Transformation of Independent and Dependent Life Forms, Kinship Relationships and Ethnicity in a Middle-sized Town and the Surrounding Area in American Midwest.

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This research project is part of larger anthropological project to understand ways of shaping significant lives throughout the life course and the underlying cultural system in aging society. This project examines a specific problem of independence and caring from a case of Riverfront City, a middle-sized town and the surrounding area based primarily upon US Census original manuscripts (years : 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910) with consideration of local historical changes, ethnicity, and gender relationships. First, we focused on the relationship between family moving patterns and caring practice. Polish Americans stayed in town longer than people from eastern states but often moves within the community. They showed independence by becoming owner of new house after marriage but kept close to their parents by living in the same community. Secondly, we analyzed seven family cases where we could trace the original address in 1900 and the moved address in 1910, and found factors of moving such as family developmental cycle, becoming older age, financial reason co-living with other elderly. We also tried to find the women's moving pattern that is difficult to know from written historical materials by using the cemetery record compiled by a local historian, and found the intimate relationship between once-married-out daughter and her parents from evidence that they were often buried in the same place. In the last project year, we identified families that appeared in more than one census and made charts to visualize family changes. From the charts, we found that we should examine the problem of independence and caring by looking at self-help and the same generational relationship. The compilation of family charts is a significant achievement of this research project. The compiled charts will be used with other research project. We will use it with other materials we obtained in this project for the future investigation.