Patriotic daughters and isolationist mothers : conservative women in the early twentieth century -- All politics was local : grassroots conservatism in postwar Los Angeles -- Education or indoctrination? : conservative female activism in the Los Angeles public schools -- "Siberia, U.S.A." : psychological experts and the state -- The "conservative sex" : women and the building of a movement -- Conclusion
Summary
Mothers of Conservatism tells the story of 1950s southern Californian housewives who shaped the grassroots right in the two decades following World War II. Michelle Nickerson describes how red-hunting homemakers mobilized activist networks, institutions, and political consciousness in local education battles, and she introduces a generation of women who developed political styles and practices around their domestic routines. From the conservative movement's origins in the early fifties through the presidential election of 1964, Nickerson documents how women shaped conservatism from the bottom up, out of the fabric of their daily lives and into the agenda of the Republican Party. A unique history of the American conservative movement, this book shows how housewives got out of the house and discovered their political capital
