This four-volume collection of primarily newly transcribed manuscript material brings together sources from both sides of the Atlantic and from a wide variety of regional archives. It is the first collection of its kind, allowing comparisons between the development of the family in England and America during a time of significant change. Volume 2: Making Families This volume provides a comprehensive examination of the process of creating a family, as well as some of the issues surrounding family breakdown. Documents are divided into sections covering courtship, marriage, sex and reproduction, childhood and parenthood. Gender roles are clearly defined in the source material, with documents offering specific advice to men and women. This is Volume II.

By studying the family we can increase our understanding of everything from democracy and capitalism to, race, gender, class, violence, religion and death. Recent scholarship has gone beyond demographic study and narrow definitions of the family to consider kinship more widely. Yet a great deal of the material that can help our understanding remains buried and untapped in a variety of remote archives. This four-volume collection of newly transcribed manuscript material brings together sources from both sides of the Atlantic and from a wide variety of regional archives. It is the first collection of its kind, allowing comparisons between the development of the family in England and America during a time of significant change. The volumes are arranged thematically to assist in these comparisons and cover a wide variety of family units. The first volume helps to define the family and covers class, ethnic, racial and religious diversity. The second volume follows the creation of the family and the final two volumes look at how families maintained and perpetuated themselves. This collection will be of interest to all those who research and teach histories of the eighteenth century, the family, women, gender and childhood.

By studying the family we can increase our understanding of everything from democracy and capitalism to, race, gender, class, violence, religion and death. Recent scholarship has gone beyond demographic study and narrow definitions of the family to consider kinship more widely. Yet a great deal of the material that can help our understanding remains buried and untapped in a variety of remote archives. This four-volume collection of newly transcribed manuscript material brings together sources from both sides of the Atlantic and from a wide variety of regional archives. It is the first collection of its kind, allowing comparisons between the development of the family in England and America during a time of significant change. The volumes are arranged thematically to assist in these comparisons and cover a wide variety of family units. The first volume helps to define the family and covers class, ethnic, racial and religious diversity. The second volume follows the creation of the family and the final two volumes look at how families maintained and perpetuated themselves. This collection will be of interest to all those who research and teach histories of the eighteenth century, the family, women, gender and childhood.

This four-volume collection of primarily newly transcribed manuscript material brings together sources from both sides of the Atlantic and from a wide variety of regional archives. It is the first collection of its kind, allowing comparisons between the development of the family in England and America during a time of significant change. Volume 3: Managing Families, I The sources included here document the economics of running a household, the experience of being a sibling and information on family inheritance and genealogy. Specifics on home economics include information on food and cooking, washing laundry, insurance inventories and plantation accounts.

This four-volume collection of primarily newly transcribed manuscript material brings together sources from both sides of the Atlantic and from a wide variety of regional archives. It is the first collection of its kind, allowing comparisons between the development of the family in England and America during a time of significant change. Volume 1: Many Families The eighteenth-century family group was a varied one. Documents attest to religious and racial diversity, as well as the hardships endured by the poor and working classes, such as widows, orphans and those born outside wedlock. Fictive families are also examined alongside more traditional family units bound by blood or law.