Winter 2001-2002
Shuddering in the Aftermath of History
Photo by Diana Watters
ELAINE TYLER MAY
Education
Ph.D. 1975, UCLA
M.A. 1970, UCLA
A.B. 1969, UCLA
Professional history
1978-present: American studies and history faculty, U of Minnesota
Selected honors & awards
CLA Dean's Medal, 2001
Distinguished Mentor Award, April 2000
Scholar of the College, CLA, 1996-1999
Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Ireland, University College Dublin, 1996-1997
Runner-Up for William J. Goode Book Award for Barren in the Promised Land, 1996
Books
Family Values: Politics and Private Life in Twentieth-Century America. Forthcoming.
Here, There, and Everywhere: The Foreign Politics of American Popular Culture. Co-edited with Reinhold Wagnleitner. University Press New England, 2000.
Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era. Basic Books, 1999 (1st ed. 1988).
Barren in the Promised Land: Childless Americans and the Pursuit of Happiness. Harvard U. Press, 1997 (1st ed. Basic Books, 1995).
Pushing the Limits: American Women, 1940-1961. Oxford U. Press, 1998 (1st ed. 1994).
Kudos
"Elaine is a deeply loved teacher, colleague,
mentor, scholar, and friend. She has served her colleagues,
her students, her college, her university, and her profession
with grace, dedication, and vision."
--Jean O'Brien-Kehoe, associate professor, history
Elaine Tyler May's got a secret. The distinguished historian and professor of American Studies--and this year's College of Liberal Arts (CLA) Dean's Medal recipient-says that when she was a kid, she "hated history." That's because May thought history was a lifeless recitation of dates and places.
Now, she knows better. "History is about the whole world," she says. "Nothing is outside the world, and nothing is outside history. History includes all of human endeavors, and what drives history is the way we develop as we do." And so she has spent much of her time as a historian looking at how ordinary people live and finding the connections between private "domestic" life and the larger public sphere.
What drove May into history as a undergraduate was the discomfort she felt observing her country from abroad-as an exchange student in Japan-during the tumult of 1968. "As an American standing alone [in a foreign country], I felt very uncomfortable at what my country was doing in the world," she says. "I had to figure things out, so I took American history courses when I got back. And, really, I've never stopped."
The early 1970s were an exhilarating time for American studies scholars. May and others were, in a very real sense, creating a new field of research, the investigation of history as it had been lived and made by groups previously excluded and overlooked. For May, that meant racial minorities, gays and lesbians, working class people, and, above all, women.
"The feminist movement and feminist scholarship profoundly affected the way I pursue my own research," says May. "When I was a graduate student at UCLA, no one [on the faculty] was doing women's history. We [graduate students] were creating the field. It was thrilling."
Known for her compelling and perceptive insights into American culture and society, May specializes in the history of the Cold War, with an emphasis on an examination of the roles women played in the social politics of the era. One of her best-known books, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era, argues that the concept of "containment," a hallmark of American geopolitical policy of the time, tacitly applied to women as well. It described, she says, the psychological brakes placed on the aspirations and urges of mid-century women.
In her later groundbreaking book Barren in the Promised Land: Childless Americans and the Pursuit of Happiness, May traces the historical evolution of the social and psychological meaning of childlessness in America. The book begins, "We are a nation obsessed with reproduction. From the media to the courtroom, from the clinic to the bedroom, Americans are preoccupied with their own and each other's procreative habits." Defined by their capacity to produce offspring, women are constrained and "contained" by prevailing cultural notions of fertility and motherhood.
May notes that the focus of her work has shifted in a couple of ways over the course of her career. "I'm interested in reconnecting social and political history," she says. "I want to investigate larger political issues without losing interest in the [specifics of social history]. The way I look at my sources is affected by my being part of an interdisciplinary community."
Living history
Like most Americans, May has discovered in recent weeks that she is living through history as well as teaching it. After September 11, she says, "We just had to abandon the syllabus." She asked her students to think about parallels between the nation's current response to a foreign threat and its actions during the Cold War.
Harking back to the McCarthy Era, May says, "There's always a risk of curtailment of civil liberties [when the nation feels threatened.]" Her students immediately made the connection to post-September 11 discussions of due process and ethnic profiling. "It was inspiring to see the students want to learn about other groups," says May, "including making connections with groups [like Arab-Americans] that may be vulnerable now."
The events of September 11 pose another sort of professional challenge for May as well. She's currently part of a group writing a textbook on American history. "By the luck of the draw," she says, "I'm the one responsible for the concluding chapter."
It's a daunting task. As May reflects on and interprets events for this latest chapter of history, she is, she adds, "still shuddering in their aftermath."