Introduction to U.S. Government
• Constitution (supreme law of the land) established 3 branches
of government:
– legislative, judicial, executive
• System of Checks and Balances
– No branch can become too powerful
• the legislative branch is in charge of making laws.
– The executive branch can veto the law, thus making it harder for
the legislative branch to pass the law.
– The judicial branch may also say that the law is unconstitutional
and thus make sure it is not a law.
• The judicial branch reviews laws passed by Congress and
decides if they are anti-Constitutional or not
– The legislative branch can also remove a president or judge that
is not doing his/her job properly.
– Supreme Court decisions are expressed as one party vs. another
(e.g. Brown vs. Board of Education)
• The executive branch implements/enforces laws & appoints
judges
– the legislative branch approves the choice of the executive
branch
Presidential Elections
• Electoral College system vs. Direct universal
suffrage
• Bi-party system (not always)
– Republicans vs. Democrats
– BUT ALSO progressives, Dixiecrats, States’ Rights,
Socialist, American Independence, Libertarian,
etc….)
• 4-year Term, maximum 10 years
• 1/3 of Senators renewed every 2 years (6 yr
term) (direct election)
• House of Representatives serve 2 year terms
US Domestic Policy since 1945
The Economic Miracle
And Post-war Anxiety
The Presidency of Harry Truman
1945 - 1953
Background on Truman
• FDR’s VP during his 4th term
• Becomes president upon FDR’s death
on April 12, 1945
• Truman was mostly left out of FDR’s
inner circle
• Viewed as weak & inexperienced
• Faced high inflation rates early on in
his term
The “Fair Deal”
• Wanted to expand the New Deal
– Called for higher minimum wage, increase civil
rights for African Americans, national health
insurance, and increased funding of education
• Many of Truman’s goals were not met
– Congress was dominated by Republican Party &
defeated Truman’s bills
– Biggest successes were desegregating the
military & increasing the minimum wage
– Essentially, New Deal programs were continued,
nothing else was added (relief, recovery, reform
– alphabet soup)
Introduction
Inherent Contradictions of the Age
Coexistence of Anxiety & Affluence
Victory… Now What?
• Post-War Anxieties
• Would the Great Depression return?
• GNP fell
• Prices rose 33%
• 4.6 million workers went on strike
• Taft-Hawley Act made unions weaker
• Increased executive power to prevent
striking
• Reduced power of labor unions (end of
closed shops)
• vetoed by Truman then passed by
Republican Congress
Veterans returning from war
• Readjustment Act of 1944 or GI Bill
• Sought to reintegrate 15 million veterans
back into society
• 1 year of unemployment benefits
• Financial Aid to go to college
• Veterans Administration provides $15
billion in cheap Loans to build houses
• Tensions creating with returning black
soldiers
• Women and minorities kicked out of
industrial jobs to make room
Economic Boom: 1950-1970
• America’s Golden Age
• Income shot up
• 6% of world’s
population and 40%
of world’s wealth
• 40 million new jobs in
the 1950’s
• Women entered the
work force
• Cheap oil fed the boom
• Europeans controlled
the oil of the Middle
East
• 90% of American
children are in school
• Farm productivity
skyrockets
• Only 2% of the
nation are farmers
I. 1950’s Demographics
A. National Affluence
• GDP almost doubled
1945-1960
• Inflation remained
under 2% most of 1950’s
• Defense spending
most important stimulant
• Baby boom contributed
+30% population (1945-1960)
B. Consumption Patterns
1. Home Ownership up by 50%
2. Consumer Credit up by 800%
3. Savings down by 5%
4. Shopping Centers
5. Teen consumption drove the economy
Materialism in US culture
I drive my car to supermarket,
The way I take is superhigh,
A superlot is where I park it,
And Super Suds are what I buy.
Supersalesmen sell me tonic –
Super-Tone-O, for relief.
The planes I ride are supersonic.
In trains I like the Super Chief.
Supercilious men and women
Call me superficial – me.
Who so superbly learned to swim in
Supercolossality.
Superphosphate-fed foods feed me;
Superservice keeps me new.
Who would dare to supersede me,
Super-super-superwho?
John Updike echoes complaints about American materialism, 1954
Suburbia generated most growth
• 1950’s: Pop grew to 28 M
(97% urban/suburban)
• Life expectancy 66 in 1955
71 in 1970
• Dr. Benjamin Spock’s
The Commonsense Book
of Baby and Child Care
C. Population Growth
• Baby Boom: 1946-1964
• Millions of men had been gone for almost 4 years!!!
• Make up for lost time
• 78,000,000 Americans today are Baby Boomers
• 26% of the population!!!!
• Huge boost to the economy
• “Just imagine how much these extra people… will
absorb- in food, in clothing, in gadgets, in housing, in
services….”
• Drag on Social Security…
D. Suburbs
• Grew 6x faster than cities
William Levitt
• Mass-produced housing
development
(built 10,600 houses on Long
Island, 1947 Levittown)
• Auto production
2 M 1946
8 M 1955
• White flight as black
population
in cities
Impact of the Automobile
• By 1960 there are 60 million cars in America
• Families are starting to have two cars per family
Car Culture
# of Cars in 1945
# of Cars in 1960
26,000,000
60,000,000
Rise of Suburbia
• Cars mean you can enjoy the city just not have to
live there…
• Don’t have to deal with crime, congestion, noise, and
other not nice things
E. The Middle Class
o 1947 5.7 million families classified as Middle
Class
o 1960 ‘s 12 million American families classified
as Middle Class
F. Jobs
Farm Workers
9 million 1940
5.2 million 1960
increase in farm productivity
 1960 more Americans
white collar than
blue collar
II. Post-war Anxiety
A. Conformity and security
1. Homogeneity
 Expansion of middle class
I am beginning to think, whether it be for money, for
notoriety, reputation, increase of pride, whether it
leads us to thievery, slaughter, sacrifice, the quest is
one and the same. All the striving is for one end. I do
not entirely understand this impulse. But it seems to
me that its final end is the desire for pure freedom.
We are all drawn toward the same craters of the spirit
– to know what we are and what we are for, to know
our purpose, to seek grace. And, if the quest is the
same, the differences in our personal histories, which
hitherto meant so much to us, become of minor
importance.
Saul Bellow’s character Joseph in Dangling Man (1946)
expresses a feeling later echoed by many of the
most memorable characters in post war American
fiction.
Security in Sameness
 Americans becoming
“outer-directed” people
rather than “inner-directed”
Society molded by peer-group pressures and
Corporate culture indoctrination
Credits from TV Series, Weeds
Little Boxes, they all look the same
2. Leisure
Standard work week
shrank (40 hours)
TV
Books (mass market)
TV
• In 1946 there were 7,000 TV’s built…
by 1953 Americans bought 7,000,000
TV’s!!!!
• By the end of the 50’s 90% of American
families owned a TV
B. Roles of Women
Women
Cult of feminine domesticity after WWII
The Nuclear Family
• A husband and a wife and lovely little children
• Gender Roles
• Man went out and worked and earned the money
• Women were the housewives and kept the home and raised the
children
• Children were obedient and well behaved
C. Rebellion
Intellectualism
 Critical of American life
 suburban life & mass production
 American education questioned
 Traditional education began to be reexamined.
 Content: values of patriotism, obeying authority
Viewed as perpetuating ignorance, even contempt for people of
other nations, races, Native Americans, women.
 Style:-the formality, the bureaucracy, the insistence on
subordination to authority
 Small movement of new generation of teachers
influenced by literary critiques
Betty Frieden The Feminine Mystique
“Each suburban wife struggles with it alone. As
she made the beds, shopped for groceries,
matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter
sandwiches with her children, chauffeured
Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her
husband at night- she was afraid to ask even
of herself the silent question-- 'Is this all?”
― Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique
“What Friedan gave to the world was, "the problem that has
no name." She not only named it but dissected it. The
advances of science, the development of labor-saving
appliances, the development of the suburbs: all had come
together to offer women in the 1950s a life their mothers
had scarcely dreamed of, free from rampant disease,
onerous drudgery, noxious city streets. But the green lawns
and big corner lots were isolating, the housework seemed
to expand to fill the time available, and polio and smallpox
were replaced by depression and alcoholism. All that was
covered up in a kitchen conspiracy of denial...
Instead the problem was with the mystique of waxed floors
and perfectly applied lipstick.”
― Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique
III. Rebellion in the Minds
A. Literature
B. Theater and Fiction
 Death of a Salesman 1949 and The
Crucible 1953 by Arthur Miller
 Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger 1951
Conflict of individual and society
Scene from Arthur Miller’s play, Death of a Salesman, starring
Dustin Hoffman
C. Rebellious Art
Edward Hopper – isolated individuals Night Hawks
Abstract Expressionism (spontaneous
expression)
Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning
Jackson Pollock
• Mark Rothko
Willem de Kooning
D. Counterculture and the Beat
Generation
Began in Greenwich Village, NY
Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs,
Neal Cassady, Saul Bellows
Free-form poetry and mémoire-style writing
On the Road, film released in 2012 based on novel
by Jack Kerouac
III. Rebellion in the Minds
• William Burroughs
“I am forced to the appalling conclusion that I would
never have become a writer but for Joan's death, and
to a realization of the extent to which this event has
motivated and formulated my writing. I live with the
constant threat of possession, and a constant need to
escape from possession, from control. So the death of
Joan brought me in contact with the invader, the Ugly
Spirit, and maneuvered me into a life long struggle, in
which I have had no choice except to write my way
out.”
III. Rebellion in the Minds
Film Trailer, Beat 2000 based on William Burroughs’ life
Homework
The Unfinished Nation, Chapter 30
The Affluent Society
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Introduction – Economic Miracle & Timeline, p. 779
Science and Technology, p. 783
Bombs, Rockets & Missiles, p. 787
Space Program, p. 788
Consumer Culture, p. 789
Suburban nation, suburban family, p. 789
Birth of Television, p. 791
Travel, Outdoor Recreation, Environmentalism, p. 792
Organized society and its detractors, p. 793
Beats and Culture of Youth, p. 794
Rock n roll, p. 795
• U.S. History in Context – 1950’s 17 pages (see
blog)