The Groves Conference on Marriage and Family: History and Impact on Family Science
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Margaret H. Feldman
We both feel honored to have known Margaret Feldman as a mentor, colleague, and friend. Roger met Margaret in 1971 when she visited the University of Tennessee with her husband Harold Feldman. He was impressed with the Feldmans’ unassuming manner and warmth. Eventually, the relationships blossomed when Roger became an active member of the Groves Page xiiiConference on Marriage and Family. Barbara met Margaret at the conferences when her husband Harold was president of Groves but truly realized Margaret’s leadership, contacts, and innovation in family policy when regularly attending the District of Columbia Metropolitan Council on Family Relations policy committee. An advocate of women’s and family issues, Margaret coined the term “sexism” in 1970. Her interests would expand to include domestic and international family policies related to sex education, family violence, and aging. Harold had become Groves President from 1973-1975, and she helped plan the meetings. This was when she felt she had joined the “family field.” She remarked that the 1975 Groves Conference in Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia was a high point in her life.
Dr. Feldman was born into a family with parents who emphasized educational goals for their children and pursued their own professional endeavors working with deprived children. Clearly, social activism was in her future. She was the first woman to be elected student body president at Chapman College in California, from which she received a sociology B.A. in 1937. An M.S. in Social Work followed in 1939 from Case Western Reserve University and she returned to academe to gain a Ph.D. from Cornell University in educational psychology in 1968. She was a member of the faculty at Ithaca College.
The Groves Conference recognized Dr. Feldman’s leadership in advancing family science and her commitment to social change by awarding her Lifetime and Academy membership. The Feldmans’ values formally live on in the Feldman Fund, honoring Margaret and Harold Feldman. The fund provides an award that consists of a cash honorarium and reimbursement for conference attendance. Applicants must be an author or authors of a peer-reviewed journal article or book chapter published within the last five years that makes a significant social policy contribution related to ethnicity and/or gender and that is also supportive of the theme of the Groves Conference annual meeting.
Especially significant to us during the 1980s and ‘90s were all the public policy meetings we participated in for Groves and the National Council on Family Relations (NCFR). These meetings gave Page xivus the opportunity to watch Margaret in action. For many years Margaret served as NCFR’s Washington D.C. policy representative. In 1992 Dr. Feldman co-chaired, with Dr. Catherine Chilman, the Groves Conference titled “Families: The Cross-cutting Issue in Domestic Policy.” This conference arose from the previous conference year’s event of a boat excursion which could not get back to shore for awhile because of counter winds. Margaret got everyone working on a possible policy conference so that the delay became an asset. The conference explored the reasons that the United States lacked a comprehensive family policy. Health insurance and policy implementation were emphasized. At the time she also worked on the original version of the “Family and Medical Leave Act.” In 1995 Congress established the “Office of Family Policy” in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense. Dr. Feldman’s interest in coordinating military family issues, programs, and policies abetted the creation of this office. Margaret and Roger co-chaired the 2005 Groves Conference in Washington, D.C. with the American Indian policy theme titled “Native Americans Dealing with Change: Identity, Economics, Environment.” Her clarity of thinking, determination, and stamina at an advanced age was remarkable. She also devoted much of her retirement time to community activism in her own Washington, D.C. neighborhood.
Dr. Margaret Feldman passed away on November 7, 2009 at the age of 93. Margaret Feldman’s professionalism, decency, concern for the deprived and exploited, and critical, creative thinking is a legacy she leaves to family science and the Groves Conference.
Catherine and Margaret: A Note on their Partnership in Family Policy
Catherine Chilman and Margaret Feldman, both retired widows, lived as nearby neighbors, colleagues, and great friends in Washington, D.C. for many years. They retired to “work on family policy” while other retirees pursued more leisurely activities. Retirement opened new opportunities for them. They were tireless! Their lives shared some significant parallels. Both women were generationally transitional figures. They did it all. Catherine and Margaret received Ph.D.s when they were mature women, opening doors for their gender. They were married with children, but Catherine was Page xvchallenged with the additional demands of caring for a young husband with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). Their remarkable collaboration was perhaps fated many years earlier as their mothers were acquaintances at Oberlin, 1911.
