Michelle Nickerson | Loyola University Chicago (original) (raw)
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American Catholic Studies
Although presidential candidate Rick Santorum advocates a theocratic agenda that should concern A... more Although presidential candidate Rick Santorum advocates a theocratic agenda that should concern American voters, critics should avoid adopting the framework of "fascism" as a means of characterizing his policy initiatives.
This public website exhibits the oral history interviews compiled by students in the Fall 2011 Hi... more This public website exhibits the oral history interviews compiled by students in the Fall 2011 History Graduate Seminar at Loyola University Chicago under the supervision of Professor Michelle Nickerson, M.A. student Zachary Weber transcribed the interviews and produced the site as part of a Spring 2012 Independent Study under Professor Nickerson's direction.
The Journal of Economic History, 2012
OAH Magazine of History, 2003
EJ672193 - Women, Domesticity, and Postwar Conservatism.
The American Historical Review, 2001
... Page 5. SUBURBAN WARRIORS The Origins of the New American Right Lisa McGirr PRINCETON UNIVERS... more ... Page 5. SUBURBAN WARRIORS The Origins of the New American Right Lisa McGirr PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON AND OXFORD Page 6. ... 250 A worship service in Schuller'snew walk-in/drive-in church built in 1961. 251 The Crystal Cathedral. 252 Page 12. ...
<p>This chapter focuses on a series of educational battles in the early 1950s that reveal t... more <p>This chapter focuses on a series of educational battles in the early 1950s that reveal the step-by-step process of how political ideas germinated in the fabric of women's everyday lives. Starting with the "Pasadena affair" of 1950, it shows how new ideas about "mind control" and "brainwashing" inspired political epiphanies among women otherwise busy with their children's homework and PTA duties. Parents, especially mothers, started to think they saw communism in action. For a few years, conservative women asserted themselves in school politics as activists and school board members in Southern California, forcing teachers to resign and blocking policies they deemed subversive.</p>
This chapter examines how women developed forms of antistatist protest in the first half of the t... more This chapter examines how women developed forms of antistatist protest in the first half of the twentieth century that posed an oppositional relationship between the family and government. By the 1950s, anticommunism and antistatism became widespread mechanisms of political protest for women on the right much as peace activism and welfare work came to seem natural for women on the left. But unlike the later generation of Cold Warrior women who exerted themselves most forcefully through local politics, conservative women of the early twentieth century made their strongest impact by attacking that national progressive state. They also demonized “internationalism” as the handmaiden to communism, discovering another foe that women's position in the family obliged them to oppose. Consequently, the earliest generation of conservative organizations adopted the habit of calling themselves “patriotic” groups to contrast their own nationalist sentiment with the internationalism of progressives, which they equated with communism. This pattern continued into the post-World War II era.
The American Historical Review, 2018
<p>This chapter studies women's influence on conservatism as it entered the movement ph... more <p>This chapter studies women's influence on conservatism as it entered the movement phase in the early 1960s. Even as they denounced the mass politics they feared, conservatives came to recognize the necessity of stimulating a popular consciousness on the right to thwart momentum growing on the left, especially among youths. The anticommunist crusade that had been building among activists over the 1950s became a natural source from which to draw the necessary vigor to generate a movement, which leaders explicitly recognized. Women activists, already a central part of this crusade, became an essential part of the coalescing conservative movement. They formed chapters of the John Birch Society, a national organization that self-consciously sought to replicate leftist tactics to thwart "communism," which it conflated with all liberal movements. Women opened "patriotic" bookstores in their neighborhoods that featured their favorite conservative authors. The chapter ends with the presidential election of 1964, when the campaign of Barry Goldwater, which incorporated conservative women in new ways, came to be known as a movement.</p>
This research offers insight into what undergraduates at fi ve Catholic colleges and universities... more This research offers insight into what undergraduates at fi ve Catholic colleges and universities learned about Catholic Social Teaching (CST) during their college experience. The study used a purposive sample of twenty-six personal interviews with students who were exposed to CST either in the classroom or through some co-curricular activity. The interviews consisted of open-ended and demographic questions resulting in oral histories about the students’ opinions and experiences relative to CST. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of the interviews revealed generally consistent fi ndings, with some variation among the most diverse students in the sample. The results provide support for the intentional teaching of CST in Catholic institutions and suggest potential practices for teaching CST with diverse populations. The oft-repeated claim that Catholic Social Teaching (CST) is the “best-kept secret” in the Church suggests that CST is a relatively new phenomenon, one that just needs...
Mothers of Conservatism
This chapter documents how activism in education politics turned the attention of conservative wo... more This chapter documents how activism in education politics turned the attention of conservative women to professional psychology as a logical next target. Fears of “brainwashing” segued into fears of mental health professionals and the policy making they promoted in Washington, D.C., resulting in conservative protest of an amorphous “mental health establishment.” Anticommunist activists characterized psychology as a dangerous medicine that could be used to manipulate thought and, by extension, political will. Although conservative intellectuals scoffed at the conspiracy theories circulated by the “hysterical” housewives, the women's arguments nevertheless found their way into criticism articulated by scholars and politicians by the mid-1960s.
Religion and Politics Beyond the Culture Wars
Reviews in American History
Revue Française d Etudes Américaines
L'Eglise catholique a lance une periode de modernisation dans les annees 1960, visible partic... more L'Eglise catholique a lance une periode de modernisation dans les annees 1960, visible particulierement lors du concile Vatican II qui se reunit a Rome entre 1962 et 1965. Les participants utilisaient souvent l'expression aggiornamento, soit une « mise a jour », pour decrire les reformes qu'ils mirent en place. Aucune encyclique ou constitution emanant du concile ne concernait directement les femmes, mais l'esprit de cette reunion, aggiornamento, a eu un impact sur les croyantes de facon poignante et durable. Cet article emploie un nouveau terme conceptuel, aggiornamente, pour comprendre la generation emergente de femmes qui reagirent avec vigueur aux reformes. Ce terme reflete l'energie avec laquelle des femmes laiques et des religieuses aux Etats-Unis repondirent a l'appel qui leur demandait d'appliquer les enseignements de l'eglise pour faire face aux problemes du monde par l'activisme politique. Cette etude du parcours de deux femmes de Long Island indique comment l'aggiornamento a conduit a un engagement politique sur l'ensemble du spectre politique, de la resistance a la guerre du Viet-Nam au mouvement contre l'avortement. En examinant comment la theologie et une vie spirituelle individuelle coinciderent aisement avec l'engagement politique, je demontre en quoi les femmes catholiques ont participe a definir l'impact de Vatican II aux Etats-Unis.
Mothers of Conservatism
This book tells the story of 1950s Southern Californian housewives who shaped the grassroots righ... more This book tells the story of 1950s Southern Californian housewives who shaped the grassroots right in the two decades following World War II. The book describes how red-hunting homemakers mobilized activist networks, institutions, and political consciousness in local education battles, and it introduces a generation of women who developed political styles and practices around their domestic routines. From the conservative movement's origins in the early fifties through the presidential election of 1964, the book documents how women shaped conservatism from the bottom up, out of the fabric of their daily lives and into the agenda of the Republican Party. A unique history of the American conservative movement, this book shows how housewives got out of the house and discovered their political capital.
Oxford Handbooks Online
Women have participated in conservative movement politics throughout the twentieth century. From ... more Women have participated in conservative movement politics throughout the twentieth century. From opposition mounted against Progressive-era health and welfare legislation to protests against Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal to culture war battles with feminists, conservative women have never completely ceded the right side of the political spectrum to men. Essentialist notions of what is “natural” to women, their bodies, and their connection to children and the family, have been the basis of conservative female politics throughout the twentieth century and beyond. Women on the right have drawn from a corpus of beliefs, ideals, and assumptions passed down from generations of political forbears about the natural conservatism of women—an intuitive drive to protect the young and bring calm to the space around them. This chapter examines the impact of that ideology, in its various iterations, over the course of the twentieth century.
Journal of American History
American Catholic Studies
Although presidential candidate Rick Santorum advocates a theocratic agenda that should concern A... more Although presidential candidate Rick Santorum advocates a theocratic agenda that should concern American voters, critics should avoid adopting the framework of "fascism" as a means of characterizing his policy initiatives.
This public website exhibits the oral history interviews compiled by students in the Fall 2011 Hi... more This public website exhibits the oral history interviews compiled by students in the Fall 2011 History Graduate Seminar at Loyola University Chicago under the supervision of Professor Michelle Nickerson, M.A. student Zachary Weber transcribed the interviews and produced the site as part of a Spring 2012 Independent Study under Professor Nickerson's direction.
The Journal of Economic History, 2012
OAH Magazine of History, 2003
EJ672193 - Women, Domesticity, and Postwar Conservatism.
The American Historical Review, 2001
... Page 5. SUBURBAN WARRIORS The Origins of the New American Right Lisa McGirr PRINCETON UNIVERS... more ... Page 5. SUBURBAN WARRIORS The Origins of the New American Right Lisa McGirr PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON AND OXFORD Page 6. ... 250 A worship service in Schuller&amp;amp;#x27;snew walk-in/drive-in church built in 1961. 251 The Crystal Cathedral. 252 Page 12. ...
<p>This chapter focuses on a series of educational battles in the early 1950s that reveal t... more <p>This chapter focuses on a series of educational battles in the early 1950s that reveal the step-by-step process of how political ideas germinated in the fabric of women's everyday lives. Starting with the "Pasadena affair" of 1950, it shows how new ideas about "mind control" and "brainwashing" inspired political epiphanies among women otherwise busy with their children's homework and PTA duties. Parents, especially mothers, started to think they saw communism in action. For a few years, conservative women asserted themselves in school politics as activists and school board members in Southern California, forcing teachers to resign and blocking policies they deemed subversive.</p>
This chapter examines how women developed forms of antistatist protest in the first half of the t... more This chapter examines how women developed forms of antistatist protest in the first half of the twentieth century that posed an oppositional relationship between the family and government. By the 1950s, anticommunism and antistatism became widespread mechanisms of political protest for women on the right much as peace activism and welfare work came to seem natural for women on the left. But unlike the later generation of Cold Warrior women who exerted themselves most forcefully through local politics, conservative women of the early twentieth century made their strongest impact by attacking that national progressive state. They also demonized “internationalism” as the handmaiden to communism, discovering another foe that women's position in the family obliged them to oppose. Consequently, the earliest generation of conservative organizations adopted the habit of calling themselves “patriotic” groups to contrast their own nationalist sentiment with the internationalism of progressives, which they equated with communism. This pattern continued into the post-World War II era.
The American Historical Review, 2018
<p>This chapter studies women's influence on conservatism as it entered the movement ph... more <p>This chapter studies women's influence on conservatism as it entered the movement phase in the early 1960s. Even as they denounced the mass politics they feared, conservatives came to recognize the necessity of stimulating a popular consciousness on the right to thwart momentum growing on the left, especially among youths. The anticommunist crusade that had been building among activists over the 1950s became a natural source from which to draw the necessary vigor to generate a movement, which leaders explicitly recognized. Women activists, already a central part of this crusade, became an essential part of the coalescing conservative movement. They formed chapters of the John Birch Society, a national organization that self-consciously sought to replicate leftist tactics to thwart "communism," which it conflated with all liberal movements. Women opened "patriotic" bookstores in their neighborhoods that featured their favorite conservative authors. The chapter ends with the presidential election of 1964, when the campaign of Barry Goldwater, which incorporated conservative women in new ways, came to be known as a movement.</p>
This research offers insight into what undergraduates at fi ve Catholic colleges and universities... more This research offers insight into what undergraduates at fi ve Catholic colleges and universities learned about Catholic Social Teaching (CST) during their college experience. The study used a purposive sample of twenty-six personal interviews with students who were exposed to CST either in the classroom or through some co-curricular activity. The interviews consisted of open-ended and demographic questions resulting in oral histories about the students’ opinions and experiences relative to CST. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of the interviews revealed generally consistent fi ndings, with some variation among the most diverse students in the sample. The results provide support for the intentional teaching of CST in Catholic institutions and suggest potential practices for teaching CST with diverse populations. The oft-repeated claim that Catholic Social Teaching (CST) is the “best-kept secret” in the Church suggests that CST is a relatively new phenomenon, one that just needs...
Mothers of Conservatism
This chapter documents how activism in education politics turned the attention of conservative wo... more This chapter documents how activism in education politics turned the attention of conservative women to professional psychology as a logical next target. Fears of “brainwashing” segued into fears of mental health professionals and the policy making they promoted in Washington, D.C., resulting in conservative protest of an amorphous “mental health establishment.” Anticommunist activists characterized psychology as a dangerous medicine that could be used to manipulate thought and, by extension, political will. Although conservative intellectuals scoffed at the conspiracy theories circulated by the “hysterical” housewives, the women's arguments nevertheless found their way into criticism articulated by scholars and politicians by the mid-1960s.
Religion and Politics Beyond the Culture Wars
Reviews in American History
Revue Française d Etudes Américaines
L'Eglise catholique a lance une periode de modernisation dans les annees 1960, visible partic... more L'Eglise catholique a lance une periode de modernisation dans les annees 1960, visible particulierement lors du concile Vatican II qui se reunit a Rome entre 1962 et 1965. Les participants utilisaient souvent l'expression aggiornamento, soit une « mise a jour », pour decrire les reformes qu'ils mirent en place. Aucune encyclique ou constitution emanant du concile ne concernait directement les femmes, mais l'esprit de cette reunion, aggiornamento, a eu un impact sur les croyantes de facon poignante et durable. Cet article emploie un nouveau terme conceptuel, aggiornamente, pour comprendre la generation emergente de femmes qui reagirent avec vigueur aux reformes. Ce terme reflete l'energie avec laquelle des femmes laiques et des religieuses aux Etats-Unis repondirent a l'appel qui leur demandait d'appliquer les enseignements de l'eglise pour faire face aux problemes du monde par l'activisme politique. Cette etude du parcours de deux femmes de Long Island indique comment l'aggiornamento a conduit a un engagement politique sur l'ensemble du spectre politique, de la resistance a la guerre du Viet-Nam au mouvement contre l'avortement. En examinant comment la theologie et une vie spirituelle individuelle coinciderent aisement avec l'engagement politique, je demontre en quoi les femmes catholiques ont participe a definir l'impact de Vatican II aux Etats-Unis.
Mothers of Conservatism
This book tells the story of 1950s Southern Californian housewives who shaped the grassroots righ... more This book tells the story of 1950s Southern Californian housewives who shaped the grassroots right in the two decades following World War II. The book describes how red-hunting homemakers mobilized activist networks, institutions, and political consciousness in local education battles, and it introduces a generation of women who developed political styles and practices around their domestic routines. From the conservative movement's origins in the early fifties through the presidential election of 1964, the book documents how women shaped conservatism from the bottom up, out of the fabric of their daily lives and into the agenda of the Republican Party. A unique history of the American conservative movement, this book shows how housewives got out of the house and discovered their political capital.
Oxford Handbooks Online
Women have participated in conservative movement politics throughout the twentieth century. From ... more Women have participated in conservative movement politics throughout the twentieth century. From opposition mounted against Progressive-era health and welfare legislation to protests against Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal to culture war battles with feminists, conservative women have never completely ceded the right side of the political spectrum to men. Essentialist notions of what is “natural” to women, their bodies, and their connection to children and the family, have been the basis of conservative female politics throughout the twentieth century and beyond. Women on the right have drawn from a corpus of beliefs, ideals, and assumptions passed down from generations of political forbears about the natural conservatism of women—an intuitive drive to protect the young and bring calm to the space around them. This chapter examines the impact of that ideology, in its various iterations, over the course of the twentieth century.
Journal of American History