When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present
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The team that interviewed them included Sarah Cox, Amy Jeffries, C. J. Lehr, Christina Lem, Kelly Pike, Daniel Reilly, Susan Rife, Tracy Rzepka, Leigh Shelton, Amy Smith, and Justin Weller. Bronwyn Prohaska provided much of the research for the early sections of the book, and Nick Bunkley helped me track down sources in Michigan.
Special thanks to Marcia Hensley, who brought me many wonderful stories from women in Wyoming, including those of Louise Meyer Warpness, her daughters, Susan and Jo, and her granddaughter, Jennifer Maasberg Smith. Sarah Belanger produced many great interviews, including those of Barbara Arnold and her daughter, Alex, as well as Laura Sessions Stepp’s. Carol Lee interviewed, among others, Gloria Vaz, her daughter Dana Arthur-Monteleone, and her granddaughter Lynnette Arthur; Judith Borger’s Minnesota interviewees included Dr. June LaValleur. Michelle Jamrisko interviewed Lillian Garland, and Johanna Jainchill interviewed Virginia Williams. Courtney Barnes found many interesting subjects, including one of the early readers’ favorites, Maria K., who contacted us as the book was being finished and asked to have her identity disguised to avoid embarrassing her family. Sala Patterson set the interviewing record, bringing me the stories of nineteen women, including those of Tawana and Tiffany Hinton and Sala’s mother, Elizabeth Patterson.
For me, one of the greatest pleasures in this project was talking with so many of the people who were involved in the public events described in this story. Thanks to Lisa Belkin, Pat Benke, John Brademas, Pat Buchanan, Jacqui Ceballos, Sherri Finkbine Chessen, Constance Cumbey, Jack Duncan, Mary Eastwood, Jean Enersen, Nora Ephron, Muriel Fox, Jo Freeman, Claudia Goldin, Madeleine Kunin, Grace (Linda) LeClair, Lilly Ledbetter, Pat Lorance, Wilma Mankiller, Gerald McBeath, George McGovern, Faith Middleton, Walter Mondale, Robin Morgan, Cynthia Pearson, Martha Phillips, Lynn Povich, Sylvia Roberts, Marlene Sanders, Pat Schroeder, Valerie Steele, Gloria Steinem, Janet Tegley, Jessica Valenti, Betsy Wade, Diane Watson, Lorena Weeks, and Randi Weingarten for helping me understand what went on. While the people involved in the 2008 presidential campaign talked to me for my New York Times column, the interviews they gave me served double duty, particularly those with Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama.
Amanda Millner-Fairbanks provided me with several boxes full of research and, even better, her company through the last stages of this project.
Thanks to the friends who read this manuscript and shared their thoughts and critiques with me: in particular Trish Hall; my sister, Mary Ann Vinck; my sister-in-law, Kathleen Collins; Nancy Devlin; Eleanor Randolph; Anne Dranginis; and Ann Reardon. My amazing agent, Alice Martell, read it twice, which I definitely regard as service above and beyond the call of duty. Pat Strachan, my editor at Little, Brown, read it first and last and was a constant supportive presence in between. Thanks to all the people at Little, Brown for underwriting this project and being so helpful as we went along, especially Karen Landry, my copyeditor.
Fans of endnotes will notice that I relied on reporting in the New York Times along every stage of this narrative. There are a lot of wonderful papers in this country, but even if I weren’t biased, I think I’d be in awe of the way the Times has devoted its resources to doing serious reporting on American social issues.
Finally, one of the great boons of this kind of enterprise is the chance to thank the people who put up with me while it was being written. So many thanks to Arthur Sulzberger, the publisher of the Times, and Andy Rosenthal, the editorial page editor, for giving me a book leave and living with me when I returned in the middle of chapter ten. Thanks to my mother, Rita Gleason, who told me many stories and introduced me to friends who told me theirs. Thanks to my nieces, Becca Gleason and Anna McManus, and my nephew, Hugh McManus, for tutoring me on what the world looks like from the other side of 20. And finally, thanks to my husband, Dan Collins, for life in general.
NOTES
Some of the people interviewed for this book, such as Wilma Mankiller, Gloria Steinem, Jo Freeman, and Robin Morgan, have written books of their own that I’ve also used as resources. Information taken from their books is sourced in the notes. Other quotes are from the interviews, which are listed at the top of each chapter.
INTRODUCTION
Interview: Maria K.
3 On a steamy morning: Jack Roth, “Judge Scolds Woman in Slacks,” New York Times, August 10, 1960.
4 One early settler wrote: Collins, America’s Women, 26.
4 One New England Quaker: Chace and Lovell, Two Quaker Sisters, 4.
5 “Our men are sufficiently money-making”: Douglas, The Feminization of American Culture, 57.
5 “She reigns in the heart”: Wertz and Wertz, Lying-In, 58.
6 Ladies’ Magazine, a popular periodical: Douglas, The Feminization of American Culture, 46.
6 After the Civil War: Jones, Labor of Love, 58–60.
6 A 1960 story in the New York Times: Marilyn Berger, “Feminine Fashion Has a Place in the Mine,” New York Times, October 28, 1960.
6 When Betty Lou Raskin: Betty Lou Raskin, “Woman’s Place Is in the Lab,” New York Times Magazine, April 19, 1959.
7 Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren: Kerber, No Constitutional Right to Be Ladies, 141.
7 The National Office Managers Association: Charles Ginder, “Factor of Sex in Office Employment,” Office Executive, February 1961, 10–13.
8 a spokesman for NASA would say: Levine and Lyons, The Decade of Women, 35.
1. REPUDIATING ROSIE
Interviews: Beverly Burton, Linda McDaniel, Georgia Panter Nielsen, Angela Nolfi, Sylvia Roberts, Marlene Sanders.
11 “Some of you do”: “Mlle’s Next Word,” Mademoiselle, January 1960, 33.
11 “I think that when women”: Spock, Decent and Indecent, 61.
11 Newsweek, decrying a newly noticed: “Young Wives,” Newsweek, March 7, 1960, 57–60.
11 Jo Freeman, who went to Berkeley: Jo Freeman, “On the Origins of the Women’s Movement from a Strictly Personal Perspective,” in The Feminist Memoir Project, 171–72.
12 And once Mademoiselle had finished: “The Professional Touch,” Mademoiselle, June 1960, 82–83.
12 An official for the men-only: Anderson, The Movement and the Sixties, 316.
12 When Mademoiselle selected seven: “Quo Vadis?” Mademoiselle, January 1960.
12 In 1950 only about 9 percent: Stark, Glued to the Set, 33.
13 “But all the slapstick”: Davis, Say Kids! What Time Is It?, 5.
13 “The harshness and crudeness”: Ibid., 109.
14 On Father Knows Best, younger daughter: Douglas, Where the Girls Are, 37–38.
14 When Betty Friedan asked why: Friedan, It Changed My Life, 67.
14 Later in the decade: Star Trek, “Turnabout Intruder,” episode 79.
15 A rather typical episode began: Bonanza, “Justice,” episode 252.
15 More than 30 percent of American: Nye and Hoffman, The Employed Mother in America, 8.
16 The average salary of a female teacher: Bess Furman, “Teacher Pay Half of Seventeen Professions,” New York Times, May 29, 1960.
16 when the government was reporting: “Mitchell Reports Jobs Plentiful for the 1960 College Graduate,” New York Times, January 13, 1961.
16 “It is a tradition in the Guggenheimer”: Rhoda Aderer, “A Tradition Is Continued by Mrs. Guggenheimer,” New York Times, January 6, 1960, 94.
17 Esther Peterson, the top-ranking: Peterson, Restless, 99.
17 The sociologist David Riesman: David Riesman, “Two Generations,” in The Woman in America, 91–92.
18 “Tug, there’s a whole world”: Kerr, Julie with Wings, 17–18.
18 The Grace Downs Air Career School: Mademoiselle, January 1960, 107.
20 If a stewardess was still on: Lindsy Van Gelder, “Coffee, Tea, or Me,” Ms., January 1973, 89.
20 “Hell yes, we have”: Walsh, Doctors Wanted, 243–44.
20 Although more than half a million: Harrison, On Account of Sex, 145, and Peterson, Restless, 109.
22 When Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Kerber, No Constitutional Right to Be Ladies, 202.
22 A report on women in management: Epstein, Woman’s Place, 6.
22 A federally funded study: David Beardslee and Donald O’Dowd, “Students and the Occupational World,” in The American College.
23 Marjorie Wintjen, a 25-year-old: Marylin Bender, “Women Equality Groups Fighting Credit Barriers,” New York Times, March 25, 1973.
23 The New York Times was still reporting: Georgia Dullea, “Women Demanding Equal Treatment in Mortgage Loans,” New York Times, October 29, 1972.
23 Looking back on her life: O’Reilly, The Girl I Left Behind, 36.
24 Heinemann’s Restaurant: Anderson, The Movement and the Sixties, 316.
24 Early in the 1960s: Friedan, Life So Far, 113.
2. THE WAY WE LIVED
Interviews: Lillian Andrews, Pam Andrews, Barbara Arnold, Verna Bode, Beverly Burton, Valerie Chisholm, Nora Ephron, Yana Shani Fleming, Alison Foster, Muriel Fox, Shirley Hammond, Tawana Hinton, Maria K., June LaValleur, Gayle Lawhorn, Lorna Jo Meyer, Susan Meyer, Georgia Panter Nielsen, Sylvia Peterson, Judy Riff, Carol Rumsey, Margaret Siegel, Laura Sessions Stepp, Gloria Vaz, Anne Tolstoi Wallach, Louise Meyer Warpness, Mary Helen Washington, Virginia Williams.
26 In a survey for the Saturday Evening Post: George Gallup and Evan Hill, “The American Woman,” Saturday Evening Post, December 22, 1962, 32.
28 Susan B. Anthony had to be rescued: Fischer, Pantaloons and Power, 101–2.
28 But even during World War II: Keil, Those Wonderful Women in Their Flying Machines, 259.
29 Wilma Rudolph, the Olympic track star: Rudolph, Wilma, 123.
31 One book on dressing: Steele, The Corset, 161.
31 Mademoiselle advised that when it came: “Questions of Form,” Mademoiselle, June 1960, 92.
31 When her 12-year-old: Bradford, America’s Queen, 30.
33 In the fall of 1960: Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, 16.
34 As the essayist Jane O’Reilly: O’Reilly, The Girl I Left Behind, 40.
34 Only 26 percent: Coontz, Marriage, 237.
34 A woman who had reached: Bird, Born Female, 50.
34 Writing in the late 1970s: O’Reilly, The Girl I Left Behind, 40.
35 Harper’s bemoaned the fact: Cole, “American Youth Goes Monogamous,” 32.
36 In one much-quoted: Gallup and Hill, “The American Woman,” 16–32.
36 “Almost all young women”: “Shaping the ’60’s… Foreshadowing the ’70s,” 30.
36 Joan Bernstein graduated: Couric, Women Lawyers, 37–38.
37 In Chicago, which had very: Coontz, Marriage, 252.
38 The idea that someone had to be: Monrad Paulsen, “For a Reform of the Divorce Laws,” New York Times Magazine, May 13, 1962, 22.
38 Harper’s claimed, “A girl”: Cole, “American Youth Goes Monogamous,” 32.
38 A science teacher told: Marya Mannes, “Female Intelligence: Who Wants It?” New York Times Magazine, January 3, 1960, 44.
38 Newsweek reported in 1960: Edwin Diamond, “Young Wives,” Newsweek, March 7, 1960, 60.
39 At a soon-to-become-famous: Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, 153.
39 “Success and a Well-Dressed Wife”: “Success and a Well-Dressed Wife Go Together for Young Executives”: New York Times, April 2, 1960, 27.
40 She indignantly compared: Nan Robertson, “Mrs. Kennedy Defends Clothes,” New York Times, September 15, 1960, 1.
40 “The food is marvelous”: Bradford, America’s Queen, 189.
42 During the Cuban: Ibid., 240.
3. HOUSEWORK
Interviews: Lillian Andrews, Myrna Ten Bensel, Mary Bell Darcus, Josephine Elsberg, Edna Kleimeyer, Joyce Ladner, Jo Meyer Maasberg, Wilma Mankiller, Virginia McWilliams, Angela Nolfi, Joanne Rife, Louise Meyer Warpness, Marylyn Weller, Betty Riley Williams.
45 “We now expect quite an immigration”: Collins, America’s Women, 235.
47 Sixty percent of families: Chafe, The Unfinished Journey, 111–12.
47 A quarter of all families: Rosen, The World Split Open, 9.
47 In the famous Levittown: Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier, 235.
48 Ebony celebrated with an article: “Good-bye Mammy, Hello Mom,” Ebony, March 1947, 36.
50 A doctoral student: Shapiro, Something from the Oven, 73–74.
51 A methodical study: Joann Vanek, “Time Spent in Housework,” Scientific American, November 1974, 116–120.
52 In the 1950s the average: “New Washer Will Handle Bigger Load,” New York Times, November 2, 1960.
53 One New York Times columnist: Dorothy Barclay, “Family Palship—With an Escape Clause,” New York Times Magazine, November 18, 1956, 48.
53 “I know that small children”: Kerr, The Snake Has All the Lines, 61.
54 “Approximately half of Playboy’s”: Ehrenreich, The Hearts of Men, 43.
54 “You can hardly pick up”: Margaret Taylor Klose, “A Pox on Your Husband’s Ego,” McCall’s, April 1960.
54 “The life of many”: Giddings, When and Where I Enter, 253.
55 A typical woman married: Nye and Hoffman, The Employed Mother in America, 5.
55 “Whether one finds it”: “The American Female,” Harper’s, October 1962, 115.
55 George Gallup, conjuring up: George Gallup and Evan Hill, “The American Woman,” Saturday Evening Post, December 22, 1962, 17.
55 Even Newsweek, in its: Edwin Diamond, “Young Wives,” Newsweek, March 7, 1960, 57–60.
56 In 1960 Redbook: Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, 66.
56 “She is dissatisfied”: Diamond, “Young Wives,” 57.
57 The (male) president: Harvey, The Fifties, 46–47.
58 “of inappropriate and unnecessary”: Friedan, It Changed My Life, 18.
58 One young mother of four: Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, 21.
59 “You’d be surprised”: Ibid., 235.
59 “The feminine mystique has succeeded”: Ibid., 336–37.
4. THE ICE CRACKS
Interviews: Constance Cumbey, Mary Eastwood, Muriel Fox, Sylvia Roberts, Lorena Weeks.
63 “Women now hold”: “Women Likely to Outvote Men,” New York Times, January 5, 1960.
64 At the end of the decade: Bird, Born Female, 162.
64 “The meal begins”: Nan Robertson, “GOP Women Facing a Calorie-Packed Week,” New York Times, July 23, 1960.
64 Meanwhile, nearly two-thirds: George Gallup and Evan Hill, “The American Woman,” Saturday Evening Post, December 22, 1962, 32.
64 Edna Simpson of Illinois: Chamberlin, A Minority of Members, 279.
65 In her unpublished autobiography: Martha Griffiths, My Letter to Tomorrow, unpublished manuscript. Thanks to Griffiths’s friend Constance Cumbey for sharing this.
65 But in 1946 it was Martha: Lamson, Few Are Chosen, 89–90.
66 Griffiths and her husband: Interview, Constance Cumbey.
66 Nevertheless, she felt obliged: Chamberlin, A Minority of Members, 263.
67 In her memoirs, the publisher: Graham, Personal History, 291.
67 Margaret Price, an official: Harrison, On Account of Sex, 74.
67 After the election, 2.4: Ibid., 78.
67 “There is no Alice”: Lunardini, From Equal Suffrage to Equal Rights, 9.
68 Esther Peterson called them: Peterson, Restless, 105.
68 As a good Mormon: Ibid., 13.
69 “Even the youngest”: Ibid., 33.
69 “Give her to Kennedy”: Ibid., 64.
70 “It is not the policy”: Hole and Levine, Rebirth of Feminism, 52.
70 She resented the “elite”: Peterson, Restless, 103.
70 During the 1960 presidential campaign: Ibid., 118.
71 “When I wanted help”: Ware, Beyond Suffrage, 10.
71 Kennedy’s relationship with the great: Paterson, Be Somebody, 124.
72 Hyma
n Bookbinder, who served: Harrison, On Account of Sex, 139.
72 But they were about to enter into what Pauli: Rosen, The World Split Open, 69.
72 Marguerite Rawalt, a government tax: Unless otherwise noted, this section is based on Judith Paterson’s biography of Marguerite Rawalt, Be Somebody.
74 One of Rawalt’s chief allies: Unless otherwise noted, this section is based on Pauli Murray’s book Pauli Murray: The Autobiography of a Black Activist, Feminist, Lawyer, Priest, and Poet.
75 “Well, maybe I would”: Brauer, “Women Activists,” 44.
75 Smith, 80, was: Dan Oberdorfter, “Judge Smith Moves with Deliberate Drag,” New York Times Magazine, November 12, 1964.
76 “Congressman Smith would”: Ibid.
76 In case anyone might: Davis, Moving the Mountain, 41.
76 Emanuel Celler of New York: Ibid., 42.
77 Amid the hoots: Fern Ingersoll, “Former Congresswomen Look Back,” in Women in Washington, 197.
77 “I presume that if there had been”: Ibid.
77 “In my judgment”: Ibid., 196.
78 Green remembered a male: Ibid., 202.
78 At one point, when she went: Ibid., 203.
78 “For every discrimination”: Davis, Moving the Mountain, 43.
79 Ida Wells-Barnett, who had: Terborg-Penn, African American Women in the Struggle for the Vote, 121–23.
79 A half century later: Fry, “Conversations with Alice Paul,” 336–37.