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What factors contributed to the American sense of identity in the years…
What factors contributed to the American sense of identity in the years following World War II?
During the great depression, president Franklin.D Roosevelt initiated some programs as the new deal for economy, National Housing Act to spur home construction and homeownership.
Started to think about "bill of rights" to guarantee opportunities for all the Americans
"But Humes says FDR was troubled by the prospect of creating a separate class of Americans who got "all these guarantees of medical care and education by virtue of their military service." FDR and his advisors began to think a second "bill of rights" was necessary to guarantee these kinds of opportunities for all Americans"
offered free education
Congress threw in money for books, and a living stipend that increased if the student had children.
offered veterans government-backed home loans that required nothing down, and mortgage payments that made buying a home cheaper than renting.
government insured mortgages and encouraged people to stretch them for a longer period of time in order to be more affordable
Roosvelt changed the idea of American dream post war
"if you worked hard and played by the rules, you deserved certain things. You deserved security and decent shelter and to not have to worry all the time that you might lose your house to bankruptcy." (sociologists and historians started to think post war)
Consumer expectations (owner a car, a house, sending kids to collage,etc)
"Became closely linked to material comfort, to the consumer abundance America was producing. 'A better life' started to connote not just an economically secure life, but an abundant life. So there's a kind of linkage between mobility, a better life, and the good stuff that would make it so." By David Farber, a historian (this is before World War II)
The good purchaser devoted to 'more, newer and better' was the good citizen," historian Lizabeth Cohen explained, "since economic recovery after a decade and a half of depression and war depended on a dynamic mass consumption economy."
People started buying plenty of TVs, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners and obviously cars. It was their way of letting go of their previous lives from the war where spending meant decadence
freedom of opportunities
hard work will guarantee succes
fair ambition
economic security and independance
prosperity
Jobs were plentiful, wages were higher, and because of the lack of consumer goods during the war, Americans were eager to spend.
Anyone could deisre and anguish to be succesful in The United States, even immigrants and other minorities
James T. Adams describes the dream as "It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position"
The war opened up numerous of opportunities for women to be able to work. They worked in jobs were before the war, were considered manly and thought to be impossible for women to be capable of doing it.
Women started to have a lot of job opportunities during war (something not seen before). When men came back, they still have some of them, but some weren't paid at all.
security
family life
The age in which people got married dropped immsensely since the end of World War II
Now young adults started to build a family
Young adults needed to get a more prestigious job to maintain their family
Teens were now more concerned about their life decision makings. And did not see marriage as a far future.
African Americans started to fight for civil rights