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Americans who worked on farms and in factories once had little choice but to work until death. As the nation prospered, a new idea was born: the right to a dignified and secure old age. The fight to deliver that right has been enormously successful, but it is still unfinished: Today, millions of older people lack the resources to live with dignity and security. Historian James Chappel explains how we got here and what the future might bring for an aging America.Chappel shows how old age emerged as a distinct stage of life in the United States and how it evolved over the last century, shaped by politicians’ choices, activists’ demands, medical advances, and cultural models from utopian novels to “The Golden Girls.”

This i s a Smithsonian Associates program available to members and the public for a fee. Learn more and register here. https://smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/programs/golden-years