ABSTRACT
Using most past causes or indicators of family strength and renewal, the middle decades of the twentieth century should not have generated a new upward cycle in domestic life. To begin with, wealth and productive property were highly concentrated in 1930, a legacy of economic trends over the prior eighty years. Opportunity to gain new land on the frontier was but a distant memory. Even home ownership remained elusive: a clear majority of households now resided in a rental dwelling. 1 In short, the American middle class was weak; while the gap between great wealth and blue-collar labor grew large.
