I came back to store away a bookmark, so I could use it as an example in teaching, and was sorry not to be the first to comment.

Much appreciate the article!

“Make it do or do without” was how people lived anyway — despite a decade of the Roaring Twenties. Consider the lifestyle evidenced in Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman.” And, at that point (December 1941), the Great Depression was still in full tilt. “War production” achieved no wealth creation because when a bomb explodes, all of the resources that went into making it are lost, as well as whatever it destroys. (If having money in your pocket makes you rich, why isn’t Zimbabwe the new Switzerland?) So, people remained poor, which is how most people in most times actually live.

Improved living standards came as a result of capitalism. As the markets were regulated and controlled and manipulated by non-market forces, impoverishment was the inevitable consequence. Therefore, government slogans for frugality only made a virtue out of a necessity.

I am currently taking an Organization Theory management course at Bucknell University and I found this post very insightful as it relates to the material that we are studying. Family structures are organization in and of themselves and it is interesting to relate organizational concepts present in these structures to concepts present in corporate structures. For example, the idea of working under a “glass ceiling” in the corporate world is the feeling an employee gets when he or she is unable to move upward in their company. They are assigned specific duties within a position that they feel they are “stuck” with. People who are affected by a corporate glass ceiling begin to lose their motivation since they feel as if their talents and capabilities are not being utilized to the maximum potential. I feel like this idea can be related to the family structure from the post-Great Depression. Although these families were performing purposeful duties necessary for survival, they were constrained by a “glass-ceiling.” They could not pursue their specialized interests because they did not have the means of doing so. They were forced to perform the same tasks everyday with no opportunity for “advancement.” This situation can also lead to one feeling as if their talents and capabilities are not being utilized to the fullest potential.