First Community Survey

The summer of 1945 was no ordinary time in the social history of women's decision making. The war had taken men of a certain age overseas, drawn record numbers of women into the workplace, and jumbled roles and decision making in the process. A lot of news was in the air that summer: Roosvelt had recently died in the office, and the war had just ended when Mills and his team gave the first Community Survey, for "Personal Influence".

In August when follow up interviews took place, the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. None of that historical particularity would make it into Personal Influence, whose "veneer of timelessness" as Douglas calls it is matched only by the universalism with which 800 women in Decatur are taken to stand in for "the people" and the parts they play in the flow of mass communications.



Source: Amercian Rebel, Oxford Univ Press, How ordinary women made decsions in their everyday lives, Decature, Illinoise