Women Who Invented the Sixties: Ella Baker, Jane Jacobs, Rachel Carson, and Betty Friedan

293 Pages·2022·3.617 MB·English

by  Steve Golin (author)

Women Who Invented the Sixties

University Press of Mississippi / Jackson
The University Press of Mississippi is the scholarly publishing agency of
the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning: Alcorn State University,
Delta State University, Jackson State University, Mississippi State University,
Mississippi University for Women, Mississippi Valley State University,
University of Mississippi, and University of Southern Mississippi.
www.upress.state.ms.us
The University Press of Mississippi is a member
of the Association of University Presses.
Copyright © 2022 by University Press of Mississippi
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
First printing 2022
∞
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Golin, Steve, 1939– author.
Title: Women who invented the sixties : Ella Baker, Jane Jacobs, Rachel
Carson, and Betty Friedan / Steve Golin.
Description: Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, 2022. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022019443 (print) | LCCN 2022019444 (ebook) | ISBN
9781496841469 (hardback) | ISBN 9781496841476 (epub) | ISBN
9781496841483 (epub) | ISBN 9781496841490 (pdf) | ISBN 9781496841506
(pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Baker, Ella, 1903–1986. | Jacobs, Jane, 1916–2006. |
Carson, Rachel, 1907–1964. | Friedan, Betty. | Social movements—United
States—History—20th century. | Nineteen sixties. | Women political
activists—United States—Biography.
Classification: LCC HN59 .G656 2022 (print) | LCC HN59 (ebook) | DDC
306.0973/0904—dc23/eng/20220701
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022019443
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022019444
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
For Elaine, Josh, Jenny, and Clara

Contents
Acknowledgments.............................................ix
Introduction: Four Women .....................................xi
Part 1: The Fifties
1 Ella Baker: Activists’ Activist .....................................3
2 Jane Jacobs: Playful Activist .....................................21
3 Rachel Carson: Reluctant Activist............................... 40
4 Betty Friedan: Discouraged Activist ..............................61
Part 2: The Interventions
5 Ella Baker and the Founding of SNCC, 1960.......................81
6 The Death and Life of Great American Cities, 1961...................94
7 Silent Spring, 1962.............................................107
8 The Feminine Mystique, 1963.................................... 121
viii Contents
Part 3: The Sixties
9 Ella Baker, Bob Moses, and Mississippi...........................141
10 Jane Jacobs and the Neighborhood Movement....................154
11 Rachel Carson and the Bullies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .168
12 Baker, Friedan, and the Two Women’s Movements................. 181
13 The Late Sixties: Jane Jacobs and Betty Friedan................... 200
Epilogue: 1970 and Beyond.....................................214
Notes .......................................................231
Bibliography.................................................265
Index .......................................................275
Acknowledgments
I’m grateful, first of all, to Barbara Rambsy and Linda Lear for their scholarly
and comprehensive biographies of Ella Baker and Rachel Carson. I also relied
on Daniel Horowitz’s study of Betty Friedan and on Peter Laurence’s study of
Jane Jacobs. These four scholars made my work possible. The scholar to whom
I owe the greatest debt is Charles Payne, whose work on Ella Baker, SNCC,
and Mississippi not only informed but inspired me.
I want to acknowledge the archivists at the Schomburg Center for Research
in Black Culture, the John J. Burns Library of Boston College, the Beinecke
Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale, and the Schlesinger Library of the
History of Women in America of Radcliffe. I thank the librarians at my own
public library in Glen Ridge, NJ, and Mark Jackson, librarian at Bloomfield
College, who over many years found everything I needed.
Early on, during the writing, I benefited from feedback I received from
Katie Keeran, Marlie Wasserman, and Nelson Kasfir; they pointed me in the
right direction. Ron Aronson, Bill Caspary, and Nancy Wolcott read my first
draft and challenged me to rethink what I was trying to do and how I was
doing it. I’m grateful to them and to Michal and Lynne McMahon, Susan
Sailor, and Tom Miles, who, from time to time, listened deeply and encourag-
ingly while I read a chapter aloud.
Alice Golin read the first and last draft and the ones in between. Drawing
on her expertise as a writer of fiction for children, she pushed me to write
more clearly and effectively. Throughout, she gave me suggestions regarding
my narrative strategy and my publishing strategy. And that was the least of
what I’m grateful for. Without her, I not only wouldn’t have been able to com-
plete the book; I wouldn’t even have started it.
ix