How The Cold War Shaped New Work

The wartime alliance forged by the U.S, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union crumbled, giving the birth to a cold war. The Cold War began because there were different visions of the postwar world. The Soviet Union were trying to gain power and their communism was feared by the United Stated and American citizens. During the 1950s, economic productivity increased abundantly. The Cold War shaped the ideals about family life in America, especially the lives of women. The Cold War helped shape new work, especially for women, living patters such as living in the suburbs, consumption and prosperity, and higher education. The Cold War especially shaped the ideals about the lives of white women because they were seen as a housewife and their domestic roles in the family.
Between 1940 and 1960, college enrollments in the United States doubled, and more than 40% of young Americans attended college by the mid-1960s. The. federal government financially supported the education of more than two million veterans, and the Cold War sent millions of federal dollars to universities for defense related research. The college enrollments surged from 37,000 in 1941 to 90,00 in 1961. There was an educational gap between white men and women grew, even though women’s enrollment increased. Women had earned 40 percent on undergraduate degrees in 1940, but as veterans flocked to college campuses, women’s proportion fell to 25 percent, rising to 30 by 1960 Women were likely to drop collage after marriage so that they could take jobs to keep their husbands in school (729). “Reflecting gender norms, of the 1950’s, most college women agreed that “it is natural for a woman to be satisfied with her husband’s success and not crave personal achievement.”