Lagemann’s observations provide some clues to Elizabeth’s hold on American women. Even as the women’s liberation movement helped shift certain conversations, the queen continued to model an alternative path forward – one in which women could travel without their children, demonstrate their command of policy, be at the center of the photograph, take responsibility and even grow old in the public eye.
Elizabeth II will be mourned by many around the world, including the daughters and granddaughters of those “Queen-Crazy” Americans who traveled to London in 1953 for her coronation but have yet to see a female head of state installed in their own country.
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Arianne Chernock