"While much attention has been devoted to connections in American families between husbands and wives and between parents and children, We Grew Up Together speaks to an area that has been largely neglected until now: the emotional relationships among siblings.".

"Through close readings of the letters brothers and sisters wrote to each other over the course of nearly a century (1840-1920), Annette Atkins reveals the inner workings, everyday lives, and central relationships of ten nineteenth-century families. She looks at families located in various regions, families headed to the frontier, obscure families, and prominent families such as the Blairs of Washington, D.C.

Drawing on the insights of Alfred Adler and others, Atkins examines the varying dynamics of "warm" and "cool" families and shows how siblings tutored each other in friendship, authority, cooperation and competition, dependence and independence."--BOOK JACKET.