The Fifties: An Underground History

by James R. Gaines Narrated by James Fouhey

Overview

An “exciting and enlightening revisionist history” (Walter Isaacson, #1 New York Times bestselling author) that upends the myth of the 1950s as a decade of conformity and celebrates a few solitary, brave, and stubborn individuals who pioneered the radical gay rights, feminist, civil rights, and environmental movements, from historian James R. Gaines.

An “enchanting, beautifully written book about heroes and the dark times to which they refused to surrender” (Todd Gitlin, bestselling author of The Sixties). In a series of character portraits, The Fifties invokes the accidental radicals-people motivated not by politics but by their own most intimate conflicts-who sparked movements for change in their time and our own. Among many others, we meet legal pathfinder Pauli Murray, who was tortured by both her mixed-race heritage and her “in between” sexuality. Through years of hard work and self-examination, she turned her demons into historic victories. Ruth Bader Ginsburg credited her for the argument that made sex discrimination unconstitutional, but that was only one of her gifts to the 21st-century feminism. We meet Harry Hay, who dreamed of a national gay rights movement as early as the mid-1940s, a time when the US, Soviet Union, and Nazi Germany viewed gay people as subversives and mentally ill. And in perhaps the book's unlikeliest pairing, we hear the prophetic voices of Silent Spring's Rachel Carson and MIT's preeminent mathematician, Norbert Wiener, who from their very different perspectives-she is in the living world, he in the theoretical one-converged on the then-heretical idea that our mastery over the natural world carried the potential for disaster. Their legacy is the environmental movement.

The Fifties is an “inspiration...[and] a reminder of the hard work and personal sacrifice that went into fighting for the constitutional rights of gay people, Blacks, and women, as well as for environmental protection” (The Washington Post). The book carries the powerful message that change begins not in mass movements and new legislation but in the lives of the decentered, often lonely individuals, who learn to fight for change in a daily struggle with themselves.

Editorial Reviews

JANUARY 2022 - AudioFile

Blessed with a fine and resonant voice, James Fouhey eloquently performs this revisionist history. His clear tone and thoughtful pace enrich the portraits of unsung activists and pioneering thinkers in this compelling audiobook. Cultural historian Gaines upends the bland decade of the fifties by revealing the “underground history” that spawned the gay and Civil Rights movements and the roots of feminism and ecology. He profiles Harry Hay, founder of the pro-gay rights Mettachine Society; Robert F. Williams, who led armed Black WWII vets against KKK attacks; Fanny Lou Hamer, the extraordinarily brave leader who exemplified the importance of Black women in the movement; Gerda Lerner, the Austrian refugee who helped found women’s history; and the insightful Rachel Carson, whose pioneering work, SILENT SPRING, spawned the environmental awakening. A.D.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

10/18/2021

Historian Gaines (For Liberty and Glory) delivers a compassionate and insightful group portrait of “singular men and women” who spoke out on LGBTQ issues, women’s rights, civil rights, and the environment in the 1950s. Documenting how these pioneers sowed the seeds for the political, cultural, and legal sea changes of the 1960s and ’70s, Gaines spotlights Harry Hay, founder of the gay rights advocacy group the Mattachine Society; Gerda Lerner, an Austrian Jewish refugee from the Holocaust who taught the first women’s history course in the U.S. at the New School in 1962; Medgar Evers, the original field secretary for the NAACP in Mississippi, whose desegregation efforts led to his murder in 1963; and cybernetics originator Norbert Wiener, who warned of “the many ways cutting-edge technologies could benefit humanity but also draw its blood.” Other profile subjects include feminist Betty Friedan, conservationist Rachel Carson, and civil rights activist Robert F. Williams. Gaines provides essential historical context and vividly captures the resilience of these and other “authentic rebels” who battled the FBI, McCarthyism, the medical industry, and the Ku Klux Klan “in a time infamous for rewarding conformity and suppressing dissent.” This revisionist history is packed with insights. Illus. Agent: Liz Darhansoff, Darhansoff & Verrill. (Jan.)

From the Publisher

"Values we take for granted can seem obvious when we encounter them in historical figures, but Gaines makes the price of righteousness clear—these men and women...faced down brutal violence and ostracism both personal and professional....[T]heir brilliance, their originality, their relentless courage created us.” —The New York Times

"An inspiration... A reminder of the hard work and personal sacrifice that went into fighting for the constitutional rights of gay people, Blacks and women as well as for environmental protections." —The Washington Post

"Revelatory... By attending to the experience of historical actors as they move through the world, he builds an account that is full of the complexity of lived experience. The result may not make for a simple read, but it is an infinitely rich one." —The Guardian

"Describes the courage of his heroes and the price they paid for standing up and speaking out in hostile environments... Progress 'is always a figment until it is not,' Gaines reminds us, and those who help 'make it happen, make history.'" — Star Tribune

"An up close and personal look at the lives and careers of activists who recognized various societal problems and fought them... All had one thing in common: the courage to stand out from the conformist crowd and address issues that had been swept under the table." — The Daily Beast

"Gaines has written an exciting and enlightening revisionist history of the 1950s showing how the brave pioneers of that supposedly sleepy decade launched the movements of the 1960s that continue to this day. Here are the inspiring tales of the unsung heroes who sowed the seeds of the gay rights, civil rights, feminist, and environmental movements. They were the true rebels, and their bravery shows us how real social change occurs." - Walter Isaacson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Code Breaker

"The Fifties is an enchanting, beautifully written book about heroes and the dark times to which they refused to surrender. We speak much too casually of heroes. These women and men of the ‘50s and thereafter, in all their complexity, deeply deserve the word, as Gaines's moving treatment makes clear." —Todd Gitlin, bestselling author of The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage; Professor of Journalism and Sociology and Chair, Ph. D. Program in Communications, Columbia University

"A history of the courageous men and women who roiled postwar complacency... Inspiring activists populate a useful revisionist history." — Kirkus Review

“Compassionate and insightful...Gaines provides essential historical context and vividly captures the resilience of these and other 'authentic rebels' who battled the FBI, McCarthyism, the medical industry, and the Ku Klux Klan 'in a time infamous for rewarding conformity and suppressing dissent.' This revisionist history is packed with insights." — Publishers Weekly

“Enlightening, empowering, and intimate.”—BookPage

“An engrossing deep dive into the personal histories of important figures...This work by Gaines follows in the footsteps of David Halberstam’s 1993 book of the same title and will be enjoyed by readers seeking solid historical research that is also an informative read. Recommended.”—Library Journal

“[Gaines] has taken valiant steps to... painstakingly and persuasively show how the 10 individuals he profiles fought ‘through the thicket of postwar repressions’ to help build what would later come to be known as the gay rights, feminist, civil rights and environmental movements...An intrepid corrective.”—Shelf Awareness

Library Journal

11/19/2021

The stereotype of the 1950s as a time of inaction or apathy for social causes is gradually giving way to the realization that the era saw many moves to awaken the United States from its so-called "Eisenhower siesta." Gaines (For Liberty and Glory: Washington, Lafayette, and Their Revolutions), an experienced journalist and historian, here gives an engrossing deep dive into the personal histories of important figures of what he calls "the long fifties" (roughly 1945–63); many of the book's subjects have been overlooked in conventional histories. Gaines looks at the long fifties through the lenses of four issues: gay rights, feminism, civil rights, and ecology. In each chapter, he introduces individuals who were forces for change. Some of them lived to see their efforts come to fruition, like Frank Kameny saw President Barack Obama sign an executive order extending benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees. Other profiles include Rachel Carson, who was one of the first pioneers of ecological writing, and Pauli Murray, who fought for equality and showed how the civil rights movement and the women's movement were intertwined. VERDICT This work by Gaines follows in the footsteps of David Halberstam's 1993 book of the same title and will be enjoyed by readers seeking solid historical research that is also an informative read. Recommended.—David Azzolina, Univ. of Pennsylvania Libs., Philadelphia

JANUARY 2022 - AudioFile

Blessed with a fine and resonant voice, James Fouhey eloquently performs this revisionist history. His clear tone and thoughtful pace enrich the portraits of unsung activists and pioneering thinkers in this compelling audiobook. Cultural historian Gaines upends the bland decade of the fifties by revealing the “underground history” that spawned the gay and Civil Rights movements and the roots of feminism and ecology. He profiles Harry Hay, founder of the pro-gay rights Mettachine Society; Robert F. Williams, who led armed Black WWII vets against KKK attacks; Fanny Lou Hamer, the extraordinarily brave leader who exemplified the importance of Black women in the movement; Gerda Lerner, the Austrian refugee who helped found women’s history; and the insightful Rachel Carson, whose pioneering work, SILENT SPRING, spawned the environmental awakening. A.D.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2021-10-07
A history of the courageous men and women who roiled postwar complacency.

In his latest book, former Timemanaging editor Gaines debunks the image of the 1950s as a period of quiet contentment. Although the postwar period was “hostile to change,” American society, Gaines reveals, was prodded by activists who dared to speak out against sexism, racism, classism, and environmental contamination. Drawing on histories, memoirs, reportage, and government documents, the author creates a vigorous group biography of several feisty individuals who risked isolation and censure by advocating for systemic change. His subjects include Harry Hay, a closeted gay man who founded the Mattachine Society, “the first sustained advocacy group for gay rights in American history”; feminist lawyer Pauli Murray, feminist historian Gerda Lerner, and civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, all of whom “saw that race, class, and gender were inseparable, mutually reinforcing sources of discrimination that could only be defeated on the basis of that understanding”; Black veterans such as Isaac Woodard, Medgar Evers, James Forman, and Aaron Henry, who became leaders in a variety of significant civil rights organizations throughout the South; and philosopher and mathematician Norbert Wiener and biologist Rachel Carson, who, from their vastly different perspectives, “converged on the heretical, even subversive idea that the assertion of mastery over the natural world was based on an arrogant fantasy that carried the potential for disaster.” Each individual confronted formidable obstacles: Hay, for example, faced the challenge of arousing support from men who feared exposure and “inspiring solidarity in people who had never wished to be known as a group, around questions most had never asked.” Carson, who wrote Silent Springwhile being treated for advanced cancer, battled a campaign mounted by the chemical industry. Black GIs came home from the war to face violent racist uprisings. Hamer, who worked as a sharecropper in Mississippi until she was 45, was thrown off the cotton plantation when she tried to register to vote.

Inspiring activists populate a useful revisionist history.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173289827
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	02/08/2022
Edition description:	Unabridged

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