Feminizing the urban West: Green cities and open space in the postwar era, 1950--2000

This dissertation narrates the untold story of women's environmental activism in urban centers of the West during the era of modern suburbanization, 1950-2000. It examines women's open space and urban planning battles in Los Angeles, California; Portland, Oregon; Boise, Idaho; and San Francisco, California. The tales expose a different story of the 1950s that cuts against the prevailing narrative of suburban conformance: women's efforts to revitalize cities and preserve western quality of life. The case studies reveal women's resistance to postwar domesticity via their efforts to shape western cities through regional planning and the protection of open space. The dissertation paints a fuller picture of emerging postwar environmentalism and fills in a variety of gaps in postwar women's history.;The popular image of women retreating to the home prior to the women's movement is belied by the case studies in this dissertation, which show women across the West leading newly inspired urban planning debates about growth, sprawl, and protecting the natural environment.;The women who lived in the Santa Monica Mountains during the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s were critical in shaping modern L.A.; their resistance to mountain development and their efforts to preserve open space eventually led to the creation of the Santa Monica National Recreation Area. In Portland, members of the League of Women Voters recognized the value of regional planning in the late 1950s, and fought for the next 15 years to implement growth policies that have made Portland the envy of the nation's planners. In Boise, threats from the development community to the foothills space that formed the city's backdrop caused women in this western town to fight for growth control here, as well. Finally, Dorothy Erskine's efforts to save open space in the San Francisco Bay Area are described in this dissertation's last chapter. Erskine was a life long San Francisco resident at the vanguard of environmental and regional planning at mid-century. Her efforts led to the creation of what is known today as the Greenbelt Alliance, a non-governmental organization continuing to influence decisions about development and open space in the Bay Area.