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MALE EXPERIENCE

Manhood and Service

For most American men the 1940s began with military service: putting on uniforms and risking their lives overseas. World War II lasted three years longer than World War I, and six times as many young American males were drafted to serve in it. The entrance of the United States into World War I was accompanied by an outburst of proclamations about patriotism, courage, and glory, but soldiers who went overseas with visions of proving their valor in the ultimate test of manhood discovered instead the horrors of modern warfare and came home questioning the ideals for which they had fought. Americans in the military during World War II had learned from their predecessors' experience and were far less likely to view war as a measure of masculinity or a patriotic crusade. They accepted military service as a necessity and served loyally, but they had few expectations of personal glory.

The Rush to the Altar

Faced with separation from their loved ones, many newly drafted men—mostly those who had already planned to marry—hastened to do so before leaving for the army. There was a deluge of marriage licenses issued in the month following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. A man's military service came to stand for the protection of the American family. In a conversation on a 1942 radio program a young soldier explained the meaning of the war to his girlfriend: "This war's…about all young people like us. About love and gettin' hitched, and havin' a home and some kids, and breathin' fresh air out in the suburbs…about livin' and workin' decent, like free people."

The Military Family

Government policy reinforced the stability of the serviceman's family. Excluding married men from the draft proved impossible after 1941, and fathers were no longer deferred after 1943, but beginning in 1942 the government provided servicemen a family allotment, part of which was prorated according to family size and structure. These allotments provided servicemen substantial incentive to marry, especially when their wives could supplement this income by taking readily available semiskilled jobs at good pay in the defense industry. As one historian of the period has noted: "Men were everywhere and able to get married, subsidized by a government with a nest egg of pay. And because work for women was everywhere available and the girl could add to the man's government allowance, the couple was able to marry when they wanted to, young and ardent."

Separation

The separation of families became a major theme of popular culture during wartime, both reflecting and reinforcing the desire for a secure domestic life. Films such as Since You Went Away (1943) and Tender Comrade (1943) connected the home front to the battlefront and focused on the anxiety and grief involved in losing a loved one to war. Popular songs also expressed such themes, usually in the form of sentimental ballads: 'Til Be Seeing You" (1944), "Together" (1944), "It's Been a Long, Long Time" (1945), and "Sentimental Journey" (1945). Even children's tales echoed the theme of separation. Make Way for Ducklings, Robert McCloskey's 1941 storybook about ducks in Boston, became tremendously popular during the war owing in great part to its theme of a female-led family that must avoid hazardous situations until they are reunited with the father duck. Such cultural artifacts emphasized to servicemen that they were above all fighting to return home.

	Males			Females
	20	24	28	17	21	25
1939 to 1940	39.7	21.0	24.8	25.9	17.7	31.1
1940 to 1941	56.5	12.0	2.1	18.4	24.7	4.9
1941 to 1942	26.8	−17.5	−13.9	8.9	−7.4	−16.0
1942 to 1943	−40.7	−29.2	−26.4	−31.0	−61.8	−61.9
1943 to 1944	−6.3	−12.1	−19.3	−11.0	63.5	53.2
1944 to 1945	7.6	22.0	41.5	−52.4	15.1	75.5
1945 to 1946	56.3	87.9	77.0	43.1	71.0	74.9
SOURCE: Calculated from New York State, Department, of Health, Division of Vital Statistics, Annual Report, annual.

Wartime Trauma

While fighting to protect hearth and home, servicemen suffered psychological as well as physical wounds. Of the thirty-seven thousand veterans admitted to Veterans Administration (VA) hospitals as inpatients in 1946, more than half were treated for neuropsychiatrie problems. Knowledge of the trauma they had suffered fueled widespread public anxiety over the ability of returning soldiers to resume their roles as citizens, husbands, and fathers.

Postwar Expectations

Once they returned home veterans wanted above all to live "the good life." To these men who had lived through the Depression as well as the war, this way of life meant security above all else. Though white middle-class men faced few obstacles in the pursuit of educational and career goals, the jobs they entered brought little opportunity for self-fulfillment. The American workplace had changed during the war years, even for businessmen and professionals. Veterans found jobs in large, impersonal organizations that demanded conformity in return for job security and advancement. While the experience of service in the large, impersonal wartime armed forces had prepared them for this sort of postwar employment, veterans' peacetime work no longer provided them an arena for the exercise of "manly" aggressiveness, authority, or individualism. Giving up autonomy for security and good benefits in the workplace, American men turned to their families for fulfillment and happiness.

Family Life

For many veterans who returned home uncertain about their ability to function in postwar society, male authority was secure only in the family and only if the wife remained subordinate. In the prosperous postwar economy of the late 1940s, many men succeeded in providing for their families in great abundance. Middleclass women affirmed their husbands' perception of "family breadwinner" as the most important masculine role.