Doctoral Dissertation Research: Family Membership, Marital Status, and Citizenship

婚姻状况和在传统家庭中的成员身份一直是确定民族归属感的核心。自美利坚共和国早期以来，理想的公民一直被想象为已婚和家庭的一部分。这个项目将研究国家如何制定旨在规范单身人士生活的法律和政策，以及单身人士的身份如何塑造个人与国家的关系以及他们对公民身份的要求。这个项目将关注世纪上半叶美国的五类单身人士：第一次世界大战退伍军人，单身移民，年轻的单身女性，临时工，以及大萧条时期失业的年轻单身男性。基于公民身份、性别和流动性的理论，本项目将采用档案收集和文件的定性分析，分析国家对单身威胁的各种法律的反应。通过分析单身人士和国家的法律的历史，本研究将提供针对非传统家庭和单身的法律和政策的见解。最终，这项研究将评估家庭成员身份和婚姻状况以及缺乏家庭成员身份和婚姻状况如何影响人们对公民身份的理解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并且通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的知识价值进行评估，被认为值得支持影响审查标准。

Marital status and membership in a traditional family have been central in defining a sense of belonging in the nation. Since the early years of the American Republic, the ideal citizen has been imagined as married and part of a family. This project will examine how the state created laws and policies designed to regulate the lives of single people, and how status as a single person shaped individual’s relationship to the state and their claim to citizenship.This project will focus on five groups of single people in the U.S. during the first half of the 20th century: World War I veterans, single immigrants, young single women, transients, and young unemployed single men during the Depression. Based on theories of citizenship, gender, and mobility, this project will employ a qualitative analysis of archival collections and documents to analyze the various legal responses of the state to the perceived threat of singleness. By analyzing the legal history of single people and the state, this research will provide insight into laws and policies aimed at nontraditional families and singleness. Ultimately, this study will assess how family membership and marital status, and the lack thereof, have shaped an understanding of citizenship.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.