In the mid-twentieth century, a grassroots movement of women-mostly white, middle-class, and conservative-sought to shape the political, cultural, and social ideologies of the baby boomers in what they perceived was a quickly changing world poisoned by communism. In Challenge and Change, June Melby Benowitz draws on a wide variety of primary sources to highlight the connections between the women of the Old Right, the New Right, and today's Tea Party. Through interviews, as well as through their letters to presidents, editors, and one another, Benowitz allows these women to speak for themselves. She examines the issues that stirred them to action-education, health, desegregation, moral corruption, war, patriotism, and the Equal Rights Amendment-and explores the development of the right-wing women's movement and its growth from the mid-twentieth into the twenty-first century.

Holding fast to traditional values in the face of unprecedented economic hardship, nearly a million American women joined right-wing organizations during the Great Depression and World War II. "Days of Discontent" provides a new perspective for understanding why the far right appealed to these women, whose political self-awareness grew with the tumultuous times.
Influenced by the conventional image of women as mothers and nurturers, many women viewed the right-wing movement as a way to protect and maintain American morality. The radical right leaders, such as Elizabeth Dilling and Grace Wick, held ideas in common with European fascists but based their politics on a uniquely American mixture of nativism, anticommunism, anti-Semitism, and racism. Benowitz's insight into their motivations sheds new light on the interaction between women's daily lives and national politics.

A sweeping study of the distaff side of anti-communism/anti-government conspiracy politics."-Eileen Boris, coeditor of The Practice of U.S. Women's History: Narratives, Intersections, and Dialogues "Benowitz shows how the conservative women of the 1950s helped to lay the foundation for the `New Right.'"-Mary C. Brennan, author of Pat Nixon: Embattled First Lady In the mid-twentieth century, a grassroots movement of women-mostly white, middle-class, and conservative-sought to shape the political, cultural, and social ideologies of the baby boomers in what they perceived was a quickly changing world poisoned by communism. In Challenge and Change, June Melby Benowitz draws on a wide variety of primary sources to highlight the connections between the women of the Old Right, the New Right, and today's Tea Party. Through interviews, as well as through their letters to presidents, editors, and one another, Benowitz allows these women to speak for themselves. She examines the issues that stirred them to action-education, health, desegregation, moral corruption, war, patriotism, and the Equal Rights Amendment-and explores the development of the right-wing women's movement and its growth from the mid-twentieth into the twenty-first century.