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Brandy's avatar

Well, I was gearing up to get offended as I am a housewife/mom in suburbia and then I kept reading and I couldn't do it. I am ridiculously spoiled in the way I think about my role because women have so much power in the home (if they want it) now as compared to then. I am guilty of yearning for a society that looks perfect on the outside, but never was. The women of the 50's and 60's, like my grandmother, had to conform in ways I've overlooked in time. Really happy you have shared this series. I am learning a lot.

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Ed Knight's avatar

We typically think of suburbia as an American phenomena. How has this played out in the rest of the world?

Also, these changes wrought by suburbia seem awfully fast. We go from barely having them, to disorder because of them in a mere 20 years (1945-1965)? I would suspect that the cultural web would've taken longer to sunder. Or is that perhaps the issue that it has sundered in some regions quickly while others have taken far longer (or are still undergoing it)?

I think the rise of mass media has been understated here, too. The same time period you refer to was the first time the nation had single media sources, instead of a conglomerate of local newspapers and other sources that could filter, spin, or alter what was being told to their community vs. what was being told to that in the next state over. That unification of, ahem, propaganda seems to have been an historical anomaly, particularly looking at the fragmentation before and after.

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