Household Structure on an American Frontier: Los Angeles, California, in 1850

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

Based on individual United States federal census schedules, this paper reports on the ways in which economic and demographic variables relate to different types of household organization in Los Angeles in 1850. While the findings confirm the results of other recent research that the nuclear family predominated in preindustrial societies, they also emphasize the need to focus on variation. Methodological problems of working with this kind of data are discussed, as are the implications of the results for the study of social change.