ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the important events that have shaped women’s lives in the United States before and during the time the novels were written. It focuses on the home, work, and political climate from 1942 to 1982. The chapter looks at the ways in which these aspects of women’s lives made their way into novels and the forms that their representations took. The beginning of World War II witnessed thousands of women responding to the call to wartime employment. The subject positions readers assumed represent an assessment of what is possible in a complex and fragmented world. From the colonial era, the lives of many women in the United States were shaped by both domesticity and wage labor. This historical survey underscores the continuing uneasiness of American society with women’s changing positions and displays the political forces involved the contest for women’s hearts and minds.
