Territorial Ambition by S. Charles Bolton

Author:S. Charles Bolton [Bolton, S. Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General, United States, State & Local, South (AL; AR; FL; GA; KY; LA; MS; NC; SC; TN; VA; WV), 19th Century
ISBN: 9781610756877
Google: XEzEDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
Published: 2020-04-10T00:37:12+00:00

The American family began to drop in size in the late eighteenth century. In 1800, women who were married throughout their reproductive years gave birth to an average of about seven children; by 1840, that figure had dropped to six, and by 1900 it was down to four. The change occurred first in the Northeast within a commercial economy that was moving toward industrialism; only slowly did it affect the agricultural South. Historian Daniel Scott Smith has argued that smaller families were linked to increasing female autonomy. Women wanted to have fewer children in order to have more time and energy for themselves, and they convinced their husbands to participate in family planning and birth control.9

Meanwhile, Arkansas women were the most prolific in the nation in 1840. The refined birth rate, calculated as the number of children under ten for every one thousand women aged sixteen through forty-four, was higher in Arkansas than any other state or territory and a startling 43 percent higher than in the United States as a whole.10 The effect of this fertility on Arkansas households is illustrated in Table 9.

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