New+York+and+Boston+of+1949

 **1949,** a moment in American history when many people – riding an economy rescued from the Great Depression of the 1930s by the domestic industrial boom of World War II (1939-45) – found a more prosperous life within reach.

**American Influence and Affluence** By 1949, World War II was over, Harry Truman was president of the United States, and the U.S. had not yet begun its involvement in the Korean War (1950-53). The Cold War with the Soviet Union brought a nuclear arms race as the U.S., a victor of World War II, asserted its role as not only a political and military world power but as an overwhelming international cultural force. American movies and manufactured goods were exported along with the American dream and American capitalism. By the end of the 1940s, Americans earned an average of 15 times the yearly wage of the rest of the world, a fact that reveals the overall wealth of the U.S., albeit a wealth that was extracted from but not shared with the working-class people in the U.S. and foreign countries. Despite the looming possibility of nuclear war and, for many, the often elusive “better life,” Americans’ optimism dominated public discourse with, as Miller’s play suggests, a buoyancy comparable to loyalty to one’s favorite sports team.


 * Traveling salesmen** were common in the 1940s, selling items such as brushes and vacuum cleaners door-to-door.


 * Social relations** Linda Loman’s role as a loyal and often shy housewife and mother does not necessarily represent all women’s lives in the 1940s, nor does Miller necessarily approve of the role. However, her behavior does suggest the cultural notions, common in that period, of restrained, even timid, femininity; and, as the play bears out, masculinity of the time was overly identified with the virile figures of the athlete, businessman, and soldier.