Redefining the New Woman, 1920-1963

2. Redefining the New Woman, 1920-1963
Despite the fact that women's suffrage did not produce the catastrophic consequences predicted, mainstream opposition to the feminist movement refused to die, as exemplified in commentaries by industrialist Henry Ford, renowned literary figures D.H. Lawrence and Norman Mailer, and even presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson, all represented in this volume. The other selections first focus on sources published during the interwar years and indicate that the legacy of progressive social feminism exacerbated reactionary attitudes toward women in the context of postwar political fundamentalism, the Great Depression, and the New Deal. The second part contains literature that appeared between 1941 and 1963, and reflects the ambivalence and backlash toward wives and mothers in the workforce and the public sphere, driven by the social, political, and economic conservatism of the Cold War Era.