"A convincing revisionist account of the roles of US women in the two decades after WW II. . . . A very interesting rereading of a standard stereotype."—Choice

The Progressive Housewife
Community Activism in Suburban Queens, 1945-1965

Sylvie Murray

2003 | 264 pages | Cloth $42.50
American History

Table of Contents

Introduction: Citizenship and Middle-Class Politics in the Postwar Era

PART I: THE FORMATION OF SUBURBAN QUEENS
1. "Queens Has a Street Named Utopia"
2. Housing and Access to Middle-Class Status
3. Suburban Radicals

PART II: POLITICAL CULTURE, POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
4. Active Citizenship and Community Needs in Queens
5. The School Crisis and Citizens' View of Metropolitan Development
6. As Mothers or as Parents?

PART III: TURNING POINTS: GENDER AND THE MIDDLE CLASS IN THE POSTWAR ERA
7. Betty Friedan, the Volunteers for Stevenson, and 1950s Housewives
8. Middle-Class Antiliberalism Revisited

Conclusion

Appendix: Queens Community Newspapers
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments