The African Americans who made the trip carried with them what little belongings they had, but more importantly than possessions, they brought a culture that had been cultivated in the rural South. This took place against the backdrop of The Great Migration, a period between 19 in which 6 million African Americans moved from the rural South to urban centres in the Northeast, Midwest and West.(3) The demand for labour created by the First World War had initially resulted in considerable spikes in migration,(4) whilst the Second World War created a “second wave” of wartime migration, in which a further influx of migrants moved north seeking to ditch the fields for the factories.(5) Isabel Wilkerson identifies the importance of this decision, noting that: “it was the first time that the nation’s servant class ever took without asking.”(6) This was certainly true of the Second World War in the United States, with a large increase in rural to urban migration, most notably among African Americans. However, it is often overlooked that it was in fact a different genre that experienced an incredible transition, incorporating styles that would later feed into the vastly more popular Rock ‘n’ Roll: The Blues.Īs is a frequent consequence of wartime, an increased demand for production results in an increased demand for labour.
The music of early post-war America has become largely inseparable with one style: Rock ‘n’ Roll.(2) The rise of Rock ‘n’ Roll and its youth revolution has come to dominate the narrative surrounding the development of music in this period. Those who had saved money during the war now had an unprecedented amount of expendable income and as such, the opportunity to purchase affordable houses, cars, clothes and leisure activities, including of course, records. It therefore found itself in a far stronger economic position than prior to the war, to the extent that it was able to pull itself out of the Great Depression, which had ravaged the country throughout the 1930s.Īs outlined by Sarah Pruitt, factory production, which had proven to be essential to the war effort, quickly mobilized for peacetime, rising to the needs of consumers.(1) This newfound ability to produce on a mass scale contributed to a post-war boom that was entirely consumer driven. With Europe reeling from the devastation of war, the United States industrialised quickly to respond to the demand for wartime production. Following the Second World War, the United States enjoyed rapid, almost limitless, economic development. It is one of the great narratives of American History: The post-war boom.
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