In the forty year period after World War II, American women's roles and perceptions changed dramatically. Between 1946 and 1986 married females became a large and stable component of the labor force. During the late 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s, a growing number of these women adopted the beliefs of the re-emerging feminist movement. This study analyzes the impact of both the demographic revolution and the women's movement on postwar women workers. It also traces the rise of a conservative backlash and examines the reasons traditionalist women found feminism threatening. Nursing, a historically feminized occupation, is the prism through which postwar women are studied.
"Leighow's story of how feminist ideas played themselves out in nursing's evolution and daily practice makes this a marvelous and informative little book that will be useful to a wide variety of historians interested in the most significant demographic revolution of the twentieth century - that in women's work - which has shaped the public and private sphere in myriad ways." (Regina Morantz-Sanchez, The Journal of American History)