"Homeward Bound" by Elaine Tyler May

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the book "Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era" by Elaine Tyler May who used contemporary magazines, journals, and films as some of her research material to present a picture of family life in America during the Cold War and the way it shaped the nation. The author points out that this was the period of reproduce, which created the "baby boom", an entire generation of children who never had to want for anything. The author explains that any kind of sexual deviancy was taboo; in fact, many believed sexual deviation was the road to Communism and distrust.

From the Paper:

"One of the important points she uses in the book is how suburbia grew up during this time in our history, and suburbia almost exclusively consisted of a white, middle-class population. Racial lines were drawn during the Cold War, and race was still a very important issue for most Americans. As she notes in her Introduction, "People of color were excluded from these suburban communities, and denied the benefits of American prosperity even if they could afford them" (May xix). May clearly shows how the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s was created out of the white suburban middle-class of the 1950s. As blacks were excluded from owning property and attending schools in the middle-class suburbs, their unrest grew, and they began to fight back for their equality. The author goes on to state, "So while white working class Americans prospered and joined their middle-class peers as suburban homeowners, African-Americans lost ground economically. They were forced to reside in substandard urban housing, left out of postwar prosperity, and denied the government subsidies available to whites" (May xx). May continues later in the book to build on this premise that blacks were barred from the "good life" in their exclusion from mortgages in the white suburbs. As whites grew more prosperous, blacks continued to live in the inner city and continually were kept from creating their own American dreams."

More papers on "Homeward Bound" by Elaine Tyler May:

• Book Review # 67315 : "Homeward Bound" by Elaine Tyler May"
• Book Review # 128573 : "Americans' Reaction to the Cold War"

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