America and the ‘Great Society'

Despite America's post-war prosperity, many people remained poor. Rural communities, disadvantaged inner-city neighbourhoods and minority groups faced particular difficulties. Unequal schooling restricted opportunities, while a mainly private healthcare system meant that people who could not afford treatment could struggle to obtain it.

Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson believed that the federal government—the national government—should do more to address these inequalities. Poverty, education and health were connected: poor education could restrict earnings, while illness and medical bills could deepen poverty. Their reforms therefore sought both immediate help and longer-term opportunities.

Kennedy's New Frontier: ambitions and obstacles

Kennedy became president in 1961, during a recession in which unemployment reached about 7.1%. His New Frontier programme aimed to encourage economic growth and make American society fairer.

To tackle poverty, the Housing Act of 1961 provided cheap loans for housing and redevelopment in inner-city areas. Kennedy also raised the federal minimum wage from $1 to $1.25 an hour. A higher minimum wage improved the earnings of workers covered by it, but did not directly provide an income for people without jobs. Housing assistance could improve living conditions, but neither measure could eliminate poverty by itself.

Kennedy regarded education as important to both individual opportunity and America's economic strength. He proposed increased federal aid to schools, but Congress blocked his main school-funding proposals. Resistance to federal intervention and desegregation, including opposition from Southern politicians, made reform difficult. This illustrates an important limit on presidential power: announcing a programme did not guarantee that Congress would approve or fund it.

Healthcare presented a similar problem. Kennedy proposed Medicare, intended to make health insurance available to elderly Americans who could struggle to afford private care. Congress refused to approve it during his presidency. Increases in Social Security benefits provided some assistance, but his central healthcare proposal remained unfinished.

Kennedy was assassinated on 22 November 1963. His record was therefore mixed: measures such as the minimum-wage increase brought practical benefits, but congressional opposition and his short presidency prevented many ambitions from becoming law.

Johnson's Great Society and the War on Poverty

Johnson succeeded Kennedy and developed a more extensive reform programme, the Great Society. Sympathy following Kennedy's assassination helped Johnson build support for reform. He sought not merely to relieve hardship but to expand access to the skills and services that could help people escape it.

In 1964, Johnson declared a War on Poverty. The Economic Opportunity Act established the Office of Economic Opportunity to coordinate anti-poverty work. Its programmes approached poverty in several ways:

• Job Corps provided education and vocational training for young people from low-income backgrounds, helping prepare them for employment.
• Community Action Programmes involved local people in designing projects to address poverty in their own communities.
• VISTA, Volunteers in Service to America, sent volunteers to work in impoverished areas.

Other Great Society measures included expanded food stamps, which helped families obtain food, and Head Start, which provided preschool education and health services for disadvantaged children. These measures combined immediate assistance with attempts to improve future opportunities. For example, food support addressed present hunger, while early education aimed to reduce disadvantages before children entered school.

Housing and urban-renewal legislation in 1965, followed by the Model Cities programme in 1966, also sought to improve conditions in deprived urban areas.

Education and healthcare under Johnson

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 provided federal funding for schools, particularly those serving low-income communities. Money for resources such as textbooks, libraries and additional programmes aimed to narrow differences in educational opportunity. The Higher Education Act of 1965 supported access to university through financial assistance, including loans and scholarships.

These policies treated education as a route out of poverty. However, greater funding could improve opportunities without immediately removing all the disadvantages facing poorer families.

The Social Security Amendments of 1965 established two major healthcare programmes:

• Medicare provided health insurance for Americans aged 65 and over.
• Medicaid provided healthcare coverage for eligible low-income Americans through a programme jointly funded by federal and state governments.

Medicare addressed the difficulties of older people, while Medicaid targeted financial disadvantage. Both expanded government involvement in healthcare and reduced barriers to treatment. They did not create a universal free healthcare service for every American.

How successful was the Great Society?

Johnson achieved major reforms in all three areas: anti-poverty programmes, federal education funding and health insurance. The poverty rate fell from about 19% in 1964 to 12% in 1969. This was evidence of substantial improvement, although the fall should not be attributed to government programmes alone: economic conditions also mattered.

The reforms nevertheless had limits. Poverty and unequal access to opportunities continued. Complex administration and overlapping programmes could reduce effectiveness. Critics objected to their expense and argued that welfare could encourage dependence; these criticisms were not proof that all assistance failed.

The Vietnam War increasingly competed for government money and political attention from the mid-1960s. This constrained Johnson's domestic ambitions. Overall, Johnson secured more extensive legislation than Kennedy and widened access to important services, but the Great Society did not eradicate poverty or inequality.

Why women campaigned for greater equality

Winning the vote in 1920 had not given American women equality in every part of life. In the 1950s, women were still widely expected to concentrate on being wives and mothers. Women who worked faced lower pay and fewer opportunities for professional careers. Feminism challenged both unequal treatment and the assumption that women's ambitions should be limited by their sex.

The civil rights movement demonstrated that organised campaigning could challenge discrimination. Protests against the Vietnam War also encouraged activism. These movements helped inspire women to question their own position in society and demand change.

Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique helped give these frustrations a public voice. It challenged the idea that marriage, motherhood and housework necessarily fulfilled every woman, and supported women's desire for careers and greater independence. Its message particularly appealed to many middle-class women.

Bringing workplace inequality into public debate

In 1961, Kennedy established the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women to investigate women's position, including their treatment at work. Its findings highlighted lower pay, restricted employment rights and fewer opportunities for professional careers. An official investigation made it harder to dismiss these problems as merely individual complaints.

The fight for equal pay produced an important legal achievement: the Equal Pay Act of 1963 banned sex-based pay discrimination for equal work. This gave campaigners a legal basis for challenging unequal treatment.

However, a legal right did not automatically produce equality. Women continued to face lower earnings and discrimination at work. Passing a law could remove a formal barrier without immediately changing employers' practices or women's access to better-paid jobs.

NOW: changing laws and institutions

The National Organisation for Women (NOW) was established in 1966 by a group including Betty Friedan. It sought to make equality a practical reality through organised campaigning for legal and institutional change. Its membership was largely middle-class and middle-aged.

At its 1967 national conference, NOW adopted a Bill of Rights calling for equal rights under US law, equal pay, an end to employment discrimination, reproductive rights and paid maternity leave.

These demands were connected. Equal pay alone would not give women equal career opportunities if employers discriminated against them or if having children forced them out of employment. NOW therefore campaigned across several areas rather than treating each inequality as an isolated problem.

Women's liberation: challenging male dominance

The women's liberation movement developed during the late 1960s and attracted many younger women. It was more radical than NOW: activists wanted to challenge patriarchy, or male dominance, throughout society, not simply secure changes to particular laws.

Their methods included discussion meetings about women's experiences, criticism of traditional women's magazines and protests against the standards by which women were judged. The protest at the 1968 Miss America beauty pageant challenged the treatment of women primarily as objects to be assessed for their appearance.

Activists also helped women facing domestic violence and rape. This brought problems often treated as private matters into public debate. The movement broadened the meaning of equality: it concerned safety, relationships and control over one's life as well as wages and employment.

The Supreme Court and reproductive rights, 1972–73

Reproductive rights were important because decisions about pregnancy could affect women's education, employment and independence. Two Supreme Court decisions addressed different aspects of those rights.

In Eisenstadt v Baird (1972), the Court considered a Massachusetts law that allowed married people access to contraceptives to prevent pregnancy but denied that access to unmarried people. William Baird had been convicted after giving contraceptive foam to a young woman following a lecture.

The Court ruled that this unequal treatment violated the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection. It also explained that privacy belonged to the individual, not simply to a married couple. The significance was that unmarried people could not be denied access to contraception merely because they were unmarried. This was a ruling about contraception, not a general declaration that every form of sex discrimination had ended.

In Roe v Wade (1973), a woman challenged a Texas law banning nearly all abortions except those necessary to save the mother's life. The Supreme Court recognised constitutional protection for the decision to terminate a pregnancy through the right to personal privacy.

The ruling did not remove every restriction on abortion. During the first trimester, the decision was left to the woman and her physician. Later, states could regulate procedures to protect maternal health. After viability, when a fetus could survive outside the womb, states could prohibit abortion except when necessary to preserve the woman's life or health.

Roe therefore restricted states' ability to ban abortion and represented a major advance for reproductive rights in 1973, while still permitting specified restrictions. It was distinct from the contraception decision of 1972 and from the proposed Equal Rights Amendment.

The ERA and organised opposition

In 1972, Congress passed the Equal Rights Amendment. Its central principle was that equality of rights under the law should not be denied by the United States or any state on account of sex.

Congressional approval was only one stage. To become part of the Constitution, the amendment needed ratification by at least 38 states. It was therefore a proposed constitutional change, not an equality guarantee that immediately came into force in 1972.

Phyllis Schlafly led the STOP ERA campaign: ‘Stop Taking Our Privileges’. Supporters argued that the amendment threatened protections and traditional roles that they valued. They feared consequences such as women being required to serve in the army, increased abortion, same-sex marriage and unisex bathrooms. These were opponents' predictions, not established results of the amendment.

Opposition showed that women did not share a single view of liberation. Some valued traditional family roles or opposed feminist demands on religious grounds; others did not identify with the movement's priorities. These differences should not be used to assume that all religious or working-class women opposed feminism.

The ERA ultimately secured ratification by only 35 states, short of the required 38, and did not become part of the Constitution through this campaign. That eventual outcome extended beyond the study's 1973 endpoint.

How far had feminism changed women's lives?

By the early 1970s, feminist campaigning had helped place unequal pay, employment discrimination and reproductive rights at the centre of public debate. The Equal Pay Act and Supreme Court decisions brought important legal changes, while NOW and women's liberation challenged assumptions about women's roles.

Nevertheless, legal advances did not remove everyday discrimination, and the ERA faced strong opposition. The strongest judgement therefore recognises substantial gains in rights and public awareness alongside continuing inequality and disagreement over what change should mean.