IN SEARCH OF ‘INTIMACY AT A DISTANCE’: Family History from the Perspective of Elderly Wooed BRiAN GRATTON Arizona State University CAROLE HABER* Unjversjty of ~0~~ Caro/in~ ABSTRACT: Trudjtio~aIly, the elderly5 ~~stori&a~ status in America has been protrayed as evolving from rural-based authority to urban-centered powerlessness. Both twentieth-century advocates for the old as well as many recent scholars have depicted the nostalgic farm household as the ideal arrangement for the old, and assumed that the autonomous household structure of the old is based on urban neglect and abandonment. When viewed through the perspective of elderly women who resided on the farm. in the city, and in the village, this interpretation cannot be sustained. At the turn of the century, elderly farm widows were the most dependent of all women. In contrast, ~na~cial~y secure women in urban and especially village areas were far more iikely to remain heads of their households and establish “intimacy at a distance” with their offspring. These historical preferences then have implications for understanding the residential patterns of today. Rather than neglect, the living arrangements of the old women reflect the impact of Social Security; residential autonomy is no longer the privlege of a few, but has become the preferred pattern of the majority. In the early twentieth century, social advocates for the elderly argued that industrial, urbanized families had little use for the otd. A host of progressive social critics asserted that as long as America had been a rural and agricultural land the elderly had been *Direct all correspondence IO: Carole Haber, Department oJHistory, zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSR University $Norlh Carolina-Charlotte, Charlotte, NC 28223. JOURNAL OF AGING STUDIES, Volume 7, Number 2, pages 183-194 Copyright @ 1993 by JAI Press Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. ISSN: 08~4065.