The Permissive Society: America, 1941-1965
Chapter Synopses

Please click on any of the links below for a synopsis of each chapter.

 

Chapter I - Psychology
Benjamin Spock, Carl Rogers, and the Liberalizing Impulse in the 1950s

Chapter II - Religion
Ballrooms, Bingo, Blue Laws and Billy Graham- Piety and Secularization in 1950s America

Chapter III - Sex
Ingrid Bergman, Elizabeth Taylor and the Sexual Revolution in the Postwar Period

Chapter IV - Women

The Rising Status of Women in the Age of Eisenhower

Chapter V - The Youth Culture
Rock 'n Roll, Blue Jeans, and the Myth of Opposition

Chapter VI - The Self
From Original Sin to Self-Actualization- Jackson Pollock, Charlie Parker, and New Notions of Identity in Postwar America