The American Way: Family and Community in the Shaping of the American Identity

by Allan C. Carlson

Book Overview

The United States of America is arguably more family-centered than any other Western nation. If polling data can be trusted, the vast majority of Americans--a higher percentage than in any other... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1932236112
• ISBN13: 9781932236118
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Intercollegiate Studies Institute
• Length: 211 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Excavating the Forgotten Maternalist Vision

In "The 'American Way,'" Allan Carlson explores how a certain vision of the child-rich family with a breadwinning husband and a stay-at-home mother became central to the American self-definition in the twentieth century. What contemporary feminist writers sneer at as the "Leave it to Beaver" family emerges in this account as the product of a disciplined vision pursued by union organizers, civil servants, and reformers (mostly women), who saw the ability of the mother to nurture her children and protect them from the temptations of the street or the sweatshop as the fulcrum for realizing the American aims of a good life for all. But mothers could only do this when they were supported by a husband earning a "family wage": enough to support his wife and children. From the turn of the twentieth century to the New Deal, this "maternalist" lobby fought to victory against free market absolutism, the pathologies of impoverished inner-city immigrant communities, and liberal feminism. Allan Carlson pursues his topic in a series of readable, but disconnected essays: Teddy Roosevelt; the German-American family and assimilation; the New Deal as the apotheosis of maternalism; Henry Luce's influential vision of America; how the strength of the family buttressed American foreign policy; and finally the death of the maternalist vision after 1965 at the hands of the courts and feminists. The subsequent flood of married women into the workplace depressed men's wages, increased the commercialization of the household economy (the roots of today's obesity epidemic), and starved America's previously rich associational life. Throughout, he makes extensive use of the results of recent feminist historians to overturn their unquestioned assumptions and dogmas. Allan Carlson contrasts America's maternalist vision to Swedish family policy which had from the thirties eagerly socialized household functions and accepted the complete interchangeability of husband and wife. In American family policy, maternalists advocated home economics to nourish thrift and keep commercialization at bay. The single family home, the suburban lawn, the sewing machine, and the vegetable garden expressed the value they placed on the autonomous family and their belief in the stabilizing value of a connection to the land. "The 'American Way'" is full of surprises for the modern reader: how conservative and pro-family the Democrats once were; how anti-feminist the New Deal really was; how feminists cynically allied with die-hard segregationists to win their first big legislative victory; how much poorer husband-as-breadwinner families have become compared to dual income families since then. Allan Carlson is a conservative, but not the sort of anti-immigrant or categorically anti-big government conservative that some reviews here take him to be. Indeed I wish he had been even more explicit in the ironies of today's political spectrum. He concludes that the current Republican Party's pro-family pol

A Fantastic Historical Work

According to Allan Carlson, America is at a crossroads. Historically, its culture has been based on that of Europe. However, there are waves of new immigrants from Latin America who refuse to assimilate and who stubbornly hold on to their non-Eropean culture. Carlson also holds that America has been down the wrong path ever since the New Deal when there was a massive increase in the size and role of the Federal Government. According to Carlson, family and community have been the cornerstones of American culture ever since colonial times. This culture included the idea that men were dominant and Protestantism was the dominant religion. Also acording to Carlson, prior to the New Deal, social welfare was handled by private agencies, many of which were created by German-Americans before 1900. There was also a moral consensus that aided the growth of the American nation. That consensus has since collapsed. The role of family in American culture has been undermined by government policies such as outlawing workplace discrimination against women. Carlson's book is a bit gloomy, but it is still an excellent review of the better aspects of traditional American culture.

A concise history of an important issue

The primary purpose of Carlson's book is to describe the history of the various attempts to formulate American culture through the avenue of federal government policy. Beginning with Theodore Roosevelt administration, which Carlson points to as the starting point of the this government interest in shaping national culture, the story that unfolds is, at one level, a conflict between those who viewed American society as a collection of families, as a collection of self-autonomous individuals with the same individual rights apart from differences in gender or family situation, or as a homogenous indivisible whole with (for the most part) the same values that shape a distinct national culture. It's an interesting story not only to view the shift in political parties (one can see through this prism the difference between cultural conservatives and industrial conservatives, along with the difference between the maternalists and the equity feminists.More fundamental than the story of the success or failure of each group's attempt to formulate public policy is the tension of underlying premises that Carlson touches upon as this history is told. In a liberal democracy that encourages capitalism, what are the boundaries, if any, to the market process? Does the government have a proper role in encouraging a family policy (such as a "family wage" for the breadwinner male and limited job opportunities for the mother who, according to the policy purposes, has a duty to be at home to raise the children) that runs counter to the laissez-faire principle, or does that violate the promise of guaranteeing equality for all individuals? In another vein, should the government (and other sources with the government's encouragement) encourage a national identity that goes as far as, to paraphrase one criticism quoted in the book, that except for two hours on Sunday, Americans should share the same values and culture, or should that be left for individuals and groups to define for themselves?Carlson points out that some of the major programs that exist were based on the opposite premises, such as the Social Security program - a maternalist policy - that has been altered by the entrance of mothers into the workforce. Carlson reserves his point of view until the very end of the book (the last two pages), and given the promotion by pro-family groups, one can predict what those principles should be. But even if the reader disagrees with the author's view (which is sort of a neo-maternalist view that recognizes that biological differences between the sexes should be recognized in some instances over abstract equity principles, but that the overt discrimination that denied women equal political and property rights should remain a thing of the past), the book will be informative to describe the history of this aspect of federal government policy.

Highly recommended.

Excellent book. Highly recommend it. The book provides a fascinating, little known historical account of 20th Century American history from a family perspective. The book shows how America has been shaped by carefully constructed images of the American family and the American home. Dr. Carlson is the leading expert nationally and internationally on family issues and policy. Dr. Carlson' lecture on the book was fideo taped in Washington DC and can be ordered from CSPAN. It was broadcast on CSPAN's book TV. Other writings from Dr. Calson are available from the Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society in Rockford, Illinois.