“Mad Men” ended its timeline in late 1970, with the advertising patriarch Don Draper peaced out at a yoga retreat, om-ing his way to the inspiration for the classic 1971 Coca-Cola “Hilltop” ad. Since then, fans have dreamed about a follow-up, one focused not on the Don Drapers of the world, but on the women whose limitations and liberations were the through-line of the series.

FX on Hulu’s breathtaking “Mrs. America,” from the “Mad Men” writer Dahvi Waller, picks up in 1971, raising a throaty howl just as Don is teaching the world to sing. The story of the fight for and against the Equal Rights Amendment, it’s not a sequel, either literally or in format: It’s a nine-part series following real historical figures.

But it is a kind of spiritual successor, a meticulously created and observed mural that finds the germ of contemporary America in the striving of righteously mad women.

Like “Mad Men,” “Mrs. America” finds a fresh angle on a much-observed age of revolution by focusing, first, on a counterrevolutionary: Phyllis Schlafly (Cate Blanchett), the cold warrior who, in Waller’s telling, seized on the culture war over women’s rights to raise her political profile and advance a broader conservative agenda.