When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present

When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present

by Gail Collins (Author)

Synopsis

WHEN EVERYTHING CHANGED begins in 1960 when American women actually had to get their husband's permission to apply for a credit card. In the years since, American women have witnessed exciting changes, expectations about what their lives could be smashed in just a generation. The story ends in the 21st century, with a woman winning a Presidential primary.
This book tells us how women got from there to here, in politics, fashion, economics, sex, families and work. A comprehensive mix of oral history and Gail Collins's keen research, WHEN EVERYTHING CHANGED is the definitive book on five crucial decades of progress, told with the down-to-earth, amusing and agenda-free tone for which this beloved New York Times columnist is known. Collins spoke with the women who lived these transformative years, including an advertising executive in the 60s who was not allowed to attend board meetings that took place in the all-male dining room and an airline stewardess who was required to bend over to light her passengers' cigars on a men-only 'Executive Flight'.

Picking up where her highly-lauded book America's Women left off, WHEN EVERYTHING CHANGED is the dynamic story of cataclysmic change, a story Gail Collins seems to have been born to tel

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 512
Edition: Reprint
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Published: 21 Oct 2010

ISBN 10: 0316014044
ISBN 13: 9780316014045
Book Overview: Gail Collins, the esteemed New York Times columnist and bestselling author recounts the astounding revolution in women's lives over the past 50 years.

Media Reviews
Did feminism fail? Gail Collins's smart, thorough, often droll and extremely readable account of women's recent history in America not only answers this question brilliantly, but also poses new ones about the past and the present. --Amy Bloom, The New York Times Book Review
Until now, the second wave women's movement hasn't had its big ambitious history--the equivalent to Taylor Branch's multivolume narrative of the civil rights movement....nothing as sweeping and accessible as this. --Margaret Talbot, Slate.com's Double X
What better time to look at American women's progress since the '60s, now that the dust has settled on the 2008 presidential election when so much was won (and lost) by women?... Gail Collins's near epic history When Everything Changed...also captures the playfulness and humor in women's advancement. --Elizabeth Toohey, The Christian Science Monitor
'The past is a foreign country' is the kind of hallowed quotation that's resolutely opaque until you stumble on something that drives home its emotional truth. The uncanny feeling it references is that one that recurs frequently as you read When Everything Changed, the absorbing history of feminism and American women's lives by Gail Collins, the resident editorial fount of wry Midwestern common sense at The New York Times.... What Collins does, which so pitiably few pop-history writers do, is bring the stories, the anecdotes that come to life and pull you in. --Ben Dickinson, Elle
I should mention that Collins is at the top of my guest list for my imaginary dinner party, the theme of which would be: 'Famous fun people I'd like to meet and talk with, but probably never will'...Readers will appreciate the exceptional detail with which Collins lays out the accepted universe of closed opportunities and limited horizons that women faced in 1960. Collins interviewed a variety of women from around the country, and it is fascinating to hear them describe a world that seems unthinkable now but which few could imagine challenging at the time....The stories that emerge are...deeply moving. --Sharon Ullman, Boston Sunday Globe
In her pithy, wide-ranging and readable new book, Gail Collins whisks us through nearly five decades of women's history... Famous names and familiar stories appear, but what is most compelling are the vignettes of women who would have remained obscure without the work of Collins and her research team. Through their stories we experience the rat-a-tat-tat of daily indignities--big and small--that built to a crescendo we now call the women's movement. --Connie Schultz, The Cleveland Plain Dealer
Readers familiar with her work will recognize her eye for ironic detail in this wry, insightful and comprehensive book...there are many wonderful, triumphal moments...Collins wants us to remember how bad things were in the 1960s, and she succeeds. --Jill Lawrence, Politics Daily
Exhilarating, accessible, and inspiring. --Katha Pollitt, Slate.com
Among the impressive features of Ms. Collins's book is her genial, fair-minded sympathy, her refusal to smirk at the excesses of the most radical '70s feminists or at the stance of women, among them Phyllis Schlafly, who counseled their sisters to stay home where they belonged. --Francine Prose, New York Times
This is not only a fascinating record of how far women have come, it is also a missive to a new generation of women, reminding them to keep the faith. --Katherine Boyle, Booklist
A lively account...Collins uses her great sense of revealing anecdote, engaging personalities, representative case histories, resonant stories, and startling details to defamiliarize a decade we thought we remembered, and to show how truly far American women have come in every aspect of their lives.... Collins's message is inspiring and timely, and all the techniques she employs to make this book fun to read--and impossible to deny--deserve critical praise as well as popular success. --Elaine Showalter, Progressive Book Club
Splendid...Collins is a masterful storyteller. --Glenn C. Altschuler, NPR.com
Social history at its best. --MiChelle Jones, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Women aren't nostalgic for the old days. If anyone is, just watch a few episodes of Mad Men as an antidote, with its suffocated Mad Wife Betty Draper and its slapped-down Working Woman Peggy Olsen. If you prefer nonfiction, leaf through the early chapters of Gail Collins's history When Everything Changed to those magical yesteryears when a flight attendant was weighed, measured, and hired to be a flying geisha. --Ellen Goodman, The Seattle Times
Compulsively readable....Millions lived through the material Collins covers in her new book. To those who did not, it might read a little like science fiction. --Chris Vognar, The Dallas Morning News
Gail Collins walks you through a fascinating five decades of history that shows you just how far women have come. --LadiesHomeJournal.com
Riveting and remarkably thorough in its account of this tumultuous period.... Collins draws on an impressive variety of sources...and employs her engaging and accessible writing style to created a very readable history book. --Rasha Madkour, The Associated Press, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, New York Post, New York Daily News
The new must-have text for modern feminists. Her simple message to our generation: We must not take our astounding journey for granted. --Ami Angelwicz, The Frisky.com
Collins, whose prose is vigorous and direct, has an unflaggingly intelligent conversational style that gives this book a personal and authoritative tone all at once. --Cathleen Schine, The New York Review of Books
In a fascinating history, Gail Collins goes behind the scenes of the women's rights movement.... When Everything Changed provides a sweeping, fascinating look at modern women in our country. Filled with facts, court cases and legislation, the book is rich with personal anecdotes. Collins and her researchers interviewed more than 100 women for this history, and for many contemporary readers, their findings will be startling and sometimes heartbreaking.... The end of her book will make many readers swell with pride--it features updates on the lives of the interview subjects featured in the book, many of whom went on to break barriers for many years. The story their lives helped write--of American women from the 1960s to today--is inspiring and compelling. --Eliza Born , BookPage
Provides a sweeping, fascinating look at modern women in our country.... It may be a history book, but When Everything Changed reads like a page-turning saga, a race through the years to learn how we got here. --Eliza Born , BookPage.com
A revelatory book for readers of both sexes, and sure to become required reading for any American women's-studies course. --Kirkus
Author Bio
Gail Collins was the Editorial Page Editor for the New York Times from 2001-2007 - the first woman to have held that position. She currently writes a column for the Time's Op-Ed page twice weekly