The Loss of the Small Business

This had a crucial impact on my father's generation, in the Fifties and Sixties. Right after WWII, in the late Forties, every town had plenty of small businesses. They were ideal for many people - setting up a small business was easy and inexpensive. And you remained an independent operator - something very important, for many people.

My father had a photography studio in Ft. Madison, Iowa. He did everything himself - took the pictures, developed them in his own darkroom, washed and dried them, sometimes colored them - and even built his own frames. All he had to buy was the film and paper, and the chemicals to process them.

But this business ended in the Fifties, and never recovered. Later, people took their own pictures, and got them processed by machines in every shopping center. Now with digital photography, they usually don't bother with printing them - but they can, easily enough.

My mother's sister's family, the Ourths, bought a small farm, that had been profitable for years - and tried to operate it themselves. But the family farm was doomed, and they failed - along with many other small farmers.

I was shocked by all this, but I was alone - everyone else accepted this, without even noticing it. Americans do not notice the large changes in their culture, but simply go along with them.

America now, is nothing like it was then. Their lives have changed completely - and, in may ways, not for the better.