Erika Lee successfully shows, through Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era, how during the Cold War American women conformed to the "ideal  American nuclear family, which consisted of a male breadwinner and a female homemaker, not out of desire to but out of economic and societal restraints. Elaine Tyler May shows how the societal culture of America during the Cold War called for conformity in regards to family life. When American women searched for happiness and proper ways to live their lives they looked for answers to these questions not within themselves, but instead they looked to so-called experts. "One retrospective study of the attitudes and habits of over 4000 Americans in 1957 found that the reliance on expertise was one of the most striking developments of the postwar years ¦They became the teachers and the norm setters who would tell people how to approach and live life 1. Experts, who published their advice in magazines to be read throughout the United States, greatly influenced millions of people throughout the United States, and spread a culture of strict conformity to the societal norm. These experts "advocated adaption rather than resistance ¦with the help of experts to guide them, successful breadwinners would provide economic support for professionalized homemakers, and together they would create the home of their dreams 2. However, when May analyzes the 1955 KLS surveys, she reveals that this "home of their dreams  never came to fruition for many couples. While respondents to the 1955 KLS survey showed a "strong commitment to a new and expanded vision of family life, focused inwardly on parents and children ¦their claims of satisfaction carried a note of resignation ¦for as they experienced disappointments, dashed hopes, and lowered expectations 3. May uses the Butlers to showcase this "note of resignation . The married couple had a traditional family, with Ida Butler being the homemaker and George Butler being the breadwinner. They had been with each other for over a decade, and both claimed in the KLS survey that their life tog