In the early 1950s, the
"Do-It-Yourself" (DIY) craze hit America. (For details,
see entry on Walt Durbahn and/or Philip Creden's piece, "America Rediscovers Its Hands". Or, check out the 1952
woodworker's manual by Stanley Tools,
How to Work With Tools and Wood.)
Briefly,
the DIY movement sprung out of the impact on American society of the
recovery from World War II. Housing, in particular, was an issue,
largely because of demand for new houses by the 100,000s of redeployed
veterans. Numerous housing developments sprouted up, Levittown on New
York's Long Island being perhaps the most illustrious.
One
of the outgrowths of this phenomenon was, for sure,
to save costs, the practice adopted by housing
contractors of arranging with the new owners to
make the house livable, but not complete, with the
idea that the new owners would finish the
construction.
The impact among the new home-owners of this policy of selling new homes in an unfinished condition was a greatly increased practice of purchasing of
tools and materials, giving the owners skills in
Carpentry and Cabinetmaking, skills that
later were turned toward other types of woodworking
activities. [more on this later]
