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The Zoot Suit was the height of fashion among daring young men until the War Production Department restricted the amount of fabric that could be used in men's garments. The same restrictions led to the popularity of the women's convertible suit, a jacket, short skirt, and blouse. The jacket could be shed for more formal attire at night. Silk stockings were unavailable, so, to give the illusion with stockings with their prominent seam, women would draw a line up the backs of their legs with an eyeliner. At work, as "Rosie the Riveter" took on a man's work, slacks became acceptable attire. When the war and it's restrictions ended, Christian Dior introduced the New Look, feminine dresses with long, full skirts, and tight waists. Comfortable, low-heeled shoes were forsaken for high heels. Hair was curled high on the head in front, and worn to the shoulders in the back, and make-up was socially acceptable. Glamorous Rita Hayworth made the sweater look popular. It took time to put the New Look together, time the women now had as the men returned to their jobs in the factories and offices.

In popular dancing, the Jitterbug made its appearance at the beginning of the decade. It was the first dance in two centuries that allowed individual expression. GI's took the dance overseas when they to war, dancing with local girls, barmaids, or even each other if necessary. Rosie the Riveter was the symbol of the working woman, as the men went off to war and the women were needed to work in the factories. GIs, however, preferred another symbol, the pin-up girl, such as Rita Hayworth or Betty Grable. Pictures were mounted on lockers and inside helmets to remind the men what they were fighting for. Wherever American soldiers went, even the first to arrive would find a picture of eyes and a nose, with the message, Kilroy was Here. After they returned, Kilroy began to mark his place on the walls and rocks of public places. More than one pregnant woman came into the delivery room with "Kilroy was here" painted on her belly. Working mothers, combined with another new phenomenon, the refrigerator, led to the invention of frozen dinners. With the advent of television later in the decade, they became known as TV Dinners. Tupperware and aluminum foil eased the postwar housewives' burden, and diners, originally horse drawn carriages with a couple of barstools, became a stationary, respectable staple of the postwar culture. The Slinky was invented by a ship inspector in 1945. Teenagers became a recognized force in the forties. With the men off to war, teenagers - boys and girls - found employment readily available, and so had money to spend. Seventeen magazine was established in 1944. Advertisement began to be aimed at teens. With fathers away and mothers at work, another new phenomenon arose - the juvenile delinquent.

World War II had its effect on sports as all able-bodied men between 18 and 26 were expected to serve in the military. Rubber went to the war effort; consequently, balls were soggy and unresponsive. Wood was in short supply, leading to a shortage of baseball bats and bowling pins. Even so, professional sports were encouraged to continue, to improve the morale of the troops. President Roosevelt signed the Green Light letter, supporting baseball. Baseball games were considered so important to troop morale that the Japanese tried to jam radio broadcasts. By 1943, half the baseball players had enlisted. Teams used older veterans and even a one-armed outfielder, Pete Gray of the St. Louis Browns. In the All-American Girls Baseball League, players wore dresses and had to attend charm school. After the war, television and easier transportation changed the face of American sports. In 1947, Jackie Robinson became the first black professional baseball player - in fact, the first black professional athlete outside of boxing. Baseball players negotiated for a minimum salary of $5500 a year. By 1950, the top earning player, Stan Musial, was making $50,000. Postwar baseball names included Ted Williams, Ralph Kiner and Joe DiMaggio. Before 1941 when two-platoon football was allowed, all eleven players on a football team played the entire game. Only injury was an excuse for substitution. That changed in 1941, when free subs were allowed, enabling weakened college teams to continue playing. Because of travel restrictions, the 1942 Army Navy game was played in Annapolis, and half the midshipmen were assigned to cheer for West Point. According to Bill Williams, a Navy midshipman, "We yelled the cheers and sang the songs but I don't remember being very energetic. Also when Navy scored I think we forgot whose side we were supposed to be on. I don't remember the score, but we won." The penalty flag, first used in 1941, became official in 1948. Elaborate playbooks were introduced by Paul Brown, turning football into a game of strategy. Some of the northern college football teams began to integrate blacks. Basketball was less affected by the war than other sports because a player's height often made him ineligible for military service. The Basketball Association of America formed in 1946, merged in 1949 with the National Basketball League to form the NBA. Joe Fulks of the Philadelphia Warriors had a record high score of 63 points in a game when most whole teams didn't score that high. The 1940's were the heyday of boxing. Boxing was big money, mainly because of gambling, and was ruled by gangland boxing czar Frankie Carbo. Joe Louis was the heavyweight champion from 1937 to 1948, in part because major boxing titles were frozen from 1941 to 1946 ad four thousand professional boxers joined the military. Louis not only enlisted, he donated over $100,000 to war relief efforts in 1942. Sugar Ray Robinson, Ike Williams and Willie Pep were other big names in boxing. The Indianopolis 500 was closed duirng the war and the racetrack deteriorated. In the first postwar race in 1946, twenty-four cars dropped out due to wrecks and mechanical difficulties. NASCAR, a stock car racing club that purportedly ran cars that you could buy from a dealer's showroom started the Grand Nationals in 1949. The Women's Professional Golf Association formed in 1946, and the Ladies Professional Golf Association in 1949. Babe Didriksen Zaharias and Patty Berg were the stars, with Byron Nelson the men's champion. Jack Kramer dominated men's tennis.

Like art, music reflected American enthusiasm tempered with European disillusionment. While the European émigrés Bueno Walter, George Szell, Bela Bartok, Arnold Schoenberg, Paul Hindemith, Kurt Weill, and Nadia Boulanger introduced classical dissonance, American born composers remained more traditional, with Aaron Copland's Rodeo (1942) and Appalachian Spring (1944). William Schuman wrote his symphonies #3(1941) through #7(1949). At the beginning of the decade, Big Bands dominated popular music. Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman led some of the more famous bands. Eventually, many of the singers with the Big Bands struck out on their own. Bing Crosby's smooth voice made him one of the most popular singers, vying with Frank Sinatra. Dinah Shore, Kate Smith and Perry Como also led the hit parade. Be-Bop and Rhythm and Blues, grew out of the big band era toward the end of the decade. Although these were distinctly black sounds, epitomized by Charlie Parker, Dizzie Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Billy Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Woody Herman.Radio was the lifeline for Americans in the 1940's, providing news, music and entertainment, much like television today. Programming included soap operas, quiz shows, children's hours, mystery stories, fine drama, and sports. Kate Smith and Arthur Godfrey were popular radio hosts. The government relied heavily on radio for propaganda. Like the movies, radio faded in popularity as television became prominent. Many of the most popular radio shows continued on in television, including Red Skelton, Abbott and Costello, Jack Benny, Bob Hope, and Truth or Consequences.

December 15, 1944, a cold, wet and foggy afternoon, Glenn Miller departed RAF-Base, England in a Norseman C-64 aircraft. The flight was to take Glenn Miller and other passengers to Paris. However, the flight never made it. It is believed the aircraft encountered icing conditions over the English Channel and crashed. Glenn Miller and his band had been performing for Allied Troops prior to the crash and was planning on putting on a show in Paris, France. Glenn Miller and his band was idolized by many during his career.

The theater, too, turned to abstractionism. Thornton Wilder's The Skin of our Teeth (1942) was bizarre and difficult to understand but won the Pulitzer Prize. Tennessee Williams wrote of self-disillusionment and futility in the Glass Menagerie (1945) and Streetcar named Desire (1947). In contrast Musical Theater was reborn, with Agnes de Mille's technique of dancing in character in Oklahoma (1943). Carousel (1945), and Annie get your Gun (1946). The forties were the heyday for movies. The Office of War declared movies an essential industry for morale and propaganda. Most plots had a fairly narrow and predictable set of morals, and if Germans or Japanese were included, they were one-dimensional villains. Examples are Casablanca, Mrs. Miniver, Lifeboat, Notorious, Best Years of our Lives, Wake Island, Battle of Midway, Guadalcanal Diary, and Destination Tokyo. Citizen Kane, not fitting the template, was one of the masterpieces of the time. Leading actors were Gary Cooper, Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Bette Davis, Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford, Judy Garland, Ginger Rogers, Jimmy Stewart, Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Lana Turner. Walt Disney's career began to take off, with animated cartoons such as Fantasia (1940), Dumbo (1941), and Bambi (1942). During the war years, the studio produced cartoons for the government, such as Donald gets Drafted (1942), Out of the Frying Pan into the Firing Line (1942) and Der Fuehrer's Face. The Emergency Committee of the Entertainment Industry, composed of both black and white actors, fought for better roles for blacks. Lena Horne, Hattie McDaniel, and Cab Calloway, among others, made small inroads. The boom years of movies faded with the advent of television in 1948.

Television made its debut at the 1939 World Fair, but the war interrupted further development. In 1947, commercial television with 13 stations became available to the public. Computers were developed during the early forties. The digital computer, named ENIAC, weighing 30 tons and standing two stories high, was completed in 1945.At the end of the war, only 5,000 television sets, with five inch black & white screens, were in American homes. By 1951, 17 million had been sold. The Original Amateur Hour, a revival of a popular radio show, was the first top-rated show in 1948 . Milton Berle's slapstick comedy, Texaco Star Theater, was credited with creating the demand for televisions. Its greatest rival was Ed Sullivan's Toast of the Town. Kukla, Fran & Ollie kicked off children's television as Junior Jamboree in 1947, followed by the Howdy Doody Show

The decade opened with the appearance of the first inexpensive paperback. Book clubs proliferated, and book sales went from one million to over twelve million volumes a year. Many important literary works were conceived during, or based on, this time period, but published later. Thus, it took a while for the horror of war and the atrocities of prejudice to come forth. Shirley Jackson wrote The Lottery to demonstrate how perfectly normal, otherwise nice people, could allow something like the Holocaust. In The Human Comedy, William Saroyan tackles questions of prejudice against the setting of World War II. Richard Wright completed Native Son in 1940 and Black Boy in 1945, earning acclaim, but government persecution over his communist affiliation sent him to Paris in 1945. Nonfiction writing proliferated, giving first-hand accounts of the war. The first edition of Dr. Benjamin Spock's Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care is considered by some to have changed child rearing.