Description

Women Who Invented the Sixties tells the story of how four women helped define the 1960s and made a lasting impression for decades to follow

In 1960 Ella Baker played the key role in the founding of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee which became an essential organization for students during the civil rights movement and the model for the antiwar and womens movements In 1961 Jane Jacobs published The Death and Life of Great American Cities changing the shape of urban planning irrevocably In 1962 Rachel Carson published Silent Spring creating the modern environmental movement And in 1963 Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique which sparked secondwave feminism and created lasting changes for women Their four separate interventions helped together to end the 1950s and invent the 1960s

Women Who Invented the Sixties situates each of these four women in the 1950sBakers early activism with the NAACP and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference Jacobss work with Architectural Forum and her growing involvement in neighborhood protest Carsons conservation efforts and publications and Friedans work as a labor journalist and the discrimination she facedbefore exploring their contributions to the 1960s and the movements they each helped shape