Driving knowledge work in the ’30s was the fact that more young people stayed in school because they had nothing else to do. High school graduation surged during the Depression to levels not seen again until the 1960s. All of this—the better factories, the new ideas, the educated workers—became vital in 1941 when America entered the war and became the Allied manufacturing engine. The big question is whether the technical leap of the 1930s could have happened without the devastation of the Depression. And I think the answer is no—at least not to the extent that it occurred.
