It feels like today’s polarizing political and cultural battles are unique, but there’s nothing new under the sun. Elaine Lewinnek will discuss a fascinating example from local history — “O.C’s Late-‘60s Social Studies Controversies and the Rise of the New Right” — at the Orange County Historical Society’s Feb 11, 2021 meeting, 7:30 p.m., online via Zoom.
To register, visit https://tinyurl.com/OCHSTextbook
Describing her program, Lewinnek writes, “During the late 1960s, liberals and conservatives clashed in passionate debates over California’s state-mandated eighth-grade U.S. history textbook, Land of the Free. Even as minority racial groups won civil rights battles and fought to integrate both the schools and the schools’ social-studies curriculum, another minority—consisting of female white conservatives—fought tenaciously for control over education and public memory, promoting a romanticized view of history.”
Elaine Lewinnek is professor of American Studies at California State University, Fullerton, and chair of the Environmental Studies program there. She is the author of The Working Man’s Reward: Chicago’s Early Suburbs and the Roots of American Sprawl (Oxford University Press, 2014), and is co-author the forthcoming People’s Guide to Orange County (University of California Press). She received her Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale University.
