Middle+Class+3rd+Period

Rise of the Middle Class



Introduction. Many people thought that the end of the war would devastate America but instead it brought about a new age of wealth and the American dream.

 G.I. Bill

 the Serviceman's Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the GI Bill of Rights, provided alote of benefits for "veterans" of World War II. The Act, signed into law on June 22, 1944 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, it evolved from the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, which established military, the draft.  The G.I. Bill (which is still in effect, having been revised several times since 1944) was a powerful stimulus for social and economic change in post-WWII America. It made possible the investment of billions of dollars in education and training, housing, and small business investment for millions of veterans. The result was a dramatic change society. The GI Bill fostered the growth of the American middle class. Education, income opportunities, and home ownership combined to improve the standard of living for many Americans. More families were able to raise their children in good environments and provide higher education for their children.  Some of the most significant benefits concerned education. Veterans who attended college or entered vocational training programs received financial assistance to help defray the cost of education and compensate for income they had lost by having been drafted into the military from their previous civilian jobs.  Any veteran who had served at least 90 days was eligible for education benefits. The benefits increased relative to length of service and time spent in the combat zone. The influence on higher education can be seen by a single comparison: In 1940 only 109,000 men and 77,000 women had graduated from college with bachelor's degrees. By 1949, due to the influence of the G.I. Bill, these numbers had risen to 528,000 men and 103,000 women. In all, roughly 2.2 million veterans, about one-third of all those who returned from WWII, entered U.S. colleges and universities under the G.I. Bill.

 Post WWII Construction:

 The Suburban Construction boom started with Portland’s population escalating from 305,000 in 1940 to 374,000 ten years later. Construction had virtually ceased in Portland’s central business district during the 1930s. The signal that both the Depression and wartime austerity were over was the construction of the Equitable Building in 1948, it was a steel framework to which the building’s “skin” of glass and aluminum was attached.The workers often had come from the South and Midwest, and many of them were African American. The workers who stayed in Portland after the war strained the city’s housing, and African Americans put pressure on the real-estate and housing trades to deal with racial housing issues such as restrictive covenants and the de facto segregation which was enforced by bank lending guidelines and red-lining. They were denied. Housing shortages and new government programs made conditions ripe for the suburban boom, offering a new way of life to young couples and families. The goal wasn't simply to link the house to community and the family to neighborhood. It was also to make more possible, more efficient, this good life of postwar prosperity. To look at Levittown today, as a driver of its streets and walker of its sidewalks, is to see a very different community than the first. Here Levittown has all of the complexity of age: trees, lawns, some overgrown and some manicured to perfection, houses a bit run-down and houses nearly perfect. No longer a one-class community of small homes, it is a multi-class, multi-ethnic community with, only here and there, the original houses to bear witness to what it once was.

 White Collar Professions:

 The American work force also changed significantly. During the 1950s, the number of workers providing services grew until it equaled and then surpassed the number who produced goods. And by 1956, a majority of U.S. workers held white-collar rather than blue-collar jobs. At the same time, labor unions won long-term employment contracts and other benefits for their members.  Farmers, on the other hand, faced tough times. Gains in Productivity led to agricultural overproduction, as Farming became a big business. Small family farms found it increasingly difficult to compete, and more and more farmers left the land. As a result, the number of people employed in the farm sector, which in 1947 stood at 7.9 million, began a continuing decline; by 1998, U.S. farms employed only 3.4 million people.  Other Americans moved, too. Growing Demand for single-family homes and the widespread ownership of cars led many Americans to migrate from central cities to suburbs. Coupled with technological innovations such as the invention of air conditioning, the migration spurred the development of "Sun Belt" cities such as Houston, Atlanta, Miami, and Phoenix in the southern and southwestern states. As new, federally sponsored highways created better access to the suburbs, business patterns began to change as well. Shopping centers multiplied, rising from eight at the end of World War II to 3,840 in 1960. Many industries soon followed, leaving cities for less crowded sites.

 American Dream

 The American dream was the idea that you can come from nothing and work your way to the top. A housing boom, stimulated in part by easily affordable mortgages allowed you to own a home. This became a tangible reality for more and more Americans, as the availability of housing increased and veterans could secure low-interest mortgages. At the same time, the jump in postwar births, known as the "baby boom," increased the number of consumers. More and more Americans joined the middle class. The automobile industry successfully converted back to producing cars, and new industries such as aviation and electronics grew by leaps and bounds.

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