America in the Forties

Postwar America

94 Postwar America Prosperity and Problems DESPIT E A HOST OF PROBLEMS at home and abroad, life in postwar America was better than ever for most Americans. In the first few years after World War II, the United States experienced a strong economy, a consumer buying spree, and a home-buying splurge. In sharp contrast to the Depression-era 1930s, the war had made America a richer, more powerful nation. Americans were now beginning to enjoy themselves as never before, especially as wartime shortages and restrictions finally ended. With rising prosperity and more Americans leading the good life, the United States seemed about to enter into a golden age. Many Americans expected that the United States would preside over what Time magazine publisher Henry Luce had called in 1941 the “American Century,”1 marked by the spread of democracy and capitalism throughout the world. Walter Lippman predicted in 1945: “What Rome was to the ancient world, what Great Britain has been to the modern world, America is to be to the world of tomorrow.”2 Yet there were serious problems to be tackled before Americans could fully enjoy life in the postwar period. Reconverting to a peacetime economy in the eighteen months after the war was nearly as disruptive as the conversion to wartime conditions only a few years earlier. The economic problems seemed to come from all directions. Inflation became a major challenge when price controls were lifted, and there were temporary shortages of many essential items. Labor was dissatisfied and called a series of strikes as it tried to maintain the high level of wages enjoyed during the war. The most widespread series of strikes since 1919 produced a strong antilabor backlash from both the public P O S T W A R A M E R I C A 95 and the Congress as well as convulsing the economy. Only by the end of 1946 did a more stable and satisfactory society emerge for most Americans. Beyond these economic adjustments, important social changes and new attitudes toward the outside world were occurring. For black Americans, protests against discrimination were becoming stronger after 1945, even as their living standards improved. For women, the principal change involved alterations in their work patterns. Women were reverting to the prewar stay-athome lifestyle, although not all discontinued working. Beyond the economic and legal changes after 1945, this period was also one of anxiety as America confronted the age of the A-bomb and the Cold War. Yet in this contradictory period of challenges alongside a prosperous economy, life was surprisingly normal for most Americans, who felt that things were improving. A rising living standard for the average American was a major theme in postwar America. The late 1940s were years of unimaginable consumption of new products to reach the market. With an abundance of money saved during the war, the affluent consumer could buy such new products as televisions , a new generation of plastics and synthetic fibers, and home air conditioning . During this period, many goods that are today considered standard were introduced or widely adopted. Such basic items as dishwashers, blenders , and garbage disposals now joined electric mixers, washing machines, and vacuum cleaners as common features of middle-class homes. At the same time, there were serious shortages in some of the other basic necessities of modern living. In housing and in such food staples as vegetables and meat, there were either serious shortages or very high prices. In 1945, only 46 percent of households had telephones. That same year, 52 percent of farm dwellings, with more than 25 million people, had no electricity . Freed from the wartime demands, Americans would now face the challenge of filling many important needs of society. In the post–World War II era, two entertainment and news mediums— radio and television—were becoming steadily more important. Radio had already been in widespread use since the 1920s, when long-distance broadcasting became widely available for the first time. It was dominant in the mass media, and by the end of World War II more American homes had radios than bathtubs. Radio had greatly expanded its role in American life during the war, serving as a principal source for wartime news. Radio was the most important medium throughout the 1940s. Seen as “a poor man’s theater” during the 1930s, it had become America’s leading 96 A M E R I C A...