Four Generations: Population, Land, and Family in Colonial Andover, Massachusetts

by Philip Greven

A groundbreaking study in colonial history, this book gives a remarkably detailed picture of life in an early American community. It focuses on three basic and interrelated subjects largely neglected by historians--population, land, and the family--as they affected the lives of four successive generations. Applying demographic methods to historical research, Professor Greven presents new and unexpected evidence about the most basic aspects of family life in colonial America, and shows how these characteristics changed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Genres: History

352 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1970

Reviews

[David Nichols · Rating 4 out of 5]

Greven’s first book was the second (in alphabetical authorial order) of four monographs, all published in 1970, that more-or-less invented the “New England town study” and revolutionized the practice of early American history. The author dove deep into the archives of eastern New England, combing through land and parish and probate records to compose a detailed study of Andover, Massachusetts, during its first century. Andover’s founding generation quickly availed itself of most of the land within the town’s limits, and then used that land both to support and control its offspring. New England proved a surprisingly healthy environment for the English colonists, so the first generation had large numbers of children who survived to adulthood. That same generation lived quite long lives – often into their 70s. Sons and daughters expected, indeed needed, to receive dowries and land grants from their fathers in order to set up their own households. Since adult children constituted free labor for their parents, those fathers usually took their time about giving their kids their “freedom dues.” Sons, in particular, often had to live with and work for their fathers until their late 20s, even their early 30s. “Living in your parents’ basement” (or the equivalent) was a common household arrangement in colonial North America.

Andover, and presumably many other New England towns (Michael Zuckerman and Charles Grant strongly suggest this was the case) became stable, conservative communities, characterized by extended households and patriarchal rule. Indeed, Puritan towns enjoyed more stability than the atomized and rootless English communities that had given rise to Puritanism. One of the surprises of FOUR GENERATIONS is that New England, the ostensible cradle of Anglo-American culture, was far less socially mobile and liberal than contemporary Old England. As in Kent or Dedham (see Lockridge’s NEW ENGLAND TOWN), the fabric of Andover’s society began to fray in the third generation. Population growth was accompanied by a decrease in per capita wealth for third- and fourth-generation families, and by an increase in child mortality (due to disease) and in morbidity among the aged. The new generations could expect fewer adult children and fewer years of life to enjoy/employ them. Some older Andoverians let their sons buy land from them and establish independency at younger ages, or preserved their multi-generational households by moving into their children’s homes and living (uneasily) under their authority. Increasingly, though, the only solutions for sons and grandsons of the second generation were economic diversification or outmigration: fathers helped younger sons learn skilled trades, or encouraged them to move to communities like Concord, NH and Wethersfield, CT. Greven suggests that the growing inability of fathers to provide land for their children undermined patriarchal authority throughout the region, and may have contributed to such social uprisings as the Great Awakening and the Revolution. I think this is a bit of a stretch. What is clear, however, is that by the 1700s Andover’s sons and daughters could no longer expect to follow their parents’ professions and live on their parents’ land. New England’s townsfolk had to embrace economic change and geographical mobility in order to survive. Thus did this conservative, eccentric society begin to resemble, at last, the parent country and the other colonies.*


* As Jack Greene observed in PURSUITS OF HAPPINESS (1988), though with more scholarship to draw upon than Greven had in 1970.

[Mark Bowles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary: This book asks questions about the subjects of population, land, and family as they affected the lives of four generations living in Massachusetts. This book examines father/son relationships, structures of families, birth, marriage, and death, and the relationship of family to the land. The structure of the family itself changed over time becoming smaller, more independent, etc. Sources included probate records (wills and estate inventories), deeds, town records, genealogies
First and Second generations
Population: The new community was a healthful place, conducive to the preservation of life (few deaths, many births). Thus, first generation families were large with many children (but not more than 12)
Land: Early families were dependent upon each other for goods and services. The sons worked for their fathers late into their 20s and received no money. Extended, patriarchal, and rooted to the community.
Second and Third generations
From 1680 to 1710 was a period of great population growth in Andover

[Caroline Saulls · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very dry but accomplishes its purpose well. Extremely thorough evidence to back conclusions. (I only read until the end of Part I.)