Family History and the Life Course

*Glen Elder is Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina and Fellow at the Boys Town Center for the Study of Youth Development. His work Children of the Great Depression was published in 1974. At present he is doing research on four generations of families (1870-1970), based on data collected at the Institute of Human Development, University of California at Berkeley. Change within families over the life course has been documented by studies since the turn of the century, in particular the sequential change in family relationships, adaptive options, and material welfare that occurs through the addition, aging, and loss of members. Rowntree’s study of York, England (1901) is generally acknowledged as the earliest antecedent of research in the family cycle tradition, most of which has been carried out since 1955.