April’s General Meeting

Wednesday, April 18                                                                                                                                                                                                                       7:00 p.m.

Niskayuna Library                                                                                                                          2400 Nott Street East                                                                                                          Niskayuna

Program:  From Rosie the Riveter to Harriet the Happy Homemaker:                         Women on Screen During and After World War II

                    Speaker:  Rob Edelman                                                                              Lecturer in Film History, SUNY University at Albany

Before World War II, women were expected to marry and remain at home where they cooked meals and raised children, while their husbands were the breadwinners.

During the war, however, the role of women in American society changed. Women now were manning assembly lines, entering the military, and experiencing personal andeconomic freedom that previously had been the exclusive domain of men. With peacetime came a return to “normalcy,” and the expectation that women would cheerfully exchange their paychecks for aprons, regain their lost “femininity,” and return to their traditional roles within the American family.

The changing roles for and expectations of women are depicted in the era’s Hollywood movies. This lecture will be accompanied by a range of clips from films of the 1940s and50s, all of which illustrate the manner in which women were expected to act during and after the war.