Postwar Families Essay

NAME: Aninor Ogbemi-Daibo
Postwar Families.
Postwar families lived through the economy’s great depression as well as World War II. This resulted in the sense of great loss and an even bigger emotional trauma. Postwar families, like so many other families throughout history have done, had to adapt to their situation in order to survive the wretched times. And the answer to their very self-sorted emotional need was none other than the creation of a social unit of support we now call family.
Family was the basis of society; the joy and satisfaction it provided for this emotionally injured postwar families were more important than upholding the roles society had placed on them. This paper aims to draw observations from

The economic boom that occurred after the war catapulted American families to live in far better conditions that they had, pre-World War II. As a result, most families moved both up the social ladder as well as in the suburbs. The suburban boom as seen in the photograph reinforces this economic boom that was present, postwar era and the increase of American families living in smaller units of nuclear family rather than extended. Family photos show a much smaller consistency than prewar era. This could be attributed to the fact that Americans got married at very young ages and had the financial stability from the economic boom to support their families.
Another interesting observation from the photograph I noticed was that a young girl was wearing what seems to be a bra top --exposing her tummy-- and a skirt. Pre world war 2 girls were fully clothed exposing maybe a little bit of ankle, but in postwar era we see a young girl exposing her body and even more so in public. This, I think, represents the deviance of postwar families to previous societal norms. During the postwar era there was a peak in the generational gap, causing younger Americans to question the society and everything—morals, societal norms etc.--they had been taught by the previous