The+Shifting+American+Dream

The American Dream today has not always been around. In fact, the change towards today's American Dream started during the 1950's. From the business standpoint, conglomerates and franchises made their debut during the 1950's. Conglomerates are major corperations made up of several smaller companies, in unrelated industries. A conglomerate would be displayed if a telephone ccompany bought hotel chains, insurance companies, and rental companies, or something similar. A franchise, seen everywhere today, is a company that has many locations that offer similar or identical products or services. Because of these two business andpoints, creative thinkers and rebels were discouraged because they could "rock the corperate boat". People began to move out of cities and into the suburbs during this time period, as well. The Serviceman's Readjustment Act, passed by President Truman and Congress, allowed veterans time to hunt for jobs, because work was hard to come by for many of these veterans. The support offered by this Act allowed many GI's to buy homes, because the sale of houses was undergoing a major change. William Levitt, among others, found a way to mass produce houses, using an assembly line method, and was able to use this to not only build up the suburbs fast, but also sell the houses cheap, even for the time period, usually under $7,000. These houses were in even rows through treeless lots, and each was identical. Americans at the time accepted this, however, because the community had an open and planned feel to it.

Also important to this time period was the population. The baby boom, a sudden, dramatic population increase, triggered by the GI's returning to home life. In 1957, a baby was born every 7 seconds. This was at the highest point of the baby boom, and led to a total of 4,308,000 that year, the largest increase in population in U.S. history. Leisure time also faced a large increase, due to the relatively short 40 hour workweek, convenience devices, such as washing machines, lawnmowers, and similar products, and the vacations provided by employers. This increase led to a large increase in leisure spending, almost thirty billion that year.

As automobiles continued to expand, so did the need for roads. In the mid-1950's, President Eisenhower signed a bill that allowed a national highway system to be built, over 40,000 miles worth. This not only increased the use of automobiles for getting places, but also the use of commercial trucking, which in turn decreased the use of railroads to transport goods. The highway system was one of the most long, standing, influential changes during the period, as it is still being used to a great extent today.

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Patrick D'Agostino

Reference: McDougall Littel's "The Americans: Reconstruction to the 21st Century" Studystack.com