Since the 1950s, Americans have held varying perspectives of women and their role as mothers: caregiver, homemaker, breadwinner, career woman. But how have women viewed themselves and what kinds of choices and challenges have they confronted over the past 50 years?

View photos from the National Archives and personal family albums as Fleda Mask Jackson, a visiting professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health, explains the unique challenges and joys of being a mother in America.