How did World War 1 affect American families at home?

Answer 1

One of the songs made popular by returning American veterans was titled "I've Got to Make Up for Lost Time." Beginning in 1946, the United States experienced a surge in marriages and birth rates. The young adults (ages 18 to 30) of this era became the most "marrying" generation in American history, with 97 percent of the women and 94 percent of the men taking marriage vows. By 1950, the age of marriage for American women had dropped below 20, another record, while the percentage of divorces, initially high among returning veterans, reached an all time low. The baby boom was equally dramatic. The number of children per family in the United States jumped from 2.6 in 1940 to 3.2 by decade's end. Birthrates doubled for a third child, and tripled for a fourth, as the American population grew by 20 million in the 1940s. At at a time when access to Birth Control information was rapidly increasing, U.S. population rivaled not England's, but rather India's. These spiraling marriages and birth rates went hand in hand with a shift back to more traditional sex roles following World War II. Actress Ann Sothern exemplified the reordering of domestic priorities when she advised women, shortly before Japan's surrender, to begin "planting our house- our perfect house" and to think about the nursery. " I know a lot of men are dreaming of coming back not only to those girls who waved goodbye to them," she added. " They are dreaming of coming back to to the mothers of their children and the least we can do as women is try to live up to those expectations." Indeed, one of the most popular wartime advertisements showed a mother in overalls about to leave for the factory. She is at the door when her little daughter asks: " Mother, when will you stay home again?" And she responds: " Some jubilant day, mother will stay at home again doing the job she likes - making a home for you and daddy when he gets back." Quite naturally, this emphasis on family life strengthened long-held prejudices against married women holding full-time jobs outside the home. As a result, the gains made in female employment during World War II largely disappeared. Returning veterans reclaimed millions of factory jobs held by women and minorities. The female labor force dropped from a wartime high of 19 million in 1945 to less than 17 million by 1947. On the Ford and General motors assembly lines, the percentage of women plummeted from 25 to 6 percent. Though many women gladly returned to their domestic lives, the vast majority, according to post-war surveys, hoped to keep their jobs. " I'd stay if they wanted me to," said a female aircraft worker, " but without taking a man's place from him." The social pressures on women were enormous. A host of "experts" including psychiatrists, psychologists, and pediatricians, asserted that women belonged in the home for their own good as well as the good of society - that women "needed" to be housewives and mothers in order to be fulfilled. In their 1947 best-seller Women: The Lost Sex, Marynia Farnham and Ferdinand Lundberg noted that "all mature childless women are emotionally disturbed," and that " the pursuit of a career is essentially masculine." Furthermore, these experts claimed that returning veterans needed special love and attention after so many years away from home. The concept of "mothering" as central to the post-war family was further popularized by Dr. Benjamin Spock, whose "Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care" (1946) became the standard reference for parents of the "baby boom" generation. While most viewers noted Spock's relaxed, more permissive attitude toward child rearing, another message came through as well. Women must be the primary caregivers, Spock insisted. It was their role to shape the infant into a normal, happy adult. For Spock and countless others, a man's success was measured by his performance in the outside world, a woman's success by her skills in raising well-adjusted children. As feminist author Betty Friedan recalled, "Oh, how Dr. Spock could make me feel guilty!" The emphasis on traditional sex roles also affected female education. World War II had opened up new oppurtunities for women in science, engineering, and medicine. For the first time in history, women constituted a majority of the nation's college graduates. But the return of the male veterans, combined with the educational benefits provided them by the G. I bill, reversed these temporary gains. Although the number of college women increased after World War II, the percentage of females in colleges declined dramatically. At Cornell University, for example, women comprised 50 percent of the wartime classes, but only 20 percent of the post-war classes. More significantly, the percentage of college women who actually graduated fell from 40 percent during World War II to 25 percent by 1950. The steepest declines occurred in professional education. Engineering colleges, which doubled their enrollment to more than 200, 000 by 1946, accepted fewer than 1,300 women, with more than half of these schools accepting no women at all. Female enrollments in medical schools dropped from a high of 15 percent during World War II to 5 percent by 1950. A study of medical students in this era showed deep prejudice among the men and self-limiting attitudes among the women. The majority of men, believing they made better doctors, thought that women should face tougher admission standards. The majority of women, insisting that marriage was more important than a career, claimed they would cut back their hours, or even stop working, to meet their family obligations. On campuses across the nation, educators struggled to find proper curriculum for female students. The ideal, said one college president, was to enable women "to foster the intellectual and emotional life of her family and community" - to fill the American home with proper moral values, a love of culture, and an appreciation of good wine and gourmet cooking. Before long, the postwar American woman became the nation's primary consumer. Between 1946 and 1950, Americans purchased 21 million automobiles, 20 million refrigerators, 5.5 million electric stoves, and more than 2 million dishwashers. This consumer explosion resulted from a number of factors: the baby boom, the huge savings accumulated during World War II, the availability of credit, and the effectiveness of mass advertising in creating consumer demand. The average American now had access to department store charge accounts and easy payment plans with almost no money down. "Buy now, Pay Later," urged General motors, and most people obliged. In 1950, as consumer debt surpassed $100 billion, the Diner's Club introduced America's first credit card. The Depression age virtues of thrift and savings seemed as distant as the depression itself. Ironically, this new consumer society led millions of women back into the labor force. By 1950, more women were working outside the home than ever before. The difference, however, was that postwar American women returned to low-paying, often part-time employment in "feminine" jobs such as clerks, salespeople, secretaries, waitresses, telephone operators, and domestics. Working to supplement the family income, to help finance the automobile, the kitchen appliances, the summer vacation, the children's college tuition, American women earned but 53 percent of the wages of American men in 1950- a drop of 10 percent since the heady years of "Rosie the Riveter" during World War II. pogwash is the name oh hitlers daughter she was known as a slut.

NOTE: THIS ANSWER IS ABOUT World War 2, NOT WORLD WAR 1 AS STATED IN THE QUESTION.

ANSWERER SHOULD READ THE QUESTION PROPERLY.

Answer 2

They were either bomed or evacuated or survived

Answer 3

i don't know but i think they loved it go on wikipedia