Since the 1920’s each of the following decades have been shaped by very specific and defining events. The twenties were known as the ‘Jazz Age’ and a time of great prosperity, followed by the austerity of the Great depression during the thirties, whilst it can be said that the forties had two faces. The first half dominated World War II, whilst the second half of the 1940’s saw the beginning of America’s rise to become a world superpower.

World War II broke out in Europe during the last quarter of 1939 and with it came lasting changes to the American way of life. Apart from it shattering US isolationism, it changed forever the way family life would function. Women would enter the work place in numbers not seen before, called upon to replace the men who were drafted into the military, whilst there was a huge influx of European intellectuals fleeing Adolf Hitler’s holocaust and bringing with them new ideas and enthusiasm that would enrich American culture.

The war served America well; it revived its ailing economy, virtually making unemployment a thing of the past and made America a nation of farmers. During the war the nation was encouraged to grow vegetables on every unused piece of land which resulted in over 40% of all the vegetables eaten in America being home grown.

It was also a time when Xenophobia gripped America, characterized by executive order 9066, when on the 19th February 1942 President Roosevelt sanctioning the removal of 110,000 individuals of Japanese descent into internment camps, regardless of whether they were legitimate US citizens or not. This extreme action was provoked by the attack on Pearl Harbour, Hawaii by the Japanese air force on the 7th December 1941.

The radio was the mass medium of the 40’s with a receiver in more than 80% of American homes which satisfied the heightened interest in matters concerning the war and sporting events whose popularity continued to grow throughout the 40’s. Movies were the principle form of entertainment outside of the home, with an estimated ninety million people attending nationwide on a weekly basis.

Penicillin was discovered twelve years before the beginning of the 1940’s by a Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming and would come into its own, when it was used on the battlefields of WW II to great effect, radically improving the survival rate of injured soldiers.

When the war ended and the soldiers returned home and women, although not all, returned to being full-time housewives, vacating the jobs in favour of the heads of households with families to support. Educational opportunities were created by the government for the returning GI’s through the ‘GI bill of rights’, which offered a college or university education free of charge to those who were willing to grasp the opportunity. Their return also saw the beginning of the ‘Baby Boom’ era and weeks before the end of the war, Franklyn Delano Roosevelt, champion of the Great depression died on the 12th April 1945.

After 1945 America began to develop into a great world power, spreading its culture norms throughout the globe, which included Jazz music, movies, language in the form of American slang and the export of American made products. The later 40’s also saw many social changes such as the Supreme Court ruling which allowed African Americans the right to vote. Technology on the whole was on the march. In 1943 Napalm was invented; in 1945 the atomic bomb had been invented and used to end the American/Japanese conflict which had been raging since 1941. In 1948 television was still in its infancy with only 44,000 sets in circulation and that same year the transistor and the first mobile phone was invented, then in 1949 along came the long-playing records just in time for the pop explosion of the 1950’s.

Since then America has gone from strength to strength and had been able to maintain its superpower status. Today the US is regarded internationally as the policeman of the world overseeing conflict after conflict wherever it may arise throughout the world.