An American Family

An American Family is an American television documentary filmed from May 30 through December 31, 1971 and first aired in the United States on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) from January 11, 1973 to March 29, 1973. After being edited down from about 300 hours of raw footage, the series ran one season of 12 episodes on Thursday nights at 9:00 p.m.

The groundbreaking documentary is considered the first "reality" series on American television. It was originally intended as a chronicle of the daily life of the Louds, an upper middle class family in Santa Barbara, California but ended up documenting the break-up of the family via the separation and subsequent divorce of parents Bill and Pat Loud.

A year after this program was broadcast, the BBC in 1974 filmed its own similar 12-episode program, called The Family, focusing on the working-class Wilkins family, of Reading, Berkshire, England.

The series

In 2011, The New York Times reflected on some of the controversy the series engendered:

An American Family (song)

"An American Family" is a song written by Bob Corbin, and recorded by American country music group The Oak Ridge Boys. It was released in 1989 as the first single from the album American Dreams. The song reached #4 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart.

Content

The song describes a typical American family, and notes that they aren't a big deal and "ain't gonna go down in history", but they are just part of "a little story of an American family." The first verse of the song describes a husband, who worked in a rail yard and is nearing retirement, and his loving wife. The second verse tells how the wife waited for her husband while he fought in World War II and how their son fought in the Vietnam War. It also describes two other children, a son who is a lawyer in Los Angeles, and a daughter who married and stayed in her hometown.

The Oak Ridge Boys re-recorded the song for their patriotic album "Colors" in 2003. This version included a new bridge and chorus at the end of the song which referenced the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The additions shift the focus of the song from a single family to America as a country, and say that all Americans are part of an American family that pulls together during hard times. The 2003 version was recorded with William Lee Golden, while Steve Sanders sang baritone on the original version.

Brothers & Sisters (season 2)

The second season of Brothers & Sisters consisted of only 16 episodes due to the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike. Ten of the episodes were shown beforehand, ending with "The Feast of Epiphany"; a further six episodes were produced to finish off the season. The first half of the season dealt with many issues and plot points left unresolved from the first season.

In the UK the show changed to Channel 4's sister Channel E4 beginning March 30 and ending in July. The series was then repeated on Channel 4 in October of the same year around 4:30 pm on Saturdays, but after a couple of weeks moved it to Sunday nights in an unspecified time slot after midnight.

Cast

Rob Lowe, who portrays Robert McCallister, is upgraded to a series regular as his character prepares to marry Kitty.

This season also introduced new recurring characters Graham Finch (Steven Weber) and Isaac Marshall (Danny Glover) as love interests for Sarah and Nora respectively. Emily Rose will also guest star as Lena Branigan; a friend of Rebecca's who starts working at Walker Landing and grows close to Tommy. Luke Macfarlane will also reappear as Scotty Wandell.

Family structure in the United States

The traditional family structure in the United States is considered a family support system involving two married individuals providing care and stability for their biological offspring. However, this two-parent, nuclear family has become less prevalent, and alternative family forms have become more common. The family is created at birth and establishes ties across generations. Those generations, the extended family of aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins, can hold significant emotional and economic roles for the nuclear family.

Over time, the traditional structure has had to adapt to very influential changes, including divorce and the introduction of single-parent families, teenage pregnancy and unwed mothers, and same-sex marriage, and increased interest in adoption. Social movements such as the feminist movement and the stay-at-home dad have contributed to the creation of alternative family forms, generating new versions of the American family.

American Family

American Family can refer to:

See also

American Family (2002 TV series)

American Family, sometimes called American Family: Journey of Dreams is a PBS series created by Gregory Nava that follows the lives of a Latino family in Los Angeles.

This was the first broadcast television drama series featuring a predominantly Latino cast. It also was the first original primetime American episodic drama to air on PBS in decades -- since the series I'll Fly Away moved to the network.

Nava initially created the series for CBS, which passed on the pilot. PBS picked up 12 remaining episodes for its first season.

Edward James Olmos plays Jess Gonzalez, a Korean War veteran and barber with a cranky disposition as well as five adult children. He and his wife Berta (Sonia Braga) seek a better life for their children. Conrado is a medical school student, who, at the end of the first season, enlists in the Army.

In an interview with Bill Moyers during the airing of the series, Nava was asked if he was not angry that Latinos were invisible during prime-time television. "I think we’re reaching a point right now where Latinos are moving from the fringes into the mainstream of American life. And our time has come right now for us to make our contribution to this country," he said. "So it doesn’t make me angry; I just see it as a challenge. And I think that as a population and as a community we have to rise to that challenge."

Queen: The Story of an American Family

Queen: The Story of an American Family is a 1993 partly factual historical novel by Alex Haley and David Stevens.

It brought back to the consciousness of many white Americans the plight of the children of the plantation: the offspring of black slave women and their white masters, who were legally the property of their fathers.

A miniseries adaptation called Alex Haley's Queen and starring Halle Berry in the title role aired on CBS on February 14, 1993.

Historical background

The noted author Alex Haley (1921–1992) was the grandson of Queen, the illegitimate and unacknowledged daughter of James "Jass" Jackson III (the son of a friend, but not a relative, of Andrew Jackson) and his slave, Easter.

The novel recounts Queen's anguished early years as a slave girl, longing to know who her father was, and how it gradually dawned on her that he was her master. After the American Civil War of 1861 to 1865 and the subsequent abolition of slavery, Queen was cast out. Jass Jackson would not acknowledge her as his daughter, afraid of compromising the inheritance of his legitimate children and goaded by his wife, who despised Queen. After many adventures, often unpleasant, she married a reasonably successful former slave by the name of Alec Haley, and had one son by him (Simon Haley). Both, Alec and Queen, had a son, each from previous relationship.