"Ross's collection captures the importance of history to the enterprise of analyzing contemporary American families. Indeed, the interdisciplinary combination of articles distinguishes this book from most of the family textbooks and family anthologies in the field. It provides an invaluable classroom tool."-Karen V. Hansen, author of Not-So-Nuclear Familes: Class, Gender, and Networks of Care

American families today are often noted for their wide variety of guises. Among the mix are single-parent families, childless-by-choice marriages, nuclear families, multigenerational families, and same-sex couples. This diversity among family life that has come under the scrutiny of everyone from politicians to the media, however, is not a recent development of contemporary culture. Although nuclear families with a mother, father, and children tend to be the presumed historic norm, people have always resided, to varying extents, in an assortment of family formations.

Bringing together essays by twenty-one distinguished scholars who have helped shape the field of family sociology in the last decade, this interdisciplinary anthology examines variation within family experience, especially as it has evolved across racial, ethnic, social, gender, and generational lines. The essays place historical and institutional frameworks at the center of the discussion.

Part one focuses on the development of socially constructed dominant ideologies, demographic shifts in family composition, and historical perspectives on family rituals and mythmaking, including courtship practices and family bonding time. Essays in the second part provide a historical perspective on the interdependence between the family as a social institution and other institutions. Selections highlight changes in women's roles, the impact of economic, racial, and social inequalities on household labor and child care, the effects of war and military service, and the implications of the political climate for family welfare policy.

In-depth chapter introductions along with critical questions to spark class discussion make this an ideal text for courses focusing on family composition, trends, and controversies in the United States.

Susan M. Ross is an assistant professor of sociology at Lycoming College in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

Introduction

Part I: Family Transitions in Social-Historical Perspective

Constructed Meanings
Chapter 1: From Patriarchy to Androgyny and Other Myths: Placing Men's Family Roles in Historical Perspective
by Steven Mintz
Chapter 2: Bastardy, Fitness, and the Invention of Adolescence
by Kristin Luker
Chapter 3: The Modernization of Grandparenthood
by Andrew J. Cherlin and Frank F. Furstenberg, Jr.

Changes in Family Composition
Chapter 4: Historical Perspectives on Family Diversity
by Stephanie Coontz
Chapter 5: Fertility and the Frontier: Bringing Women Back In
by Anita Ilta Garey
Chapter 6: Multigenerational Families in Nineteenth-Century America
by Steven Ruggles

Developing Family Rituals
Chapter 7: Calling Cards and Money
by Beth Bailey
Chapter 8: Making Time for Family: The Invention of Family Time(s) and the Reinvention of Family History
by John Gillis

Part II: Interplay of Social Institutions in the Construction of Family Formation

Changing Legal Boundaries of Family
Chapter 9: The Civil Contract and Family Life in the United States
by Lisa J. McIntyre
Chapter 10: Do Wedding Dresses Come in Lavender? The Prospects and Implications of Same-Sex Marriage
by Angela Bolte

Medicine and Science's Influence on Fertility and Mothering Behavior
Chapter 11: Constructing Mothers: Scientific Motherhood in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
by Rima D. Apple
Chapter 12: Motherhood Denied: Women and Infertility in Historical Perspective
by Margaret Marsh

U.S. Military and War Involvement
Chapter 13: America's Home Front Children in World War II
by William M. Tuttle, Jr.
Chapter 14: Containment at Home: Cold War, Warm Hearth
by Elaine Tyler May

Intersections of Work, Social Policy, and Family
Chapter 15: Our Mothers' Grief: Racial Ethnic Women and the Maintenance of Families
by Bonnie Thorton Dill
Chapter 16: The Arduous Transition to the Industrial North
by Donna L. Franklin
Chapter 17: Who Deserves Help? Who Must Provide?
by Linda Gordon
Chapter 18: Money and Morality
by Sharon Hays
Chapter 19: Introduction: Child Care and Social Citizenship for Women
by Sonya Michel
Chapter 20: Lessons from Abroad: Leave Policy for an International Perspective by Steven K. Wisensale