After World War II ended in 1945, large numbers of servicemen returned to America, making 1946 the start of the American baby boom.
In 1946, 3.4 million babies were born in America. Over the following eighteen years, more than 75.9 million babies were born in the country, accounting for roughly a third of America's total population. David Mills was born during that period.
People were accustomed to using skyscrapers as a symbol of America. Indeed, America was the first country in the world to build skyscrapers. The earliest ones appeared in Chicago in the 1880s, mainly to ease the shortage of urban land.
Later, as large numbers of servicemen returned home, employment became a problem. Building skyscrapers went from easing the shortage of city land to relieving employment pressure. Later still, constructing skyscrapers became a dual challenge to building technology and workers' psychological fortitude.
When Mills and Tracy first arrived in New York, they wandered everywhere looking for a place to live. Old photos in the New York museum showed construction workers eating while sitting on high steel beams. The height beneath their feet seemed not to exist to them at all. They ate as though they were on level ground, without any safety equipment.
Mills's father had belonged to that era. Looking at those construction workers, he could almost see a shadow of his father at work. But his father had not died in a high-altitude accident. He had died of stomach cancer, peacefully in bed, rather than nearly dying beside a street trash bin like David had.
That had been America's golden age. Unlike men in the era of Prohibition, they did not pick up guns for Mafia shootouts. They put down their guns and picked up welding torches for a better life. Everything had been flourishing.
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