Historical Background of "The Catcher in the Rye"

Holden Caulfield's America was a nation of contrasts. World War II was over, and the boys had come home, but to what? Financially, life had improved significantly for the average worker since the Great Depression of the 1930s, but inflation presented new problems.The political scene generally moved toward conservatism near the end of the 1940s and into the 1950s (the time period of the novel),