1948—when troops had returned home and were readjusting to a social world that had been radically reordered. How would men be reintegrated into a universe in which they had been, for a time, not only absent but irrelevant? For starters, men needed their jobs in manufacturing and industry back. And so women would have to give them up. Society mobilized to get them to do just that—through shame, guilt, and a propaganda program about the social importance of stay-at-home wives and mothers.
