This uncompromisingly empirical study reconstructs the public and private lives of urban business families during the period of England's emergence as a world economic power. Using a broad cross-section of archival, rather than literary, sources, it tests the orthodox view that the family as an institution was transformed by capitalism and individualism. The overall conclusion is that none of the abstract models invented to explain the historical development of the family withstand empirical scrutiny and that familial capitalism, not possessive individualism, was the motor of economic growth.