First, it placed the baby boomers squarely at the center of the suburban universe. The idea that a woman’s most important job was to bear and rear children was hardly a new one, but it took on a new significance in the postwar era. Advice books and magazine articles (“Don’t Be Afraid to Marry Young,” “Cooking To Me Is Poetry,” “Femininity Begins At Home”) urged women to leave the workforce and embrace their roles as wives and mothers. The suburban baby boom had a particularly confining effect on women. These houses were perfect for young families–they had informal “family rooms,” open floor plans and backyards–and so suburban developments earned nicknames like “Fertility Valley” and “The Rabbit Hutch.” By 1960, suburban baby boomers and their parents comprised one-third of the population of the United States. Bill subsidized low-cost mortgages for returning soldiers, which meant that it was often cheaper to buy one of these suburban houses than it was to rent an apartment in the city. Almost as soon as World War II ended, developers such as William Levitt (whose “Levittowns” in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania would become the most famous symbols of suburban life in the 1950s) began to buy land on the outskirts of cities and use mass-production techniques to build modest, inexpensive tract houses there. The baby boom and the suburban boom went hand in hand. As a result, many Americans felt certain that they could give their families all the material things that they themselves had done without. In many ways, they were right: Corporations grew larger and more profitable, labor unions promised generous wages and benefits to their members, and consumer goods were more plentiful and affordable than ever before. Many people in the postwar era looked forward to having children because they were confident that the future would be one of comfort and prosperity. And just 8 percent of married women in the 1940s opted not to have children, compared to 15 percent in the 1930s.) (In 1940, the average American woman got married when she was almost 22 years old in 1956, the average American woman got married when she was just 20. Older Americans, who had postponed marriage and childbirth during the Great Depression and World War II, were joined in the nation’s maternity wards by young adults who were eager to start families. Most likely, however, the postwar baby boom happened for more quotidian reasons. Others have argued that it was a part of a Cold War campaign to fight communism by outnumbering communists.ĭid you know? In 1966, Time magazine declared that “the Generation Twenty-Five and Under” would be its “Persons of the Year.” What explains this baby boom? Some historians have argued that it was a part of a desire for normalcy after 16 years of depression and war.
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