21. Levittown, built on Long Island in the 1940s, was the first suburbs with thousands of homes built in one project.

22. Government policies intensified the patterns of racial segregation that developed with "white flight."  The FHA often refused to give blacks mortgages, limiting them to the inner city and forcing many to live in public housing projects, which often followed a neighborhood composition rule, building homes for blacks in already black neighborhoods.

Postwar Baby Boom
23. The most dramatic upheaval in postwar America was the "baby boom," resulting in more than 50 million babies by the end of the 1950s.

24. In 1957, a drop in birth rates followed.  In 1973, the fertility rates dropped too low to maintain the existing population.  The only thing that lifted the US population above 264 million people in 1996 was immigration.

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Rugged Times for Rugged Individualists

89.  Hoover's dilemma was that, as a humanitarian, he detested the misery and poverty around him.  However, since he was also an individualist who believed in free enterprise, he cowered at the thought of government handouts, fearing that they would destroy the nation's morale.

90.  As the depression deepened and relief by local government agencies broke down, Hoover was finally forced to accept the new proposition that the welfare of the people in a nationwide crisis is a direct concern of the national government.  He decided to assist the railroads, banks, and rural credit corporations, thinking that financial health would trickle down from the top of the economic pyramid.

91.  Some of the criticism of Hoover was unfair because his efforts probably prevented an even more serious collapse.  His policies also paved the road for Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.

Herbert Hoover Battles the Great Depression

92.  Hoover recommended that Congress vote for huge sums for useful public works.  The most imposing of these projects was the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River.

93.  Hoover opposed all schemes that he saw as "socialistic," such as the Muscle Shoals Bill, which he vetoes because he opposed the government selling electricity in competition with its own citizens.

94.  The Reconstruction Finance Corporation was created in 1932 and became a government leading bank.  It was meant to provide indirect relief by helping insurance companies, banks, agricultural organizations, railroads, and state and local governments.  It would specifically not give loans to individuals.  It was of widespread benefit, though it came months to late to be most useful, as well as obviously beneficial to giant corporations.

95.  Indirect benefits flowed to labor.  The Norris-La Guardia Anti-Injunction Act in 1932 outlawed anti-union contracts and forbade the federal courts from issuing injunctions to restrain strikes, boycotts, or peaceful picketing.

96.  Hoover's efforts to lead were complicated by a hostile Congress.  During his first two years, the Republican majority was highly uncooperative.  During his last two years, the Democrats come in control of the House and nearly the Senate.  Insurgent Republicans combined with opposition Democrats to harass Hoover, and Congress deliberately created some of  his troubles.