| Abstract | The stereotype of the middle-class, white postwar suburban housewife is alive and well in the twenty-first century. Popularized by advertisements, magazines, television shows, and Hollywood films, the quintessential stereotypical characterization of the postwar white, middle-class American housewife was that of the devoted, quiescent, and dolled-up suburban woman contained within the home who methodically cleaned, carefully prepared nutritious meals, and unselfishly fulfilled the spiritual, emotional, and physical needs of her husband and children at her own expense. Yet how true is this depiction of postwar American housewives? This dissertation argues that many housewives did not stay sequestered in their homes during the postwar period. Instead, they joined federated women¿s clubs, which allowed clubwomen to engage in meaningful local, state, national, and international activism that instigated substantial reforms. Focusing on the activism and evolution of one women¿s club in San Angelo, Texas, the Victory Study Club from 1942 and 1975, this dissertation argues that women found personal fulfillment by joining an ¿assembly of organized womanhood¿ in West Texas. Using tactics similar to Progressive-era clubwomen, Victory Study Clubwomen developed programs and projects that resisted postwar domestic confinement without threatening traditional gender roles. Taken collectively, studying Victory Study Club programs and projects thus offer an opportunity to learn what local, national, and international issues mattered most to this ¿assembly of organized womanhood¿ and, perhaps, to postwar clubwomen throughout the nation, and it makes making substantial historiographical contributions to the history of Texas, Texas women¿s, and women¿s twentieth-century activism. |
