HST 320 History of the Family in the United States 1870-1990

3 Credit(s)

From the nineteenth-century invention of the traditional family to the “golden age of the family” in the 1950s, myths and misconceptions obscured the history of other familial formations. This course begins with the idealization of the white, middle-class,
nuclear family and generally follows a chronological timeline to facilitate the examination of the changing and divergent meanings of family, motherhood, fatherhood, and childhood. Analyzing sources such as advice manuals, government publications, popular
journalism, fiction, art, and film, will provide students with the opportunity to consider how experiences of family varied in terms of gender, race, class, and religion and also depended on specific historic events or geography. Not open to students who have received
credit for HST354. Three lecture hours er week.