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A review by natethegreat
Homeward Bound: American Families In The Cold War Era by Elaine Tyler May
3.0
Elaine May’s Homeward Bound asks why Americans made so much of family after World War Two. The book makes an important contribution in that it historicizes the mid-20th century family. May notes that, and this certainly speaks to my own experiences growing up toward the end of the Cold War, it is widely believed that the 1950s was the last hurrah of a longstanding form of the family. In fact, the turn to family after World War Two was precisely that, a turn, a change.
Homeward Bound starts relatively late in the period it analyzes, opening with the famous "kitchen debate" between Nixon and Kruschev. While it late returns to the 1950s, the book moves backward in time from the kitchen debate, focusing first on how the Depression and then the Second World War impacted family structures. Both events changed the participation of women in the workforce. Women worked more outside the home, which shaped attitudes and desires around women's roles in family and work.
One central factor which fed into the creation the 1950s family was people’s perception of relative insecurity between the Depression, the Second World War, and the threat of nuclear annihilation after the war. Family became a way to achieve some feeling of security, and the drive toward family was in part a drive toward feeling secure. May stresses that other historical avenues were possible, even if they were ultimately not taken. By eroding men’s monopoly of the role as the so-called breadwinner, the Depression and Second World War could have given rise to a more egalitarian family as opposed to the traditional - though new - family of the 1950s. In some respects, the unfulfilled potentials of war time became an engine for reaction against those potentials. As May writes, “sudden emancipation of women during wartime gave rise to a suspicion surrounding autonomous women.” (77.)
The book draws on a variety of sources, including movies, popular magazines about celebrities, demographic data, and a series of surveys conducted with middle class families about their satisfaction with and thoughts about their marriages. The surveys allow May a remarkable window onto might be an otherwise difficult to grasp part of life. They also allow her to tell people’s very personal stories about marital happiness and unhappiness. The surveys allow a look at aspects of people’s lives which are simultaneously uniquely individual as well as exemplary of larger social trends.
May’s work offers useful examples of how a historical argument and narrative can link issues of policy and attitudes in one part of society with other social and cultural sites, and use very different sources. May links feelings of insecurity during and after World War Two with the increasingly widespread view that women’s independence posed a danger to masculinity and thus to society. This could be a useful model for some of my on workplace injuries, law, and insurance in the early 20th century United States. I would like to look at the theme risk and security across policy debates over workers’ compensation, juries’ attitudes toward work, and popular perceptions of war. Just as May looked a gendered component of the Cold War and assessed the expansion and contraction of the range of opportunities for women, I would like to see if worker’s compensation programs ultimately offered more or less opportunities for women and disabled people.
Homeward Bound starts relatively late in the period it analyzes, opening with the famous "kitchen debate" between Nixon and Kruschev. While it late returns to the 1950s, the book moves backward in time from the kitchen debate, focusing first on how the Depression and then the Second World War impacted family structures. Both events changed the participation of women in the workforce. Women worked more outside the home, which shaped attitudes and desires around women's roles in family and work.
One central factor which fed into the creation the 1950s family was people’s perception of relative insecurity between the Depression, the Second World War, and the threat of nuclear annihilation after the war. Family became a way to achieve some feeling of security, and the drive toward family was in part a drive toward feeling secure. May stresses that other historical avenues were possible, even if they were ultimately not taken. By eroding men’s monopoly of the role as the so-called breadwinner, the Depression and Second World War could have given rise to a more egalitarian family as opposed to the traditional - though new - family of the 1950s. In some respects, the unfulfilled potentials of war time became an engine for reaction against those potentials. As May writes, “sudden emancipation of women during wartime gave rise to a suspicion surrounding autonomous women.” (77.)
The book draws on a variety of sources, including movies, popular magazines about celebrities, demographic data, and a series of surveys conducted with middle class families about their satisfaction with and thoughts about their marriages. The surveys allow May a remarkable window onto might be an otherwise difficult to grasp part of life. They also allow her to tell people’s very personal stories about marital happiness and unhappiness. The surveys allow a look at aspects of people’s lives which are simultaneously uniquely individual as well as exemplary of larger social trends.
May’s work offers useful examples of how a historical argument and narrative can link issues of policy and attitudes in one part of society with other social and cultural sites, and use very different sources. May links feelings of insecurity during and after World War Two with the increasingly widespread view that women’s independence posed a danger to masculinity and thus to society. This could be a useful model for some of my on workplace injuries, law, and insurance in the early 20th century United States. I would like to look at the theme risk and security across policy debates over workers’ compensation, juries’ attitudes toward work, and popular perceptions of war. Just as May looked a gendered component of the Cold War and assessed the expansion and contraction of the range of opportunities for women, I would like to see if worker’s compensation programs ultimately offered more or less opportunities for women and disabled people.