Wellfleet Public Library

Growing up as a naive, privileged young woman from Boston's elite North Shore, Frinde Maher's early opposition to the Vietnam War led to a fervent decade of 1960s left-wing activism. Maher's participation included organizing for welfare reform in Roxbury, working in a Somerville light bulb factory, leafletting at anti-war demonstrations, selling socialist newspapers at local factory gates, and finally joining a self-styled revolutionary communist party. Along the way, she worked as an American History teacher, interpreting these diverse, conflicting stories with her students in the classroom. In her new memoir Class Encounters, Maher captures the stresses, nuances, complex choices and serendipities of navigating different social worlds that, themselves, were being shaken by the multiple revolts of the 1960s. America has long underplayed social class, while amplifying it in practice. In this talk, Frinde Maher - Professor Emerita of Education and Women's Studies at Wheaton College - reminds us how central "class encounters" are to the American experience.