Matakuliah : G0862/American Culture and Society
Tahun
: 2007
The Depression
(1929 – 1945)
Meeting 6
Contents
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The New Deal
The World War II
Woman as workforce
Truman and the Cold War era
The red scare: McCarthyism
The New Deal
• The New Deal was the title President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave to
the series of programs he initiated between 1933 and 1938 with the
goal of providing relief, recovery, and reform (3 Rs) to the people
and economy of the United States during the Great Depression.
• Dozens of alphabet agencies were created as a result of the New
Deal. Historians distinguish between the "First New Deal" of 1933,
which had something for almost every group, and the "Second New
Deal" (1935–36), which introduced class conflict, especially between
business and unions.
• The main New Deal programs still in existence today are Social
Security, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the
primary regulator of Wall Street.
Pearl Harbor 1941
The New Deal
The Depression, however, continued until the U.S. entered the
Second World War. Under the special circumstances of war
mobilization, massive war spending doubled the Gross National
Product. Businessmen ignored the mounting national debt and
heavy new taxes, redoubling their efforts for greater output as an
expression of patriotism. Patriotism drove most people to voluntarily
work overtime and give up leisure activities to make money after so
many hard years. Patriotism meant that people accepted rationing
and price controls for the first time.
Cost-plus pricing in munitions contracts guaranteed that businesses
would make a profit regardless of how many mediocre workers they
employed and how inefficient the techniques they used. The
demand was for a vast quantity of war supplies as soon as possible,
regardless of cost. Business hired every person in sight, even
driving sound trucks up and down city streets begging people to
apply for jobs. New workers were needed to replace the 12 million
working-age men serving in the military.
Woman as Workforce
Truman and the Cold War
• The Cold War was the period of conflict, tension and
competition between the United States and the Soviet
Union and their respective allies from the mid-1940s until
the early 1990s.Throughout the period, the rivalry
between the two superpowers was played out in multiple
arenas: military coalitions; ideology, psychology, and
espionage; military, industrial, and technological
developments, including the space race; costly defense
spending; a massive conventional and nuclear arms
race; and many proxy wars.
Cold War (circa 1960)
McCarthyism
• Throughout the 1940s and 1950s America was
overwhelmed with concerns about the threat of
communism growing in Eastern Europe and China.
Capitalizing on those concerns, a young Senator named
Joseph McCarthy made a public accusation that more
than two hundred "card-carrying" communists had
infiltrated the United States government. Though
eventually his accusations were proven to be untrue, and
he was censured by the Senate for unbecoming conduct,
his zealous campaigning ushered in one of the most
repressive times in 20th-century American politics.
McCarthyism
• While the House Un-American Activities Committee had
been formed in 1938 as an anti-Communist organ,
McCarthy’s accusations heightened the political tensions
of the times. Known as McCarthyism, the paranoid hunt
for infiltrators was notoriously difficult on writers and
entertainers, many of whom were labeled communist
sympathizers and were unable to continue working.
Some had their passports taken away, while others were
jailed for refusing to give the names of other
communists. The trials, which were well publicized, could
often destroy a career with a single unsubstantiated
accusation.