The Sky’s the Limit: My Journey with Maryellen

Discusses how Maryellen and her family would’ve lived growing up in Florida in the 1950s. Topics include:

• How kids had more free time and fewer scheduled activities than children today
  • Mothers usually stayed home to help take care of children
• Staying at home was presented as the proper goal in life for girls and women
  • Popular TV shows portrayed the “ideal” family, with the father employed outside the home and the mother as a homemaker
  • In reality, one third of women worked as teachers, nurses, secretaries, waitresses, and other jobs, but many employers expected women to leave their jobs when they got married or started a family
• Some women found creative ways to earn money on the side
  • Businesses would hold contests inviting the public to submit slogans and jingles for their products, like Burma Shave
  • One woman, Evelyn Ryan, helped support her family of ten children by entering jingle contests for Burma Shave and other brands
• While some women were happy in the home, others wanted to pursue other subjects that interested them
  • Traditionally male professions like science were all but closed to women
  • Many people thought women couldn’t do those jobs
• But women slowly started to prove that women could do those jobs
  • Barbara McClintock was a botanist and genetics pioneer who showed how genes control hpysical characteristics; she eventually won the Nobel Prize in 1983, years after her male colleagues dismissed her research
  • Other leading scientists like Dian Fossey, Rachel Carson, and Vera Rubin all paved the way for girls like Nancy, Sophie, and Maryellen