History 397AW - ST-American Women in the 1950s

For many of us, the image that comes to mind when we think of women in the 1950s is a suburban housewife and mother like Donna Reed or June Cleaver. But how much did real women's lives have in common with their sitcom counterparts? This course will explore women's experiences of and contributions to social, cultural, and political life in the U.S. during the 1950s. Using a wide variety of sources (oral histories, memoirs, novels, magazine articles, advertisements, movies and TV programs, as well as works of history), we will study American women's actual experiences of sexuality, marriage, family life, the workplace, and politics, as well as the messages they received about what constituted "appropriate" behavior in both public and private life. We'll pay special attention to women's participation in the major social changes and cultural trends of the time, including the growth of suburbia and the rise of consumer culture, the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement, the Beat Generation, youth culture, and rock and roll. We'll also look at the diversity of women's experiences, analyzing how differences of race, ethnicity, class, region, and age helped shape the opportunities and choices available to individual women.