Using Silent Spring as a primary source and your textbook as a secondary source, write an essay on the history of the United States in the 1950s. The direction you take is entirely your own, but you need to develop a clear thesis statement and provide concrete evidence from course readings to illustrate your argument and analysis.

The direction you take is entirely your own, but you might consider the following topics:

the costs and consequences of the affluent society

women and gender in the postwar era 

the Cold War and space age

the atomic age

the idea of community (both human and ecological) in the era

how the postwar era represented a break from the past

consensus science in the 1950s