The Nana Project
Victoria Brown explores the unexamined history of the American grandmother.
When Victoria Brown, L.F. Parker Professor of History, became a grandmother in 2007, she set out to read a history on grandmothers in America — and found there wasn’t one. “There are many books on the histories of motherhood and of being a daughter and a wife, but there’s no attention paid to the cultural and socioeconomic construction of the grandmother,” she says. “This piqued my interest: It’s seldom a historian comes across a topic that is so wholly unstudied.”
Brown has begun to piece together a history herself. Drawing from sociological journals, popular culture, and interviews with women who have witnessed multiple generations of grandmothers in their own lives, she is developing a complex picture of grandmothers’ roles across racial and ethnic groups and throughout the last century. In particular, Brown is examining how the role has evolved due to changing gender roles and economic needs.
“African-American women have worked outside the home in higher numbers longer than white women, so the role of the grandmother as an at-home child care provider has historically been more important,” she says. “I’m interested in asking the question: Are white grandmothers becoming more like African-American and Hispanic grandmothers in the role they play in the family? Have economic and gender changes altered the role of white grandmothers, across class, over time?”
Grinnellians Wanted
Do you — or does a woman in your life — have grandchildren? Brown is interviewing women with a range of experiences as grandmothers. “I’m looking at what grandmothers did in the ’40s versus the ’60s versus today,” Brown explains. “I’m trying to get a bevy of grandmothers I can talk to.”
Brown wants to interview women who have experienced three generations of grandmothers in their lives: their own grandmothers, their children’s grandmother, and themselves as grandmothers today. She seeks a spread of racial and socioeconomic backgrounds, as well as a diversity of relationships: close and distant, paternal and maternal grandmothers.
Interviews last about 90 minutes and can take place in person or via Skype, depending on your location. If you or someone you know is interested in contributing your stories, email Brown at brownv@grinnell.edu.