Single Fatherhood in the United States

Pew Research Center reports that households headed by single fathers in America have risen to more than 2.6 million households and make up about 24% of all single parent households. Yet the history of single father households is a history left unwritten. This paper addresses the ways in which single father families disrupt notions of the family ideal and demonstrates how notions of fatherhood intertwine with gendered power structures. Unpacking the historically contingent trope of the single father illuminates issues of welfare, race, gender, sexuality, and citizenship. In doing so, this paper will consider how specific groups– including social workers, caseworkers, judges, and psychiatrists– from the Great Depression through World War II encouraged a particular type of fatherhood and family (white, married, heterosexual). These cultural and social authorities saw single fathers as problems who disrupt traditional family structures and blur the lines of “motherly” and “fatherly” roles. How these groups sought to “fix” these men, however, has never been static, and reflects broader politics and anxieties around “family” in U.S. culture and society. Consideration of single fathers adds to historical scholarship of single-parent households that has largely focused on the trope of the single mother, within larger frameworks of women, motherhood, and domesticity. Yet, even if smaller in number, throughout the twentieth century social workers, public officials, and people of faith have had a lot to say about the meaning of single fatherhood in U.S. society. Their prejudice has had long-lasting ramifications in terms of culture representations in media, as well as social policies. This paper seeks to highlight their stories and representations to illuminate how non-normative family has been and continues to be a locus of interference in the United States.