The Gerontologist, Vol 32, Issue 4 519-526, Copyright © 1992 by The Gerontological Society of America

ARTICLES

Parental dependence and filial responsibility in the nineteenth century: Hial Hawley and Emily Hawley Gillespie, 1884-1885

EK Abel
UCLA School of Public Health, University of California 90024-1772.

This paper examines diaries written by an Iowa farm woman and her daughter in the 1880s that focus on care of the former's father. It highlights the problems intergenerational living arrangements could produce in the 19th century. In addition, it examines three general themes: the impact on adult children of financial responsibility for elderly parents, the responses of elderly people to structures of subordination, and the significance of hierarchies of gender as well as generation.