Laura P. (hemmputnam) reviewed on 1/4/2011 + 1117 more book reviews

I loved this book! Born in 1973, I'm too old to have learned about this time in history class (it was still new!) and too young to have lived through it. Reading this book made me feel like I'd taken a really great women's studies survey course about the US. It is both academic and readable covering political issues that stunned me (Republican women were in favor of the ERA), dramatic barriers women faced (no ability to go to graduate school, no ability to prevent pregnancy, no ability to purchase a home or get credit without a husband), the civil rights movement, famous names I'd heard of but didn't know details about, and the fact that universal child care was seriously considered at the federal level. She uses data from the New York times as well as interviews with famous and "regular" people to really provide a sense of what the era felt like. A comment near the end of her book sums it up for me. "Few women under 30 had any real concept that things had ever been different." I'm glad Collins took the time to fill us in.

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