This book offers a fresh and coherent framework for the interpretation of nineteenth-century North American social history. Drawing on an enormous data base and ten years of research, the authors show how social structure and mobility, the organization of family life, the ways in which young people passed from childhood to adulthood, and the development of social institutions all intersected with the history of early industrial capitalism. The authors extrapolate from their intensive, primarily quantitative analyses of Hamilton, Ontario, and Buffalo and Erie County, New York, as well as from the work of other historians on similar topics. The book utilizes manuscript censuses; tax rolls; city directories; jail, school, and parish registers; and newspapers. The authors' methods include both descriptive and multivariate analysis as well as research into nonquantitative sources.