Publisher's Synopsis
Roots and Wings in the 20th Century: A Partnership of Family, Speaking, Writing, and Peace follows two Midwesterners, Harriet and Dean Hopkins, from their years growing up in the 1910s and 1920s and marriage in the 1930s to becoming members of the "long civic generation" from the 1940s until the 1990s. Using their own words from extensive and often reflective letters and diaries, Roots and Wings shows their day-to-day development as individuals and the development of their relationship. Harriet and Dean's taproots are a farm near Savannah and the college town of Wooster, both in north central Ohio. The third point of the triangle where they lived for more than 50 years is the Lake Erie-bordering city of Cleveland and the suburb of Lakewood. As young people, their wings grew in the 1930s with Dean's three years at Harvard Law School and Harriet's western trip. From the 1950s into the 1980s they traveled inside the U.S. and then in other parts of the world -- from Ireland to Nicaragua -- where they listened, shared their values, and made friends. Just a few of the questions to which Roots and Wings offers some answers for those curious about family life, technology, education, finding a job, or politics in the mid-20th century: Why would a 16-year-old girl in 1926 be so excited about "the machine" her family might buy? What were high school debate and newspaper topics in the 1920s? Why would a Republican who supported Hoover in 1928 vote for the Socialist Norman Thomas in 1932? How much did an hourly worker make in 1928, in 1931? Where and how did Americans, who could afford to, travel in the 1930s? How did individuals in small towns and then suburb and city connect to the world in the 1920s and 1930s? How and why would someone be a pacifist in World War II? How and why would someone continue to be a peacemaker through the century?
