Our Times: The Postwar Era of the Late 1940s
Before Levittown, Quonset hut villages housed WW II vets with their nuclear families. Photo courtesy of Bettmann/Corbis.
1945
Pediatrician Benjamin Spock, MD, writes Baby and Child Care, furnishing parents of the Baby Boom with new, less rigid parenting instructions. "Trust yourself, you know more than you think you do," he advises.
1946
Collier's magazine publishes "Why Can't They Read?" noting that one third of America's schoolchildren emerge from high school "unable to…comprehend so much as the daily paper."
1947
The transistor is invented at Bell Telephone Laboratories. Until then, electronics operated via vacuum tubes.
Willard Libby of University of Chicago, discovered radiocarbon dating, providing dates for previously unknown periods in human history and created a revolution in the study of mankind.
GED (General Educational Development) exams, developed in 1942 by the American Council on Education for the military to measure high school-equivalent academic skills, are introduced to allow civilians who have not completed high school to prove they have the necessary skills to continue to higher education or succeed in the workplace.
1948
George Gamow, a Russian emigré scientist, with student Ralph Alpher, publishes a landmark paper that provides theoretical underpinning for the "Big Bang" theory of the origins of the universe.
1949
The first International Conference on Adult Education, sponsored by UNESCO, is held, with 27 countries represented. The agenda: education for work and for workers; education for leisure; goals of adult education; and, international cooperation.
About the Authors
Mark Ciabattari is a novelist and cultural historian, and author of the forthcoming book Social History of the United States: The 1940s. Jane Ciabattari is a widely-published journalist and frequent contributor to NRTA Live & Learn.
This article originally appeared in NRTA Live & Learn, Summer 2007, as a 60th Anniversary Extra.
