Until the 1964 Civil Rights Act, women and racial minorities had their rights curtailed by law. The Family Laws of the earlier Progressive period had establishe

Until the 1964 Civil Rights Act, women and racial minorities had their rights curtailed by law. The Family Laws of the earlier Progressive period had established that women should be paid less than men, the nominal goal being to raise men's wages so they could support a family. Women didn't get a nation-wide right to open a mutual fund till the 1970s ("nation-wide" meaning some states allowed it, and some states didn't). It would be tough to pick out a year when America was ever really free. The best it can claim is that, for a long time, it was doing better than other countries. But it seems to me that Europe caught up a long time ago.