HIS32660 Conservative Political Activism in the United States, 1960-1980

Academic Year 2024/2025

This module explores conservative political activism in the post-war period, with particular focus on the turbulent years of the 1960s and 1970s. Historians once conveyed shock at Ronald Reagan’s election to the presidency in 1980, and asserted that his success rested on white working class backlash against Democratic liberal reform and civil rights, and pervasive fears of economic decline. Recent scholarship has revealed, however, the emergence of grassroots conservative political activism in the 1940s and 1950s, which was predicated on resistance to the New Deal and staunch opposition to communism. From the 1960s, conservatives developed political networks, established organisations and journals, and sponsored single issue campaigns that reached far beyond their ideological base. As the nation grabbled with the social and cultural consequences of the rights revolutions that emerged during this period, conservative activists helped shape a new narrative relating to American identity that further divided the American people. Demographic shifts and the emergence of a new suburban culture enhanced the political strength of traditionally conservative areas of the country. The history of modern American conservatism reflects diverse goals and ideological division, but it also tells the story of coalition building and unanticipated political dominance.