cover image Voices of the Silent Generation: Strong Women Tell Their Stories

Voices of the Silent Generation: Strong Women Tell Their Stories

Barbara Baillet Moran. Avisson Press Inc, $0 (389pp) ISBN 978-1-888105-71-1

The stereotype of the 1950s American woman is familiar, and nowhere to be found in Moran's collection of oral histories from 17 diverse and successful women born during the Depression. Moran, a contemporary of her subjects, devotes the first quarter of her book to an overview of the decade. The rest of the volume offers the stories of hard-working women: ""You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but that's no excuse for not trying,"" are typical words of wisdom from the Silent Generation interviewees, including a Holocaust survivor, a woman who lived for years in an Idaho internment camp for Japanese-Americans, and a TV sports producer. ""Hoping for thoughtful commentaries,"" Moran ""sent the questions well in advance of the oral history interviews;"" perhaps this technique, Moran's obvious affection for her subjects, or over-editing led to a certain flatness and sentimentality in these intelligent, important stories. Though they lack immediacy (many of the interviews were conducted between 1989 and 1992), these reminiscences will be enjoyed by others in Moran's ""birth cohort,"" but younger readers may feel alienated by an editorial stance that seems to pit the past agaist the present (""To some young women who now take their freedom for grated, their elders' past predicament seems almost quaint."").