ANOTHER WORLD: Women Advance, Then Retreat
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And now on to:
Another World
Following the two World Wars
1940’s —1950’s
My previous post, “Winds of Freedom,”while filled with the pain and struggle to achieve suffrage for women, did chronicle success.
—Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, and the other suffragists achieved the passing of the 19th Amendment in August 1920, and with it voting right protections for women.
—Coverture laws were abolished in the 19th and 20th centuries.
—Alice Paul drafted the Equal Rights Amendment in 1923.
The road to women’s emancipation seemed open.
And then…
Two World Wars were also in the air, and on the sea, and on the land.
For the most part, even though the push for women’s voting rights was still happening during the first World War—and the women were criticized for taking President Woodrow Wilson’s time and attention away from it—things were otherwise all quiet on the American front when it came to women’s rights during the wartime periods.
However, what did happen during WWII was that women were courted to enter the workforce and take on jobs left vacant by the men who had been drafted to fight overseas.
“Rosie, the Riveter,” an icon of the 1940s, represented the call to women.
This poster not only became a symbol of women’s contribution to the war effort, but it also reshaped societal perceptions of what women could achieve.
It inspired many women to enter the workforce for the first time, and to gain employment in previously male dominated occupations.
Apathy regarding sexism, however, was largely in evidence, especially in the late 1940s and 1950s.
What happened to all the Rosies when the men returned from war?
With the Veterans Preference Act, women lost their jobs and were sent back to lives within the home.
And with the return of their men, a baby boom commenced!
Hence the term “baby boomers” or just “boomers”. These were all the babies born after the war from 1947 to 1954.
And so, the women returned to the home with all its responsibilities and with one or more babies to care for as well, a challenging job much as they loved their babies.
In the New York City area in the late 1940s, the return to that type of living—dad at work during the day, mom at home caring for house and children—was supported by something new that was happening.
Veterans and their families, aided by the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 (better known as the GI Bill of Rights) with its low-interest home loans, participated in a migration from the city to pseudo-country living.
This was the move from the cities to the suburbs.
Due to a surge in postwar demand for affordable housing, particularly for returning veterans and their families, and to overcrowding in New York City at that time, the need for homes was filled by Levitt and Sons, a building company led by William Levitt.
Levitt and Sons built a housing development in Hempstead township, Nassau County in western Long Island, New York. The homes in this residential community were built on the L.I. potato farmlands between 1947 and 1951.
Levitt and Sons called their novel project “Levittown”. It was the first mass-produced suburb in the United States, and it later became the model for Levittowns built in the outskirts of other cities.
The first Levitt houses, built for returning World War II veterans, were affordable homes of all the same design, each house consisting of four rooms—no basement.
Floor plan of an original Levittown home
The surrounding community included shopping centers, playgrounds, swimming pools, community halls, and schools.
These were the homes of dreams, solely in that they afforded young couples a chance at home ownership.
It should be noted that although, at some later point, racial barriers were broken, for a very specific reason this was a story of white home ownership in white communities in the years after the war.
As stated in “U.S. History Scene:”
[T]he Levitts’ level of control over the appearance of Levittown did not stop at the yards and houses but extended to the appearance of the inhabitants themselves. Bill Levitt only sold houses to white buyers, excluding African Americans from buying houses in his communities….
(ushistoryscene.com)
And, there was a second problem with Levittown.
While many married white women were relegated to return to the home as housewives, they were in effect, experiencing a vestige of the constraints of coverture.
The automobile-dependent suburbs, while a boon to the sale of General Motors cars, in essence, trapped the women in the homes and the local area, as most—or at least, many—did not drive.
Families in those early days had only one car, which was typically used by the family breadwinner for commuting to work.
Even though there were amenities as part of the Levittown community, there was no public transportation system in the same manner as it existed in the cities.
Yet, most families, including the women, were saying—outwardly, at least—that this was their dream home, the American dream existence.
Within the period of the two World Wars and their aftermath, then, not much obvious advancement for women was occurring.
However, there was something happening subliminally. There were glimmers of change, and they were found in the arts.
There was one perk in the Levitt homes that assisted in this change.
In addition to each home being sold with modern appliances, each was also equipped with a television set.
The TV industry had entered the popular scene in the 1940’s in the U.S., and had expanded in accessibility in the 1950’s.
TV was the new medium that brought into the homes an awareness of changing gender roles through some of its weekly situation comedy shows that featured strong women characters.
Sitcoms with strong women leads, such as “I Love Lucy” and “The Honeymooners”, ran alongside shows featuring traditional home life like “Father Knows Best”, “Leave It to Beaver”, “The Donna Reed Show”, and “Ozzie and Harriet”.
“I Love Lucy” (1951-1957), with Lucille Ball as Lucy Ricardo and Desi Arnaz as her husband Ricky Ricardo, contributed to the feminist movement of the 1960s. The show's portrayal of Lucy Ricardo as a dissatisfied housewife who wanted to break out of domestic life, although not explicitly feminist, did help reflect the changing gender roles of the time.
The Honeymooners (1955-1956), with Jackie Gleason as Ralph Kramden and Audrey Meadows as his wife Alice Kramden.
The following excerpt* of an essay by Judy Dykstra-Brown from her blog “life lessons”, offers a glimpse into some deeper gender strains—and a coverture vestige—depicted in the show along with the strong female character of Alice Kramden.
“To The Moon, Alice!”
by Judy Dykstra-Brown
On The Honeymooners, Ralph Kramden (played by Jackie Gleason) had a phrase that those of us of a certain age can’t help but remember.
‘To the moon, Alice, to the moon!’ he would rasp at his wife (played by the inimitable Audrey Meadows) whenever he had no less predictable comeback to her never predictable jibes. Of course, the idea was that this was how far he would knock her. An upraised fist often accompanied his threat.
The audience, of course, would roar. So hilarious was this empty threat, for America knew that Ralph would never make good on the threat. Even Alice never flinched—supposedly because she, too, knew those words signaled an empty threat.
But underneath those words and the fact that viewers found them to be so hilarious, was the idea that such threatened violence was funny—and, somehow, that such treatment of his wife was a man’s right.
*Judy’s original essay of September 2, 2022 is available here.
For the most part, though, in relation to women and sexism in the 1950s, all had remained quiet.
However, what had actually been quiet was the women’s unrest that had been percolating just under the surface for a very long time.
And it was quiet until it wasn’t!
It re-surfaced once again—big time—in the mid-1960s!
…To be continued
March is
Women’s History Month
C:WED’s Woman of Honor—Week One
Sojourner Truth
Central Park—original photos contributed by Chris Andersson, NYC, March 1, 2025.
The QR code above does work!
Of the three women honored in this sculpture, I have related the stories of Elizabeth and Susan in my two immediately previous posts, “The Secret Storm” and “Winds of Freedom.” Due to space constraints, I was not able to add Sojourner’s tale at that time.
I am pleased to include her now as our first honoree for Women’s History Month.
Sojourner Truth (1797–1883) was an American abolitionist and activist for African-American civil rights and women’s rights. She was born into slavery in Ulster County, New York, but escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826.
Sojourner, born Isabella Baumfree, delivered her famous speech "Ain't I a Woman?" at the 1851 Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio:
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere.
Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman?
Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman?
I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman?
I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?
C:WED Wish List:
—Please remember us when you are thinking of making a charitable contribution.
—Your gifts, of any amount, will help keep C:WED alive in the digital world!
—Do you have something to send us on our themes: Women, the Earth, and/or the Divine?
—Maybe a short essay, a prayer, a quote, a poem, a photo or video, a drawing or painting, a cartoon, or a resource recommendation?
—Or perhaps just a comment?
—Or maybe to nominate a woman for Women’s History Month—week two?
We have planned this series to explore two movements—the Women’s Movement and the Environmental Movement—as they exist, and are linked, in a patriarchal world
We have revised our publishing schedule for this series to one post every week for the next few months.
