Women Who Invented the Sixties tells the story of how four women helped define the 1960s and made a lasting impression for decades to follow.In 1960, Ella Baker played the key role in the founding of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which became an essential organization for students during the civil rights movement and the model for the antiwar and women's movements. In 1961, Jane Jacobs published The Death and Life of Great American Cities, changin...

While there were many protests in the 1950s—against racial segregation, economic inequality, urban renewal, McCarthyism, and the nuclear buildup—the movements that took off in the early 1960s were qualitatively different. They were sustained, not momentary; they were national, not just local; they changed public opinion, rather than being ignored. Women Who Invented the Sixties tells the story of how four women helped define the 1960s and made a lasting impression for decades to f...