The Permissive Society

Alan Petigny, the son of West Indian immigrants, is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Florida. He graduated with honors from the University of South Florida and received his master's and doctorate from Brown University. Prior to becoming an academic, Petigny worked as a policy analyst for the U.S. Congress' Joint Economic Committee. He was also an award-winning reporter for a public radio station based in Tampa, Florida, contributing material to both Florida Public Radio and NPR.

Introduction: rising expectations and the challenge from World War II; 1. Psychology: Benjamin Spock, Carl Rogers, and the liberalizing impulse in the 1950s; 2. Religion: ballrooms, bingo, blue laws and Billy Graham - piety and secularization in 1950s America; 3. Sex: Ingrid Bergman, Elizabeth Taylor and the sexual revolution in the postwar period; 4. Women: the rising status of women in the age of Eisenhower; 5. The youth culture: rock 'n roll, blue jeans, and the myth of opposition; 6. From original sin to self actualization: Jackson Pollock, Charlie Parker, and new notions of identity in postwar America; 7. Denouement: the normative lag and the role of religion in the transformation of American culture.