The Postwar Years
at Home
1945 - 1960
Setting the Scene
Returning soldiers
wanted to get on
with their lives.
 Women had “nest
eggs”
 STRONG desire for
consumer goods and
homes.

Setting the Scene
Marriage rate
skyrocketed
 Baby boom
 Suburbs boomed
 By 1960



75% owned a car
80% had television
Businesses Reorganize
GDP BOOMED!
 Per capita Income
increased
 Industries quickly
switched from war
goods to consumer
goods

Industries Make Changes

The growth of
conglomerates and
corporations.

Less family owned
businesses
Growth of Restaurants
The Birth of Fast
Food
 The birth of the
franchise

Technology Transforms Life
TELEVISION!
 By 1955 families
watched 4 – 5 hours
of tv a day.

Favorite Shows:

I Love Lucy!
Favorite Shows

Father Knows Best
Favorite Shows

Leave It To Beaver
Favorite Shows

Howdy Doody
Favorite Shows

The Mickey Mouse
Club
Favorite Shows

American Bandstand
Television

ONLY 3 networks on
until 1970.



CBS
NBC
ABC
The Computer Industry

Grace Hopper
(Admiral) pioneered
the first computers

Invented the term
“debugging”
The invention of the
TRANSISTOR
First circuit device
that amplifies,
controls and
generates electrical
signal.
 Didn’t take as much
space.

Nuclear Power

Ideas that nuclear
power would be part
of everyday lives.


Nuclear wallpaper
Nuclear children’s
toys
Advances in Medicine
1954 - Dr. Jonas
Salk: Polio Vaccine
 Penicillin – the first
antibiotic
 Improvements in
surgery

Changes in the Work Force

1940:



55.2% workers blue
collar
44.8 white collar
workers
1960:


56.2% white collar
workers
43.8% blue collar
workers
White Collar Worker
Drawbacks
Often impersonal
 Less connection with
products and
services
 Employees felt
pressure to dress,
think and act alike

Suburbs and Highways

The Baby Boom


1940s’ – 19 births
per 1,000.
1957 30 births per
1,000!

Baby Boom
Generation 1945 1963
Moving to the Suburbs
With growing
families
 With new prosperity
 Families wanted to
live more “nuclear”
 Families wanted
“modern” housing.

Moving to the Suburbs
Families wanted
ranch-style houses.
 Quickly assembled
tract homes for the
growing demand.

Cars and Highways

To follow customers,
downtowns moved
to strip malls closer
to the suburbs.
Cars and Highways
Public transportation
often didn’t reach to
the the suburbs.
 More demand for
cars.
 Cars were status
symbols (were?)

Cars and Highways
1950s – auto makers
began to do yearly
models with new
and improved
features.
 1948 – 1958 car
sales went up 50%

Growth of the Car Culture
People wanted to
travel
 1956 – the Federal
Highway Act, started
the interstate
system through the
country.


I – 80 in Nebraska
completed in 1968
Little Known Fact About
Interstates

Bigger lanes were
meant for quicker
evacuation of cities
in case of nuclear
attack and quicker
movement of
military equipment.
Car Culture created changes:
Gas Stations
 Drive-in Movies
 Drive-in restaurants.
 Urged people to
take trips and see
the USA.

Growth of Consumer Credit
The birth of the
credit card!
 Counter checks

The Mood of the 1950s

Comfort and
security.

After the insecurities
and “doing without”
in the Depression
and WWII – people
didn’t want conflict.
The Mood of the 1950s
Americans
encouraged
conformity as a way
of achieving
harmony between
individuals and
groups.
 Compromise over
conflict was the
motto

Comfort and Security: Tootle
the Engine
Children’s book
 Powerful parable
“Always stay on the
track no matter
what.”


Tootle the little
engine in
“Engineville”
Youth Culture: The Silent
Generation
Little interest in the
problems and crises
of the world.
 Strong economy
allowed more teens
to stay in school
rather than leaving
to find jobs.

Youth Culture: The Silent
Generation
Students had more
leisure time to be in
sororities /
fraternities.
 Lots of parties

Youth Culture: The Silent
Generation

Advertising and
movies built an
image of how teens
should look.




Bobby socks
Poodle skirts
Letter sweaters
“Clean cut” teens
Teen Girls: Conformity

About the only
acceptable jobs for teen
girls was babysitting.


With the Baby Boom
there were LOTS of jobs.
Building their “Hope
Chests”

Cabinets for things they
would need as brides or
new wives.
– Silver, linens, and
bridal stuff
Resurgence in Religion
Church attendance
was up.
 Was it in response
to “godless
communism”?
 Was it to protect
against nuclear war?

Resurgence in Religion




Dial-a-Prayer phone
lines
“The Family that prays
together, stays
together.”
Televangelists like Billy
Graham
1959 – 95% of
Americans said they felt
connected to formal
religious groups
Government in Religion
1954 – “Under God”
added to the Pledge
of Allegiance
 1955 – “In God We
Trust” added to our
money.


Felt it would show us
who the Communists
were.
Men’s and Women’s Roles

Men



Go to school, find a
job, support the wife
and children.
Earn the money and
make important
political, economical,
and social decisions.
Be part of the world
Men and Women’s Roles

Play a supporting
role to husband’s
life.





Keep house
Cook meals
Raise children
Hostess
Do volunteer work

PTA, Campfire Girls,
etc.
Challenges to Conformity

Social conformity
made it easy to
mask the differences
among individuals
and groups.

Ethnicity was
discouraged.
Women at Work

Not all women left
the workforce when
they got married.


1950 – 24% of
workforce was
women
1960 – 31% was
women.
Women at Work

Accepted in
traditional jobs

Secretaries,
teachers, nurses and
sales clerks
“Typical” Woman in 1950s
Woman married at
16
 4 children
 Kept busy with PTA,
Campfire Girls,
charity causes
 Home manager,
mother, hostess and
useful civic worker.

Challenges to Conformity
Betty Friedan “The
Feminine Mystique”
 1963
 First voice to say
women were
frustrated with their
roles in the 1950s.

“The Feminine Mystique”

“It was unquestioned
gospel that women
could identify with
nothing beyond the
home – not politics, not
art, not science, not
events large or small,
unless it could be
approached through
female experience as a
wife or mother or
translated into domestic
detail.”

Betty Friedan
Youthful Rebellions: Not every
train was on the track!

Rebel Without a
Cause –


James Dean became
a symbol of rebellion
Catcher in the Rye –

Holden Caulfield
troubled by
“phonies” around
him.
The Birth of Rock and Roll!

Alan Freed – DJ in
Cleveland Ohio in
1951.


Came up with the
description of a new
type of rhythm and
blues sound.
RADICAL! He played
both black and white
musicians.
Rock and Roll Legends

Chuck Berry
Rock and Roll Legends

Little Richard
Rock and Roll Legends

Fats Domino
Rock and Roll Legends

Bill Haley and the
Comets
Rock and Roll Legends

Jerry Lee Lewis
Rock and Roll Legends
ELVIS!!!
Society’s Reactions to the
“devil’s music” in the 1950s?
Feared it would lead
to immorality.
 Caused a mixing of
the races!


Kids of different
races going to the
same concerts and
buying the same
records!
The Beatniks





“Beat Generation”
Writers, artists,
groupies.
Encouraged spontaneity
and no planning of
anything.
Open sexuality
Thought that money
and property was too
controlled by the rich.
The Beatniks: Jack Kerouac
On the Road (1957)
Written in a month
One continuous roll
of paper.
“Stream of
consciousness” style
of writing.
Wild form
The Beatniks: Allen Ginsberg

Epic poem “HOWL”

“I saw the best
minds of my
generation destroyed
by madness …”
Domestic Politics in the 1950s

Two Presidents:


Harry Truman
(Democrat)
Dwight “Ike”
Eisenhower
(Republican)
Harry Truman
Took over after FDR.
 “The buck stops
here.”

Surprise Re-Election in 1948



“To err is Truman.”
No one expected him to
win!
But he did.



Started some
desegregation.
Busy with Korean War
after 1950.
Was he an FDR Democrat
or a believer in state’s
rights?
1952 – 1960: Ike Eisenhower
Former Supreme
Commander of Allied
Forces in WWII.
 “A president must
save himself the
three or four big
decisions he makes
a year.”

“I Like Ike” Campaign slogan

“New”
Republicanism:
Conservative with
money, liberal with
human rights.
Eisenhower
First to end
segregation of
troops.
 First to send in the
National Guard to
desegregate Little
Rock, Arkansas
schools.

Eisenhower: The Arms Race

Despite trying to
balance the budget
– he saw one of the
greatest expansions
of the military to
fight the Cold War.
Eisenhower

Created NASA and
the Space Race to
keep space from
going “Commie.”

Made the decision
that test pilots would
be the best for being
astronauts.
Let us not forget Eisenhower’s
Vice President!

He was in trouble
even then!
“The Checkers Speech”
Richard Nixon was
accused of having a
secret money
account to pay for
his campaigning.
 He didn’t, but the
public believed it.
 Eisenhower told him
to save himself if he
could.

The Checkers Speech
On television Nixon
said the only gift he
had ever accepted
was for the family
dog.
 “My wife, Pat, wears
a respectable
Republican cloth
coat.”

The public bought it.

It was Eisenhower
and Nixon in 1952
and 1960.
Note: It is still Eisenhower
and Nixon today.

Ike’s grandson and
Nixon’s daughter
are married.