It was the best of times and the worst of times (Dickens 1). The movie Its a Wonderful Life was released and six million Jewish people were murdered. White Christmas was a popular song and the black lists appeared. Gas rationing became necessary and soldiers were slaughtered in Guadacanal. Casablanca was idolized and Hiroshima was destroyed by a nuclear bomb. The nineteen forties has been given the dreary title of The War Decade. However, the United States managed to emerge from World War two as the strongest nation and prosperity reigned supreme after the war. In World War two people were desperate for release from the harsh realities of the war and they endured hard times with the art, music, and literature flourishing at the time. American culture was greatly affected by the war. It changed the way people thought and acted in their daily lives. The nineteen forties was one of the most important decades in history.The forties began the longest period of economic growth in United States (Uschan 111). War production pulled America out of the great depression. Factories were making supplies for the war at an all time high and the unemployment rate was at an all time low (The Authors of Time Life Books 69). Women began to take jobs in industry while men were fighting. The war created a huge retribution of wealth that fueled economic growth in the middle class (Uschan 110). Millions of housewives worked to help keep the economy running during the forties. Between 1940 and 1944, the number of employed women rose from 12 million to 18.2 million (The Authors of Time Life Books 64). The war created a demand for workers in industry and women took these jobs. Gender roles were forever altered by womens appearance in the workforce (The Authors of Time Life Books 69). Americans made severe cutbacks in spending money and buying luxuries in the forties due to World War two (Gross 87). Despite this, America emerged from the wa...
