ABSTRACT
The historian Karen Dubinsky identifies Elaine Tyler May's Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era as one of the first feminist histories about the 1950s. May's focused thesis secures Homeward Bound as a study that can be seen as the culmination of a certain way of thinking about mid-century Cold War culture. Her work leaves subsequent scholars free to address entirely new areas of interest in the period. Homeward Bound has become such a formative text because it established a certain way of thinking about 1950s American culture. It focused on how political imperatives encouraged conservative and consumerist ideals, and how those ideas impacted the day-to-day domestic experience of mid-century Americans. Scholars cite May's study often, especially in addressing areas directly related to women and the home. Social science studies, studies examining the urban environment, and those investigating the representation of women in American cinema or culture have also referenced May.
