HDFS 201 Assignment 3

HDFS 201 Assignment 3


1. Aulette describes the history of the African-American family in terms of a struggle between the African Americans and Southern whites to control and profit from the labor of African Americans. How did this struggle impact the African-American family life during slavery, sharecropping, and industrialization? Give examples. (8 points)

During the Slavery period African-Americans were almost exclusively located in the south. During this time period all of the control and profit from African-American labor was held by the small percentage of Whites who owned most of the slaves and plantations. At this time 90% of African -Americans were still slaves and the other 10% still worked lower wage skill jobs in urban areas of the south. Tradition families were hard to find in the African-American culture during this time period, because all new born African-Americans were legally property of the slave owner, and could be traded or sold.
The sharecropping period began once the slave system was abolished after the Civil War. During this time period Southern whites still had most of the control and profit from African-American labor. Now it was due to constant debt that was built up from African-American sharecroppers, because a quota was to be met in order to pay back the Southern white land owners for the tools, land, animals, and homes that were being loaned to sharecroppers. This create the ability for African-Americans to create traditional families since they now worked together and lived together as a family as opposed to property. The freedom that African-Americans received during this time period was the freedom to form autonomous independent families. Threats to black women and children led to African-Americans creating male headed nuclear family.
The introduction of machinery during the Industrialization period eliminated the large need of sharecroppers. This created the need for African-Americans to move out north and find new jobs to sustain...

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