Chapter 41 Peace Prosperity and Progress Why are the 1950s remembered as an age of affluence Postwar Politics Readjustments and Challenges Once WWII ended Truman has to lead the country through the economic transition to peacetime ID: 672700
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The Search for a Better LifeChapter 41: Peace, Prosperity and Progress
Why are the 1950’s remembered as an age of affluence?Slide2
Postwar Politics: Readjustments and ChallengesOnce WWII ended, Truman has to lead the country through the economic transition to peacetime
His “Fair Deal”
Increase minimum wage, increase aid to education and agriculture and enact a program for national health insurance
Billions of dollars of war contracts were cancelled
Defense workers lost their jobs
Inflation soared
In 1946, 5 million workers walked off the jobSlide3
Truman Battles the Republicans in Congress
1946: “Had enough?”
Republicans gain control of both houses of Congress
22
nd
Amendment: two term limit for the president
A popular president could be “for life”
1947: The Taft-Hartley Act
Limited the power of unions by outlawing the closed shop and banning “sympathy” strikes
Mandated an 80 day “cooling off” period before a strike
Vetoed by Truman but overridden
Truman desegregates the armed forces by executive order when Congress refuses to act on a civil rights bill to outlaw segregation and discriminationSlide4
An Upset Victory in 1948Truman looked weak because of his losses to the Republicans in Congress
The Democratic Party splits
Left-wing (liberal) Democrats form a “Progressive Party” behind candidate Henry Wallace
Probably more liberal than Truman on social issues
Wanted friendlier relations with the USSR
Segregationist Southern Democrats became known as “
Dixiecrats
”
Strom Thurmond runs on a segregationist platform
The Republican candidate is Thomas Dewey
And the results were…Slide5
The predicted Dewey landslide never occurredTruman narrowly winsHis Fair Deal programs were still rejected by Congress with the exception of a modest social security increase, an increase in the minimum wage and slum clearanceSlide6
“We Like Ike!”Modern Republicanism:
“In all those things which deal with people, be liberal, be human…(but with the) people’s money, or their economy or their form of government, be conservative.”Slide7
Dwight D. EisenhowerSupreme Allied Commander (WWII)
Head of NATO after the war
Chooses Richard Nixon as his
vice-president
Active on the HUAC
Although a Republican,
he expanded Social
Security and ensured
New Deal programs
would survive regardless
of who was in the White HouseSlide8
Eisenhower kept his campaign promise and traveled to Korea to try and get the stalled peace talks moving.Secretary of State John Foster Dulles helped shape Eisenhower’s Cold War policies.
Dulles did not want to merely contain communism; he wanted to roll it back.
Brinkmanship: the
diplomatic art of going to the brink of war without actually getting into war. To this end he advocated building more nuclear weapons.
Massive retaliation (use
overwhelming force against the Soviet Union to settle
conflicts)
Later, Eisenhower will warn the US about the power of “the military-industrial complex” that he helped buildSlide9
Economic Growth1940’s- the first “fast food” restaurant
Real Income grew after WWII.
People in the 1950’s had twice as
much money as people in the 1920’s.
People were spending money and
shopping centers grew
Business methods encouraged
growth in 3 ways
Advertising
Buy now, pay later
Planned obsolescence (buying
goods that go out of date)
Clothing fashions
Automobiles Slide10
The U.S. Economy Shifts from Goods to Services Industries that provide services begin to replace industries that manufacture things
Cost of living increases become common
Franchises standardize businesses (McDonalds, Holiday Inn, Howard Johnson’s)
Clean, family-friendly
A white collar workforce begins
to replace a blue collar
workforce
Salaries not hourly wages
Suits not uniformsSlide11
The Baby BoomDepression: Decline in marriage and birth rates
WWII: Fear for the future
Post WWII: the future looked bright (marriage and birth rates soar)
In 1957, there was one baby born every 7 seconds!Slide12
Impact of The Baby BoomSchool districts had trouble keeping up
Maternity wards were overflowing
Families flocked to the suburbsSlide13
Family RolesDr. Spock’s Common Sense
Book of Baby and Child Care
The leading child care expert (then and now)
The Woman’s Guide to Better Living 52 Weeks a Year
“The family is the center of
your living. If it isn’t, you’ve
gone astray”
“Traditional” family roles
were reinforced by the mediaSlide14
Popular Television of the FiftiesSlide15
The Suburbs and the SunBeltSlide16
The Suburbs and the SunBelt
Returning veterans were anxious to buy homes and start families
Bill Levitt revolutionized home building by bringing the “assembly line” to the suburbs
Virtually identical homes built by teams of contractors who specialized in one aspect of building (36 houses/day)
Commuters lived in a “bedroom community”
Overwhelmingly white and middle class (blacks could not buy homes in a Levittown)
Americans move from (what becomes known as) the “
RustBelt
” to the “
SunBelt
”
Weather and low labor costs (fewer unions)
Water projects and air conditioning made it possibleSlide17Slide18
The Triumph of the AutomobileSuburban living required transportation for commuters and for moms
Cars became status symbols as Americans were encouraged to move up to more expensive cars to show success
1956: Interstate Highway Act
A Cold War necessity
Move troops and weapons
Evacuate cities
Made travel faster and safer
Created economic opportunities (gas stations, motels, restaurants)
More choices for Americans to live, work, vacationSlide19
Technological Advances Transform Everyday Life
Polio (infantile paralysis)
epidemics struck every
summer
Jonas Salk develops a
vaccine (90% effective)
Open heart surgery, kidney transplants, antibiotics
Life expectancy increases
Nuclear energy for a power source
Nuclear energy to treat diseases
ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) – 300 multiplications a minute
UNIVAC – could handle numbers AND lettersSlide20
29,000 pounds1905 operations a minuteSlide21
Chapter 42: Rebelling Against Conformity
How did some Americans rebel against conformity in the 1950’s?Slide22
The Culture and the Critics of Suburbia
By 1960, 1/3 of all Americans lived in suburbia
The Critics
A wasteland of conformity
and materialism
The Organization Man
condemned society
for forcing conformity on the masses
Television and popular entertainment for
the masses were NOT high culture
It isolated individuals because
they were sharing in a common
experience…but by themselves
(sound familiar?)Slide23
In Defense of SuburbiaThe people in the suburbs weren’t EXACTLY the same
No, there wasn’t racial diversity but there was ethnic and religious diversity
The materialism wasn’t any worse than previous generations, there was just the $ to take advantage of the situation and pursue possessions
Remember…the parents of the 1950’s lived through the Depression and World War II!Slide24
Currents of NONconfomity
Jack Kerouac embodied the
era’s nonconformist streak and
as part of the Beat Movement
(beatniks)
Rejection of convention
Rejection of traditional Western religions
Famous for examples of streams of consciousness in their writing
Allen Ginsberg’s
Howl
was considered obscene
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded
hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night…Slide25
Rebellious TeensThe “Youth Culture”Music
Rock – n – Roll
Considered “race music”
Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed named it
Movies
The Wild One
,
Rebel
without a Cause
Dance
Sock hopsSlide26
Comic Books and Artists RebelComic books were about
superheroes who fought for
“truth, justice and the American
Way” in the 1930’s and 1940’s
Now, the comic books pushed
the limits
Tales from the Crypt, Crime
Suspense Stories, MAD
Artists like Jackson Pollock explored
expressionismSlide27Slide28
Chapter 43: Two Americas
Why did poverty persist in the United States in an age of affluence?Slide29
Poverty among AffluencePauperism (a dependence on
public assistance) was seen as
a moral failure
Americans did seem to understand
poverty as a result of misfortune
Disability, the elderly
Many were the working poor that held jobs but their wages were too low
The poverty line is established identifying “poverty” not as a moral failing but a lack of income
Becomes official in 1965 by calculating a minimum family food budget and tripling it (food = 1/3 of family budgets)Slide30
By the end of the 1950’s about 1 in 4 Americans lived below that poverty lineThe other America, the America of poverty, is hidden…its millions are socially invisible…The middle class suburbanites rarely saw the urban poor left behind
The elderly kept to themselves
The young stayed in their own
neighborhoods
No political voice
The poor were not only in the
cities but the rural areas as wellSlide31
The Urban and Rural PoorBlacks from the South to the North, Puerto Ricans into NYC and Mexicans to L.A.
Jobs disappeared to the suburbs and these new “immigrants” were left in the decaying sections of the inner cities
The Housing Act of 1949 tried to help but it bulldozed neighborhoods and didn’t provide enough low income housing in return
The overcrowded and
impoverished “projects”
became the new slumsSlide32
The Urban and Rural PoorSmall farmers in the US could not compete with agribusiness
Agriculture as industry
If you couldn’t compete, where did you move? (Where could you move?)
Migrant workers (some were part of the
bracero
movement during WWII) worked for low wages
When coal mining declined, the
rural poor in Appalachia
sufferedSlide33Slide34
America’s Poorest Citizens?American Indians1934: The Indian Reorganization Act affirmed their right to govern themselves but they were wards of the federal government
Dependent on the federal government to provide them with protection and economic and social aid
1953: The Indian Termination Policy ended federal aid to tribes
Voluntary Relocation Programs tried to move American Indians into cities (is that better?)
The poverty grew worse