Leaving 1945 Behind: A Grassroots Perspective on the U.S. Transition to Peacetime

Abstract

This article revisits the US transition to peacetime after the Second World War from a bottom-up perspective. While postwar America is often portrayed as a unified society led by returning veterans who seamlessly reintegrated into civilian life, this account obscures the uneven, prolonged, and often exclusionary nature of that transition. Drawing on recent historiography and highlighting understudied groups such as female veterans, veterans of color, conscientious objectors, war brides, prisoners of war, and civilians caught in the machinery of war, the article emphasizes the multiple and often overlapping timelines through which Americans ‘exited’ the war. It also explores the blurred boundaries between wartime and peacetime, especially for those veterans who reenlisted, served in occupation forces, or carried their struggles into the civil rights movement. The article argues that 1945 should not be seen as a clean break but rather as one among many possible endpoints in a much longer process of demobilization and reintegration. In doing so, it not only calls for a more inclusive history of the postwar years but also invites a broader reflection on how national memory elevates some veterans while rendering others invisible.