Claudia Nelson
The Economy of Fatherhood: Paternal Roles in American Adoption Texts, 1850-1924

It has become conventional for historians to speak of the 'decline' of fatherhood in late-nineteenth-century America, arguing that men were becoming invisible in the home as they were defined more and more in terms of their role as economic provider and less and less in terms of their emotional function. Writings having to do with adoption and foster care in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, however, suggest that while many commentators accepted the idea that a father was little more than the sum of his paychecks, many others did not. Fiction and nonfiction texts alike often reflect the common mid-Victorian idea that the father was in charge of 'values governing work, achievement, and property,' in Anthony Rotundo's phrase--but they turn this insight into the basis for representations of fatherhood as varied as they are positive. Within the literature of adoption, at least, fatherhood is frequently described as a crucial source of emotional strength for parent and child alike, and this emotional strength is shown as intimately connected with economic and class concerns, not conflicting with them as the Cult of Domesticity might seem to dictate. Fathers in these texts are neither villains, absences, nor mothers in drag, the three possibilities often delineated by today's scholars of American family life during this period. Rather, they have special and productive roles of their own, a circumstance that calls out for further investigation.