The American Family Economy in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

Each of the papers in this panel consider how families thought of themselves as economic units in particular historical circumstances. Lindsay Keiter demonstrates that elite families before the Civil War circulated various forms of wealth among extended kin but also cut off aid to chronically indebted members in the interest of preserving household capital—much like a business cutting losses. Colleen Doody examines the turn-of-the-twentieth-century Chicago candy industry and argues that immigrant families resisted protective legislation that limited women and girls’ potential contributions to the family economy, paradoxically allying with the industrialists intent on exploiting their labor for maximum profit. Joseph Moore tracks changing prescriptive ideals for family budgeting reflected ideas about gendered divisions of labor as well as the domestication of business practices of careful accounting. Collectively, these authors show that despite the perceived incompatibility of calculation and affection, families are inextricably connected by both.