Full Program Description

Boomtime
Post-war prosperity transforms lifestyles and cultural values in the United States and abroad
Original broadcast: Monday, June 14, 1999 at 9pm
(check local listings for re-broadcast dates)

"We were struck by the fact that everyone could have a car, a house, and a garden. [Americans] had everything: television, freezer, refrigerator, the lot. Everything. [We] were astonished to find these things available to everybody."
-- Jean Dubertret, on his first visit to the US (1953), France

1947. World War II was over -- and, in the United States, a new era of prosperity was underway. Suburbs were springing up all across the country to house America's rapidly growing young families. Levittown, New York saw construction of forty new houses a day; for $100 down payment, Americans could buy the American Dream. It was a period of boundless possibility and confidence -- and it seemed the good times would go on forever.

But while the post-war boom was taking hold in the US, European economies lay in ruin; governments were bankrupt; food and fuel were scarce; people scavenged for necessities; whole cities had been reduced to rubble. Political discontent echoed the economic crisis, and rippled across the continent as millions, particularly in France and Italy, looked to communism for radical change. Fearing the further spread of communism, the US stepped into this breach with the thirteen-billion-dollar Marshall Plan, which provided a kick-start to the process of rebuilding war-torn Europe. By 1952, that figure had soared to thirty-four billion dollars.

While middle-class Americans were retreating from crowded cities to suburban enclaves, many in Europe were streaming into the cities in search of work. Real wages at home and abroad were on the rise. A new generation put the austerity of their childhoods behind them, growing up to become the world's first teenage consumers. By the mid-1960s, Western Europe was closing the gap with the US. Incomes had doubled since the war -- and the lifestyle that had once seemed unattainable was finally within reach.

The people remember: Marshall Plan, industrial advances, Treaty of Rome (1957), growing productivity, Levittown, motorization, birth of car culture, "Americanization," consumer society.

Boomtime is produced and directed by Sally Doganis. Series senior producer is David Espar. Series executive producer for WGBH Boston is Zvi Dor-Ner; Peter Pagnamenta is executive producer for the BBC.

John Forsythe narrates.

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