2) Regional, ethnic and social divisions

• Regional divisions in post-war America

  • Agricultural South
  • Industrial North
  • Expanding West Coast cities
• The war had decreased regional divisions in America's 140 million people
• Changes in population due to the war

  • Over 10% had left their homes for training camps (75% of those then served)
  • Around 13% had changed their country of residence
  • Many had permanently relocated to a different state, 4 million to a different region
• The direction of mass migration was from the agricultural South to the industrial North and from the South and East to West Coast cities that had attracted war industries
• The Second World War helped decrease prejudice against different ethnic groups, as it gave everyone the opportunity to demonstrate their patriotism
• Ethnic, Catholics and Jews still suffered prejudice, e.g. President John F Kennedy's Irish-American, Roman Catholic father claimed Boston society never fully accepted him
• Non-whites suffered the greatest discrimination, with the inferior status of 14 million black Americans (10% of the population) and 1.2 million Hispanic Americans enshrined in law in the South (de jure segregation) and in fact (de facto segregation) in the rest of the country
• Black Americans, Hispanic Americans and the 390,000 Native Americans had incomes way below the national average
• Variations in wealth in America

  • Exceptionally rich, e.g. the Rockefeller dynasty
  • Very rich, e.g. the Roosevelts
  • Reasonably comfortable, e.g. President Harry Truman's in-laws
  • Very poor, black sharecroppers in the South
• Tensions between rich and poor were demonstrated when 4.6 million workers went on strike during 1946
• Social mobility increased with the GI Bill of Rights, passed by Congress in 1944 to aid returning military personnel through free vocational training and higher education and low interest loans for home buying and new businesses
• The number of Americans who had a college education and therefore greater economic opportunities rose from 10% in 1939 to 15% in 1948
• The number of homeowners rocketed
• Belief in the American Dream was confirmed