Left in the Midwest

The essays in this volume collectively demonstrate that despite St. Louis’s post-World War II reputation as a conservative and sleepy Midwestern metropolis, the 1960s and 1970s saw an efflorescence of progressive organizing in the city and its immediate region.

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Despite St. Louis’s mid-twentieth-century reputation as a conservative and sleepy Midwestern metropolis, the city and the surrounding region have long played host to dynamic forms of social-movement organizing. This was especially the case during the 1960s and 1970s, when a new generation of St. Louis activists lent their energies to the ongoing struggles for Black freedom, lesbian and gay liberation, women’s rights and in support of the peace movement and environmental activism. This volume, the first of its kind, offers fifteen scholarly contributions—both original works and previously published—that together bring into focus the exceptional range of progressive activist initiatives that took shape in a single Midwestern city during these tumultuous decades.

In contrast to scholarship that seeks to interpret the era’s social-movement initiatives in a primarily national context, the works presented in this thoughtful collection emphasize the importance of locality, neighborhood, community institutions, and rooted social networks. In so doing, Left in the Midwest shows us how place powerfully shaped agendas, worldviews, and available opportunities for the disparate groups who dedicated themselves to progressive visions for their city. By revising our sense of the region’s past, this volume also expands our sense of the possibilities for current activist movements that strive to effect change in St. Louis and beyond.