Reading Like a Historian: Women in the 1950s

Description

In this lesson, students analyze primary and secondary source documents in an effort to answer the central historical question: Is the image of the ‘happy 1950s housewife’ accurate? The teacher first introduces the time period and some of its features: the baby boom, the GI Bill, suburbia, Leave it to Beaver. The teacher then shows images of the ‘happy housewife’ from 50s-era publications. In groups, students analyze 2 documents: a Harper’s magazine article on suburbia and a passage from Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. They complete a graphic organizer that includes a hypothesis: does the stereotype seem true? Students then do the same with 2 more documents: secondary source analyses by Joanne Meyerowitz and Alice Kessler-Harris. The class completes the graphic organizer and shares final hypotheses in a group discussion: Should we believe the stereotype? How about the experience of minority women?

Publisher: CPALMS
Last Updated: 11/25/2013

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5 Keywords

NGSSS: Social Studies NSDL Grade 11 High School CCSS: English Language Arts
#NGSSS:SocialStudies #NSDL #Grade11 #HighSchool #CCSS:EnglishLanguageArts

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