Gerda lerner letter to betty friedan biography

Gerda Lerner was at the beginning of her career as a historian when she wrote a letter to Betty Friedan critiquing the assumption of.

GERDA LERNER (b.

Betty Friedan received thousands of letters in response to her book, The Feminine Mystique.

A view voiced by the path-breaking historian Gerda Lerner in a letter to Friedan shortly after publication of The Feminine Mystique has become.

Lerner brought to the study of history an understanding of class and race and the willingness to speak out for what she believed was right, as seen in her.

Betty Friedan received thousands of letters in response to her book, The Feminine Mystique..

‘Feminine Mystique’ at 50

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique,” a culture-shaking manifesto that detailed what the graduate of Smith College called the “problem that had no name.”

Friedan’s “problem” was a simmering lack of fulfillment among women at midcentury.

They longed, she said, to be more than just perfect housewives and doting mothers. Her revolutionary book touched a deep nerve in American society, and was credited with starting what came to be known as the women’s liberation movement.

A revealing exhibit at the Schlesinger Library on view through Feb.

6 charts the evolution of Friedan’s seminal work. What began as a college reunion survey (a copy is on display) morphed into a treatise of plus pages that looked deeply into gender, power, and sexuality.

“We felt like the exhibit should be about the writing of the book,” said Jenny Gotwals, lead manuscript cataloger, who helped assemble the show.

“It Changed My Life: The Femi