Households,Kinfolk,and Absent Teenagers: The Demographic Transition in the Old South

Abstract

This article examines eleven hundred white households from the federal census for the years 1810 to 1860 in three rural counties, Charlotte County, Virginia; Caswell County, North Carolina; and Darlington County, South Carolina, the first systemic examination of yeoman and planter households in the Old South. Household structure varies according to the wealth of the household head: the richer the household, the less likely it is to be nuclear in organization. Household size also varies according to wealth-holding: the richest households tend to be the largest, and the poorest households tend to be the smallest. In the late antebellum era, household size drops for all whites, but the standard explanations do not apply. Instead, yeomen led the way in the obligation transition by taking in fewer dependent relatives and sending their teenage children out in the world, while planters entered the early phases of the fertility transition by increasing intervals between their children.