Since the 1950’s, life has changed for American citizens in several ways. The parts of the country citizens live in has shifted, the workforce has drastically changed, and the amount of free time Americans have has changed in the last 60 years. In the 1950’s nearly half of the population, which was mostly whites at the time, lived in new suburbs, whereas people of color were living increasingly in the inner cities. In 1956, Eisenhower passed an interstate and defense highways act which helped facilitate the growth of suburbs. Inner cities were also beginning to seem more and more dangerous. This increased white flight, which is known as the movement of white people from cities to suburbs due to the increase of minorities in the inner cities (911). Today and in …show more content…
During the major migration to the sunbelt, the West grew the fastest out of any region in the United States because of the affordable land, warm climate, and low taxes (1062). One thing that has changed drastically since the 1950’s is the people who work, and the types of jobs they hold today compared to the past. In the 1950’s, the traditional family, in which the man worked and the woman was a homemaker, was still widely practiced and celebrated by society. However, this was beginning to change as more women were attending college and working outside of the home (924). Schaller et al. writes that “By the end of 1959, 39% of women with children aged 6 to 17 held paying jobs” (924). As the gender ratio in the work force began to change, the types of jobs held by Americans was beginning to shift as well. “In 1957, white collar workers outnumbered blue collar workers for the first time in American history (927). As the shift from blue collar work to white collar work was occurring, men were expected to “move often and to conform without question to corporate rules of behavior” (927). Another growing field of work in the
After the end of World War II, the United States went through many changes. Most of the changes were for the better, but some had an adverse effect on certain population centers. Many programs, agencies and policies were created to transform American society and government. One of the greatest transformations to American society was the mass migration of families from the inner cities to the suburbs. This was thought to make for a better quality of life and a stronger nuclear family.
As mentioned before, sociologists Coontz and Hochschild further elaborate upon Parsons and Bales’ concepts of the American family, but they mostly critique the idea of the male-breadwinner family. One of the main arguments Coontz and Hochschild present is the decline of the male-breadwinner family due to the economic changes of the United States and the arising social norms of consumerism. Because Parsons and Bales never considered how the changes throughout society would affect family, they believed the male-breadwinner family would continue to be a functional type of family for everyone. However, within her text, “What We Really Miss about the 1950s,” Coontz specifically discusses the major expense of keeping mothers at home as consumption norms...
As many women took on a domestic role during this era, by the turn of the century women were certainly not strangers to the work force. As the developing American nation altered the lives of its citizens, both men and women found themselves struggling economically and migrated into cities to find work in the emerging industrialized labor movement . Ho...
Dating back to the early 20th century, women’s roles in the United States were very limited. In regards to family life, women were expected to cook, clean, and take care of their homes. Men, on the other hand, were in charge of working and providing for the family. Together, these designated roles helped men and women build off of each other to ultimately keep their families in check. As the years progressed, society began to make a greater push to increase women’s rights. As women started receiving greater equality and freedom, their roles began to shift. More women had to opportunity to leave the house and join the workforce. The norm for a married couple slowly began to change as men were no longer expected to individually provide for their
The American family is constantly undergoing changes. In the early 1600s, the Godly Family was the prevalent family structure of the first Europeans who immigrated to the United States (Aulette, 2010). Until 1780, families were strictly patriarchal with a male head of the family, who supervised “all social activities, including education, health care, and welfare”, and insured the family’s self-sufficiency within its community (Aulette, 2010). Following this form, the Modern Family and its sub-categories, the Democratic Family and the Companionate Family, were the dominant family structures until the 1970s (Aulette, 2010). Throughout the course of almost 200 years, families evolved into more private institutions aside from the community, women withdrew more and more from physical work on the family’s property and concentrated on their designated occupation as a mother, caregiver and housewife. Men were still the head of the family in terms of pursuing an occupation to financially provide for the family’s needs. During this time, gender-specific roles within the family were reinforced, which are still partially in effect in today’s society and family structure. Since the mid-20th century, the American family seems to be changing more rapidly than ever, partially because of the influences of the Great Depression and World War II, which led to the remarkable baby boom of 1946 to 1964. Not only did the year of 1970 mark the beginning of the most recent stage in the history of the (European) American family, the Postmodern Family, it also was the year in which the first gay couple applied for a marriage license (ProCon.org, 2013). Even though the two men’s request had been denied back then, same-sex couples and their family structure h...
During the Great War and the huge amount of men that were deployed created the need to employ women in hospitals, factories, and offices. When the war ended the women would return home or do more traditional jobs such as teaching or shop work. “Also in the 1920s the number of women working raised by fifty percent.” They usually didn’t work if they were married because they were still sticking to the role of being stay at home moms while the husband worked and took care of the family financially. But among the single women there was a huge increase in employment. “Women were still not getting payed near as equally as men and were expected to quit their jobs if they married or pregnant.” Although women were still not getting payed as equally it was still a huge change for the women's
During the 1950s, the United States experienced a period of prosperity. Many inventions eased Americans workload and some just made life more enjoyable. One such invention was the color television. Television, in general, allowed people to catch glimpses of the world from their living room sofas. Now, sports fans on one coast to watch sporting events which were occurring across on the other coast in their own home. The sporting world of the 1950s gave viewers a lot to talk about and many great memories.
In order to draw a comprehensive picture of the managerial modes, employment patterns, and labor movements in American industry in the 1930s and 1940s, Milkman adopts a comparative approach to probing the female employees’ experience in automobile and electrical manufacturing factories. Based on documents of the Department of Labor, papers of labor unions, and newspaper articles, Gender at Work examines the distinctive pattern of sex segregation in the two branches of industry in the prewar, wartime, and postwar U.S. She analyzes how the gender map in these two fields were drawn in history, how the great depression and the wartime labor shortage shaped the dynamic interaction between female employees, the managers, and their male
The 1950s was one of the best eras in the U.S. history. After World War II the United States had one of the strongest militaries in the world. Also, during that era nobody worried about war, nobody worried about how they were going to feed their children and keep a roof over their heads because everyone had jobs and the economy was doing great. In the 1950s, American life changed and improved. The families started to move to the suburbs, they started to produce more cars and Televisions and focused on entertainment, also, it was the time of conformity.
The 1950’s were a true decade of progress. America were prosperous, and the standard of living increased greatly. This was due to the economy. It had gotten much better now that World War 2 was over. Everyone was happy and everyone had a T.V. in their house. The war was over, and everyone was happy. This general feeling of happiness had not prevailed in America for a long time. More and more people were getting jobs, and more and more people actually could afford jobs and they could also afford houses and other amenities. This proves that the 1950’s were a true decade of progress.
Regions around the world are urbanizing faster than ever. In the United States, urban growth will be most prominent in the Sun Belt region, which spans from Los Angeles to Miami. Unlike most regions in the world however, the majority of America’s “urban population” live in distant suburbs. This is especially true for metropolitan areas such as Atlanta, where just 10% of the region’s 6 million people actually live in the city. During the 1970s, much of Atlanta’s white population moved outward into nearby suburbs as the city’s population gained more black citizens. By 1990, Atlanta’s white population had deflated to 31% of the city’s population compared to 48% in 1970. The effects of white flight have contributed heavily to the overall suburbanization of the Atlanta region, which has proved to be problematic. White flight in Atlanta during the 1970s has created numerous problems for the region as it fueled much of the urban sprawl in Atlanta, which has negatively impacted numerous fields including the environment and landscape of former rural areas, the socioeconomics of neighborhoods, and the health of people living in these newly formed suburbs.
According to a study by the Center for American Progress, today's United States workforce consists of nearly fifty percent female workers. These women are “the primary breadwinners or co-breadwinners” in nearly two-thirds of American households (Boushey and O'Leary). This is a dramatic change from almost a century ago. However, the growing number of female workers has developed major concerns and issues that must be dealt with by society in order for females and the business world to prosper. By evaluating the history of women and mothers in the workforce, as well as reviewing the w...
In the mid 1900’s, the urbanization of American cities was rapidly taking place amidst countless controversial urban renewal initiatives. Before this wave of urbanization hit, however, there was a major push for the removal of slums and deteriorating districts, as well as more efficient and well planned areas that supported transportation developments. City planners interpreted this need as a chance to take action by attempting to demolish low-income housing and outdated commercial properties to make way for new urban projects. Although these changes intended to provide people with new opportunities, it had the opposite effect. Thousands of families were displaced from their homes and forced to move into public housing which deepened the
Women were drawn into the work place in the 1960's when the economy expanded and rising consumer aspirations fueled the desire of many families for a second income. By 1960, 30.5 percent of all wives worked and the number of women graduating from college grew. (Echols, 400) Women soon found they were being treated differently and paid less then their male co-workers.
The Changing Status of Women in Employment Introduction The subject areas which I have chosen to focus on are work and employment and women. I have chosen these particular areas of sociology because as a female myself I am fascinated by the changing aspirations of women At the beginning of the twentieth century, it was considered that women would orientate to a domestic role, women were to dedicate their life to bearing and nursing children. Women were dependant on men for money and support; they faced discrimination at work and education as many opportunities were barred to them. The women's movement has challenged the conventional stereotype that "a woman's place is in the home," and many women now look beyond the archetypical housewife/mother role as their main role in life. In the last fifty years, the labour market has changed dramatically; women have obtained job opportunities that were previously denied to them.