Social Negotiations in Correspondence between Mothers and Daughters in Tudor and Early Stuart England

This article examines correspondence between mothers and daughters in sixteenth- and early-seventeenth-century England, as a way of investigating the distinct nature of mother–daughter relationships during this period, and of studying the ways in which such relationships were negotiated through the epistolary medium. Based on approximately 100 letters extant for the period 1530 to 1620, it applies recent innovations in the field of Renaissance letter-writing to the social-cultural history of early modern women and the family. Rhetorical and material reading strategies, it argues, shed important new light on letters as evidence of mother–daughter relationships, and such interpretive methodologies are useful in reading, situating and understanding broader social relationships inscribed within correspondence.     

Mothers and Their Adolescent Daughters: Relationship Between Self-Esteem,Gender Role Identity,Body Image

The relationship between the predictor variables of self-esteem and gender role identity, and the criterion measure of body image, were examined for 82 mothers and their menstrual daughters, and for 31 mothers and their premenstrual daughters. Findings from the regression analyses indicated that higher self-esteem was significantly related to positive body image scores for menstrual daughters and both groups of mothers, but not for the premenstrual participants. The role of gender identity in contributing to body image was more complex, with greater femininity being correlated with more positive body image for the premenstrual daughters and for the mothers of the menstrual daughters, and greater masculinity being correlated with more positive body image scores for the menstrual girls in the study. Mothers' body image scores were positively correlated with their daughters' body image scores for mother/menstrual daughter pairs but not for the mother/premenstrual daughter pairs in the study. Results support a complex relationship between age, physical maturation, and mother/daughter dynamics in contributing to the development of a positive body image for adolescent girls during puberty.     

Letters

Frame‐Up. By Curt Gentry, New York: W. W. Norton. 1967. 477 pp. $7.50.

Abraham Bisno: Union Pioneer. Foreword by Joel Seidman. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 1967. 244 pp. $6.50.

Constitutional Politics in the Progressive Era: Child Labor and the Law. By Stephen B. Wood. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1968. 320 pp. $10.00.

The Academic Mind and Reform: The Influence of Richard T. Ely in American Life. By Benjamin G. Rader. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1966. 276 pp. $7.50.

Homer Folks: Pioneer in Social Welfare. By Walter I. Trattner. New York and London: Columbia University Press. 1968. 355 pp. $10.00.

Poverty and Politics, The Rise and Decline of the Farm Security Administration. By Stanley Baldwin. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 1968. 438 pp. $10.00.

Labor Politics American Style: California Federation of Labor. By Philip Taft. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1968. 288 pp. $7.00.

The Political Imperative. By Gus Tyler. New York: Macmillan, 1968. 306 pp. $6.95.

Retraining the Unemployed. Edited by Gerald G. Somers. Madison, Milwaukee, and London: The University of Wisconsin Press. 1968. 341 pp. $10.00.

Economic Failure, Alienation, and Extremism. By Michael Aiken, Louis A. Ferman, and Harold L. Sheppard. Ann Arbor, Mich.: The University of Michigan Press. 1968. vi + 213 pp. $7.50.

Class, Race and Labor: Working‐Class Consciousness in Detroit. By John C. Leggett. New York: Oxford University Press. 1968. 252 pp. $7.50.

Permanent Poverty, An American Syndrome. By Ben B. Seligman. Chicago: Quadrangle, 1968. 238 pp. $6.50.

The Socialist Register 1968. Edited by Ralph Miliband and John Saville. New York: Monthly Review Press. 1968. $6.50.

Experiment in Industrial Democracy: A Study of the John Lewis Partnership. By Allan Flanders, Ruth Pomeranz and Joan Woodward. London: Faber &; Faber. 1968. 261 pp. 45s.

Politics and the Labor Movement in Latin America. By Victor Alba. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. 1968. 404 pp. $12.50.

EL MOVIMENTO OBRERO ESPAÑOL, 1886–1926: (HISTORIA Y CRÍT‐ICA.) By Manuel Buenacasa. Prologue by Max Nettlau. 2nd ed. Paris: Familia y Amigos del Autor. 1966. 320 pp.

Rural Economy and Country Life in the Medieval West. By Georges Duby. Translated by Cynthia Postan. Columbia, S.C.: The University of South Carolina Press. 1968. 600 pp. $10.00.

The Chinese Labor Movement, 1919–1927. By Jean Chesneaux. Translated from the French by H. M. Wright. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. 1968. 574 pp. $15. (Originally published in French in 1962 under the title Le mouvement ouvrier chinois de 1919 a 1927.)     

Two Mothers in Law and Fact

What is the proper balance between legislative and judicial innovation and between formal and functional family recognition once legislatures have addressed gay men’s and lesbians’ families? In the civil-law jurisdiction of Quebec, legislative reforms allow two women to register as a child’s mothers. But judges have recognized a second mother ‘in fact’ by orders sharing custody where the parties had not used the new legislative channels. Such judicial creativity is reconcilable with the civil law and comparative scholars should flag it as a valuable resource. But it risks undermining legislative choices about family recognition. Perhaps the option to give a child a second mother includes the choice for a lesbian birth mother not to do so. Once two women become thinkable as spouses and mothers, judges risk inappropriately pressing a rich range of queer kinship possibilities into standard models.     

Black Adolescent Mothers and Their Families:

This chapter addresses the impact the Black adolescent mother and her child have on their family, and reviews the literature bn programs that serve adolescent mothers. The review indicates that the adolescent is usually viewed as the primary client; few efforts have been made to focus on the family in rendering services. A pilot program including the famities of Black adolescent mothers is discussed here to highlight strategies for providing services within a family context. Barriers to providing services to families are also explored. Finally, a continuum indicating the range of sewices that can be provided to adolescent mothers and their families is proposed.     

Consumer Perceptions of Black Adolescent Mothers

This paper reports data from interviews with Black adolescent mothers whol receive a cross-section of health and social services. This study identified factors related to the utilization of services by adolescent mothers; it described how they perceived the identified problems, what their needs are as mothers and their view of services they receive. Implications and suggestions for program development processes are outlined, with an emphasis on the importance of the adolescent mothers' potential contributions to program planning development, as well as to their own social development. Comprehensive services will strengthen those aspects of social development that Black adolescent mother themselves recognize as significant as well, it is hoped, open new vistas for teens in our society.