There were remarkably great changes that rapidly transformed the face of the American society immediately after the World War 2. Such drastic changes could be witnessed in the various sectors, and results followed that testified of that fact. Changes in consumerism, as well as suburbanization, could be observed. Religion as well helped in shaping the new phase of the American society after the war. As the war ended, some benefits followed that made people adopt improved ways of living thus improving their socio-economical 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 the 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 of the items regarded as a luxury in the 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 sector of transport and communication as digital communicating devices were developed. This can be believed to be the key answer to the many questions towards the miraculous production power of America. By late 1938, America was manufacturing very few and primitive weapons, in fact, almost no weapon at all, but by the end of the 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 some various reasons. Firstly, the retired soldiers from the war, who had benefited from the GI Bill and were now returning home opted for suburbs areas and were moving to these places in large numbers. Also, government policies contributed 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, efficient superhighways and buildings were also constructed. As a result of this, the historians explain that the government was aiming at moving 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 the American society after the World War II. For instance, many Japanese Americans from the west coast were retained in detention camps following the letter that was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a result of the attack made by 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 acted a major role during and after the World War II in many ways. Religion greatly helped in upholding ethical or good conduct during and after the war. This was achieved in many ways. Again some religious institutions and bodies helped in availing 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.
