The Progressive HousewifeFictional characters, such as June Cleaver, and criticism of suburban domestic passivity, notably Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, have profoundly shaped our popular and intellectual view of the immediate postwar decade. It is this image of apolitical domesticity and suburban conformity that Sylvie Murray challenges in The Progressive Housewife: Community Activism in Suburban Queens, 1945 1965. Set in the rapidly developing neighborhoods of