One of the defining periods in American history took place over a three decade time span from the late 1920s through the 1960s, and the events of these decades brought enormous changes to every aspect of the country. During these years the country experienced the Great Depression and World War II, followed by a Cold War with the world’s other superpower, the Soviet Union. Americans lost faith in the future and their sense of security was shaken. A new vision for America came out of the experience of the Depression and Cold War that saw technological advances and societal changes as the answer to making Americans feel happy, secure and safe again.
The Great Depression was a defining moment in American History, and people had lost hope in the American Dream. The film, “Our Daily Bread” by King Vidor, shows how this was an era of high unemployment and poverty. People had lost most of their possessions, and were moving west to try to find work. The drought that caused the dust bowl in the midwest was a further …show more content…
In 1960 Vance Packard wrote and published “The Wastemakers”, which was a commentary on how Americans had become wasteful, “Residents of the United States were discarding, using up, destroying, and wasting products at a rate that offered considerable encouragement to those charged with achieving ever-higher levels of consumption for their products.” Packard felt that Americans were not paying attention to how wasteful they were being with their comsumption. He also talked about what a bad idea “planned obsolescence” was, since it wasted money and resources. He believed planned obsolescence took two forms, where it breaks after a certain amount of time, or where the design changes so people feel like they have to buy the newer