Fictional characters, such as June Cleaver, and criticism of suburban domestic passivity, notably Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, have profoundly shaped our popular and intellectual view of the immediate postwar decade. It is this image of apolitical domesticity and suburban conformity that Sylvie Murray challenges in The Progressive Housewife: Community Activism in Suburban Queens, 1945-1965. Set in the rapidly developing neighborhoods...