隨著 1960 年代第二波婦女運動的展開，逐漸重視女性經驗並挖掘女性歷史，掀起了美國婦女史研究熱潮，母親角色的重要性亦趨凸顯，然而，對母親和母親角色的歷史研究散見於婦女史和家庭史研究中，並未受到特別注意；一直到 1980 和 1990 年代，歷史學者才漸漸把母親角色獨立出來，開始有系統且大量的母親角色歷史研究。 　　美國母親角色歷史研究的發展，與當代女性主義者對母親角色的態度有關。本文嘗試從女性主義者對母親角色的分析和理論出發，觀察近三十年來美國母親角色的歷史研究，受到女性主義影響的研究發展和特色。本文分為四個部分。首先是前言，其次簡述美國第二波婦運的女性主義對傳統思想的挑戰，以及她們的母親角色理論發展。接著分析近三十年來，受到女性主義的影響，母親角色歷史研究的發展特色，包括：母親角色的社會建構，母親角色的歷史性與多樣性，母性主義。最後是結論。

In the course of the second women’s movement in the late 1960s and 1970s, American feminists had been strongly motivated to analyze women’s subordinate status and trace the roots of women’s oppression. It was this growing interest in women’s history that paved the way for the establishment of a new research discipline: American women’s history. 　　The history of American mothers and motherhood did not receive much attention in the field of mainstream history, until the 1980s and 1990s, when, in response to the growing attention to women’s history, American feminist scholars initiated such historical research and began to publish extensively. 　　The development in the research of American motherhood was influenced by the progress in the sphere of contemporary feminist thought. In this article, I review some American feminist theories of motherhood and examine seminal studies in American women’s history of the past thirty years to determine how research in this field has been affected by feminist thought. After the introduction, I examine the challenges the second-wave feminism posed to the traditional thoughts, and then I lay out some key characteristics of feminist thoughts on motherhood. In the third part, utilizing these feminist key concepts on motherhood, I examine the research in history of American motherhood and conclude that it possesses three main characteristics: the construction of motherhood, historicization and diversity of motherhood, and maternalism.