Boomers: The Cold-War Generation Grows Up

Boomers: The Cold-War Generation Grows Up Read Free Page A

Book: Boomers: The Cold-War Generation Grows Up Read Free
Author: Victor D. Brooks
Tags: United States, History, 20th Century, Non-Fiction, Social History
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the short-skirted Flapper look of the 1920s, which in turn had morphed into the plucked eyebrows, bleached hair, and longer skirts of the depression era.
    By the eve of Pearl Harbor, all of these looks seemed hopelessly old-fashioned to teenagers, college girls, and young women, and the war brought still more change. Fashion for immediate postwar females in their teens or twenties featured relatively long hair, bright red lipstick, fairly short skirts, and a seemingly infinite variety of sweaters. The practicality of pants for women in wartime factories had led to a peacetime influx of slacks, pedal pushers, and even shorts, matched with bobby sox, knee socks, saddle shoes, and loafers. While skirts or dresses topped by dressy hats and gloves were still the norm for offices, shopping, and most social occasions, home wear and informal activities were becoming increasingly casual, especially for younger women.
    The preschool and elementary school children of the immediate postwar period, many of whom would later become the older siblings of the Boomers, appear in most films, advertisements, and photos to be a fusion of the prewar era and the looming 1950s. Among the most notable fashion changes for boys was a new freedom from the decades-long curseof knickers and long stockings that had separated boyhood from adolescence and produced more than a few screaming episodes of frustration as boys or their mothers tried to attach often droopy socks with tight, uncomfortable knicker pants. As prewar boys’ suspenders rapidly gave way to belts, the classic prewar “newsboy” caps were being replaced by baseball caps.
    Girls who would become the older sisters of the postwar generation were also caught in a bit of a fashion tug-of-war. An informal “tomboy” look of overalls, jeans, and pigtails collided with the Mary Jane dresses and bangs of the prewar era in young mothers’ versions of their daughters.
    The tension between past and future in American fashion was equally evident in many aspects of everyday life into which the new, postwar babies would arrive. For example, one of the first shocks that a young visitor from the twenty-first century would receive if traveling to the early postwar period would be the haze of tobacco smoke permeating almost every scene. The Boomers may have been the first generation to include substantial numbers adamantly opposed to smoking, but most of their parents and grandparents had other ideas. Nearly two of three adult males used pipes, cigars, or cigarettes, and almost two of five women were also regular smokers in the early postwar era. This was a world in which early television commercials and great numbers of full-color magazine advertisements displayed a stunningly handsome actor or a beautiful actress elegantly smoking a favorite brand of cigarette while a doctor in a white coat and stethoscope explained the ability of one brand of cigarette to keep the “T zone” free of irritation. Other doctors intoned that serious weight-watchers should “reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet.” One series of magazine ads noted that ina survey of 113,597 physicians, “more doctors smoke Camels than any other brand.” Even in the minority of homes where neither parent smoked, ashtrays were always readily available for the many relatives and friends who did use tobacco, thus ensuring that few Boomers would grow up in truly smoke-free homes.
    The same young visitor from the twenty-first century who would be astonished at widespread tobacco use by the parents and grandparents of Boomers would find their eating habits equally cavalier. One of the most common scenes in films from the 1930s or the World War II era was a group of civilians or soldiers gathered around a fire or a foxhole dreaming of the “perfect” meal they would enjoy when the depression or the war ended. The dream fare always included steaks, bacon, a cornucopia of fried foods, and desserts,

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