Born in Peoria, Illinois, Betty Friedan graduated in 1942 from Smith College, an all-female college in Massachusetts. She attended graduate school in California before moving to New York. In 1947 she married Carl Friedan and had three children. In 1957 Friedan wrote to many fellow Smith College graduates and asked them about their lives. Using these letters and other research, Friedan wroteThe Feminine Mystique . Published in 1963, the book explores the causes of the frustrations of modern women in traditional roles. The book was a huge success. In 1966 Friedan and other feminists founded the National Organization for Women (NOW). Friedan became its first president. She chronicled these travels in the book It Changed My Life, published in 1976. In the 1980s, Friedan’s views underwent a change. In The Second Stage, she writes that feminism does not have to be the abandonment of all that is feminine. She believed that women could be mothers and work also.
