America’s postwar civic engagement peaked despite widespread discrimination and inequality.

Evidence

The fifties and sixties were hardly a “golden age,” especially for those Americans who were marginalized because of their race or gender or social class or sexual orientation. Segregation, by race legally and by gender socially, was the norm, and intolerance, though declining, was still disturbingly high. Environmental degradation had only just been exposed by Rachel Carson, and Betty Friedan had not yet deconstructed the feminine mystique. Grinding rural poverty had still to be discovered by the national media. Infant mortality, a standard measure of public health, stood at twenty-six per one thousand births—forty-four per one thousand for black infants—in 1960, nearly four times worse than those indexes would be at the end of the century. America in Life was white, straight, Christian, comfortable, and (in the public square, at least) male. Social reformers had their work cut out for them. However, engagement in community affairs and the sense of shared identity and reciprocity had never been greater in modern America, so the prospects for broad-based civic mobilization to address our national failings seemed bright. — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 29

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Civic organizations across America faded dramatically in the late twentieth century. — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 22; The 1940-45 cohort uniquely combined engagement with tolerance and bred civil rights — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 1270; Postwar observers saw leisure drawing Americans into civic and neighborhood engagement — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 26 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• The 1940-45 cohort uniquely combined engagement with tolerance and bred civil rights #expands (0.85) — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 1270
• Postwar Americans’ collective confidence came from remembered shared accomplishments. #expands (0.80) — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 31
• Postwar observers saw leisure drawing Americans into civic and neighborhood engagement #exemplifies (0.75) — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 26
• American civic engagement spans widely varied forms and scales simultaneously. #expands (0.72) — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 66