The Great Depression and World War II.

America at War.

Wartime Prosperity.

The Postwar Years.

Inflation.

Containment and the Cold War.

Containment and Conformity.

Ethnicity and Race in the 1940s.

Wartime Discrimination against Mexican Americans.

Riots of June 1943.

Internment of Japanese Americans.

Discrimination against African Americans.

Women in the Workplace.

Workingwomen in Wartime.

Postwar Reversion to Tradition.

The Family.

The Baby Boom.

The Birth of Suburbia.

On 1 September 1947 Time magazine offered a portrait of the American public compiled by the famous Gallup polling company. The average U.S. man, it reported, was 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighed 158 pounds. The average woman was 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighed 132 pounds. Women believed that three children constituted the ideal family and wanted no babies until the . second year of marriage. Most of the quarrels between "Mr. and Mrs. America" were prompted by money, jealousy, and children —- in that...