Gambling for Leisure
Las Vegas vacations were hardly typical moments in the lives of postwar Americans.
They nonetheless expressed broad social trends; the basic pattern of culture was appreciably affected.
Tourists in southern Nevada perhaps left behind their hometown existences and indulge din fantasy, but they neither escaped reality nor denied the rigors of work and the tensions of Cold War society.
Rather, they tested a vision of the years to come. As an offshoot of Los Angeles and as the nation's gambling capital, Las Vegas figured prominently in the cultural reshaping of the United States.
More than a 'set of parentheses' in people's lives, the city, and the Las Vegas Strip in particular, portended what the future held in store for Americans of the postwar period.
The tremendous attention paid to the desert resort, the huge number of visitors, and the enormous sums of money spent there all certified that, in its own completely secular way, Las Vegas 'stood as a city upon a hill' for Cold War Americans, demonstrating the direction and meaning of cultural change.
Tom Wolfe, ace reporter of contemporary styles, concluded in1965 that the gambling capital represented 'the super-hyper-version of a whole new way of life.'
Las Vegas proved particularly instructive about the implications of a veritable revolution in recreation in the United States.
After decades of a gradual shift in the balance between work and play, Americans became increasingly preoccupied with the consumption of leisure after World War II.
The unforeseen affluence, the relaxation of wartime restraints on travel and purchasing, and essential technological advances all compelled Americans first to recognize leisure clearly as a division of their lives' time.
Furthermore, these devoted more attention to spending that time in a satisfying manner. The experiences of depression and war doubtless helped to lay the groundwork for these changes.
The forced idleness of the unemployed and underemployed during the 1930s and of servicemen during the Second World War taught people how to find and structure amusement, and the 'moral lapse' that presumably follows upon the heels of war prepared the nation to accept more diverse modes of recreation.
Nonetheless, that Americans thought they had more time for play, and that social scientists devoted more attention to recreation, certainly evinced the growing significance of leisure in the United States.
The importance of time devoted to leisure increasingly gained ground on the importance of the working week.
Whether they truly had more free time remains unclear, and the extent of their off-hours never matched predictions of an increasingly work-free society.