ABSTRACT
The rapid modernization that accompanied the second phase of industrialization in America at the beginning of this century brought with it profound economic changes. Home was seen as the place where traditional values were preserved, and as a refuge from the pressures of a threatening public sphere. In 1908 the American Sociological Society devoted its annual conference to the problems of the family, and set its seal of approval on the institution of divorce as necessary both to the freedom of emotional expression within it, and to the continued existence of marriage itself. Birth control, similarly, was viewed as offering the hope that sexual activity might once again be restored to the province of the family, thus giving it a new vitality and meaning. The Progressive movement in particular made much of the vital importance of social commitment for the self-realization of the individual and of the real possibility of social change resulting from individual involvement.
