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The Search for a Better Life The Search for a Better Life

The Search for a Better Life - PowerPoint Presentation

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The Search for a Better Life - PPT Presentation

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

war poverty family americans poverty war americans family move wwii suburbs people congress 1950

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Slide1

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 possibleSlide17
Slide18

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

expressionismSlide27
Slide28

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

sufferedSlide33
Slide34

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