A Century of Concern

Abstract

Many of the concerns about the family described in Chapter 1 have mounted during the past century. In 1889, Commissioner of Labor Carroll D. Wright shocked the nation with his report that the number of divorces had increased from 10,000 in 1867 to 25,000 in 1886, a rise of 157% compared to the population increase of 100% from 1870 to 1890 (Ellwood, 1910). Ellwood stated: “Already in 1885, this country had more divorces than all the rest of the Christian civilized world put together” (p. 114). By the 1880s, desertion and divorce in the cities were major social problems. The first family organization, the National Divorce Reform League (later called the National League for the Protection of the Family) was the forerunner of some current family organizations.

Perhaps the characteristic of the twentieth-century family that most sharply challenges the attention of the student of family history is its instability. —Goodsell (1915, p. 456)