Class Families And Immigrant Families example essay topic

During the late 18th century and throughout the 19th century, life for Americans was changing. With the rise of Mercantile Capitalism and then of Industrialization, the concept of the ideal American family was drastically modified. Before this period, production took place in the home with every family member helping in some way (Native American and Household Families). The main function of the family was subsistence and the family was a community (Native American and Household Families). The Puritan religion stressed the importance of purity and scripture and emphasized the importance of community; there were no public or private spheres.

Children were thought to be born with sin; by age seven, children would be doing the same work as their same sex parent in an effort to "break their will" (Emergence of Domestic Family). Towards the end of the 18th century, there was a rise in Mercantile Capitalism, which transformed family production (Native American and Household Families). This shift to market oriented production created a rise in living standards, privacy, and space, which lead to the decline of public supervision of the family. These changes lead to Industrialization, where machines replaced manual labor in producing goods. Men left the home to work in factories, increasing splitting the public and private worlds and creating the public world of work and the private world of home and family (Emergence of Domestic Family). While men were leaving the home to work, women's roles in traditional household manufacture declined (Emergence of Domestic Family).

Although women no longer helped in production, they still had to work inside the home doing the cooking, cleaning, and child rearing, but this was no longer considered work because it did not provide income (Emergence of Domestic Family). Some women supplemented the income of their husbands by spinning yarn, etc. in families that needed the extra income; this helped to produce two distinct classes: working class and middle class (Emergence of Domestic Family). Child care became increasing more important, especially in the new emerging middle class (Emergence of Domestic Family). During this time of economic transformation, there were also changes in the family ideology.

These changes were due to the changing religious and political ideas. America adopted the Victorian image, which viewed women as being virtuous, pious, tender, understanding (Bloch). As mothers, women were the chief transmitters of religious and moral values (Bloch). The first of these changes was the idea of Republican Motherhood.

This concept said that women had a political task to raise good children because mothers were naturally nurturing wives and caring mothers (Emergence of Domestic Family). The next concept that emerged was that of the innocent child. With the change from Puritan religion to Protestant religion, the idea of innocence of children and children as a moral "blank slate" replaced the idea that children are full of sin and need their will broken (Emergence of Domestic Family). Mothers, being naturally more nurturing than fathers, became the prime caretakers of the children. While most women stayed at home, there were some women who did work in the factories. In the working class, young unmarried daughters and other children age seven and above joined their fathers in the factories (Emergence of Domestic Family).

These young women worked to help further the education of their brothers (Women and Work). Because these families did not measure up to the new ideology, working class women were deemed promiscuous, sinful, and not competent. Although family ideology was changing, there were some groups of people who did not follow these new social norms. People in the lower classes could not conform to this ideal.

Many of these people were immigrants and former slaves, and the mothers and children often had to work so that they could have money for their basic needs. For example, African Americans in the end of the 19th century faced many barriers while they were trying to provide for their families. This was the time of the end of Reconstruction, and is referred to as the "Nadir" of Black history (African American Family Life). Many African Americans who had hoped for citizenship and economic gain in the form of land ownership faced racism in the South by the loss of black political power, the rise of Jim Crow Laws, and the rise of sharecropping (African American Family Life). These families had incorporated three strategies for survival in this harsh time: more egalitarian relationships between men and women, fictive kin, and personal agency (African American Family Life). The harsh conditions lead many families to leave the south during the Great Migration from 1880-1950 in search of work (Moving North to Chicago).

But African Americans were not the only group that had an alternative family system. When the Irish immigrated during the 19th century, they were impoverished and children and mothers often worked outside the home (Immigration). Because they were Catholic and not Protestant, it was feared that the Pope would be running America (Immigration). When the New Immigration started around 1890, the Irish had become assimilated into American society (Immigration). As a cause of overpopulation, industrialization, land loss, transportation revolution, anti-Semitism, political unrest, and racism, millions of people immigrated to America and other countries (Immigration). Italians, Jews, Slavs, Mexicans, Chinese and Japanese, Hungarians, Greeks, Armenians, Syrians, Turks, Christian Arabs, Bulgarians, Latin Americans, Portuguese, and French Canadians started immigrating in mass numbers (Immigration).

Like the Irish, these immigrants were poor and collected in the slums of the cities (Immigration). These immigrants were met with racism and discrimination. The government restricted access to immigrants by forming laws that greatly reduced the number of immigrants that were allowed to migrate to the United States. One of these laws was the National Origins Act of 1924, which primarily restricted access from Eastern Europe and Asia and barred seventy-six percent of the immigrants (Immigration). Other Americans tried to "Americanize" the immigrants. These people, most of whom were women, thought that they could turn the immigrants into moral Americans by teaching them the values of society (Immigration).

An example would be the settlement houses established by Jane Adams in 1889 where young Asian girls could come to learn about American culture and find good, moral husbands (Immigration). In the article "Gender Systems in Conflict... ". Peggy Pascoe explains how Protestant missionaries established "rescue" houses to help Chinese women immigrants who were being victimized and preyed upon and impose on them the Victorian gender system and the idea of companionate marriages (Pascoe). When Vietnamese women immigrated to America, they were held at refugee camps with programs that "introduced" America and taught behavior that was seen as necessary for living in an American social setting (Kelly).

Although many groups of people did not fit the new ideology of an American family because of their social conditions, the groups that did live up to the new "norm" thought that they were superior to those families that did not. Families who did not conform were seen as troubled, dysfunctional families (What is a Family). For example, in the work force, African Americans and immigrants were paid less and received less benefits than the white working and upper class. In Salt of the Earth, the Mexican American workers decided to strike after not receiving equal wages and conditions as white workers. Even though unions were formed to help workers, unions that had immigrants did not receive equal recognition from companies (Salt of the Earth).

The idea of a family wage developed in order to keep men as the breadwinners and women at home raising the children (May). As we have seen, many families in the late eighteenth century into the early nineteenth century did not conform into the ideal American family. Although many probably wanted to be a part of the "norm" they were denied access to become the "norm". While many upper class white women worked to try and "help" these families, they did so thinking that the groups were incapable of helping themselves because they were inferior. Working class families and immigrant families faced discrimination and adapted to the circumstances to survive through the times. With the help of others and government policy, some groups were able to go on and become an accepted part of American society while others faced hard times throughout the century.

With the upcoming wars, many women entered the workforce and started to change their views on their place in society. With the expanding labor market, more opportunities for working women arose (Women and Work). With the invention of the typewriter, work became gender ized (Davies). While many people immigrated to America in search for a better life, they faced years of inequality and struggle to become a part of American society.

Confronted with a challenge, these people helped to pave the way for others that came after them. They endured years of poverty and discrimination in order to give their families a better life. Today, about 11 percent of all the families fit into this idea of a "normal" family. Some groups are still fighting to gain the same rights and freedom that others have, but much has changed in the last century; nevertheless we still have a long way to go to have equality in our society.