THE 1950s:
“Conservatism, Complacency,
and Contentment”
OR
“Anxiety, Alienation, and
Social Unrest” ??
APUSH – Unit 8, Lecture 4
(covers Chapter 30)
Ms. Kray
some slides taken from Susan Pojer
Characteristics
of the 50s
1950s Prosperity
• Economy enjoyed steady growth rate and
minimal inflation
• Highest standard of living in the world!
The Baby Boom
“It seems to me that every other young
housewife I see is pregnant. “
-- British visitor to America, 1958
1957  1 baby born every 7 seconds
The Baby Boom Cont.
Sign of the basic confidence of the power war era
50 million babies born between 1945-1960
Had a profound and lasting affect on the nation’s
social institutions and economic life in the last half
of the 20th C.
Dr. Benjamin Spock
and the Anderson
Quintuplets
Suburban Growth
Levittown, L. I.:
“The American Dream”
1949  William Levitt produced
150 houses per week.
$7,990 or $60/month with no down payment.
Suburban Living:
The New “American Dream”
 1 story high
 12’x19’ living room
 2 bedrooms
 tiled bathroom
 garage
 small backyard
 front lawn
By 1960  1/3 of the U.S. population in
the suburbs.
Suburban Living
SHIFTS IN POPULATION
DISTRIBUTION,
1940-1970
Central Cities
Suburbs
Rural Areas/
Small Towns
1940
31.6%
19.5%
48.9%
1950
32.3%
23.8%
43.9%
1960
32.6%
30.7%
36.7%
1970
32.0%
41.6%
26.4%
U. S. Bureau of the Census.
Cities were left “black, brown, and broke!”
Suburban Living:
The Typical TV Suburban Families
The Donna
Reed Show
1958-1966
Father Knows Best
1954-1958
Leave It
to Beaver
1957-1963
The Ozzie & Harriet Show
1952-1966
Rise of Consumerism
1950  Introduction of the Diner’s Card
All babies were potential consumers who
spearheaded a brand-new market for food,
clothing, and shelter.
-- Life Magazine (May, 1958)
Consumerism
• Aggressive advertising by name brands along
with the introduction of suburban shopping
malls & credit cards promoted this
consumerism
Consumerism
• McDonald’s – one measure of how successful
the new marketing techniques and
standardized products were!
• See a shift away from “mom & pop” stores to
franchise operations
A Changing Workplace
Automation:
1947-1957  factory workers decreased by
4.3%, eliminating 1.5 million
blue-collar jobs.
By 1956  more white-collar than blue-collar
jobs in the U. S.
Computers  Mark I (1944). First IBM
mainframe computer (1951).
Corporate Consolidation:
By 1960  600 corporations (1/2% of all
U. S. companies) accounted for
53% of total corporate income.
WHY?? Cold War military buildup.
A Changing Workplace:
The Importance of Conformity
New Corporate Culture:
“The Company Man”
1956  Sloan Wilson’s The Man in
the Gray Flannel Suit
The Culture of the Car
Car registrations:
1945  25,000,000
1960  60,000,000
2-family cars doubles from 1951-1958
1958 Pink Cadillac
1959 Chevy Corvette
1956  Interstate Highway Act  largest
public works project in American
history!
Å Cost $32 billion.
Å 41,000 miles of new highways built.
The Culture of the Car
America became a more homogeneous
nation because of the automobile.
First McDonald’s
(1955)
Drive-In
Movies
Howard
Johnson’s
The Culture of the Car
The U. S. population was on the move in the
1950s.
NE & Mid-W  S & SW (“Sunbelt” states)
1955  Disneyland opened in Southern California.
(40% of the guests came from outside
California, most by car.)
Frontier Land
Main Street
Tomorrow Land
Rise of the Sunbelt
• Warmer climate, lower taxes, and economic
opportunities attracted many GI’s and their families
• Military spending during the Cold War also helped
finance the shift of industry, people, & ultimately
political power to this region.
The Age of Television
1946 
1950 
7,000 TV sets in the U. S.
50,000,000 TV sets in the U. S.
“Television is a vast wasteland.”
--Newton Minnow, Chairman of the Federal
Communications Commission, 1961
Mass Audience  TV celebrated traditional
American values.
Truth, Justice, and the American way!
TV Westerns
Davy Crockett
King of the Wild Frontier
Sheriff Matt
Dillon, Gunsmoke
The Lone Ranger
(and his faithful
sidekick, Tonto):
Who is that masked man??
Television – Family Shows
Glossy view of mostly
middle-class suburban life.
But...
I Love Lucy
Social Winners?...
The Honeymooners
AND…
Losers?
Teen Culture
In the 1950s  the word “teenager” entered
the American language.
By 1956  13 mil. teens with $7 bil. to spend
a year.
1951  “race music”  “ROCK ‘N ROLL”
Elvis Presley  “The King”
Teen Culture
Behavioral Rules of the 1950s:
U Obey Authority.
U Control Your Emotions.
U Don’t Make Waves  Fit in
with the Group.
U Don’t Even Think About Sex!!!
Teen Culture
“Juvenile Delinquency”
???
1951  J. D. Salinger’s
A Catcher in the Rye
Marlon Brando in
The Wild One
(1953)
James Dean in
Rebel Without a
Cause (1955)
Social Criticism
The “Beat” Generation:
f aka “The Beatniks”
f Jack Kerouac  On The Road
f Allen Ginsberg  poem, “Howl”
f Neal Cassady
f William S. Burroughs
“Beatnik”
“Clean” Teen
Religious Revival
Today in the U. S., the Christian faith is back in
the center of things. -- Time magazine, 1954
Church membership: 1940 
64,000,000
1960  114,000,000
Television Preachers:
1. Catholic Bishop Fulton J. Sheen  “Life is
Worth Living”
2. Methodist Minister Norman Vincent Peale 
The Power of Positive Thinking
3. Reverend Billy Graham  ecumenical message;
warned against the evils of Communism.
Religious Revival
Hollywood: apex of the biblical epics.
The Robe
1953
The Ten Commandments
1956
Ben Hur
1959
It’s un-American to be un-religious!
-- The Christian Century, 1954
Well-Defined Gender Roles
The ideal modern woman married, cooked and
cared for her family, and kept herself busy by
joining the local PTA and leading a troop of
Campfire Girls. She entertained guests in her
family’s suburban house and worked out on the
trampoline to keep her size 12 figure.
-- Life magazine, 1956
Marilyn
Monroe
The ideal 1950s man was the provider, protector,
and the boss of the house. -- Life magazine, 1955
1956  William H. Whyte, Jr.  The
Organization Man
A a middle-class, white suburban
male is the ideal.
Well-Defined Gender Roles
Changing Sexual Behavior:
Alfred Kinsey:
1948  Sexual Behavior in the Human
Male
1953  Sexual Behavior in the Human
Female
v
v
Premarital sex was common.
Extramarital affairs were frequent
among married couples.
Kinsey’s results are an assault on the family
as a basic unit of society, a negation of moral
law, and a celebration of licentiousness.
-- Life magazine, early 1950s
Eisenhower Takes
Command
• Wins Election of 1952
– Chose Richard Nixon
as his VP
• Americans wanted
relief from Korean
War and an end to
“the mess in
Washington”
Ike’s Modern
Republicanism
• Eisenhower adopted a leadership style that
emphasized the delegation of authority
• Fiscal conservative but a moderate on
domestic issues
– Top priority: balancing the budget
– Accepted most New Deal programs and
extended some (Social Security, minimum
wage, public housing)
– But opposed federal health care insurance &
federal aid to education
• 1953 – Created Dept. of Health, Education
and Welfare
Eisenhower and
the Cold War
Brinkmanship
• Developed by Sec. of State John
Foster Dulles
– Felt Truman’s containment
policy was too passive
– Advocated a foreign policy
that took the initiative
in challenging the Soviets
• Ex: liberating “captive nations;”
encouraging Tawain to assert itself
• Placed greater reliance on nuclear
weapons and air power than
conventional forces
– Massive retaliation
Unrest in the

rd
3
World
Decolonization was an important phenomenon in the
post-war era
– Dozens of colonies in Africa & Asia gained independence
– Often lacked stable political & economic institutions &
needed foreign aid
 Became pawns in the Cold War
Cover Actions of the CIA
• Part of Eisenhower’s new look in conducting U.S.
foreign policy
– Seemed less objectionable than employing U.S.
troops and less expensive
• 1953  Iran
– CIA helped overthrow popular PM Mohammed
Mossadeq who had tried to nationalize foreign oil
companies
– Reinstated corrupt but pro-U.S. Shah Reza Pahlavi
• 1954  Guatemala
– CIA overthrew a leftist government that
threatened American business interests
• This tendency produced growing anti-American
feeling
– 1958 – VP Nixon’s motorcade attacked by angry
crowds in Venezuela
The Cold War in Asia
“The Domino Theory”
• 1953  Korean War ends
– Eisenhower signed armistice
• 1954  Fall of Indochina
– French tried to reclaim colonial possessions in
Asia after WWII
– Vietnamese wanted independence
– French defeated at Dien Bien Phu
• 1954-55  Geneva Conference
– Leader of Vietnamese resistance,
Ho Chi Minh, was a Communist
– Vietnam divided at 17th parallel
• 1954  SEATO formed
The Problem of Israel
• U.S. had the
difficulty of
trying to
maintain
friendly ties
with the oilrich Arab
states while
at the same
time
supporting
the new
state of
Israel
The Suez Crisis, 1956
• Gen. Gamal Nasser of Egypt seized and
nationalized the British and French owned Suez
Canal
• Britain, France, and Israel launch surprise attack
of Egypt and retook canal (U.S. not informed in
advance)
The Suez Crisis Cont.
• Eisenhower sponsored U.N. resolution
condemning the invasion
– Under pressure from the U.S. and world
opinion they withdrew
– Ended Britain’s & France’s roles a major
power in world affairs
– U.S. replaced Br. & Fr. As leading Western
influence in Middle East
• 1957  Eisenhower Doctrine
– Growing Soviet influence in Egypt & Syria
– Pledged economic and military aid to any
Middle Eastern country threatened by
communism
• 1958  U.S. troops sent to Lebanon to
prevent Civil War
Creation of OPEC, 1960
U.S. - Soviet Relations
• Fluctuated between periods of relative calm to
periods of extreme tension
• 1953  Stalin dies
– 1953-55, Nikolai Bulganin Soviet Premier
• 1955  Geneva Summit
– Eisenhower & Bulganin discuss “open skies” but
Soviets reject policy
– “spirit of Geneva” – Cold War thaw
• 1956  Nikita Khrushchev becomes Soviet
Premier
– Process of De-Stalinization begins
• 1956  Hungarian Revolt
– Khrushchev sent in Soviet tanks
– U.S. took no action (where’s the Eisenhower
Doctrine?)
– Ends the Cold War thaw
Russia Wins the Race to Space
1957  Russians launch SPUTNIK I
1958  National Defense Education Act
America’s Solution:
Progress Through Science
1951 -- First IBM Mainframe Computer
1952 -- Hydrogen Bomb Test
1953 -- DNA Structure Discovered
1954 -- Salk Vaccine Tested for Polio
1957 -- First Commercial U. S. Nuclear
Power Plant
1958 -- NASA Created
1959 -- Press Conference of the First 7
American Astronauts
Progress Through Science
UFO Sightings skyrocketed in the 1950s.
War of the
Worlds
Hollywood used aliens as a metaphor
for whom ??
Progress Through Science
Atomic Anxieties:
“Duck-and-Cover
Generation”
Atomic Testing:
1946-1962  U. S. exploded 217
nuclear weapons over the
Pacific and in Nevada.
nd
2
Berlin Crisis
• 1958  Soviets had
new confidence &
pride based on
Sputnik
– gave the West 6 mos.
to pull troops out of
W. Berlin
• 1959  Camp David
Meeting
– Eisenhower &
Khrushchev met
– “spirit of Camp David”
– Scheduled another
summit in Paris for
1960
“I will bury
capitalism”
– Nikita Khrushchev
U-2 Spy Incident
Col. Francis Gary Powers’
plane was shot down over
Soviet airspace.
Showed a secret U.S. tactic
for gaining information
Paris Summit called off
Cuba Turns Communist,
1959
Eisenhower’s Legacy
“…guard against the acquisition of
unwarranted influence…by the militaryindustrial complex.”
Civil Rights
Issues During
the 1950s
Origins of the Civil Rights
Movement
• New Deal and AAA
– Pushed blacks off rural
farms
– Part of New Deal
Coalition
• World War II
– Double V, Four
Freedoms
– War industries jobs
increased urbanization
• 50s Prosperity
– The Other America by
Michael Harrington
• Cold War rhetoric
The Cold War PR War
1959  Nixon-Khrushchev
“Kitchen Debate”
Cold War ----->
Tensions
<----- Technology
& Affluence
The Movement Begins
• Brown v. Board of
Education (1954)
– separate is unequal
– use of courts and role of
NAACP
– Southern resistance
• Little Rock Nine (1957)
– Central High
– Gov. Orval Faubus sends
in the National Guard to
prevent integration
– Eisenhower sent in
federal troops to
enforce the law
The Emergence of MLK:
The Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955
• Starts with the arrest of
Rosa Parks
• The importance of black
churches
• 1956  Supreme Court ruled
that segregation laws were
unconstitutional
Class Discussion Topic:
The postwar era witnessed
tremendous economic growth and rising
social contentment and conformity. Yet in
the midst of such increasing affluence and
comfortable domesticity, social critics
expressed a growing sense of unease with
American culture in the 1950s.
Assess the validity of the above
statement and explain how the decade of
the 1950s laid the groundwork for the
social and political turbulence of the
1960s.