IWU Students and Countercultures of the 1960s: Action and Influence of the Civil Rights and Women’s Movemen
Abstract
The 1960s was a decade of national movements and far-reaching social change in the United States. This research paper shifts to examine the local impact on students at the small liberal arts college of Illinois Wesleyan University (IWU). National scale movements such as the civil rights and women’s movement played an important role in shaping students' lives, activism, and participation in American society. Drawing on archival research of student organizations and activism at Illinois Wesleyan throughout the 1960s, I employ feminist methods to decipher the lived experience of social change at a small local level in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois. Looking closely at a small private university offers an important vantage point into this time which has normally focused on large-scale national movements.
IWU Students and Countercultures of the 1960s: Action and Influence of the Civil Rights and Women’s Movemen
CNS E103
The 1960s was a decade of national movements and far-reaching social change in the United States. This research paper shifts to examine the local impact on students at the small liberal arts college of Illinois Wesleyan University (IWU). National scale movements such as the civil rights and women’s movement played an important role in shaping students' lives, activism, and participation in American society. Drawing on archival research of student organizations and activism at Illinois Wesleyan throughout the 1960s, I employ feminist methods to decipher the lived experience of social change at a small local level in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois. Looking closely at a small private university offers an important vantage point into this time which has normally focused on large-scale national movements.