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

by Allan C. Carlson

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 nation--would rather build society around the family and the church than around the individual. In fact, family and religiously grounded community--not individualism, not capitalism, and not a commitment to polyglot cultural pluralism--have historically provided the basis of America's dominant self-understanding. The American Way, Allan Carlson's episodic history of the last century, shows how the nation's identity has been shaped by carefully constructed images of the American family and the American home. From the surprisingly radical measures put forth by Theodore Roosevelt to encourage stable, large families, to the unifying role of the image of the home in assimilating immigrants, to the maternalist activists who attempted to transform the New Deal and other social welfare programs into vehicles for shoring up traditional family life, Carlson convincingly demonstrates the widespread appeal exerted by the images of family and community. Carlson also shows how a family- and faith-centered discourse anchored Henry Luce's publishing enterprise and even American foreign policy during the Cold War. But many of the reforms and ideas championed by pro-family forces in the twentieth century--family activists' embrace of the federal bureaucracy, Luce's propaganda for suburban living and modern architecture--inadvertently worked to undermine family and community life, writes Carlson. And he shows that the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which effectively made it illegal for employers to offer malebreadwinners a living wage, has made it harder for traditional families to make ends meet, further helping to fracture family life. Carlson concludes by arguing that, despite the half-hearted and partially successful attempt of the Reagan administration to again forge a link between the American identity and healthy family life, much bolder measures are necessary if American culture is again to be put on a family- and community-centered footing. Written with grace and precision. The American Way is revisionist history of the highest order.

Genres: Family, American History, History, Cultural, Nonfiction, Economics, Sociology

223 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2003

About the author

Allan C. Carlson (born Des Moines, Iowa, 1949) is a scholar and professor of history at Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan. He is the president of the Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society, a director of the Family in America Studies Center, the International Secretary of the World Congress of Families and editor of the Family in America newsletter. He is also former president of the Rockford Institute.

Reviews

[Kaetlyn Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was different than my usual reading material. To be completely honest after the first few chapters I only skimmed the rest. It was interesting to see that America really did try to uphold family values and reject feminism through various policies over the years, but depravity won out and now we are where we are. Main take away? Having 10 kids is the biggest form of cultural rebellion. Be a producer and not a consumer. Revive the household economy. Feminism was and continues to be a discontentment campaign. Get content with God and give thanks for your portion and place. Have babies and stay home with them. Rely on the Lord for your daily bread and not the government. Live fruitfully and faithfully.

[Brian]

Canon Press also just re-published this book. Again, thanks to the folks at Intercollegiate Studies Institute for doing such a good job editing it. Carlson is a real gem who I dreamed about getting to publish and hear talk on Canon Calls. He's also an inspiration for C.R. Wiley, Steven Wedgeworth, and more recently Rory Groves.

This book is perhaps less flashy than Third Ways, but it's also a bit more useful than a lot of other histories of the twentieth century. A lot of Christians look at the twentieth century and point a lot of fingers at the sexual revolution of the sixties as the "fall moment," or perhaps even the fifties. But I think it's important to balance ideological causes with material causes, and certainly though the me-generation can be faulted for a lot, this book points out how our nation had policies that were crafted to strengthen the family in the face of industrialism.

The book is very focused: it begins with Theodore Roosevelt and ends with Ronald Reagan. In between we have the stories of how the family was a basic unifier for the American Way, and how it was central to the vision of the nation until the sixties and seventies. One of the most chilling moments is when all the sociologists working for the Federal Government under LBJ basically said the natural family doesn't matter at all and it can be anything. That quick, huh! Turns out Lewis was right that sociology is just a pseudo-science, meant for political stuff. It's shocking to think how so many ordinary lives have been wrecked by this change in vision, aided by public policy.

Carlson describes the maternalist movement in great detail, showing how it integrated German Americans into this nation and how it helped create a lot of the new deal programs that our nation is still based on. And he shows how empty, by comparison, Ronald Reagan's presidency was in terms of strengthening the family. Reagan talked a lot about the recovery of religion and the family, but once you lose the definition of the natural family, you're in the dark already. (Interestingly, this problem afflicted Daniel Patrick Moynihan, too.)

There's some real surprises in this book that I won't spoil, but it's a great gem about how Americans used to think about the family and why they don't think like that anymore.

[J. Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first two chapters were just fascinating. The remainder of the book was decent. A really fascinating take on the New Deal.

[Caleb M. Powers · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I expected to be a much more argumentative, prescriptive book was actually a very specialized, thorough history of family policy in American politics. It is an excellent book in that regard. Carlson does make a case for a return to many of the policies he documented in the book in his closing arguments, and said case was far milder and nuanced than I expected. All that being said, Carlson has a few blind spots, and even though he hangs a lantern on a few of them, his self-awareness of these issues unfortunately doesn't lead him to the well-deserved condemnation of them that he should have offered.

The American Way is a book documenting the well-meaning policies that were largely instrumental in destroying the very thing they sought to uphold. May we learn the right lesson, and not repeat the same errors in an attempt to arrive at a different conclusion.

[Luke Waters · Rating 4 out of 5]

Allan Carlsons' book is not what I expected. It was a thorough and precise historical analysis of the formation of Americanism from Teddy Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan. He tracks the maternalist movement from German immigrants to the equity feminists in the 70s - 90s. He reveals how different government administration's came into the office with good intentions of helping the nuclear family and how they predictably failed. In Reagan's case, he wasn't willing to outright support traditional gender roles in his policy. One must first ask, "What is the family?" and "How is it to be structured in accordance with scripture" before the nuclear family can be turned into the nuclear reactor that it should be. Atomistic libertarian individualism is not the enemy of nor a threat to the ever growing state. The threat to and the safeguard against the Leviathan is instead multiple atoms joined together into a cohesive molecular bond called the family. That natural, fundamental, and unified institution is the greatest force and asset in the Americans arsenal against the secular suicide of the West. When America is saved, it will be through faithful men and women building large families, raising those children in the fear and admonition of the Lord, and staying linked together through multiple generations.

[Jared Mcnabb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting history on the role that the family played in creating a stable “American” identity in the 20th century, and its impact on domestic and foreign policy. Interesting sections include Carlson showing the role that family-centered German immigrants had in creating this identity. He then looks at how the programs of FDR’s New Deal were based on the centrality and the importance of what the natural family.

This all unravels in the 60’s when American identity was sought in anti-communism, racial identities, or more opaque notions of freedom and progress. Interesting note here is his discussion of how southern “Dixiecrats” and equity feminist congressmen worked together during the Civil Rights Act to undercut the Act’s primary intent to curb racial discrimination, as well as undercut the practice of family wage.

Reagan attempted to relocate the centrality of the family, but it was vague and mingled with (and weakened by) pro-capitalist ideology. He ends by arguing for the continued importance to locate tAmerica’s unique identity in the family.

Lastly, Teddy Roosevelt had no chill.

[Will Dole · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating book. Carlson really does follow through on the promise to show how conceptions of family and community helped to shape America. There is also more than a hint that this is meant to be a polemic in favor of that traditional concept as it developed, especially under the influence of 19th century German immigration. He is highly favorable toward the pro-family social progressivism of the early 20th century (think Americans like Theodore Roosevelt, Brits like Chesterton).

This was intellectually one of the most interesting things I've listened to in a long time, one of those books I'll now purchase in hard copy; in order to move through more slowly and take-in the charts and footnotes.

[Allyson Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

There was quite a bit of interesting facts of American history that I had no clue about involving the American view of the family and how that has changed over the centuries. A lot of the book was hard for me to keep up with, but overall very informative. We did have it right at one point in time (the proper view of the family I mean) but it was built on the shaky foundation of cultural whims and government policies rather than the commandment of God. It is going to take a lot of work to recover that in our current culture, but I think the solution lies more with individual Christian families living their lives as God commands unapologetically for lasting change to take place.

[Matt Jaeger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent - have you ever asked the question "how did we get here?"?

The answer to that question is like a blanket made up of thousands of individual strands of yarn, each with it's own unique history. This book seeks to provide some context to that question as it relates to the American family unit, and it's evolution over time.

Highly recommend as a useful history supplement when considering modern American history.

[M Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting book, and well written. Academic, but strong and engaging prose. Very “Hillsdale-esque,” so the drawback is that it is often a bit too intellectually ecumenical. Worth the read, nevertheless.

[Matthew Bailey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great listen

[Josiah Richardson · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are looking for a history of the family, specifically from the context of early American life, this is a good spot to begin. The life and appreciation of families, what makes a good family a good family, family engagement and importance, and why families are (or were) the foundation for the American way are all found in this book. Conversely, to see how far we have fallen in understanding and seeking for the furtherance of the family unit in our culture today is stark. This book is more history than theology proper, but I only say that for category reasons - not because it is a negative aspect.

[Thomas Kidd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent brief historical survey of how we went from a nation built on the family economy to the radical disintegration of economics and family that we have today. And, if you are a rock-ribbed hater of all things related to the New Deal, this book might make you see some good in FDR's plan.

[Jonathan]

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