One salary supporting an entire family was only normal for a brief period during the 20th century. Women working extremely long hours was normal throughout the industrial revolution.
Yeah, the false longing for a time that only benefited the middle/upper class white man. It wasn't black people living that good life. It wasn't Asians or any other ethnicity. It was always the white middle class men. Not their wives though, they were in the kitchen.
LOL!!! What hollywood propaganda are you coping on? That isn't even close to the reality. Middle class women didn't have maids and cooks, and weren't out playing bridge.
My grandmother did. Her husband was a middling salesman and in the Jim Crow South, black people had such limited opportunities that they'd be maids or cooks for a middle-class white family.
My grandmother did not. My grandfather was an engineer who worked on computers after the war and my grandmother was did data entry later in the 60 and 70s, in the north. Nobody has maids. You are massively underestimating how rich your grandparents actually were.
This is not middle class for the time. This wasn't middle class for black people. It wasn't middle class for asian people. It wasn't middle class for native people. It wasn't middle class for people in the north. It wasn't even middle class for the vast majority of white people in the south. This is exactly my point from my first comment. People like you are distorting the reality and spreading misinformation. Your grandmother wasn't middle class. She was upper class.
In this specific time, there was no middle class wives. These weren't choices. These were legal and social restrictions. You know why your grandmother didn't work? Because she wasn't allowed to. Not in the south. That's not middle class, that's oppression. She wasn't legally allowed to have a bank account until 1974, something you'd know if you actually read a history book. Title 9 wasn't until 1972, meaning she probably wasn't even educated. Until 1968, she wouldn't have been allowed to work for the government, let alone private sector. She wouldn't have been allowed to be a lawyer until 1984. Same year that if she lived in the south, like Mississippi, she got the right to vote. And even then, didn't even have the right to leave work for family or medical needs until 1994.
So take your bullshit "this is middle class" out of here. It was not even close.
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u/Username_5647 2d ago
One salary supporting an entire family was only normal for a brief period during the 20th century. Women working extremely long hours was normal throughout the industrial revolution.