York: Vintage, 1953.
75. Joanne Meyerowitz, 'Beyond the feminine mystique: A reassessment of postwar mass culture, 1946- 1958', Journal of American History (1993) 79, pp. 1455-1482.
76. McGregor, op. cit. (26).
77. The literature on women and the 1950s is enormous, and has shifted from emphasizing the complacent aspects of the decade to highlighting the tensions and the complexity of women issues. See Joanne Meyerowitz (ed.), Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar America, 1945-1960, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994.
78. On mothers see Wini Breines, 'Domineering mothers in the 1950s: Image and reality', Women's Studies International Forum (1985) 8, pp. 601-608;
79. Margolis , op. cit. (2), Chapter 3;
80. Mintz and Kellog, op. cit. (24);
81. Laura Curran, 'Social work's revised maternalism: Mothers, workers, and welfare in early Cold War America, 1946-1963', Journal of Women's History (2005) 17, pp. 112-136.
82. On the rise of scientific authority in the realm of child rearing see Rima D. Apple, Perfect Motherhood: Science and Childrearing in America, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2006;
83. Peter N. Stearns, Anxious Parents: A History of Modern Childrearing in America, New York: New York University Press, 2003.
84. De Beauvoir, op. cit. (29), p. 570.
85. See Therese Benedek, 'Review of The Second Sex', Psychoanalytic Quarterly (1953) 22, pp. 264-267.
86. See also Marjorie Grene's review in the New Republic, 9 March 1953, pp. 22-23;
87. A senior panel takes aim at "The Second Sex"', Saturday Review, 21 February 1953, pp. 26-31, 41.
88. The panel of reviewers were: 1. Psychiatrist. Karl Menninger. 2. Writer. Philip Wylie. 3. Educator. Ashley Montagu. 4. Housewife. Phyllis McGinley. 5. Anthropologist. Margaret Mead. 6. Public Official. Olive R. Goldman.
89. Alva Myrdal and Viola Klein, Women's Two Roles: Home and Work, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1956, p. 79, p. 83.
90. Sonya Michel, Children's Interests/Mothers' Rights: The Shaping of America's Child Care Policy, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999, p. 151.
91. Employed Mothers and Child Care, Bulletin of theWomen's Bureau, No. 246. (Washington, DC: GPO, 1953), pp. iii, 1.
92. Kathleen W. Jones, Taming the Troublesome Child: American Families, Child Guidance, and the Limits of Psychiatric Authority, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.
93. Ellen Herman, The Romance of American Psychology: Political Culture in the Age of Experts, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
94. Mark Solovey, 'Project Camelot and the 1960s epistemological revolution: Rethinking the politics-patronage- social science nexus', Social Studies of Science (2001) 31, pp. 171-206;
95. idem, Shaky Foundations (forthcoming, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press).
96. Michel, op. cit. (33), p. 155.
97. Helen Leland Witmer and Ruth Kotinsky (eds.), Personality in the Making: The Fact-Finding Report of the Midcentury White House Conference on Children and Youth, New York: Harper, 1952, p. xvi.
98. Witmer and Kotinsky, op. cit. (36), pp. 4-5.
99. Erikson, op. cit. (19).
100. Witmer and Kotinsky, op. cit. (36), pp. 93-97.
101. Myrdal and Klein, op. cit. (32), pp. 125, 126, 127.
102. Clipping in Bowlby's Papers, PP/BOW/K.11/28.
103. 'That woman in gray flannel: A debate', New York Times, 12 February 1956.
104. SloanWilson, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1955.
105. 'Should mothers of young children work?', Ladies Home Journal (November 1958) 75, pp. 58-59, 154- 156, 158-161.
106. Sheldon Glueck and Eleanor Glueck, Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency, New York: The Commonwealth Fund, 1950.
107. Ashley Montagu, 'The triumph and tragedy of the American woman', Saturday Review, 27 September 1958, pp. 13-15, 34-35, 14, 35, 34, 14.
108. Talcott Parsons, 'The social structure of the family,' in Ruth Anshen (ed.), The Family: Its Function and Destiny, New York: Harper and Row, 1959, p. 256;
109. idem, 'Family structure and the socialization of the child', in Talcott Parsons and Robert F. Bales, Family, Socialization and Interaction Process, Glencoe: The Free Press, 1955, pp. 45-49.
110. An insightful analysis of social science on gender relations isWini Breines, 'The 1950s: Gender and some social science', Sociological Inquiry (1986) 56, pp. 69-92.
111. Erik H. Erikson, Young Man Luther, London: Faber and Faber, 1958, p. 115.
112. Margolis, op. cit. (2), p. 219.
113. Bowlby, op. cit. (8), pp. 41, 43.
114. Abraham Myerson, 'Let's quit blaming mom', Science Digest (1951) 29, pp. 10-15, 11.
115. William H. Sewell, 'Infant training and the personality of the child', American Journal of Sociology (1952) 58, pp. 150- 159, 151.
116. Harold Orlansky, 'Infant care and personality', Psychological Bulletin (1949) 46, pp. 1-48, 12
117. Samuel R. Pinneau, 'A critique of the articles by Margaret Ribble', Child Development (1950) 21, pp. 203-228, 222.
118. L. Joseph Stone, 'A critique of studies of infant isolation', Child Development (1954) 25, pp. 9-20, 14.
119. Stone, op. cit. (51).
120. Samuel R. Pinneau, 'The infantile disorders of hospitalism and anaclitic depression', Psychological Bulletin (1955) 52, pp. 429-452.
121. Pinneau, op. cit. (53), p. 448, original emphasis.
122. See also pp. 453 ff. for Spitz's reply.
123. John Bowlby, Mary Ainsworth, Mary Boston and Dina Rosenbluth, 'The effects of mother-child separation: A follow-up study', British Journal of Medical Psychology (1956) 29, pp. 211-247, 242.
124. John Bowlby, 'A note on mother-child separation as a mental health hazard', British Journal of Medical Psychology (1958) 31, pp. 247-248, 248.
125. Bowlby, op. cit. (8), pp. 69.
126. E.F.M. Durbin and John Bowlby, Personal Aggressiveness and War, New York: Columbia University Press, 1939, includes an appendix on the social life of monkeys and apes.
127. See Marga Vicedo, 'The father of ethology and the foster mother of ducks: Konrad Lorenz as an expert on motherhood', Isis (2009) 100, pp. 263-291.
128. Bowlby, op. cit. (8), p. 15.
129. Bowlby did not name Konrad Lorenz in the text, but included him in a 'List of authorities referred to but not named'. Idem, op. cit. (8), p. 183.
130. J.M. Tanner and Baurbel Inhelder (eds.), Discussions on Child Development, London: Tavistock Publications, 1971.
131. Bowlby, op. cit. (1).
132. Bowlby, op. cit. (1), pp. 351, 367.
133. Bowlby, op. cit. (1), p. 369.
134. Bowlby, op. cit. (1), pp. 369-370.
135. Bowlby, op. cit. (1), p. 370, added emphases.
136. Bowlby, op. cit. (1), p. 370.
137. Bowlby, op. cit. (1), p. 369.
138. Ruth Bloch, 'American feminine ideals in transition: The rise of the moral mother, 1785-1815', Feminist Studies (1978) 4, pp. 101-126;
139. Jan Lewis, 'Mother's love: The construction of an emotion in nineteenth-century America', in Rima D. Apple and Janet Golden (eds.), Mothers and Motherhood: Readings in American History, Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1997.
140. Peter N. Stearns and Carol Z. Stearns, 'Emotionology: Clarifying the history of emotions and emotional standards', American Historical Review (1985) 90, pp. 813-836.
141. Bowlby, op. cit. (8), p. 17.
142. Robert L. Griswold, Fatherhood in America: A History, New York: Basic Books, 1993, p. 186.
143. World Health Organization, Deprivation of Maternal Care: A Reassessment of Its Effects, Geneva: WHO, 1962. For the history of attachment to the present see Vicedo, op. cit. (18).
144. See Marga Vicedo, 'Mothers, machines, and morals: Harry Harlow's work on primate love from lab to legend', Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences (2009) 45, pp. 193-218.
145. Marga Vicedo, 'The evolution of Harry Harlow: From the nature to the nurture of love', History of Psychiatry (June 2010) 21(2), pp. 1-16.
146. Quoted in Evelyn S. Ringold, 'Bringing up baby in Britain', New York Times, 13 June 1965.