Final answer:
In the 1960s, social scientists began to recognize the significant roles women played in African American families, a shift from earlier views which cast enslaved family structures as unstable. Revisionist historians like Herbert Gutman acknowledged that African American families sought nuclear family models and showcased the diversity and strength of Black family dynamics.
Step-by-step explanation:
In the 1960s, most social scientists, including Daniel Patrick Moynihan, viewed the strong role held by women in many African American families as a signifier of family structure and social stability. This contrasts with earlier scholarly opinions, such as those in Kenneth Stampp's The Peculiar Institution, which characterized enslaved families as 'highly unstable.' However, revisionist historians in the 1970s began to argue that family and community were indeed crucial to the lives of enslaved people, seeing the family as an essential survival mechanism. Herbert Gutman's later research underlined that enslaved African Americans strove to replicate nuclear family structures whenever possible, which many modern scholars have built upon to acknowledge the complexity and diversity of Black family structures in that era.
More recent historical analyses have recognized the strong matriarchal roles within African American families, especially when considering the ever-changing socioeconomic dynamics and the necessity of women in both domestic and labor markets. Gender roles in different times and socio-political contexts, as well as within racial boundaries, have contributed to the diverse family structures that include matrifocal families and the reliance on broader kinship networks. Notably, African American families in the antebellum South and beyond were complex and often navigated oppressive conditions by creating robust internal support systems.