Social Studies Controversies in 1960s Los Angeles: Land of the Free, Public Memory, and the Rise of the New Right

During the late 1960s, liberals and conservatives clashed in passionate debates over California’s state-mandated eighth-grade U.S. history textbook, Land of the Free. Even as minority racial groups won civil rights battles and fought to integrate both the schools and the schools’ social-studies curriculum, another minority—consisting of female white conservatives—fought tenaciously for control over education and public memory, promoting a romanticized fantasy of fundamentalist history.