Tamara Kern Hareven (May 10, 1937 – October 18, 2002) was a social historian who wrote extensively on the history of the family and the effects of social changes on family lives. Her books include Families, History and Social Change and Aging and Generational Relations. Born in Chernivtsi, Romania (now Ukraine),<ref name=nyt>Obituary: Tamara Kern Hareven, 'The New York Times, November 6, 2002</ref> and of Jewish origin, she died of kidney failure at the age of 65. Early life and education At the age of four, Hareven and her parents were forced to leave their home in Chernivtsi and live in an internment camp in the Ukraine due to their Jewish heritage. Hareven and her family survived the Holocaust, and eventually relocated to Palestine. Hareven's early life contributed to her familiarity with languages including German, French, and English, in addition to her native Romanian and Hebrew. Hareven earned her B.A. at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1960 and her M.A. in Medieval Jewish history at the University of Cincinnati in 1962. She completed her PhD at Ohio State University in American history with a dissertation on Eleanor Roosevelt's role as a social reformer. This research led to the publication of her first book, Eleanor Roosevelt: An American Conscience (1968). She worked with her Ph.D. advisor John H. Bremner and others on Children and Youth in America, a seminal three volume collection that launched the field of the history of childhood. She was among the founders in North America of the history of the family as a serious field of study. She taught at Dalhousie University in Canada briefly before moving to Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Professional career Hareven was a major figure in establishing the field of family history. Before the 1970s, studies of history focused primarily on individuals in positions of power and status in society, such as politicians, military leaders, and those in the upper social classes. Hareven and her colleagues worked to legitimize the day-to-day experiences of "ordinary" people in the working classes as a valid and worthy part of the United States. Hareven was particularly interested in the role of the family as a liaison between individuals and industrial society. In 1973, while at Clark, she organized a major international conference on the History of the Family. An outgrowth of the conference, a newsletter focused on the history of the family developed into the Journal