Discover U.S. history through our curated selection of texts and discuss how our nation's history and our understandings of the past inform the present.
This month's text is Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era by Elaine Tyler May. Please register online here.
From the publisher: "In the 1950s, the term 'containment' referred to the foreign policy-driven containment of Communism and atomic proliferation. Yet in Homeward Bound, May demonstrates that there was also a domestic version of containment where the 'sphere of influence' was the home. Within its walls, potentially dangerous social forces might be tamed, securing the fulfilling life to which postwar women and men aspired. Homeward Bound tells the story of domestic containment - how it emerged, how it affected the lives of those who tried to conform to it, and how it unraveled in the wake of the Vietnam era's assault on Cold War culture, when unwed mothers, feminists, and 'secular humanists' became the new 'enemy.' This revised and updated edition includes the latest information on race, the culture wars, and current cultural and political controversies of the post-Cold War era."
Schedule:
- 5:30-6 p.m. (optional): Hear a summary of the text and additional historical context - ideal for participants who didn't read the book or who want a refresher
- 6-7 p.m.: Participate in a guided discussion of the selected text
- 7-7:30 p.m. (optional): Socialize and enjoy light refreshments
Ages 16 and up.
Fee: $8 (resident) / $10 (non-resident). Drop-ins are welcome as space permits.
Call the museum at (847) 929-8001 or email eengland@skokieparks.org with questions.
Next month's texts will be A Country Called Amreeka: U.S. History Retold Through Arab-American Lives by Alia Malek and Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future by Patty Krawec.