Throughout United States history, there have been many different developments that caused drastic change in overall American society. The postwar prosperity that came partly from the Long Economic Boom of 1950 led to great development and change in the life of Americans. Many Americans were encouraged to try new things and take advantage of their "postwar freedom." While there are many factors that contributed to the great change in American society following World War II, the "baby boom" and migration to the suburbs caused the greatest change.
To begin with, the "baby boom" proved to be one of the most dramatic upheavals in postwar America. The "baby boom" was the huge leap in the birthrate in the decade an a half directly after 1945. Young men and women "tied the knot" in record numbers at World War II's end, and they began immediately to produce an immense amount of babies. These young men and women touched off a demographic explosion that added more than fifty million babies to the nation's population by the end of the 1950s. The soaring birthrate finally topped in 1957 and was followed by a deepening birth scarcity. This boom-or-bust cycle of births begot a bulging wave along the American population curve. The main cause of the boom-or-bust cycle of births came from the soldiers that returned from WWII and wanted to get married to their "sweetheart" immediately. As soon as the couples were married, if not before, they almost always had a baby. All of the babies coming into the United States so quickly caused a type of "boom." The Baby Boom generation immediately following WWII was much larger than any of the prior increased birth rates. Young adulthood saw massive changes in attitudes to many social issues, including opposition to the Vietnam War, the sexual revolution, mass political action for causes including war opposition but extending to civil rights and feminism amongst others, and radical upheavals in popular culture.
