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Most histories of modern American politics tell a similar story: that the Sunbelt, with its business friendly environment, right-to-work laws, and fierce spirit of frontier individualism, provided the seedbed for popular conservatism. Stacie Taranto challenges this narrative by positioning New York State as a central battleground. In 1970, under the governorship of Republican Nelson Rockefeller, New York became one of the first states to legalize abortion. By 1980, however, conservative, antifeminist Republicans with broad suburban appeal—symbolized by figures such as Ronald Reagan—had usurped power from these so-called Rockefeller Republicans. What happened during the intervening decade?In Kitchen Table Politics, Taranto investigates the role that middle-class, mostly Catholic women played both in the development of conservatism in New York State and in the national shift toward a conservative politics of "family values." Far from Albany, a short train ride away from the feminist activity in New York City, white, Catholic homemakers on Long Island and in surrounding suburban counties saw the legalization of abortion in the state in 1970 as a threat to their hard-won version of the American dream. Borrowing tactics from church groups and parent-teacher associations, these women created the New York State Right to Life Party and organized against several feminist initiatives, including defeating an effort to add an Equal Rights Amendment to the state constitution in 1975.These self-described "average housewives," Taranto argues, were more than just conservative shock troops; instead, they were inventing a new, politically viable conservatism centered on the heterosexual traditional nuclear family that the GOP's right wing used to broaden its electoral base. Figures such as activist Phyllis Schafly, New York senator Al D'Amato, and presidential hopeful Ronald Reagan viewed the Right to Life Party's activism as offering a viable model to defeat feminist initiatives and win family values votes nationwide. Taranto gathers archival evidence and oral histories to piece together the story of these homemakers, whose grassroots organizing would shape the course of modern American conservatism

Most histories of modern American politics tell a similar story: that the Sunbelt, with its business friendly environment, right-to-work laws, and fierce spirit of frontier individualism, provided the seedbed for popular conservatism. Stacie Taranto challenges this narrative by positioning New York State as a central battleground. In 1970, under the governorship of Republican Nelson Rockefeller, New York became one of the first states to legalize abortion. By 1980, however, conservative, antifeminist Republicans with broad suburban appeal—symbolized by figures such as Ronald Reagan—had usurped power from these so-called Rockefeller Republicans. What happened during the intervening decade?In Kitchen Table Politics, Taranto investigates the role that middle-class, mostly Catholic women played both in the development of conservatism in New York State and in the national shift toward a conservative politics of "family values." Far from Albany, a short train ride away from the feminist activity in New York City, white, Catholic homemakers on Long Island and in surrounding suburban counties saw the legalization of abortion in the state in 1970 as a threat to their hard-won version of the American dream. Borrowing tactics from church groups and parent-teacher associations, these women created the New York State Right to Life Party and organized against several feminist initiatives, including defeating an effort to add an Equal Rights Amendment to the state constitution in 1975.These self-described "average housewives," Taranto argues, were more than just conservative shock troops; instead, they were inventing a new, politically viable conservatism centered on the heterosexual traditional nuclear family that the GOP's right wing used to broaden its electoral base. Figures such as activist Phyllis Schafly, New York senator Al D'Amato, and presidential hopeful Ronald Reagan viewed the Right to Life Party's activism as offering a viable model to defeat feminist initiatives and win family values votes nationwide. Taranto gathers archival evidence and oral histories to piece together the story of these homemakers, whose grassroots organizing would shape the course of modern American conservatism.

Debate over "family values" is now a staple in American politics. My paper examines how that came to be. I focus on New York state from the 1970s through the 1980s when feminist activism and an emerging conservative family values movement competed side-by-side to define the family. Conservative activists, most of whom were white, suburban homemakers, helped shift New York's political culture to the Right—forcing feminists and politicians across all parties to frame their definition of family values along more conservative lines, especially with regard to issues such as state-subsidized daycare, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), and abortion. My paper follows several important histories about the rise of political conservatism in postwar America. These works disproportionately explore how race and Cold War geopolitics influenced this trend, but few consider gender as I do. Yet, instead of focusing on a single conservative female activist (e.g., Phyllis Schlafly) or issue (e.g., abortion or the ERA) as some scholars have done, I more broadly examine how women on both the left and the right debated the above-mentioned issues in the 1970 and 1980s. I conclude that such debate ultimately produced a popular conception of feminism as "anti-family," while linking family values to [white] middle-to-upper class nuclear families, heterosexual marriage, and traditional gender roles.

Introduction: From voting power to political power -- A history of women in American politics and the enduring male political citizenship ideal / Stacie Taranto and Leandra Zarnow -- Commemorating the history of the Nineteenth Amendment : the National Woman's Party and the politics of memory in the 1920s / Claire Delahaye -- After the 'century of struggle' : the Nineteenth Amendment, Southern African American women, and the problem of female disfranchisement after 1920 / Liette Gidlow -- 'My money's on the mare' : lessons from the 1930 US Senate campaign of Ruth Hanna McCormick / Johanna Neuman -- 'A dead husband is a better ticket to Congress than a log cabin' : the public discourse of widows in office, 1920-1940 / Katherine Parkin -- Beyond the New Deal network : Mary Elizabeth Switzer at the Federal Security Agency, 1939-1945 / Dean Kotlowski -- Elizabeth Peratrovich, the Alaska Native Sisterhood, and indigenous women's activism, 1943-1947 / Holly Miowak Guise -- 'These men have such dominant positions' : the Women's Committee for Educational Freedom and the gendered battle for liberalism in the 1940s / Nancy Beck Young -- 'I have talked to you not as women but as American citizens' : the gender ideology of presidential campaigns, 1940-1956 / Melissa Estes Blair -- From suffragist to congresswoman : celebrating political action, women's history, and feminist intellectuals in Ms. magazine, 1972-1984 / Ana Stevenson -- 'You know where I stand' : Louise Day Hicks, and the politics of race, class and gender, 1963-1975 / Kathleen Banks Nutter -- 'On the Shirley Chisholm trail' : the legacy of suffrage and citizenship engagement / Barbara Winslow -- Envisioning the National Women's Conference : Patsy Takemoto Mink and pacific feminism / Judy Tzu-Chun Wu -- Married congresswomen and the new breed of political husbands in 1970s political culture / Sarah B. Rowley -- Madame Ambassador : Jeane J. Kirkpatrick and global diplomacy / Bianca Rowlett -- Palin vs. Clinton : feminism, womanhood, and the 2008 presidential election / Emily Suzanne Johnson -- Tribute politics : how feminist history became a reference point in the 2016 election / Nicole Eaton -- Rooted in community : the scholarship of Chicana leadership and activism / Marisela R. Chávez -- 'Pave it blue' : Georgia women and politics in the Trump era / Ellen Rafshoon -- Putting women on a pedestal : monument debates in the era of the suffrage centennial / Monica L. Mercado -- Toward a new New Deal ... and the women will lead / Eileen Boris.