ABSTRACT
The war itself changed peoples' expectations of their roles in life as women permanently entered the workplace and mainly men (and fewer women) had higher education opened up to them under the G. I. Bill. It also changed our social structures as black people moved north in large numbers in the U.S., to take advantage of the higher paying jobs resulting from the war effort. These remarkable social changes, the accompanying increased levels of income, and the shortage of consumer goods during the war, created a pent-up demand for consumer products of all types that could only be satisfied by a rapid introduction of new products of better design and functionality, manufactured using improved materials. Thus the pull of the market place has been a catalyst which has pushed materials and related technologies to new levels of understanding and performance.
