Family Men: Middle-Class Fatherhood in Early Industrializing America (review)

Johansen has written a thoughtful book about fatherhood among middle-class U.S. northerners between 1800 and 1860. Concerned that common sources used for family history, such as advice manuals, are better for determining ideals than realities, the author has examined the private collections of letters and diaries of more than ninety families in order to describe and analyze what men actually did to fulfill their parental responsibilities. In the introduction and an essay on sources, Johansen recognizes his sample as overwhelmingly middle-class (almost one-third are merchants or lawyers), urban (only 14.1 percent farmers), and native-born whites. In addition to the biases inherent in these attributes, he notes that only families that remained on relatively good terms for a long period of time would produce a record that would have a significant impact on a study like his. Deep-seated anger (the kind that might result from poor parenting) would be unlikely to leave a personal written record. Implicit in what he says is the fact that separation for extended periods was also necessary to produce letters if not diaries.

Johansen argues that the topic of fatherhood has been too long ignored, in part because of the powerful links between family history and women's history, given its concepts of separate spheres and domesticity for the period. The emphasis on women's roles in the family, and their presumed increase in the early nineteenth century, has rendered fatherhood so inconsequential as apparently to need no study. Johansen suggests, however, that a more careful examination of fatherhood before 1800 and after 1900 would show less clear-cut patterns than historians assume. Overall, the study is well grounded in the appropriate historiography.

This book shows the error of ignoring fathers. The author makes a convincing case that men played a central role in the lives of their children throughout much of their lives. Because Johansen finds continuity to be the central theme of fathering, he organizes the book according to the life course. Early chapters focus on young men and their decisions during the early years of their marriages and how the arrival of children affected their lives, eliciting ambiguous emotions of resentment and love. Men were involved with their children from birth (even attending the delivery on occasion), playing with them, nursing them when sick, and even cooking when wives were indisposed. Fathers were also active in naming their children and in teaching self-control; they also grieved over unexpected deaths. Two long chapters discuss men's efforts to shape their children's education through adolescence, noting that character traits valued by the middle class were taught to both daughters and sons, though gender expectations about appropriate spheres of activity remained well defined. The final chapter examines at length the problems that men experienced as their children became adults who needed and expected more freedom. It concludes with brief comments about the few men who lived long enough to become dependent on their adult sons and daughters.

Several minor flaws deserve mention. Johansen admits that the testimonies of twenty men have disproportionate influence on the study because of the extent of their record, but their quotability was undoubtedly a factor as well. Thus, Keith Spence appears often because his frequent, prolonged absences on duty in the navy produced a lengthy correspondence with his wife. The author has a good eye for poignant quotations but never provides any statistical analysis of the data set to place anecdotes in context. Finally, some of what Johansen notes seems universal, such as the dislocation and shock that result from a first child or fathers' use of certain attributes (size) to control young children and others (reason, money) to dominate older ones.

Johansen's admission of the role that his relationship to his own children played in this study recalls the origins of an article of mine...