Word: do-it-yourself
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...England modern-day Yankees are indeed turning their hands to anything. But so, too, are the Hoosiers of Indiana, the Sooners of Oklahoma and the Cornhuskers of Nebraska-along with Texans, Californians, New Yorkers and Iowans. North, South, East and West, Americans have joyfully taken up a new hobby: "Do-It-Yourself...
...postwar decade the do-it-yourself craze has become a national phenomenon. The once indispensable handyman who could fix a chair, hang a door or patch a concrete walk has been replaced by millions of amateur hobbyists who do all his work-and much more-in their spare time and find it wonderful fun. In the process they have turned do-it-yourself into the biggest of all U.S. hobbies and a booming $6 billion-a-year business. The hobbyists, who trudge out of stores with boards balanced on their shoulders, have also added a new phrase to retail jargon...
...million sq. ft.) of all the asphalt tile, enough to cover the entire state of Oregon. And while the menfolk labored mightily, 35 million U.S. women made their own clothes (using 750 million yds. of cloth), gave themselves 32 million home permanents, leafed through millions of copies of do-it-yourself magazines and books, looking for still more projects for their husbands and themselves...
...do-it-yourself cult are such bigwigs as U.S. Steel Vice President David Austin, who has a two-room, $5,000 woodworking workshop packed into his Pittsburgh apartment; former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, who makes his own furniture; TV and Radio Luminaries Desi Arnaz, Edgar Bergen and Fibber McGee, who spend their spare time puttering around with shelves and kitchen cabinets; Movie and Recording Stars George Montgomery, Perry Como, Dan Duryea and Jane Russell, who do their own handiwork, build boats and furniture; the Strategic Air Command's General Curtis LeMay, who is currently helping fellow airmen rebuild...
...expected the job to fold after war's end, and he did not want to go back to chiseling out a bare living in a one-man woodwork shop, as he had done in his first few years in the U.S. Recalling a newspaper article that predicted a postwar do-it-yourself boom, Goldschmidt decided that his invention would be an all-purpose power tool for home carpenters who wanted to make furniture or save money by helping to finish their new houses...