In the 1950s, the conservative New Right experienced its initial stirrings in a grassroots level movement dedicated to routing out communism and perceived socialism in the United States. At the forefront of this movement were various women-led groups, including the American Public Relations Forum (APRF) of Southern California. Concurrent with the rise of the New Right was the rise of the New Left, which opposed the nuclear arms race, the Vietnam War, and, later, racism and sexism. One particular group (though really a decentralized movement), Women Strike for Peace (WSP), was particularly active in these campaigns. Both the APRF and WSP utilized maternalist rhetoric and politics to not only recruit new members and mobilize existing members, but also to attract the attention of male politicians in an era when women were expected to remain in the domestic sphere.
This thesis speaks to the larger trends in U.S. history of womens political collectivism, Red Scares and xenophobia, and the rise and fall of political parties from power. Most importantly, this thesis reveals the versatility of maternalist rhetoric in political campaigns by tracing its utilization by these two groups from different ends of the political spectrum through the end of the twentieth century.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-07232009-144638 |
| Date | 25 July 2009 |
| Creators | Fore, Whitney A. |
| Contributors | Sarah Igo, Brandi Brimmer |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-07232009-144638/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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