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Where are the Women in the History of Aging?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Marjorie Chary Feinson
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Extract

Many Historians of the social aging process have focused primarily on the experiences of aging white men. A prime example is provided in the seminal work of David Hackett Fischer, Growing Old in America (1978). In tracing the reversal in societal attitudes toward the aged, from gerontocratic to gerontophobic, Fischer argues that the authority of the elders in the eighteenth century was very great (1978: 220). Clearly, he was not referring to women for, as Fischer himself acknowledges, “no one would claim that colonial females exerted much political power.” And obviously, he was not including black male and female slaves or poor white men. Nor does his general theme of exultation apply to aging colonial widows who

were treated with a contempt which deepened all the more by their womanhood. Some were actually driven away by their neighbors, who feared an increase in the poor rates. The legal records of the colonies contain many instances of poor widows who were … forced to wander from one town to another (Fischer, 1978: 63).

Type
Review Essay
Information
Social Science History , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , Fall 1985 , pp. 429 - 452
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1985 

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