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Sex In The Kitchen: The Re-Interpretation Of Gendered Space Within The Post-World War Ii Suburban Home In The West, Philip M. Lockette

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In the decades following 1945, Americans moved increasingly out of cities into suburbs. The migration illustrated the emergence of a new, broader middle class as a result of growing postwar affluence. In the previous half-century, families living in a suburb could claim middle-class status. The emerging class built its identity on the forms and values adopted from this earlier, more affluent Victorian middle class. These adopted values were played out in a home designed around Progressive era ideals of the family. Through this Progressive filter, the new concept of the home was scaled down, without servants, and ceased existing wholly …