The Changing American Family

10           The Second Wave family: Three hundred years ago, the Industrial Revolu­tion exploded in England and triggered the Second Wave of change.

11      The old style family which worked so well as a production team in the fields did not fit well in the new evolving world of factories and offices. The elderly couldn’t keep up with the clattering machines. Children were too undisciplined
to be really efficient factory hands. And the industrial economy needed workers who could move from city to city as jobs opened up or closed. That was hard to do with a big family.