RAH Day 11 Agenda
• Goal – to understand what life was like in the ’50s and to see how it
set the stage for our culture today
• Questions from homework
• Review page 3 about The American Dream in the Fifties
• Review p 4 and 5 to develop graph reading skills and to understand
the baby boom.
• Complete p 6 – Read the selection about the Organization Man and
answer the 3 Discussion Questions.
• Complete review of “the other America” p 8 and 9
• Complete packet p 11 and 12 – review of chp 19
• Continue video about life in the fifties. Answer questions 1-9 pp 10
American Dream in the Fifties
Trends
Effects
1. Business
expansion:
conglomerates and
franchises
1.
2.
3.
4.
2. Suburban
expansion
1.
3. Population
growth: the baby
boom
1.
2.
4.
More jobs were created
Uniformity occurred in many areas like the
workforce, products and services throughout the
country
Suburbanization
More consumer choices
White flight from cities to suburbs – whites middle
class took their tax money with them, leaving many
cities blacker, weaker, poorer and less able to
provide needed services
2. Defacto segregation 3. Women’s issues developed
4. Need and use for cars
Increased economic growth
Crowded schools
3. Generation gap
More and different products 5. Housing needs
Trends
Effects
4. Dramatic increase
in leisure time
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
5. Dramatic increase
in the use of
automobile
1.
5.
6.
6. Rise of
consumerism
1.
2.
Vacations
Increased publishing and subscriptions to specialty
magazines
Post-materialist generation like the Beats and later
hippies
Sports to play and watch 5. TV
Women’s liberation movement
Highways
2. Suburbs 3. Malls 4. Trucking
Drive-in everything – movies, restaurants, banks
Unification of the US 7. population migration and
mobility
8. Pollution and noise
More and effective use of marketing
Planned obsolescence – making things that would
need to be replaced fairly soon
3. Business expansion
4. More products
5. Definition, impetus for and evidence of the American
Dream
6. Use of credit increased consumer debt
Baby Boom
1. Births dropped from 1943 to 1944 and from 1944 to 1945
2. Returning soldiers, changing attitudes about sex, marriage, and the future,
economic prosperity.
3. a) 4.3 = millions of births
b) 4.6 = millions of total new people in population (births and immigration)
c) 1.66 = millions of deaths
d) (4.6m new people – 1.66 m deaths = 2.94 million person increase in
population in 1959.
4. Births dropped more than immigration rose, resulting in a net decease in the
number of total new people.
5. 1st year number of births dropped below 1946 levels was in 1972, but 1964
was the last year before significant drop in births, as well as last year
before # of births dropped below 4 million and the birth rate dropped
below 20/1000
6. Death rose consistently slowly. births rose steeply, then dropped big
The Organization Man
1. A. O-man works in a hierarchical organization
where he is not at the top, but hopes to be able to
move up.
B. He lives in the suburbs in middle class
neighborhoods
C. works in a collective for the betterment of the
organization but loathes the word collective
D. Has given himself to the org. giving up
individuality, family and spirit
E. Extols the idea of individuality while not having
any
F. Is aware of the lack of control in his life but is
delusional about his relationship between the
reality of the collective and individuality
2. The protestant work ethic of the individual for individual gain does not jive
with the demands and facts of the organization collective
The Organization Man
The conflict between the American value of
individualism and the fact of organization
life is that:
 individualism is not workable in a
hierarchical organizational environment
like corporate America or big bureaucracy
government, university or research work.
The organization environment is a collective, similar to the
collectivism of communist USSR.
Since the two cannot work together, the organization man deluded
himself into thinking that he was an individual, that he was not part of a
collective – which of course was really not correct.
The Other America
Problem – decaying cities
Causes:
White flight,
suburbanization and the
American dream caused
poorer people to remain in
the cities, lowering the tax
base and leading to decline
in government services
Proposed Solutions:
Low income housing,
public housing
JFK’s Area Redevelopment
Act
LBJ’s Model Cities Act
Effects of solutions:
Rundown buildings were
torn down
Slums were cleared
But often the middle class
got the benefits and the
poor were shunted off to
ever poorer areas still
lacking in affordable
housing
Like when Dodger’s
Stadium was built instead of
building low-income
housing.
The Other America
Problem – Discrimination Against Latinos
Causes:
Prejudice and xenophobia
Hard feelings towards
braceros who stayed to
work after WWII
Poor conditions in Mexico
and other latino countries
Proposed Solutions:
Created GI Forum, the
Unity League of California
and voter registration
groups.
Latino organizations were
created like La Raza Unida
Effects of solutions:
CA – desegregation of
schools, more voter
registration, Latinos got a
stronger voice in politics
Problem – economic hardship for Native Americans
Causes:
Prejudice
Termination policy
Proposed Solutions:
BIA began relocation
program to help dislocated
and dispossessed Natives
to move and find a place to
work and live
Effects of solutions:
35,000 natives relocated,
but most stayed poor and
unemployed, went on
welfare and the alcoholism
problem got worse