There were remarkably great changes that rapidly transformed the face of American society immediately after World War II. Such drastic changes could be witnessed in the various sectors, and results followed that testified to that fact. Changes in consumerism, as well as suburbanization, could be observed. Religion also helped shape American society’s new phase after the war. As the war ended, some benefits followed, which made people adopt improved ways of living, thus improving their socioeconomic living (Ho & Hartley, 2017). The GI bill, as was passed under the “Serviceman’s Readjustment Act of 1944,” motivated the retired soldiers from the war, and thus, luxuries were at their disposal.
After World War II, the Americans began realizing that it was indeed a good thing for people to spend much on good and valuable materials, hence consumerism. This made luxury a necessity, a basic need! Some items regarded as a luxury in developing countries, like automobiles, television sets, and home electric appliances, were now even available to people of low earnings and middle class. It was after this that a majority of people did not depend on depts.
The end of World War II was the starting point for technological development and innovation- which led to improvements in the transport and communication sector as digital communication devices were developed. This can be believed to be the key answer to the many questions about the miraculous production power of America. By late 1938, America was manufacturing very few and primitive weapons, in fact, almost no weapons at all, but by the end of World War II, the country was producing twice the number of weapons against the ones produced by their rival countries (Krausmann et al., 2017). A historian, Allen Nevins, had this to say on this state: “Never before had war demanded such technological experimentation and business organization.”
Suburbanization began and increased after the World War 2. After this war, suburbanization was caused by various reasons. Firstly, the retired soldiers from the war, who had benefited from the GI Bill and were now returning home, opted for suburban areas and were moving to these places in large numbers. Government policies also contribute to this factor. An example is the Federal government policy initiated during the post-World War II period, which aimed at improving the nature of infrastructure in the suburbs; good roads were constructed, and efficient superhighways and buildings were also constructed. As a result, historians explain that the government aimed to move the average-class population from the inner city squares to the suburbs. Similarly, historians explain that financial banks also contributed to this factor by restricting mortgage loans to only the suburb population at very friendly interest rates.
Racism is another important factor that affected American society after World War II. For instance, many Japanese Americans from the West Coast were retained in detention camps following the letter that President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed as a result of the attack made by the Japanese on Dec 7, 1941 (Kristensen, 2017). Many of these Japanese Americans were denied their civil rights and were viewed with much superstition in like manner as the current Muslim-Americans
In conclusion, religion played a major role during and after World War II in many ways. Religion greatly helped uphold ethical or good conduct during and after the war. This was achieved in many ways. Again, some religious institutions and bodies helped in providing and distributing relief foods and necessary help to those who were internally displaced. Justice for the displaced individuals was also found by engaging religious leaders (Ho & Hartley, 2017).
References
Ho, Y.-S., & Hartley, J. (2017). Highly cited publications in World War II: a bibliometric analysis. Scientometrics, 110(2), 1065–1075.
Krausmann, F., Wiedenhofer, D., Lauk, C., Haas, W., Tanikawa, H., Fishman, T., … Haberl, H. (2017). Global socioeconomic material stocks rise 23-fold over the 20th century and require half of annual resource use. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(8), 1880–1885.
Kristensen, P. M. (2017). After Abdication: America Debates the Future of Global Leadership. Chinese Political Science Review, 2(4), 550–566.
