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Publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring
When the book Silent Spring was published, Rachel Carson was already a well-known writer on natural history, but had not previously been a social critic. The book was widely read especially after its selection by the Book-of-the-Month Club and the New York Times best-seller list and inspired widespread public concerns with pesticides and pollution of the environment. -
Publication of Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique
In 1957, Friedan was asked to conduct a survey of her former Smith College classmates for their 15th anniversary reunion; the results, in which she found that many of them were unhappy with their lives as housewives, prompted her to begin research for The Feminine Mystique, conducting interviews with other suburban housewives, as well as researching psychology, media, and advertising. She originally intended to publish an article on the topic, but no magazine would publish her article. -
Publication of Ralph Nader Unsafe at Any Speed
published in 1965, is a book detailing resistance by car manufacturers to the introduction of safety features, like seat belts, and their general reluctance to spend money on improving safety. It was a pioneering work, openly polemical but containing substantial references and material from industry insiders. It made Nader a household name. -
NOW is founded
NOW stands for the National Organization for Women. NOW is dedicated to making legal, political, social and economic change in our society in order to achieve our goal, which is to eliminate sexism and end all oppression. -
UFW’s Nationwide Boycott of grapes picked on nonunion farms
a labor union created from the merging of two groups, the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) led by Filipino organizer Larry Itliong, and the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) led by César Chávez. This union changed from a workers' rights organization that helped workers get unemployment insurance to that of a union of farmworkers almost overnight, when the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) went out on strike in support of the mostly Filipino farmworkers of the Agricu -
Woodstock
was a music festival, billed as "An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music". It was held at Max Yasgur's 600-acre dairy farm near the hamlet of White Lake in the town of Bethel, New York, from August 15 to August 18, 1969. Bethel, in Sullivan County, is 43 miles (69 km) southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, in adjoining Ulster County. -
Congress passes the Clean Air Act
Clean Air Act was designed to control the pollution caused by industries and car emissions. The EPA forged an agreement with car manufacturers to install catalytic converters (devices that convert tailpipe pollutants into less dangerous substances) in cars to reduce harmful emissions. -
First Earth Day celebration
A day that is intended to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth's natural environment. Earth Day was founded by United States Senator Gaylord Nelson as an environmental teach-in first held on April 22, 1970. While this first Earth Day was focused on the United States, an organization launched by Denis Hayes, who was the original national coordinator in 1970, took it international in 1990 and organized events in 141 nations. -
The EPA is established
The official birthday of EPA is December 2, 1970. Like any other birth, EPA's needed progenitors, and a family tree stretching back for years. Surely no factor was more pivotal in the birth of EPA than decades of rampant and highly visible pollution. But pollution alone does not an agency make. Ideas are needed--better yet a whole world view--and many environmental ideas first crystallized in 1962. -
Supreme Court rules to legalize abortion in the Roe v. Wade case
A landmark, controversial decision by the United States Supreme Court on the issue of abortion. The Court decided that a right to privacy under the due process clause in the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution extends to a woman's decision to have an abortion, but that right must be balanced against the state's two legitimate interests for regulating abortions: protecting prenatal life and protecting the mother's health. -
Protesters from the AIM take over the reservation at Wounded Knee
a Native American activist organization in the United States. In October 1973 the American Indian Movement gathered its forces from across the country onto the Trail of Broken Treaties, championing Indian unity. The national AIM agenda focused on spirituality, leadership, and sovereignty.
