Using TV to Sell Cigarettes to Children
This dissertation began as a focus on 1950s America and the standardization of cultural norms in post-World War Two America. When millions of American servicemen returned home in 1945 and 1946, they started families. With 10 million Americans starting families, America entered a baby boom.[1] Two direct results of that explosion of births were the creation of suburban communities and the explosion of television ownership by Americans. The explosion of births created a need for new homes for these new families and the GI Bill AKA Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 provided returning servicemen with an opportunity to go to college and the low-interest loans that enabled them to buy a home. Now that the Greatest Generation has survived the Great Depression and World War Two, they could afford to purchase luxury items that had eluded their parents for 15 years. In 1948, only one percent of US households owned a television. By 1955, 75 percent of US households owned a television[2]...