Matt and Sam talk to Michelle Nickerson about her brilliant book, Mothers of Conservatism, which explores the lives and political activism of conservative women in the Los Angeles area in the 1940s and 50s. Unlike many other conversations on the show, this one is less about intellectuals and ideas than social history—a description of how, as Nickerson puts it, housewife activists worked to "protect the nation from aliens, internationalism, and power-hungry bureaucrats in Washington." Topics include: the Great Depression and the rise of "housewife populism," conservative bookstores and "Americanism" centers run by women, the networks of activism that conservative women built and deployed, fierce battles over public education, the menace of psychiatry and the social sciences in shaping education policy, and more.

Sources:

Michelle Nickerson, Mothers of Conservatism (Princeton University Press, 2012)

"Stefanik's Rise and Cheney's Fall Mark a New Role for GOP Women," Washington Post, May 13, 2021

Alan Brinkley, "The Problem of American Conservatism," American History Review, April 1994

Jean Bethke Elshtain, Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy (Basic Books, 2002)

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Michael S. Sorensen

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