American Decades
On the Home Front
The Family in Wartime.
World War II spurred enormous changes in family life. First, wartime industry and the military draft caused massive migration: more than fifteen million people moved, searching for defense jobs or following family members to the next military base. Americans poured into major defense centers, especially cities such as San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Mobile, and Wichita. The war and the booming economy that accompanied it also impacted patterns of marriage and childbearing. Couples had delayed marriage and childbearing during the Depression; men and women rushed to the altar after 1941 and had record numbers of children.
Marriage and Babies.
While these marriages typically followed long engagements, many others were more spontaneous. When actor Mickey Rooney was a private stationed at Camp Siebert, Alabama, he proposed to a seventeen-year-old girl on their first date, and they were...
[The entire page is 2195 words long]
1940's Lifestyles and Social Trends
