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« Go to American Writers Select a writer 1600-1800: William Bradford Benjamin Franklin Thomas Paine Thomas Jefferson James Madison 1800-1850: Lewis & Clark James Fenimore Cooper  Sojourner Truth Ralph Waldo Emerson Henry David Thoreau Elizabeth Cady Stanton Nathaniel Hawthorne 1850-1865: Frederick Douglass Harriet Beecher Stowe Mary Chesnut Abraham Lincoln 1865-1901: Mark Twain Willa Cather Black Elk Booker T. Washington W.E.B Du Bois Henry Adams Edith Wharton 1901-1929: Upton Sinclair Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Dreiser Will Rogers Langston Hughes Zora Neale Hurston H.L. Mencken F. Scott Fitzgerald Ernest Hemingway 1929-1945: John Steinbeck William Faulkner Ayn Rand Ernie Pyle 1945-1961: Whittaker Chambers Walter Lippmann Jack Kerouac 1961-1975: James Baldwin Betty Friedan Russell Kirk William F. Buckley David Halberstam Neil Sheehan ______________________ Select a work 1600-1800: Mayflower Compact Autobiography of    Benjamin Franklin Common Sense Declaration of   Independence U.S. Constitution 1800-1850: Journals of   the Expedition Last of the Mohicans Narrative of   Sojourner Truth Nature Walden Declaration of   Sentiments The Scarlet Letter 1850-1865: Narrative of the Life of   Frederick Douglass Uncle Tom's Cabin A Diary from Dixie Gettysburg Address 1865-1901: The Adventures of   Huckleberry Finn O Pioneers! Black Elk Speaks Up From Slavery The Souls of Black Folk The Education of   Henry Adams Age of Innocence 1901-1929: The Jungle The Winning of   the West Sister Carrie The Cowboy Philosopher   on Prohibition Their Eyes   Were Watching God Montage of a Dream The American Language   Deferred The Great Gatsby The Sun Also Rises 1929-1945: The Grapes of Wrath The Sound and   the Fury The Fountainhead Here is Your War 1945-1961: Witness Public Opinion On the Road 1961-1975: The Fire Next Time The Feminine Mystique The Conservative Mind God and Man at Yale The Best and   the Brightest A Bright Shining Lie ______________________ Select a place 1600-1800: Plymouth, MA Philadelphia, PA: New Rochelle, NY Montpelier Station, VA: 1800-1850: Astoria, OR Cooperstown, NY Battle Creek, MI Concord, MA Seneca Falls, NY Salem, MA 1850-1865: Washington, DC Cincinnati, OH Camden, SC Gettysburg, PA 1865-1901: Hannibal, MO Red Cloud, NE Little Bighorn Battlefield Ntnl Mnt, MT Tuskegee, AL Amherst, MA Quincy, MA Lenox, MA 1901-1929: Chicago, IL: Upton Sinclair Medora, ND Chicago, IL: Theodore Dreiser Claremore, OK Harlem, NY Baltimore, MD: Montgomery, AL Key West, FL 1929-1945: Salinas, CA Oxford, MS Hollywood, CA Dana, IN 1945-1961: Washington, DC Washington, DC Lowell, MA 1961-1975: Bronx, NY Northampton, MA Mecosta, MI Washington, DC ______________________    Video Archives    Portrait Gallery    Classroom    Cable Affiliates    Home

etty Friedan's ground-breaking work The Feminine Mystique was published in 1963 after Friedan sent a questionnaire to other women in her 1942 Smith College graduating class. Buy the Book Friedan and her classmates all indicated a general dissatisfaction with their lives. This led Friedan to conduct more detailed research into "the problem that has no name"—the Feminine Mystique. She defined this "mystique" as the worthlessness women feel in roles that require them to be financially, intellectually and emotionally dependent upon their husbands. Through her findings, Friedan hypothesized that women are victims of a false belief system that requires them to find identity and meaning in their lives through their husbands and children.

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