Single Parents' Liberation in the 1970S Elizabeth Ryan Wayne State University

Wayne State University Wayne State University Dissertations 1-1-2015 Transforming Motherhood: Single Parents' Liberation In The 1970s Elizabeth Ryan Wayne State University, Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/oa_dissertations Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Ryan, Elizabeth, "Transforming Motherhood: Single Parents' Liberation In The 1970s" (2015). Wayne State University Dissertations. 1409. https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/oa_dissertations/1409 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@WayneState. It has been accepted for inclusion in Wayne State University Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@WayneState. TRANSFORMING MOTHERHOOD: SINGLE PARENTS’ LIBERATION IN THE 1970s by ELIZABETH RYAN DISSERTATION Submitted to the Graduate School of Wayne State University Detroit, MI in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 2015 MAJOR: HISTORY Approved By: _____________________________________ Advisor Date _____________________________________ _____________________________________ _____________________________________ ©COPYRIGHT BY ELIZABETH RYAN 2015 All Rights Reserved DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my parents, who always held me to high expectations. And to my daughters, for whom I continuously strive to meet those expectations. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am a very lucky person. I have the most supportive family and friends who have made it possible for me to successfully complete my graduate program and write this dissertation. My daughters, Molly and Abby, were born during my time in graduate school; they’ve always known me as a student. Their dad, Barry, never waivered in his support and encouragement. I owe them more than I can repay. My parents, Robin and Mladen Grujovski, helped so much and so often, it’s impossible to recount their contributions here. I was also very lucky to find the best group of faculty and colleagues at Wayne State University. I owe my advisor, Dr. Liz Faue, wells of gratitude. We spent more than a decade as advisor and advisee. Her brilliant guidance, compassionate mentoring, and friendship pulled me along in my studies. My desire to please and impress her motivated my work. My committee members, Dr. Janine Lanza, Dr. Danielle McGuire, and Dr. Janet Langlois, were all my teachers at one time and provided me with challenges and inspiration. Professors Eric Ash and Andrew Port were superior mentors and made me a more critical thinker and better teacher. The History Department at WSU provided me with four years of funding as a Graduate Teaching Assistant and numerous departmental awards which funded my research trips. I want to thank Gayle McCreedy for her undying devotion to graduate students as well as her friendship and counsel. I could not have made it through graduate school without my Wayne State family: (In no order) Tim Moran, Beth Fowler, David Hopkins, Maria Wendeln, Andrew Hnatow, Ann Marie Wambeke, Errin Stegich, Barry Johnson, Louis Jones, and Richard Fry. You are what made graduate school worth it. Spending time with you all studying, teaching, laughing, eating, drinking copious amounts of coffee, and traveling made the last seven years of work seem like some kind of treat. There were numerous institutions, organizations, and individuals who helped fund my graduate studies and research and who provided assistance in other ways. I want to thank the King-Chavez-Parks Future Faculty Fellowship for three years of funding and professional support. The Humanities Center at Wayne State University provided a Summer Dissertation Fellowship. Archivists and librarians at WSU’s Purdy- Kresge Library, the Women’s Library in London, the Sallie Bingham Special Collections at Duke University, the Bentley Historical Library, and Michigan State University’s Special Collections were all exceptionally helpful and kind. My colleagues and friends at Cranbrook Kingswood Department of History and Social Sciences have been supportive and encouraging during the last leg of writing and editing. I thank my two Senior May students Bryce Becker and Donna Zhang for helping with research. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Dedication ____________________________________________________________ii Acknowledgements ____________________________________________________ iii Chapter 1 “Introduction” ________________________________________________ 1 Chapter 2 “Single Parents’ Liberation: Single Parents’ Organizations in the U.S.A. and U.K.” _______________________________________________________________ 15 Chapter 3 “Feminist Motherhood: Single Mothers and the Women’s Liberation Movement” ____________________________________________________________________56 Chapter 4 “Making Ends Meet: Supporting the Single Mother Family” ____________101 Chapter 5 “Feminist Fatherhood: Men Can Mother” __________________________133 Chapter 6 “Life as a Single Mother: Sex, Choice, and Children” ________________ 163 Chapter 7 “Conclusion” ________________________________________________191 References _________________________________________________________199 Abstract ____________________________________________________________226 Autobiographical Statement ____________________________________________ 227 iv 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: SINGLE PARENTS IN THE 1970S In early 1972, new friends and single mothers Karol Hope and Lisa Connolly met for dinner. During the course of the evening, they “suddenly realized” that many of the stories about which they chatted “bore on topics peculiarly relevant to single mothers; how to make ends meet, how to find time for themselves, how to relate to their kids, and, of course, how to beat the deadening isolation.”1 Their revelation convinced them to reach out to other single mothers in the hopes of creating a community that could benefit from shared experiences. Joined by Ann DeWolf and Nancy Young, two other single mothers, the women organized MOMMA, the Organization for Single Mothers, in Los Angeles, California, that March. Seventy-five single mothers attended the first MOMMA meeting at the Modern Playschool in Culver City.2 The single mothers of MOMMMA reacted to their anxieties about solo parenting in a way that was deeply rooted in their historical time and place. The language of their publications and meetings was steeped in feminist rhetoric, and their proactive solution of creating a community of like-minded women followed models of the social movements of the previous decade. By the early 1970s, the American women’s liberation movement caused significant social and legal changes throughout the nation. Women began to have access to easier “no fault” divorces to escape unhappy or violent marriages. Banks began to offer personal bank accounts and lines of credit, which women had not been eligible for in previous decades. More women earned degrees in higher education as universities 1 Barbara Robertson. “MOMMA, The Organization for Single Women,” momma: the newspaper/magazine for single mothers, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1972). 2 Ibid. 2 offered access to programs and the government and private banks made available education loans. Women pressed for equal opportunity in the workforce, eliminating sex- segregated want ads and forcing employers to promote women to traditionally male (and higher-paying) jobs. They argued for maternity rights and benefits, often unsuccessfully, demanding better and cheaper child care facilities, paid maternity leave, job security and family-friendly, flexible workplaces. In 1973, the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision legalized abortion and widened the possible lifestyle choices for women across class and race lines. Women’s liberation groups debated women’s social roles, the relationship between men and women, and even questioned the emphasis on women’s role as mothers. Many American women encouraged abandoning the status quo governing women’s social and legal positions in order to carve out new and potentially more progressive alternatives. Transforming Motherhood examines the changes in American motherhood in the 1970s and 1980s by focusing on the experiences of single mothers. The dissertation locates the position of single mothers in the feminist movement and examines how the women’s liberation movement of the 1970’s affected single mothers. The study follows a thematic analysis of conditions connected to single motherhood. As a social and cultural study of single mothers in the seventies and eighties, the project examines the political, social, emotional and material conditions of single mothers to better understand the larger issues associated with single motherhood in Western society. Transforming Motherhood repositions the single mother from that of a peripheral outsider to a figure of central importance in understanding modern American motherhood. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, “The number of single parents went from 3.8 million 3 in 1970 to 6.9 million in 1980, increasing at an average rate of 6.0 percent per year.” About 90% of those single parents were women.3 Studies have shown that, “among children born in the late 1970s, 42 percent of whites and 86 percent of Blacks will spend some time in a single-parent family,” a fact owing most often to the divorce rate.4 In face, “Single parent households increased by a whopping 79 percent during the 1970s.”5 This trend has continued into the twenty-first century. In the United States in 2009, “9.9 million single mothers and 1.7 million single fathers lived with their

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