The Fifties

by David Halberstam

Up until then during this century women had made fairly constant progress in the spheres of politics, education, and employment opportunities. Much of their early struggle focused on the right of married women to work (and therefore to take jobs away from men who might be the heads of families). In the thirties a majority of states, twenty-six of forty-eight, still had laws prohibiting the employment of married women. In addition, a majority of the nation’s public schools, 43 percent of its public utilities, and 13 percent of its department stores enforced rules on not hiring of wives. A poll of both men and women in the thirties that asked “Do you approve of a married woman earning money in business or industry if she has a husband capable of supporting her?” showed that 82 percent of the men and women polled disapproved.