Table of Contents

Contents
Introduction: Broad(cast) Humor
1          Situation Comedy, Situation Tragedy: The Transitional World of All in the Family
2          The Revolution, Televised: Origins of the Family
3          Fuzzy Reception: Meeting the Bunkers
4          Producing Comedy: Making All in the Family
5          The Character of Home: Chez Bunker
6          Not Bad for a Bigot: The Making of Archie Bunker
7          A Really Great Housewife: The Character of Edith Baines Bunker
8          Left In: The Liberal Arts of Michael Stivic
9          “Little Girl” to Mother: The Working-Class Feminism of Gloria Bunker Stivic
10        Family Resemblance: The Rise and Fall of the Lear Television Empire
Conclusion: Just Like Us
Acknowledgments
Index
 

About the Author

JIM CULLEN is the author of numerous books, including The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea that Shaped a Nation (2003) and Sensing the Past: Hollywood Stars and Historical Visions (2012). A resident of Hastings on Hudson, New York, he has taught at Harvard, Brown, and Sarah Lawrence College, and is a longtime History teacher at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York.
 

Reviews

"Little did I know about the world Archie Bunker and All in the Family were born into until I read Jim Cullen’s informed and perceptive Those Were the Days: Why All In The Family Still Matters."
*Norman Lear*

"Jim Cullen's beguiling scholarship offers a nimble treatment of what was arguably American television's most influential scripted series, made in the waning days of the now bygone mass audience."
*Founding Director, Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture, Syracuse University*

"'All in the Family' pushed the envelope on race and gender. Has America regressed since then?" by Jim Cullen
*USA Today*

"A very accessible and highly readable study that situates All in the Family aptly in its historical moment. It illuminates why the show became a landmark and what makes it so special to this day."
*author of Television's Moment: Sitcom Audiences and the Sixties Cultural Revolution*

"From how each character evolved to the family's resemblance to real-life changes and developing social awareness, Those Were the Days provides a solid study that will serve as discussion material for any media studies or American social history classroom." 
*Donovan's Literary Services*

"Those were the days: As ‘All in the Family’ turns 50, a look at why it succeeded" by Jim Cullen
*New York Daily News*

"Norman Lear deserves his Golden Globe award — does America deserve him?" by Benjamin Lear
*The Foreward*

Mary Baker Eddy Library podcast: Jean Stapleton and the spiritual dimensions of “All in the Family” episode
*Seekers and Scholars podcast*