Family Time and Industrial Time: The Relationship between the Family and Work in a New England Industrial Community

by Tamara K. Hareven

Overview

The myth that industrialization broke down traditional family ties has long pervaded American society. Professor Hareven, a leading social historian, dispels this myth and illustrates how the family survived and became an active force in the modern factory. In this book, Hareven examines the multiple roles that the workers' families fulfilled in facilitating their adaptation to the pressures of changing work patterns and new modes of life in an industrial city. She reconstructs family and work patterns among immigrants as well as native textile laborers over two generations during a crucial period in the transformation of American industry from the late nineteenth century.
A case study based on what was the world's largest textile plant—the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company in Manchester, New Hampshire—the book integrates a wide array of documentary evidence with oral testimony. It examines the lives of real people—the way they acted, the way they perceived their lives, and the kinds of decisions they made when pacing their lives in relation to the demands of the industrial system. Originally published in 1982 by Cambridge University Press.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780819190260
Publisher:	University Press of America
Publication date:	03/16/1993
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	490
Product dimensions:	5.86(w) x 9.06(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Tamara K. Hareven is Unidel Professor of Family Studies and History at the University of Delaware.

Editorial Reviews

Students of the family have waited with a good deal of anticipation for this book...The dynamic quality of the story she has to tell is a striking achievement. A readable as well as informative study of the nature of work and of families at the grassroots.

Carl N. Degler