Following World War II, hundreds of thousands of men rushed home from the European or Pacific theaters to the waiting arms of wives, children, or other family members. However, many of the men who returned were not the same men who left. The war had taken its toll on hundreds of thousands of these men in the form of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, or PTSD. At the time, there was not such designation for this mental condition. If you were affected by it, you were not able to see a therapist or any sort of doctor. You simply dealt with it on your own. Many men who returned with this serious condition drank heavily to combat disorder rather than seek any sort of therapy.
Another problem that many soldiers faced following the war as the availability of jobs. As millions of men and women had served in the Second World War, coming home to a job was tougher than many had thought. During the war, millions of women were sent to the workforce as the government had told them it was their “duty” to get out of the kitchen and work while their husbands and loved ones were over seas fighting the Axis powers. This shift would have a dramatic impact on the American workforce as it was the first time that women had been put to work in such high numbers. This resulted in many veterans coming home with no job to greet them.
However, not everything about the return of veterans was bad. For example, in 1944 the “Servicemen’s Readjustment Act” was passed. Also known as the “G.I. Bill, it was signed before the war had even ended and gave returning veterans a series of benefits. Among those were education and training opportunities, loan guarantees for a home, farm, or business, job-finding assistance, and unemployment pay of twenty dollars per week up to fifty two weeks if the veteran could not find a job. Thousands of veterans used the G.I. Bill to go to school and by 1947, almost fifty percent of colleges were made up of veteran enrollment.
Lastly, the return of veterans affected the home life of many children as well. Since their fathers had been in Europe of Asia fighting the war, many children grew up with a working mother. This in turn led to many children having a different view of women in the workforce than before. Many girls developed less traditional feminine views of the world. It could certainly be argued that this shift caused many young girls to be more independent and that this was the origins of the feminist movement.
Soldiers who fought during WWII witnessed some of the most intense fighting the world had even seen which left many scarred for life.
I am really pleased you brought up the role of women in your post. It was something that had not occurred to me during my readings. It is unfortunate that women essentially “took” jobs that once belonged to the veterans, but on the other hand this was a major turning point in women’s history. I whole heartedly believe that if it were not for WWII and men leaving these jobs open for women, women would still be thought of as simply the homemaker. Some of those ideas still exist today, but like you said, generations raised by these working mothers grew up with different ideas and passed them on to their kids.
This is a nice view on postwar conditions in the 1940s United States. The veterans truly did not have many options when it came to dealing with the mental trauma they developed as a a result of World War II. Many feared for how the American society would view them if they found out they were struggling with mental issues. There was also a prominent internal worry about emasculation by a soldier addressing his mental trauma. I enjoyed your take on the role of women during the war, a topic that is probably not given enough attention.
I really like this post because it shows something that people over look, many people tend to discuss the bad and don’t discuss the good because they are trying to make a point and persuade people. The GI Bill was a great program and helped educate a lot of soldiers. It was a productive way to educate the soldiers to allow them to return to the work force with a better opportunity to succeed. The GI Bill is still active today as many know and is a great way to help people of a different lower class succeed and jump socioeconomic classes. It is an interesting point about woman that I never really thought of but makes perfect sense.