THE PEORIA MYSTIQUE: A HOMETOWN STORY by Barbara Mantz Drake

As the nation changed, Peoria was always an influence on the work of Betty Friedan.

"Much that I am IS Peoria." —Betty Friedan, as quoted In the New York Times, May 21, 1976

HISTORIANS SAY BETTY FRIEDAN IS AMONG THE MOST INFLUENTIAL WOMEN ever to have l ived and her classic. The Feminine Mystique, among the most i m p o r t a n t books ever w r i t t e n . So when the mother o f feminism credits her h o m e t o w n for m u c h o f what she became, I take some pride. It's among the rea­sons I've w o r k e d the last few years to spread Betty Friedan's story i n her h o m e t o w n .

N o t that Bettye Goldstein's t ime i n Peoria was always happy. I t wasn't. Here was where she learned h o w bit ter ly d iscr iminat ion hurts . Here was where her father, H a r r y G o l d ­stein, forced her mother, M i r i a m H o r w i t z , to quit the newspaper job she loved and become a housewife. Her mother's resulting unhap-piness p r o m p t e d the ch i ld to pray, " W h e n I grow up, I want a w o r k to do." But here she also made friends for life, re turning f r o m t ime to t i m e when she wanted to t r y out her ideas

on those she considered to be sensible "real women"—as opposed to her "radical Eastern chic" counterparts.

W h e n I interviewed Betty Friedan (she changed the spelling of her first name early i n her career) i n 1999,1 asked wh at she took f r o m Peoria. Her response was powerfu l : "A certain rootedness. A sense of solidarity. The power of communi ty . A can-do sp i r i t . . . I f there was a problem, you could organize i n the c o m m u n i t y to deal w i t h the prob­lem." I can make a pretty good argument that i f she hadn't believed in the power o f people w o r k i n g together to change things, she wouldn ' t have bothered to launch the movement that changed things for w o m e n here and across the land.

R O O T E D I N P E O R I A Betty Friedan's h o m e t o w n story begins w i t h her b i r t h on February 4, 1921, but the city had been shaping her future well before that. Her father fled Eastern Europe as a teen to escape the pogroms and w o r k e d his way to Peoria, where he set up a street-corner stand selling but­tons, an endeavor that m o r p h e d into the highly successful Goldstein Jewelers. H a r r y was an independent thinker w h o could not have been surprised that his oldest chi ld became one as well ; according to sister

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A m y , he directed his toughest questions to Betty w h e n the family dis­cussed polit ics around the dinner table.

Betty's mother was the daughter of an aspiring rabbi who'd fled Hungary, also to escape the pogroms; he went on to graduate f r o m medical school and become Peoria County's first health commissioner. M i r i a m H o r w i t z finished Bradley University's two-year program, then began w r i t i n g for one of The Journal Star's predecessor papers. Friedan's autobiography. Life So Far, largely blames her mother's misery for the bitter, screaming fights that shook their home at 1011 W. Farmington Road. (It is sti l l there, across f r o m Bradley Park.)

Yet much of her ch i ldhood was happy She recalled h i k i ng , sled­ding, b ik ing , playing gir l detective w i t h friends i n the park and b o r r o w ­ing books f r o m the l ibrary—six at a t ime, Dad's l i m i t . N o t surprisingly, Bettye's creative and rebellious sides emerged early. She performed at Peoria Players, wrote a play and loved hanging out at the theater. A t W h i t t i e r Grade School, she founded The Baddy Baddy Club, i n defiance of the school's "goody-goodies" and a substitute teacher she didn' t like. I n jun ior high, she w o n an essay contest on " W h y I A m Proud To Be an A m e r i c a n " and was rewarded w i t h a pat on the head by Congressman Everett Dirksen. She said b o t h parents encouraged her to wr i te , and her dad kept her wr i t ings in his safe.

C R E A T I V E A S P I R A T I O N S I t does not d i m i n i s h the power of family to assert that Peoria's real influence on Betty Friedan can best be seen i n her high school years. I t was at Peoria H i g h that she felt discrimination's sting for the first t ime, w h e n her friends dropped her because she was Jewish. They were flocking to h igh school sororities that wouldn ' t admit Jews, m u c h as the Peoria C o u n t r y Club refused to accept her father. A t the t ime, the club d i d not admi t Jewish men, or w o m e n of any faith.

" I t was miserable being 'different' in Peoria," Friedan wrote . But i t was also at Peoria H i g h School that she honed her creative and w r i t i n g skills; came under the influence of top-notch history and philosophy teachers w h o encouraged students to argue about the l o o m i n g war, fas­cism and c o m m u n i s m ; and became drawn to the labor movement and issues of class.

Fortunately, an antidote to her misery arrived i n the f o r m of new friends, Harr ie t 'Vance most important ly . They w o u l d remain best friends for life, going off together to Smith College and sharing an apartment whi le w o r k i n g i n N e w York Ci ty d u r i n g W o r l d War I I . Later, Harr ie t led a torchl ight parade here in support of the Equal Rights A m e n d m e n t . A s a delegate to the Il l inois Const i tut ional Convent ion, John Parkhurst, the man Harr ie t marr ied, supported its equal rights provisions. Delivering a eulogy at Harriet 's funeral , Betty declared, "She made me p r o u d to be f r o m Peoria." That's po wer fu l influence.

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W i t h Parl<hurst, Betty wrote a c o l u m n for the school newspaper. W i t h other friends, she started a l i terary magazine called Tide. I n her autobiography, she recalls having no trouble getting money f r o m Peoria merchants to launch the publicat ion, one of the examples she cites of the power of people w o r k i n g to ­gether to change things. I find t w o of her a r t i ­cles prophetic . One compares female students Bea Grasshopper and Ada A u n t . Bea "saun­tered" in to class whi le p u t t i n g on her makeup, then walked sexily to her chair. Ada (Betty's alter ego; she was a school valedictorian) was a serious student; she got an A i n class and ended up as a secretary, whi le Bea marr ied the professor and l ived a h igh- f ly ing life! The other article, entit led " I A m Paper," argues that a simple sheet of paper has enormous powers, for i t is the carrier of news and history and ideas. Pretending to be a sheet o f paper, Betty wrote , " I am the most i m p o r t a n t t h i n g i n the w o r l d . I rule the world . "

Nearly 80 years later, it's easy to conclude the obvious: that someone w h o saw h o w society rewarded pretty w o m e n and penal­ized smart ones, and thought w r i t i n g ruled the w o r l d , w o u l d go o n to w r i te a book that helped change h o w w o m e n are perceived and treated. But she t o l d a reporter for the Peoria H i g h paper that becoming a wr i ter was her second choice; she wanted to be a psychiatrist. Regardless, her mission was clear, according to classmate and good fr iend D o u g Palmer He t o l d author Daniel H o r o w i t z that a teenage Betty had said to h i m , " I want to do something w i t h my l i fe . . . I want success and fame."

P I O N E E R I N G A R E V O L U T I O N Betty d i d excel i n w r i t i n g at Smith College, edit ing the student paper, w i n n i n g a l iterary prize and starting a crit ique of professors and courses. A n unhappy stint at Cal Berkeley i n pursuit of a master's degree i n psychology ended w i t h a decision to j o i n friends i n N e w York Ci ty and pursue a w r i t i n g career She was able to launch i t at Federated Press because of her talent, but also because W o r l d War I I required a lot of men. W h e n the soldiers returned, the result was predictable and com­monplace: she was let go.

Six years later, after she'd met

and marr ied Carl Friedan, i t hap­pened again. The labor paper that employed her fired her when she became pregnant w i t h her second chi ld . (She went on to have three.) The

employees' u n i o n head refused to act o n her behalf tel l ing her it was her fault for getting pregnant. So i t must have been a sweet v ic tory some t w o decades later w h e n the U.S. Supreme Court—pushed i n large part by the feminist movement she launched—ruled that employers could not dismiss pregnant w o m e n as long as they were able to w o r k . N o r could they re­fuse to hire mothers of preschoolers unless they also refused to hire fathers of preschoolers.

Friedan said she didn't set out to start a r e v o l u t i o n — i t just happened—and she to ld me she couldn't possibly have predicted "the incredible impact" of The Feminine Mystique. She began w r i t i n g i t i n 1958, whi le l iv ing i n suburban N e w York Ci ty and doing freelance w r i t i n g for women's magazines. The book grew out of a survey of her Smith College classmates for their 15th reunion. W i t h the exception of a "zestful" small number using their education i n interesting careers, she f o u n d the significant major i ty to be an unhappy bunch. Eighty percent said their greatest regret was not planning to l ink their education to a profession. The book asserted that w o m e n had a problem, "a problem that had no name," but reflected their need for a life spent doing more than cleaning ovens and making sandwiches to feel fulf i l led. Didn' t men? It's hard n o w to perceive h o w revolutionary that assertion was, or w h y i t provoked so m u c h controversy. But for every m i d d l e - A m e r i c a n w o m a n inspired by her words, there seemed to be another w o m a n — o r m a n — w h o accused her of t r y i n g to destroy the family.

Even i n her h o m e t o w n , she said she felt like a pariah i n those post-publicat ion early years. W h e n she returned to Peoria for a high school reunion shortly after the book came out i n 1963, she said she was treated rudely. Her brother, H a r r y Goldstein, Cohen Furniture Co. board chairman, took his kids out o f t o w n to avoid having to explain her, she said. She stayed w i t h the physician. Bob Easton and his family. He'd been her first boyfr iend and became another l ifelong Peoria fr iend.

T H E C H A N G I N G T I M E S A t r i p to Peoria 13 years later signified how m u c h things had changed. W o m e n greeted her at the a irport holding handmade signs reading "Peoria - H o m e of Betty Friedan." Obviously delighted, she said this about her h o m e t o w n to the New York Times reporter covering her visit :

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"It's a conservative small city, but i t comprises the essence of the best i n Amer ica and some of the worst . Look ing back, the strength that I have comes f r o m here." Brother H a r r y t o l d the reporter, " I wasn't very happy w i t h her i n those [early] years. She was a cross I had to bear... Maybe Betty hasn't changed, but soci­ety has moved on . People aren't laughing any more or crit icizing."

Three years ago, I called H a r r y n o w l i v ­ing i n California, to invite h i m to Peoria's 50th anniversary celebration of the publ icat ion of The Feminine Mystique. W h i l e he could not attend, he said he was happy their h o m e t o w n was doing this and he'd come to respect the w o r k his sister d i d . "Often, she was way out f ront , a lonely place to be," he wrote . She may have been "bloodied" but she was never de­feated " i n her passionate zeal to make a posi­tive difference."

So what changed? W o m e n changed— and so d i d the c o u n t r y O f course, i t took more than the publ icat ion of one book (Friedan went on to wr i te six) to p r o m p t those changes. I t took passage of the C i v i l Rights A c t o f 1964, w h i c h outlawed discr iminat ion on the basis of gender as wel l as race. I t took the w o r k of the Nat ional Organizat ion for W o m e n ( N O W ) , w h i c h Friedan cofounded w h e n the federal agency implement ing that act started exempting w o m e n f r o m enforce­ment activities. I t took demonstrations and speeches i n cities across the country. I t took a series of Supreme C o u r t rulings establish­ing equality under the law and legislation like Title IX , w h i c h requires schools prov id ing sports programs for boys to provide t h e m for girls as well . A n d i t took many other changes, some i n Friedan's h o m e t o w n . W o m e n here have taken o n executive positions at Cater­pillar Inc., the hospitals, the medical school, Bradley University and the newspaper that w o u l d have been unimaginable i n 1963. The results aren't perfect, but the changes have been dramatic .

Some examples: The 1960 census showed just 7.2 percent of physicians were w o m e n ; by 2010, 32.3 percent were. O n l y 1.5 percent o f state t r ia l court judges were female i n 1960; by 2010, that number had reached 25 percent. I n 1960, less than 28 percent o f w o m e n w i t h chi ldren under 18 were i n the labor force; i n 2010, 65 percent were. The changes i n college degrees awarded are even more dramatic. W o m e n made up 30.5 per­cent of bachelor's degrees awarded i n 1960 and 57 percent i n 2010, less than one percent of dental degrees vs. nearly 46 percent, and 5.5 percent o f medical degrees compared to 48.2 percent. Given those numbers, I have to believe we w i l l see even greater equity i n career representation—and leadership—in the next census.

FRIEDAN SAID SHE DIDN'T SET OUT

TO START A REVOLUTION—IT JUST

HAPPENED—AND SHE COULDN'T POSSIBLY

HAVE PREDICTED "THE INCREDIBLE IMPACT"

OF THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE

A L A S T I N G L E G A C Y As the nat ion changed, Peoria continued to influence the w o r k of Betty Friedan. It had a role i n her highly publicized split w i t h Glor ia Steinem over her efforts to take N O W i n a direct ion Friedan's autobiography calls "anti-male, ant i -motherhood, ant i - feminism and increasingly pro-lesbian." A n d then she explained, " I come f r o m Peoria, I l l inois , after all." She further credited Peoria w i t h p u t t i n g her i n a posi t ion to understand the lives o f "real" w o m e n and to reach them w h e n others could not . Her autobiography asserts, " I had a sense of h o w to speak to all w o m e n , not just a l i t t le radical chic group. I had l ived m y adult life i n N e w York, but there was strength, I guess, i n coming f r o m Peoria."

A n d what concerned "real" women? Ensuring that their aspirations d i d not h a r m their famiUes, she said. That required addressing basic is­sues, such as sharing household responsibilities w i t h one's spouse, paid parental leave and access to chi ld care. She t o l d me the nation's failure to establish a program to ensure availability of high-qual i ty chi ld care to w o r k i n g parents was the biggest disappointment of her career—bigger than the failure to pass the ERA. I th ink that says a lot about Betty Friedan.

I suspect some of the credit for believing she knew what concerned "real" w o m e n goes to the Peoria w o m e n — a n d men—whose brains Friedan picked on her visits home. Brother H a r r y agrees. "These gather­ings and the thoughts and responses undoubtedly impacted her t h i n k i n g as she was w o r k i n g on a book or a lecture," he to ld me. O n this basis alone, Peoria played a part i n changing the w o r l d . i B i

Barbara Drake is the retired editorial page editor of The lournal Star and member of the Betty Friedan Hometown Tribute committee, which seeks to honor Friedan in her hometown through education. Learn more about her—and Friedan—at bradley.edu/bettyfriedantribute.

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