Barren in the Promised Land: Childless Americans and the Pursuit of Happiness [Paperback]

Elaine T. May (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0674061829 | ISBN-13: 978-0674061828 | Publication Date: April 25, 1997

Chronicling astonishing shifts in public attitudes toward reproduction, from the association of barrenness with sin in colonial times, to the creation of laws for compulsory sterilization in the early twentieth century, from the baby craze of the 1950s, to the rise in voluntary childlessness in the 1990s, to the increasing reliance on startling reproductive technologies today, Elaine Tyler May reveals the intersection between public life and the most private part of our lives—sexuality, procreation, and family.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"Do we want children?" This major question has only recently been asked in our society. As May, professor of American studies at the University of Minnesota, points out in this well-thought-out analysis, childbearing was an economic necessity until this century. After WWII, the family became the center of social status and stability. "Procreation shifted from a matter of survival and necessity to a source of expansion, national identity, and personal happiness." In the domestic ecstasy of the '50s, those without were considered at best handicapped, at worst deviant. And now the pendulum swings back. In the '70s, the concept of "childfree" emerged, preferred over the term"childless" because the latter "implies that one's natural state is to have children." May cites Ellen Peck (The Baby Trap), who claims, "The men I meet who don't have children talk about their wives. The men who have kids ask me out." May takes readers through the shifts in opinion over the centuries, from barren women being perceived as witches to childfree women being accused of hedonism and self-indulgence; from pregnancy as a life-threatening state to designer genes and contemporary couples unwilling to accept the prospect of no children. She doesn't take sides but places the available information at the disposal of her readers. Photos.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Voluntary childlessness, compulsory sterilization, contraception, abortion, infertility, and childbearing have all played significant and sometimes shameful roles in America's social development. This book examines reproduction as a tool of political and social control from Colonial times to the present. Children were an economic necessity and a communal responsibility during the Colonial period, but an expanding economy and a changing society made family life private and parenthood the province of the worthy. May, a social historian, uses historical sources and responses to an author's query to illustrate changing attitudes toward childlessness. Unlike Susan S. Lang's Women Without Children (Pharos Bks., dist. by St. Martin's, 1991), which deals only with the psychological aspects, this book places childlessness within a social and historical context, providing an added dimension. An interesting addition to women's studies and social science collections.?Barbara Bibel, Oakland P.L., Oakland, Ca.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (April 25, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674061829
• ISBN-13: 978-0674061828
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,853,629 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars good ideas, September 4, 2004

By 

James Seymour (Houston, Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Barren in the Promised Land: Childless Americans and the Pursuit of Happiness (Paperback)

Tyler May's book does a good job tracing the history of childlessness in the US from colonial times to the present. I wish she had dedicated more of the book to those who are childfree by choice. Much of the second part of the book dealt with those who experienced infertility problems, rather than voluntary childfree status.

Further, I wish she had examined more how society dictates that people have children, especially how this relates to masculine and feminine gender identities.

Overall, though, I found the book engaging and the personal stories of the infertile hair-raising.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Suitable for teething, December 6, 2004

By 

Jeffrey Leach (Omaha, NE USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Barren in the Promised Land: Childless Americans and the Pursuit of Happiness (Paperback)

Elaine Tyler May's "Barren in the Promised Land: Childless Americans and the Pursuit of Happiness" fills an important gap in American social history. Through the use of myriad sources--largely secondary sources but also a collection of more than 500 letters sent to the author by voluntarily and involuntarily childless people--May concludes that the issue of reproduction and the social, economic, and political responses to it changed over time. The author decided to explore the topic after witnessing the public spectacle of the "Baby M" case, in which a surrogate mother hired by an infertile couple to bear their child chose to keep the baby instead of relinquishing custody as required by prior arrangement. Media reports on the case presented surrogate motherhood as a recent phenomenon, a claim May found to be erroneous upon further investigation. The press also presented infertility as a recently discovered problem, another claim the author easily refuted. It was how the media framed the Baby M case that interested the author the most, namely how public and private life in America interacts regarding the issue of childbearing. Reproduction as a private activity and its importance, or perceived importance, in the public sphere forms a central component of the book's structural framework.

Beginning in colonial times, reproduction and the public sphere were inseparable. The economic importance of children to the family, and the family as a pillar of the larger society, led to great social pressure on women to bear as many children as possible. The overtly religious atmosphere of the time labeled the childless sinful. May points out that many of the women accused of witchcraft either had no children or less than the customary number. With the creation of the American nation and the subsequent expansion to the shores of the Pacific, childbearing became an important tenet of the Manifest Destiny ideology. Male settlers broke the soil and built civilization; women populated it with children. Simultaneously, society began associating children with familial happiness. No less a figure than George Washington waxed optimistic about the importance of the "connubial life" in which children figured prominently. Another shift occurred when massive immigration into the country during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century fundamentally challenged the prior conceptions of childbirth. Descendents of the original Anglo-Saxon colonists began issuing dire warnings about "race suicide" as white childlessness increased. The emergence of eugenics was a direct result of the social strains caused by the immigration of "unfit" races. The fear of alien peoples also inspired a great concern about who should or should not have the right to bear children. Sterilization became the answer.

Starting in the post-World War II years and continuing for some time after, laws appeared on the books allowing physicians to sterilize some men and a large number of women deemed "feebleminded" or mentally unfit. The sterilization efforts eventually zeroed in most heavily on the poor and minority groups. Despite the flurry of public activity to stimulate the "right" sorts of childbearing, many women proved amazingly resistant to these pleas. A growing number passed up the opportunity to have children in favor of other pursuits. Public concern with all things children soared during the Baby Boom, when a huge increase in the number of methods and treatments to cure infertility took place in a country obsessed with equating children with happiness, success, and domestic security. After the tumult of the 1960s, and accelerating in the 1970s and beyond, voluntary childlessness not only increased but also gained a measure of acceptance even as the infertile sought even more intricate and expensive medical procedures in an effort to cure their problem.

May's study is at its best when examining the problems of childlessness from the colonial era to the 1960s. In these chapters, she strongly ties the issue of barrenness to historical cause and effect. She cites, for example, films, statements made by noted public figures such as J. Edgar Hoover, and numerous magazine articles published during the 1950s to make a strong argument for the centrality of reproduction in American society during that time. There is such overwhelming evidence in support of childbearing in the post war years that it is not difficult at all to imagine the intense pressure placed on those individuals and couples unfortunate enough to suffer from infertility. May allows us to see how damaging the absence of children could be to a couple. A man applying for work in the 1950s and early 1960s could miss out on numerous job opportunities if he and his wife did not have children because employers thought such people were irresponsible or untrustworthy. Workers without children continue to suffer in the office and factory today, as employers still tend to pay employees with children higher wages.

"Barren in the Promised Land" falters once it moves beyond the 1970s. After briefly discussing the reemergence of a new pronatalist movement in the 1980s, May resorts to a laundry list of the pros and cons of voluntary and involuntary childlessness culled from her letters. Unfortunately, the reader never gets a sense of how the comments in these letters tie into the larger framework of American society. Where is the examination of institutional response to the issue of childbearing after the 1970s? More specifically, how did the childlessness issue shape the larger social, economic, and political landscape in the late 1980s and after? In the introduction to her book, May explains that the Baby M case inspired her to write this study of childlessness. Strangely, the author mentions the case once or twice and then never refers to it again. A chapter devoted solely to this incident might have shed further light on the thorny issue of public versus private spheres as they relate to reproduction, thus giving the study additional weight. Moreover, it is an excellent example with which to specifically examine the convoluted situation that childlessness became in the 1980s and 1990s.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent, thoroughly-researched book!, July 7, 2003

By 

"jitterrr" (Idaho United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Barren in the Promised Land: Childless Americans and the Pursuit of Happiness (Paperback)

Hooray for Elaine Tyler May! This is a very well researched cultural study of infertility. It will be particularly helpful to those who desire to be parents or to those who are parents after a long struggle with infertility. As an infertile woman in the United States, I was empowered by seeing so clearly how I fit into the history of the country. Perhaps a detailed academic study is not everyone's idea of fun reading, but I was enthralled. I could not put this book down and read it cover to cover, questioning constantly how my education could have had so many obvious, women-centered omissions. I count few books as life-changing but, for me, this is one of them.