Chatham:: From the Second World War to the Age of Aquarius

by Debra Lawless

Picking up where Chatham in the Jazz Age left off, this exciting new book by Debra Lawless explores the history of Chatham, from the beginning of the Second World War to the end of the 1960s. Meet a brave group of people who rationed their food and mourned the loss of their sons, including Robert Scott Brown, the only soldier from Cape Cod killed at Pearl Harbor. As the military took over the Chatham Light and local radio station WCC, wartime security became so tight that Chatham's fishermen were photographed and fingerprinted. Experience the transition into the 1950s, when even as tourism boomed, Cape residents feared polio and called for zoning to ban hot dog stands. Finally, hang out with hippies as Chatham's sons were sent to another war, in Vietnam, and the nation geared up to begin its war on drugs.

160 pages, Paperback

First published April 16, 2010

About the author

Debra Lawless is the author of three books published with The History Press: Chatham in the Jazz Age, 2009, Chatham in the Age of Aquarius, 2010, and Provincetown: A History of Artists and Renegades in a Fishing Village, 2011. A second book on Provincetown's history is due in the spring of 2013. She has worked for newspapers in Rhode Island and currently freelances for Cape Cod Magazine and the Cape Cod Chronicle. A native of Providence, Rhode Island, Lawless lives in Chatham, Mass., on the elbow of Cape Cod. She has a B.A. in Classics and History from Stanford University and an M.S. in Journalism from Boston University. She also holds a certificate in Boston University's Genealogical Research Program.