I may be able to shed some light on that last aspect, which became a topic of interest after the long-term ramifications were examined by Adam Curtis in the 2021 documentary series "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" (specifically the "Money Changes Everything" installment).

The rise of the suburb was inextricably linked with the end of WWII, which sparked an era of economic prosperity. There are a number of factors to explain the growth, including the "baby boom," the widespread construction of new housing to accommodate the massive influx of returning service members and their growing families, and friendly mortgage rates that made purchasing a home more feasible and attractive (with the help of newfound disposable income).

Betty Friedan outlined the many issues stay-at-home mothers/"housewives" found themselves grappling with in "The Feminine Mystique," which included a sense of ennui that often came with being the caretaker for a single-income family.

In the 1950s, Arthur Sackler—a psychiatrist-turned-pharmaceutical sales representative—noted a rise in the number of doctors he spoke with who had those women as patients who reported they were grappling with general anxiety and depressive symptoms. As Ali Haggett notes, some British housewives dealt with specific domestic issues that seemed to be clearly linked to their discontent, but others seemed to be dealing with what was essentially an existential crisis due to the largely banal nature of the stay-at-home lifestyle. While many of them felt they'd done what they were "supposed" to do to lead a happy and fulfilled life, those promises were not reflected in their emotional state.

In the late 1950s, Hoffmann-La Roche developed what was eventually sold as Valium, which became available for treatment in 1963. Sackler and his marketing company were largely responsible for popularizing the drug as a way to address the general malaise those women reported. Thanks in no small part to claims that it posed no serious side effects or the risk of addiction, it became a popular option for doctors whose patients reported the aforementioned feelings and one of the most commonly prescribed drugs on the planet by the early 1970s (at one point, the company's factory was producing 30 million pills on a daily basis, which was enough to satisfy just five days worth of global demand).

It eventually became clear Sackler’s claims were unfounded, a reality that was widely publicized after Betty Ford revealed she'd developed an addiction to Valium in 1978. Its dissociative properties were highlighted in an interview where she said she frequently encountered "blank spots" that led to her forgetting major events.

If "Sackler" and "claims of no serious side effects or the risk of addiction" sound familiar, it's likely because Sackler's brother Mortimer served as the co-chair of Purdue Pharma until 2007 and was one of the most powerful figures at the company when it harnessed a similar strategy to promote Oxycontin.