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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 4 page research paper that primarily draws on Homeward Bound by Elaine T. May, a text that explores the American culture during the post-World War II era. The writer primarily addresses how popular culture during the 50s tried to make people feel safe and how the culture of that era was largely in reaction to the prospect of nuclear war. Bibliography lists 3 sources.
Page Count:
4 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khetmay.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
with the population explosion known as the "baby boom," a new emphasis on domesticity and conservatism. Historians and others have argued that "depression-weary Americans were eager to put the disruptions
and hardships of the war behind them and enjoy the abundance at home" but May points out that this rationale does not fully explain Americans reaction as the prosperity following
other wars, most "notably World I," brought no similar increase in "marriage and childbearing" (May 6). Following this line of thought, May shows how the culture of the 1950s "took
shape amid the legacy of the depression, World War II, and the anxieties of surrounding atomic weapons" (May 11). Rather than the 1950s being a return to "traditional family life"
with historic roots, May argues that the 1950s constitute the "first wholehearted effort" to create a domestic life that would "fulfill virtually all its members personal needs" (May 11). In
other words, the 1950s, with its idealized vision of the nuclear family was primarily a reaction to Cold War anxieties and an effort on the part of popular culture to
help people feel safe. Other scholars share Mays interpretation of the era. William Garrett, for example, supports the concept that it was the 1950s that were "aberrant" in American
history and the so-called cultural revolution of the 1960s that marked a return to normality, as it continued the liberal progressiveness of their grandparents generation (Garrett 288). May concurs, saying
that "In many ways, the youths of the sixties resembled their grandparents" (May 9). The question is, therefore, what caused the 1950s generation, whose went through childhood during the Great
Depression and had just fought World War II, to want to embrace a new standard for domestic life. The answer lies, as May points out, in the climate of the
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