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319 Acknowledgments Writing about books, authors, and ideas has made me abundantly aware of how much I rely on the work, help, and encouragement of others. I have no illusions that this book will have an impact on national consciousness similar to that of the best-sellers whose histories I explore. Nor can I imagine that the response to this book will transform my life as earlier responses did those of the writers whose works are the focus of my scholarship. Nonetheless, like the subjects of my own effort, I have relied on the kindness and dedication of research assistants, librarians, strangers, colleagues, scholars, publishers, family , and friends. Smith College has provided a supportive environment and tangible help conducive to bringing this project to fruition. The Committee on Faculty Compensation and Development has offered material assistance at every step. My colleagues in the American Studies Program, as well as its secretary, Barbara Day, have intensified my appreciation of what it takes to keep a program flourishing. Smith students have ably and imaginatively served as research assistants, among them Erin Blakemore, Rae Goldstein, Carrie Gray, Jessica Lampron, Rachel Ledford, Claire Null, and Gina Rourke. The staff of William Allen Neilson Library helped me locate and obtain what little material was not already available in its splendid collections. Librarians at the Sophia Smith Collection and the Smith College Archives made every effort to make their collections accessible to me. At several points since I started teaching at Smith College in 1989, I have been able to benefit from the college’s exceptionally generous provisions for sabbaticals. Farther afield has been the indispensable help of others who allowed my 320 Acknowledgments work to go smoothly. Robert Coven of the University of Chicago explored the collection pertinent to David Potter’s Walgreen lectures which led to his writing The People of Plenty. Early on, Dorothee Schneider translated and interpreted material on George Katona. When I started my work on this project, Christine Weideman’s research at the University of Michigan on George Katona was useful, and then as I finished, she guided me through the C. Vann Woodward Papers at Yale University. John Dwyer and Cornelia Dwyer made my stays in Atlanta both pleasant and fruitful; Joan Heifetz Hollinger and David Hollinger did the same in both Ann Arbor and Berkeley. Historians at the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Virginia, and the Five College History reading group in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts listened attentively as I presented earlier versions of chapters and then responded with probing questions that enabled me to clarify what I was trying to say. During the long period when I have worked on this book, three institutions have awarded me fellowships. Early on, a year at the National Humanities Center provided an ideal environment to get the work under way. Much later, a Fellowship for College Teachers from the National Endowment for the Humanities gave me valuable time off. Then a year at the Schlesinger Library at what was then Radcliffe College enabled me to complete work on my book on Betty Friedan. Any historian seeking a publisher who makes book making a pleasure could do no better than to sign on with the University of Massachusetts Press. Once again, Clark Dougan, a historian in his own right, has been a superb listener, advice giver, and editor. Librarians have continuously reminded me how essential they are to historical scholarship. Among those on whom I have relied are Bernard R. Crystal of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University; Ronald J. Grele of the Oral History Research Office at the same institution; David Linke of the archives at Princeton University; Linda J. Long of the Department of Special Collections, Stanford University; Krista L. Ovist at the Joseph Regenstein Library of the University of Chicago; John A. Popplestone of the Archives of the History of American Psychology, University of Akron; and Nancy M. Shawcross of the Van Pelt–Dietrich Library at the University of Pennsylvania. In addition, I am grateful to the librarians of Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe Institute, special collections at Pennsylvania State University, Harvard University, and the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library for easing access to their collections. My citations only begin to recognize the scholars and interviewees on whose work and words I have drawn. Special thanks to a long but surely incomplete list of people who answered questions both big and small: Paul Alpers, Lizabeth...

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