Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-vsgnj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-18T04:08:06.488Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“Fewer Children of Greater Spiritual Quality”: Religion and the Decline of Fertility in Nineteenth-Century America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Donald H. Parkerson  and
Jo Ann Parkerson
Donald H. Parkerson
Affiliation:
East Carolina University, Greenville, NC 27858
Jo Ann Parkerson
Affiliation:
East Carolina University, Greenville, NC 27858
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Over six decades ago, A. M. Carr-Sanders first identified the dramatic shift from a population regime of high mortality and high fertility before 1750 to one of low mortality and low fertility after 1900 (Carr-Sanders, 1925). Carr-Sanders had a simple explanation for these changes. Improved sanitation and advances in medicine had lowered mortality while an increase in the standard of living had triggered a temporary increase in fertility. As technological innovations reduced the economic utility of children, however, individuals responded by limiting their fertility.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , Spring 1988 , pp. 49 - 70
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1988 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderton, D. and Bean, L. (1985) “Birth spacing and fertility limitation: A behavioral analysis of a nineteenth century frontier population.” Demography 22 (2): 169–183.Google Scholar
Barker-Benfield, B. (1972) “The spermatic economy, a nineteenth century view of sexuality.” Feminist Studies 1: 45–74.Google Scholar
Bash, W. (1955) “Differential fertility in Madison County, New York, 1865.” Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly 33: 161–186.Google Scholar
Becker, G. (1960) “An economic analysis of fertility,” in Committee for Economic Research (ed.) Demographic and Economic Change in Developed Countries. Princeton: Princeton University Press: 209–231.Google Scholar
Blauvelt, M. (1981) “Women and revivalism,” in Women and Religion in America. San Francisco: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Blumin, S. (1975) “Rip van Winkle’s grandchildren: Family and household in the Hudson River Valley, 1800-1860.” Journal of Urban History 1 (3) (May): 293–315.Google Scholar
Brumberg, J. (1980) Mission for Life: The Democratic Effect of the First American Foreign Mission and the Course of Evangelical Religion in the Nineteenth Century. New York.Google Scholar
Bushman, Claudia L. (1981) A Good Poor Man’s Wife: Being a Chronicle of Harriet Hanson Robinson and Her Family in Nineteenth-Century New England. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England.Google Scholar
Bushnell, H. (1858) Christian Nurture. New Haven: Yale University Press (Reprint Edition, 1947).Google Scholar
Byers, E. (1982) “Fertility transition in a New England commercial center: Nan-tucket, Massachusetts, 1680-1840.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 13 (1) (Summer): 17–40.Google Scholar
Carlsson, G. (1966) “The decline of fertility: Innovation or adjustment process.” Population Studies 20: 149–174.Google Scholar
Carr-Sanders, A. M. (1925) Population. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Child, L. (1831) The Mother’s Book. Boston: Carter and Hendee (Reprint Edition, 1972 Arno Press).Google Scholar
Coale, A. (1965) “Factors associated with the development of low fertility: An historic summary,” in Proceedings of the World Population Conference Vol. II New York: United Nations: 205–209.Google Scholar
Conant, W. (1858) Narratives of Remarkable Conversions and Revival Incidents. New York: Derby and Jackson.Google Scholar
Degler, C. (1980) At Odds: Women and the Family in America from the Revolution to the Present. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Demeny, P. (1968) “Early fertility decline in Austria-Hungary: A lesson in demographic transition.” Daedalus 97: 502–522.Google Scholar
Easterlin, R. (1976a) “Population change and farm settlement in the northern United States.” The Journal of Economic History 36: 45–74.Google Scholar
Easterlin, R. (1976b) “Factors in the decline of farm family fertility in the United States: Some preliminary results.” Journal of American History 43: 600–614.Google Scholar
Easterlin, R., Alter, G., and Condron, G. (1978) “Farm families in old and new areas: The northern United States in 1860.” In Hareven, T. and Vinovskis, M. (eds.) Family and Population in Nineteenth Century America. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Forster, C. and Tucker, G. S. L. (1972) Economie Opportunity and White American Fertility Ratios, 1800-1860. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Freedman, R., Whelpton, P. K., and Campbell, D. A.. (1959) Family Planning, Sterility, and Population Growth. New York: McGraw Hill.Google Scholar
Guest, A. and Tolnay, S. (1983a) “Urban industrial structure and fertility: The case of large American cities.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 13 (Winter): 387–409.Google Scholar
Guest, A. and Tolnay, S. (1983b) “Children’s roles and fertility.” Social Science History 7 (4): 355–380.Google Scholar
Hart, H. (1922) “Differential fertility in Iowa.” Iowa Studies in Child Welfare 2: 37–39.Google Scholar
Henry, L. (1961) “Some data on natural fertility.” Eugenics Quarterly 8: 81–91.Google Scholar
Holmes, S. J. (1924) “The size of college families.” Journal of Heredity 15: 407–415.Google Scholar
Jaffe, A. J. (1939) “Religious differentials in net reproduction rate.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 34: 335–342.Google Scholar
Janssen, S. and Hauser, R. (1981) “Religion, socialization and fertility.” Demography 18 (4): 511–528.Google Scholar
Jensen, R. (1971) The Winning of the Midwest. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Johnson, N. (1982) “Religious differentials in reproduction: The effects of sectarian education.” Demography 19 (4): 495–509.Google Scholar
Kleppner, P. (1970) The Cross of Culture. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Knodel, J. (1977) “Family limitation and the fertility transition: Evidence from the age patterns of fertility in Europe and Asia.” Population Studies 31: 219–249.Google Scholar
Laidig, G., Schutjer, W., and Stokes, C. (1981) “Agricultural variation and human fertility in antebellum Pennsylvania.” Journal of Family History (Summer): 195–204.Google Scholar
Leasure, W. (1963) “Factors involved in the decline of fertility in Spain.” Population Studies 16: 271–285.Google Scholar
Lesthaeghe, R. (1971) “Nuptiality and population growth.” Population Studies 25 (3): 415–432.Google Scholar
Logue, Barbara I. (1985) “The case for birth control before 1850: Nantucket reexamined.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 15: 371–391.Google Scholar
Mosher, W. and Hendershot, G. (1984) “Religion and fertility: A replication.” Demography 21 (2): 185–191.Google Scholar
Perry, L. (1980) Childhood, Marriage and Reform: Henry Clarke Wright, 1797-1870. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Reuther, R. and Keller, R. [eds.] (1981) Women and Religion in America. Vol. I. San Francisco: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Richards, L. (1970) Gentlemen of Property and Standing: Anti-Abolition Mobs in Jacksonian America. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Robinson, G. K. (1936) “The Catholic birth rate: Further facts and implications.” American Journal of Sociology 41: 757–768.Google Scholar
Ryan, M. (1981) Cradle of the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County, New York: 1790-1865. New York.Google Scholar
Smith, D. S. (1973) “Family limitation, sexual control and domestic feminism in Victorian America.” Feminist Studies 1 (Winter-Spring): 40–57.Google Scholar
Spengler, J. (1974) Population Change, Modernization and Welfare. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
St. Charles Biographical Directory and Census Report, 1885. Chicago: J. P. Wilcox.Google Scholar
Stern, M. (1983) “Differential fertility in rural Erie County, New York, 1855.” Journal of Social History (Summer): 49–63.Google Scholar
Thompson, W. (1925) “Size of families from which college students come.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 20: 481–493.Google Scholar
Tolnay, S. and Guest, A. (1984) “American family building strategies in 1900: Stopping or spacing.” Demography 21: 9–18.Google Scholar
van de Walle, E. and Knodel, J. (1980) “Europe’s fertility transition: New evidence and lessons for today’s developing world.” Population Bulletin XXXIV (February): 1–43.Google Scholar
Vinovskis, M. (1978) “Marriage patterns in nineteenth century New York State: A multivariate analysis.” Journal of Family History 3 (1): 51–61.Google Scholar
Westoff, C. and Jones, E. (1979) “The end of Catholic fertility.” Demography 16 (2): 209–217.Google Scholar
Westoff, C. F., Potter, R. G., and Sagi, P. C. (1963) “Some selected findings of the Princeton fertility study.” Demography 1: 130–135.Google Scholar
Whelpton, P. K., Campbell, A. A., and Patterson, J. E. (1966) Fertility and Family Planning in the United States. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Wrigley, E. A. (1966) “Family limitation in pre-industrial England.” Economic History Review 19: 82–109.Google Scholar
Yasuba, Y. (1963) Birth Rates of the White Population of the United States 1800-1860: An Economic Study. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, Series LXXIX: 2.Google Scholar