Higher Education for Women in Postwar America, 1945-1965

This history explores the nature of postwar advocacy for women's highereducation, acknowledging its unique relationship to the expectations ofthe era and recognizing its particular type of adaptive activism. Linda Eisenmannilluminates the impact of this advocacy in the postwar era, identifyinga link between women's activism during World War II and the women'smovement of the late 1960s.Though the postwar period has been portrayed as an era of domestic retreatfor women, Eisenmann finds otherwise as she explores areas of institutionbuilding and gender awareness. In an era uncomfortable with feminism, thisgeneration advocated individual decision making rather than collective actionby professional women, generally conceding their complicated responsibilitiesas wives and mothers.By redefining our understanding of activism and assessing women's effortswithin the context of their milieu, this innovative work reclaims an era oftendenigrated for its lack of attention to women.