The progressive housewife : community activism in suburban Queens, 1945-1965 / Sylvie Murray.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Murray, Sylvie.

Series:

Politics and culture in modern America

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women in community organization--New York (State)--New York--History--20th century.

Women in community organization.

Housewives--Political activity--New York (State)--New York--History--20th century.

Housewives.

Housewives--Political activity.

Neighborhoods.

History.

Community life.

Social action.

New York (State)--New York.

Middle class women--Political activity--New York (State)--New York--History--20th century.

Middle class women.

Middle class women--Political activity.

Social action--New York (State)--New York--History--20th century.

Community life--New York (State)--New York--History--20th century.

Neighborhoods--New York (State)--New York--History--20th century.

Queens (New York, N.Y.)--Social conditions--20th century.

Queens (New York, N.Y.).

Physical Description:

viii, 252 pages : maps ; 24 cm.

Other Title:

Community activism in suburban Queens, 1945-1965

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia, Pa. : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2003]

Summary:

Fictional characters, such as June Cleaver, and criticism of suburban domestic passivity, notably Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, have profoundly shaped our popular and intellectual view of the immediate postwar decade. It is this image of apolitical domesticity and suburban contormity that Sylvie Murray challenges in The Progressive Housewife. Community Activism in Suburban Queens, 1945-1965. Set in the rapidly developing neighborhoods of northeastern Queens -- home of none other than Friedan herself in the early 1950s -- this study traces the political activities of a diverse group of middle-class suburbanites and brings into focus the central role played by full-time mothers and housewives as community activists.

Like their famous neighbor, these Queens house-wives were at the center of a vital network of civic organizations that used a variety of political strategies -- from quiet lobbying to street protests -- to build residential neighborhoods of quality. The battles they fought -- to improve local schools and other public services, to stop the construction of public housing, and to control the cost and quality of rental housing, among others -- cannot be easily pegged to the right or the left on the political spectrum. Rather, they reveal a profound conviction that both citizens and the state were responsible for the well-being of local communities.

Part of an ongoing historical revision of the 1950s. The Progressive Housewife engages the current attempt to recognize and understand the political meaning of the middle class and suburbia, dispelling the myth of suburban domestic passivity by revealing the forms of political activity ordinary women were engaged in long before contemporary feminism had surfaced.

Contents:

Introduction: Citizenship and Middle-Class Politics in the Postwar Era 1

Part I. The Formation of Suburban Queens

1. "Queens Has a Street Named Utopia" 17

2. Housing and Access to Middle-Class Status 38

3. Suburban Radicals 60

Part II. Political Culture, Political Consciousness

4. Active Citizenship and Community Needs in Queens 91

5. The School Crisis and Citizens' View of Metropolitan Development 108

6. As Mothers or as Parents? 117

Part III. Turning Points: Gender and the Middle Class in the Postwar Era

7. Betty Friedan, the Volunteers for Stevenson, and 1950s Housewives 133

8. Middle-Class Antiliberalism Revisited 153

Appendix Queens Community Newspapers 175.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [227]-239) and index.

ISBN:

0812237188

OCLC:

51047131