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University of California Press

About the Book

One of the pioneering works of modern sociology, Family and Kinship in East London is a study of family life in the East End of London in the 1950s, based on extensive interviews and case studies, which examines the consequences of moving families from urban to suburban public housing. The book was first published in 1954, updated in 1989, and is here presented with a new foreword by Judith Stacey.

About the Author

Michael Young is President of Birkbeck College, University of London, and Director of the Institute of Community Studies. Peter Willmott is a Senior Fellow at the Policy Studies Institute and Visiting Professor of Social Policy and Administration at the University of London. Judith Stacey is author of Brave New Families: Stories of Domestic Upheaval in 20th Century America.

Table of Contents

Foreword, by Judith Stacey
List of Tables
New Introduction
Introduction

PART ONE
KINSHIP IN BETHNAL GREEN
I. Husbands and Wives, Past and Present
2. Where People Live
3· Mothers and Daughters
4· Husbands and Mothers
5· The Kinship Network
6. The Family in the Economy
7· Kinship and Community

PART TWO
FAMILIES ON THE MOVE
8. From Bethnal Green to Greenleigh
g. The Family at Greenleigh
IO. Keeping Themselves to Themselves
II. Movement Between Classes
I2. In Conclusion: Planning and Family Life

List of References
Index

Reviews

"A wonderfully vivid, accurately observed portrait of a way of life, whose value as a historical document increases as the East End of small factories, docks and busy streets of row houses disappears, and with it the culture of the old Bethnal Green."—Dolores Hayden, author of The Grand Domestic Revolution