1940-1949 Created By Ms. Miller - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

1940-1949

Created By Ms. MillerSlide2

Facts about this decade:

Population 132,122,000Unemployed in 1940 – 8,120,000

National Debt $43 BillionAverage Salary $1,299Teacher’s salary $1,44155% of U.S. homes have indoor plumbing

Antarctica is discovered to be a continentSlide3

The 1940's were dominated by World War II

European artists and intellectuals fled to the United States from Hitler and the Holocaust, bringing new ideas created in disillusionment. War production pulled us out of the Great Depression. Women were needed to replace men who had gone off to war, and so the first great exodus of women from the home to the workplace began. Rationing affected the food we ate, the clothes we wore, the toys with which children played. Slide4

After the war, the men returned, having seen the rest of the world.

No longer was the family farm an ideal; no longer would blacks accept lesser status. The GI Bill allowed more men than ever before to get a college education. Women had to give up their jobs to the returning men, but they had tasted independence. Slide5

The forties are pretty well defined by World War II.

US isolationism was shattered by the

Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor

The government reclassified 55% of their jobs, allowing women and blacks to fill them. First, single women were actively recruited to the workforce. In 1943, with virtually all the single women employed, married women were allowed to work.Slide6

Japan surrendered only after

two atomic bombs were dropped on

Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The United States emerged from World War II as a world superpower, challenged only by the

USSRCommunism was treated as a contagious disease, and anyone who had contact with it was under suspicionSlide7

1940’s Television

Television made its debut at the

1939 World Fair, but the war interrupted further development. In 1947, commercial television

with 13 stations became available to the public.At the end of the war, only 5,000

television sets

, with five inch black & white screens, were in American homes. By 1951, 17 million had been sold. The

Original Amateur Hour

, a revival of a popular radio show, was the first top-rated show in 1948 . Milton

Berle's

slapstick comedy,

Texaco Star Theater

, was credited with creating the demand for televisions. Its greatest rival was Ed Sullivan's

Toast of the Town

.

Kukla

, Fran & Ollie

kicked off children's television as Junior Jamboree in 1947, followed by the Howdy Doody Show. The sitcom made its appearance in January, 1949, with The Goldbergs. Slide8

ART & ARCHITECTURE

A

s Adolf Hitler systematically eliminated artists whose ideals didn't agree with his own, many emigrated to the United States, where they had a profound effect on American artists. The center of the western art world shifted from Paris to New York. To show the raw emotions, art became more abstract.

Abstract Expressionism, also known as the New York School, was chaotic and shocking in an attempt to maintain humanity in the face of insanity.

Jackson Pollock

was the leading force in abstract expressionism, but many others were also influential, including

Willem de

Kooning

,

Mark Rothko

,

Ad Reinhardt

,

Robert

Motherwell

,

Lee Krasner, Franz Kline, Piet Mondrian, Arshile Gorky, Adolf Gottlieb, and Hans Hofmann. Andrew Wyeth, the most popular of American artists, didn't fit in any movement. His most popular work,

Christina's World

, was painted in 1948. Sculpture, too, became abstract and primitive, utilizing motion in

Alexander Calder

's mobiles, and modern materials such as steel and "found objects" rather than the traditional marble and bronze. Slide9

ART & ARCHITECTURE

I

n architecture, nonessentials were eliminated, and simplicity became the key element. In some cases, such as Ludwig Mies

van der Rohe

's

famous glass house, even practicality was ignored. Modern glass-and-steel office buildings began to rise after the war ended.

Pietro

Belluschi

designed the prototype

Equitable Savings and Loan building

, a "skyscraper" of twelve stories.

Eliel

Saarinen

utilized contemporary design, particularly in churches. The dream home remained a

Cape Cod

. After the war, suburbs, typified by Levittown, with their tract homes and uniformity, sprang up to house returning GI's and their new families. The average home was a one level Ranch House, a collection of previously unaffordable appliances surrounded by minimal living space. The family lawn became the crowning glory and symbol of pride in ownership. Slide10

MUSIC & RADIO

Like art, music reflected American enthusiasm tempered with European disillusionment. While the European émigrés

George Szell,

Bela Bartok, Arnold Schoenberg,

Paul Hindemith

,

Kurt Weill

, and

Nadia Boulanger

introduced

classical dissonance

, American born composers remained more traditional, with

Aaron Copland

's Rodeo (1942) and

Appalachian Spring

(1944).

William Schuman wrote his symphonies #3(1941) through #7(1949). Slide11

Music and Radio

At the beginning of the decade,

Big Bands dominated popular music. Glenn Miller

, Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington and

Benny Goodman

led some of the more famous bands. Eventually, many of the singers with the Big Bands struck out on their own.

Bing Crosby's

smooth voice made him one of the most popular singers, vying with

Frank Sinatra

.

Dinah Shore

,

Kate Smith

and

Perry Como

also led the hit parade.

Be-Bop and Rhythm and Blues, grew out of the big band era toward the end of the decade. Although these were distinctly black sounds, epitomized by Charlie Parker, Dizzie Gillespie, Thelonious Monk,

Billy Holiday

, and

Ella Fitzgerald

,

Woody Herman

also performed blues and jazz. Slide12

Music and Radio

Radio was the lifeline for Americans in the 1940's, providing news, music and entertainment, much like television today. Programming included soap operas, quiz shows, children's hours, mystery stories, fine drama, and sports.

Kate Smith and

Arthur Godfrey were popular radio hosts. The government relied heavily on radio for propaganda. Like the movies, radio faded in popularity as television became prominent. Many of the most popular

radio shows

continued on in television, including

Red Skelton

,

Abbott and Costello

,

Jack Benny

,

Bob Hope

, and

Truth or Consequences

. Slide13

Fads

In popular dancing, the

Jitterbug made its appearance at the beginning of the decade. It was the first dance in two centuries that allowed individual expression. GI's took the dance overseas when they to war, dancing with local girls, barmaids, or even each other if necessary.

Rosie the Riveter was the symbol of the working woman, as the men went off to war and the women were needed to work in the factories. GIs, however, preferred another symbol, the pin-up girl, such as

Rita Hayworth

or

Betty

Grable

. Pictures were mounted on lockers and inside helmets to remind the men what they were fighting for. Wherever American soldiers went, even the first to arrive would find a picture of eyes and a nose, with the message,

Kilroy

was

Here

.

After they returned,

Kilroy

began to mark his place on the walls and rocks of public places. More than one pregnant woman came into the delivery room with "

Kilroy was here" painted on her belly. Slide14

Fads

Working mothers, combined with another new phenomenon, the refrigerator, led to the invention of

frozen dinners. With the advent of television later in the decade, they became known as TV Dinners.

Tupperware and aluminum foil eased the postwar housewives' burden, and

diners

, originally horse drawn carriages with a couple of barstools, became a stationary, respectable staple of the postwar culture. The

Slinky

was invented by a ship inspector in 1945. Teenagers became a recognized force in the forties. With the men off to war, teenagers - boys and girls - found employment readily available, and so had money to spend.

Seventeen

magazine was established in 1944. Advertisement began to be aimed at teens. With fathers away and mothers at work, another new phenomenon arose - the

juvenile delinquent

. Slide15

Fashion

The

Zoot Suit was the height of fashion among daring young men until the War Production Department restricted the amount of fabric that could be used in men's garments. The same restrictions led to the popularity of the women's

convertible suit, a jacket, short skirt, and blouse. The jacket could be shed for more formal attire at night. Silk stockings were unavailable, so, to give the illusion with stockings with their prominent seam, women would draw a line up the backs of their legs with an eyeliner. At work, as "

Rosie the Riveter

" took on a man's work, slacks became acceptable attire. Slide16

Fashion

When the war and it's restrictions ended, Christian Dior introduced the

New Look, feminine dresses with long, full skirts, and tight waists. Comfortable, low-heeled shoes were forsaken for high heels. Hair was curled high on the head in front, and worn to the shoulders in the back, and make-up was socially acceptable. Glamorous

Rita Hayworth made the sweater look popular. It took time to put the New Look together, time the women now had as the men returned to their jobs in the factories and offices. Slide17

Theater and Film

The theater, too, turned to abstractionism.

Thornton Wilder's The Skin of our Teeth (1942) was bizarre and difficult to understand but won the

Pulitzer Prize. Tennessee Williams wrote of self-disillusionment and futility in the

Glass Menagerie

(1945) and

Streetcar named Desire

(1947). In contrast

Musical Theater

was reborn, with

Agnes de

Mille

's

technique of dancing in character in

Oklahoma

(1943).

Carousel (1945), and Annie get your Gun (1946). Slide18

Theater and Film

The

forties were the heyday for movies. The Office of War declared movies an essential industry for morale and propaganda. Most plots had a fairly narrow and predictable set of morals, and if Germans or Japanese were included, they were one-dimensional villains. Examples are

Casablanca, Mrs.

Miniver

,

Lifeboat

,

Notorious

,

Best Years of our Lives

,

Wake Island

,

Battle of Midway

,

Guadalcanal Diary, and Destination Tokyo. Citizen Kane, not fitting the template, was one of the masterpieces of the time. Leading actors were Gary Cooper, Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Bette Davis,

Marlene Dietrich

,

Joan Crawford

,

Judy Garland

,

Ginger Rogers

,

Jimmy Stewart

,

Marlon Brando

,

Marilyn Monroe

,

Elizabeth Taylor

,

Lana Turner

.

Walt Disney

's career began to take off, with animated cartoons such as

Fantasia

(1940),

Dumbo

(1941), and

Bambi

(1942). During the war years, the studio produced

cartoons for the government

, such as

Donald gets Drafted

(1942),

Out of the Frying Pan into the Firing Line

(1942) and

Der

Fuehrer's Face

(1943). Slide19

Sports

World War II had its effect on sports as all able-bodied men between 18 and 26 were expected to serve in the military. Rubber went to the war effort; consequently,

balls were soggy and unresponsive.

Wood was in short supply, leading to a shortage of baseball bats and bowling pins. Even so, professional sports were encouraged to continue, to improve the morale of the troops. President Roosevelt signed the

Green Light letter

, supporting baseball. Baseball games were considered so important to troop morale that the Japanese tried to jam radio broadcasts. By 1943, half the

baseball players

had enlisted. Teams used older veterans and even a

one-armed outfielder, Pete Gray

of the St. Louis Browns. In the

All-American Girls Baseball League

, players wore dresses and had to attend charm school. After the war, television and easier transportation changed the face of American sports. In 1947,

Jackie Robinson

became the first black professional baseball player - in fact, the first black professional athlete outside of boxing. Baseball players negotiated for a minimum salary of $5500 a year. By 1950, the top earning player,

Stan Musial

, was making $50,000. Postwar baseball names included

Ted Williams, Ralph Kiner and Joe DiMaggio.Slide20

Sports

Before 1941 when

two-platoon football was allowed, all eleven players on a football team played the entire game. Only injury was an excuse for substitution. That changed in 1941, when free subs were allowed, enabling weakened

college teams to continue playing. Because of travel restrictions, the 1942 Army Navy game was played in Annapolis, and half the midshipmen were assigned to cheer for West Point. Sixty years later, Bill Williams, a Navy midshipman (Class of 1945), remembered that game. "We yelled the cheers and sang the songs but I don't remember being very energetic. Also when Navy scored, we forgot whose side we were supposed to be on. We won fourteen to nothing." The

penalty flag

, first used in 1941, became official in 1948. Elaborate playbooks were introduced by

Paul Brown

, turning football into a game of strategy. Some of the northern college

football teams began to integrate

blacks.Slide21

Sports

Basketball was less affected by the war than other sports because a player's height often made him ineligible for military service. The

Basketball Association of America formed in 1946, merged in 1949 with the National Basketball League

to form the NBA. Joe

Fulks

of the Philadelphia Warriors had a record high score of 63 points in a game when most whole teams didn't score that high. The 1940's were the heyday of

boxing

. Boxing was big money, mainly because of gambling, and was ruled by

gangland boxing czar Frankie

Carbo

.

Joe Louis

was the heavyweight champion from 1937 to 1948, in part because major boxing titles were frozen from 1941 to 1946 as four thousand professional boxers joined the military. Louis not only enlisted, he

donated over $100,000

to war relief efforts in 1942.

Sugar Ray Robinson

, Ike Williams and Willie Pep were other big names in boxing. The Indianapolis 500 was closed duirng the war and the racetrack deteriorated. In the first postwar race in 1946, twenty-four cars dropped out due to wrecks and mechanical difficulties.

NASCAR

, a stock car racing club that purportedly ran cars that you could buy from a dealer's showroom started the Grand Nationals in 1949. The

Women's Professional Golf Association

formed in 1946, and the

Ladies Professional Golf Association

in 1949.

Babe

Didriksen

Zaharias

and

Patty Berg

were the stars, with

Byron Nelson

the men's champion.

Jack Kramer

dominated men's tennis.