LIFE was very much aware of this change as it was happening, and worried that it was bad for the country. The magazine fretted in 1948 that the decline of the family farm might also signal the decline of the American family, as families stopped focussing on joint enterprises and its members pursued their individual interests instead.
The following is adapted from the introduction to LIFE’s newcspecial issue 100 Photographs: The Most Important Pictures of All Time and the Stories Behind Them, available at newsstands and online: Photos are proof. We know this from our own lives. Here’s what dad looked like when he was in high school. Look at this cake I baked.