Reply To: TBC: Kate Quinn says she “really wanted to look at a microcosm of the issues that are hitting women in the early 1950s.”
Arlene represented the stereotype of what a young woman should strive to be in the 50s. Her purpose was to get her M.R.S. degree. To snag that man and a wedding ring to prove her conquest. Her goal was to be the perfect wife. The perfect mother. The perfect “Red” rat. In her desire to achieve those goals she failed to be a good human being.
Claire represented what the effects of poverty and survival of the great depression had on children. How she would do anything to earn/steal money to secure herself a home no one could take from her. She also represents the Lavender Scare as a gay woman in the 50s. This explains why she appears to be stand offish, I think. To Clare money meant security. Not getting too close to her house mates meant not being discovered as a gay person.
Felicity dealt with single parenting while her husband was at war. She also suffered from postpartum depression which was not recognized in the 50’s as a medical condition. She tried to be the perfect mother single handedly. The thought of having another child when her husband came home from Japan sent her into a panic.What she really wanted was to be a nurse. Sadly, young mothers were frowned upon if they held a job.
Reka was a Hungarian artist who escaped Berlin in the thirties. She was also a commie for a period of time during her youth and years in Germany. She had to sell her treasures to secure a life of freedom in the States. But was she really free- living in the McCarthy era?
Bea was the woman who saved baseball for the US during WWII by playing in the Woman’s League. But, once the war
was over, and the men came home there were few places for her in that sports arena she so dearly loved. Add to that the injury to her knee at a time in history when knee replacements were not a thing and she was sidelined. Bea did not do well in the female assigned role as a teacher but for a while she chipped away at the glass ceiling by being a scout for men’s baseball teams.
Sydney, the Senator’s wife was not only gay but she was physically abused by her husband. She did not want to bring any more children into this violent household. But at that time, husbands needed to give doctors permission to write prescriptions for birth control for their wives. Her husband controlled her financially, emotionally, sexually, and physically. Only through Reka and the Briarwood residents did she begin to find a way out of the black hole she was living in. It was the death of her husband that finally set her free and her son free.
Grace survived Stalin’s 900 day death decree that killed her entire family because they starved to death. She escaped the commie regime by becoming a commie spy and then being sent to the US. She mastered the art of escaping, leaving her commie life behind to become the mentor, the weaver of magic, the ray of hope for those living in the Briarwood House.
Mrs. Nillson was a vindictive woman who abused her children emotionally and physically. She denied her daughter, Lina, the glasses that would have improved her vision considerably. she denied her son, Pete, the food his growing body needed and she denied him his right to an education. Doilies also denied her children access to their father. In the end Mrs. Nillson was not able to sell Briarwood House because the house was in her husband’s name and he refused to sell his children’s home. Women in the 50’s could not own property.
I see Nora as a pioneer in the Women’s Liberation Movement which really didn’t get started until the 60’s. She had a goal for advancing in her job and stood her ground about being associated with Xavier, even though she loved him, to attain her goal.
Senator Margaret Smith stood up to McCarthy with her speech on the senate floor about exercising our rights. “The right to hold unpopular beliefs. The right to protest. The right of independent thought. When she was asked why she stuck her neck out like that she responded,”Because something had to be done about that man … and no one else seemed likely to do it.” Now here we are in 2025 fighting for the very rights that Senator Smith spoke about in the 50’s.
These women were ground breakers in so many ways. They were the leaders of fights that we continue to fight all these years later.
I was born in 1947, watched my little town run one of my teachers out of town because they thought he was a commie, marched for women’s rights in the 60’s, needed my dad’s signature to purchase a car in the 70’s, watched our soldiers return from a war they didn’t choose to fight in to be spit on by our citizens, and I was in an abusive marriage. So many of these issues resonate with me in one way or another.
