veins from Maine to California thenblood of purpose and enterprise andnhigh resolve.”nPearl Harbor did provide America,nfor a time, with a compelling sense ofndirection; and Life enlisted to defeatnthe Axis. Yet by 1944, Luce was againnfretting about America’s lack of purposenand the need to gird up this landnfor sustained adventure and influencenoverseas. “The American scene mustnhave totally new expression after thisnwar,” he confided to his editorial colleaguesnin an internal memorandum.n”If we win the war on the terms we arennow fighting, America enters a newnera.” This new America, Luce concluded,nwould not be based on the oldnurban milieu, composed of ethnicnneighborhoods, machine politics, andngrimy factories. Rather, it would risenout of an acceleration of the vastnmovement of peoples into the suburbs.nThe old cities were emptying, he said,nand the “mass movement of the newnliving after this war is going to givensomeone a great publishing opportunity.”nAccordingly, Life was repositionednas the magazine of the “New America.”nA major 1947-48 publicity blitzndescribed the significance of thisnphrase: “There are more people—12-n1/2 million more than there were beforenthe war. . . . There is moreneducation . . . [a]nd a better educatednpublic means a new widespread desirenfor the goods and services that go withna higher standard of living.” A multimedianpresentation under the samentitle and shown to hundreds of thousandsnof politicians, businessmen, andnadvertising executives described “thenNew America” as based on “our newnfound confidence, our awakening tonthe new and almost limidess opportunitiesnwhich lie within our power.”nNew wealth coursed through America,nthe script said. In 1946, 28 millionnfamilies exceeded the $2,000 incomenlevel, compared to only seven millionna decade before. Americans werengrowing accustomed to the “goodnthings of everyday living,” and therenwas a “new and wider interest in thenproducts of [a] higher standard ofnliving.”nIn short. Life executives labeled thenAmerica of the late 1940’s “a completelyndifferent world” from that of anmere decade before, a nation enjoyingnan unprecedented cornucopia of goodsnand services. On many coffee tables,nmoreover, lay one special magazine.nThe 15 million Lf/e-reading familiesnrepresented 36 percent of all familiesnin the country. As the promotionalnpeople concluded. Life was “the greatestnadvertising force … in the NewnAmerica.”nLuce was not content merely tonreport on and sell to these suburbanizingnAmericans, though. As henexplained in a 1948 memo to Life’snmanaging editor, the magazine’s purposenwas “to interpret American lifenand in interpretation give leadershipntoward the promotion and defense ofnwhat we feel to be good and correctionnto that which is poor or bad.” As ancritical first step, he urged an editorialneffort to instruct Life readers on theirnbonds to Western civilization. Thendrama of Western culture, Luce maintained,nhad culminated in the creationnof the United States of America andnthis fact demanded that all Americansntake stock of their civilization at thenhistorical moment “when the U.S. hasnbecome the heir and chief guardian ofnthe whole body of Western Civilizationnagainst the forces of reactionarynneo-barbarism.”nThe second great task facing Americanncivilization and Life magazine, hensaid, lay in reconciling universal opulencenand material plenty with Christiannmorality and the Western tradition.nPut another way, the inhabitantsnof the New America needed to benshown how to live the good and moralnlife. Life’s “modern living” section.nLuce maintained, would serve as thennexus between the magazine’s editorialncontent and its advertising. It wouldnshow that there was “nothing per senimmoral or wrong with materialngoods,” provided that their producersnand consumers were “concerned withntheir use for ‘good’ rather than ‘bad’nends.”nThe result was the Life magazine ofnthe Second Decade, 1946-1955. Innalmost every issue, serious discussionsnof Medieval Christian philosophy ornthe Roman Catholic heritage werenjuxtaposed with resort fashions, brassierenads, and photos of Hollywoodnstarlets. Readers were taught that “civilization”nwasn’t just a word; as Lucenput it, “it’s a something that ‘meansnyou!'” They were also instructed onnnnhow to consume within the bonds ofnthis civilizational heritage. Today, thencombinations of images found in Lifenfrom this era often seem silly, crass,nludicrous. Yet to Luce, his editors, andnmuch of their readership, this linkagenof the spiritual to the material had realnpurpose: to give definition and directionnto “a nation destined to lead thenworld in education, in high standardnof living, in commerce, and governmentnand human relations.”nLife: The Second Decade, 1946-n1955 is a collection of 200 photographsnculled from the 156,000 printsnin the Life picture collection. In them,none finds the substance and the contradictionsnof the postwar Americanncivilization that Luce sought to definenand celebrate. One sees the seeminglynendless expanses of tract houses onnundulating streets in suburban California,nthe well-dressed audience withn3-D glasses watching Bwana Devil,nthe patterned components of a Lustronnprefabricated house, and the beds,ndishes, and food made, washed, andnprocessed by Marjorie McWeeney ofnRye, New York, the typical Americannhousewife. One also sees the jarringnclash between the different Americanexisting alongside the “new” one: thenaustere facial lines and flowered hat ofnan Iowa farm woman presiding at anPresbyterian church supper set againstnfashion model Lily Carlson walkingndown Park Avenue; the wholesomenwinner of the 1949 Pillsbury Bake-Offnset against the hard scowl of a womannin a Puerto Rico gambling salon; thenblue-collar anger of white youth participatingnin a Cicero, Illinois, racenriot set against the members of SigmanChi fraternity singing of the girls ofntheir dreams.nMany familiar photos are found innthis compilation: Marilyn Monroe’snlegs revealed to a leering Tom Ewell;nRoger Bannister breaking the fourminutenmile; Hungarian rebels futilelynthrowing rocks at a Russian tank; anbemused Robert Taft holding a chicken;na high-stepping drum major followednby his youthful admirers; andntwo sweating. Black gold miners in anJohannesburg, South Africa mine.nAlso included are several moving photographicnessays, an art form pioneerednby Life. These include W. EugenenSmith’s extraordinary works, “CountrynDoctor” and “Maude Collen, NursenDECEMBER 1985 / 7n