American Society and
Culture
(1945-Present)
Unit IXC
AP U.S. History
Fundamental Questions


Evaluate the impact of the Cold War on
American social identity.
To what extent was the year of 1968 a
turning point in American society and
culture.
Baby Boom (1946-1964)
American Suburbia

Causes
 Postwar economic
expansion
 G.I. Bill and FHA
 Great Migration
 Interstate highways

Details
 Single-family homes
 Subdivisions and zoning
 Shopping malls

Effects
 “White flight”
 Urban decay
Second Red Scare (1947-1957)

Cold War Fears
 Duck and Cover
 “He May Be a Communist”

McCarthyism
 Demographics:

Republican
 Conservative Protestants and Catholics
 Blue-collar workers
 Tactics

Media and Television
 Blacklisting
 Reaction

Army-McCarthy Hearing (1954)
 “Decency”

Edward R. Murrow of CBS
 Public Outcry
Nifty Fifties
The American Dream

Corporate America
 White-collar jobs
 Business dress codes

Consumerism
 Credit cards
 Shopping malls and strip
malls

Advertising/Brand
Names/Franchising
 Ford
 Cheerios
 Chef Boyardee
Nifty Fifties
Women


Suburban and middleclass growth and
mainstream media
culture reinforced cult of
domesticity
 “Know your role”
Increased employment
opportunities
 40% of women held
jobs
Nifty Fifties
Conformist and Conservative Society

Causes
 New Deal politics, Cold
War/Communism, Materialism,
Baby Boom, Suburbia

Social Mores
 Traditional gender roles
 Respect for authority
 Against perversion, drugs

Church Membership
 49% in 1950
 69% in 1960

Impact on Politics
 “under God” added to the Pledge of
Allegiance (1954)
 “In God We Trust” as national motto
and on paper currency (1956)

Billy Graham
 Evangelism to be pure, not
improved
Nifty Fifties
Teenagers and Rebellion

Teenagers
 “Quiet Generation”
 Attracted to lifestyle of rock and roll,
television, and movie stars
 Rise in juvenile delinquency

Beat Generation/Beatniks
 Rejection of contemporary conformist
and materialist lifestyle
 Spiritual liberation
 Free lifestyle and experimentation
Nifty Fifties
Television and Movies

Television
 Ownership

9% in 1950
 65% in 1955
 87% in 1960
 Impact

Corporate sponsorships
 Sitcoms of the American middle
class family
 Ozzie and Harriet
 Leave it to Beaver
 Father Knows Best

Movies
 Epic, science fiction, and Cold War
themes
 The Day the Earth Stood Still
 Rebel Without a Cause
Nifty Fifties
Music

Classic Pop
 Billie Holiday
 Crooners
 Frank
Sinatra
 Dean Martin

Doo Wop
 Vocal group harmony

Rock and Roll
 Influenced by rhythm and blues, jazz,
gospel, country, and pop
 Electric guitars
 Chuck Berry
 Elvis Presley
Nifty Fifties
Literature

Post-Modernism
 Post-WWII reactionary
movement
 The Catcher in the Rye by J.D.
Salinger
 The Death of a Salesman and
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper
Lee

Beat Generation
 Rejection of materialism, sexual
liberation, drug experimentation,
Eastern religions and
philosophies
 On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Civil Rights Movement
Background

Postwar Reconstruction

 13th Amendment






end slavery
 15th Amendment








black suffrage
Freedmen’s Bureau
Ku Klux Klan and White League
Disenfranchisement
Plessy v. Ferguson
Separate, but equal
Jim Crow Laws in the South
Progressive Era Gains
 Booker T. Washington and W.E.B.
DuBois
 NAACP and National Urban League
 Great Migration
1920s Setbacks and Hope

Race riots after WWI
Lynchings
KKK returns
Marcus Garvey
Harlem Renaissance
1930s Developments
 New Deal Coalition
 New Deal provided some relief
programs
 Limited civil rights legislation
Civil Rights Movement
Beginning of Progress (1940s)

Smith v. Allwright (1944)
 Prohibit all white primaries

March on Washington
Movement
 A. Philip Randolph and Bayard
Rustin

Jackie Robinson and
Baseball (1947)
 Executive Order 9981 (1948)
 Desegregation of government
and military
Civil Rights Movement
Desegregation

Brown v. Board of Education
(1954)
 Desegregation of schools
 Overrules “separate but equal”
 “all deliberate speed”

White Southern Reaction
 Southern Manifesto (1956)
 Little Rock Nine (1957)

Eisenhower orders National Guard to
escort black students to Arkansas high
school
 Stand at Schoolhouse Door (1963)

University of Alabama
 Governor George Wallace
 “Segregation Now…”
Civil Rights Movement
Rosa Parks and Montgomery Bus Boycott

Rosa Parks (Dec. 1,
1955)
 Segregation on
Montgomery, AL buses
 Refused to give up her seat
and arrested

Montgomery Bus
Boycott (1955-1956)
 Supreme Court ruled bus
segregation unconstitutional
Civil Rights Movement
Martin Luther King Jr.

Passive Resistance
 Bayard Rustin
 "Since being in India, I am more
convinced than ever before that the
method of nonviolent resistance is
the most potent weapon available to
oppressed people in their struggle for
justice and human dignity.”

Southern Christian Leadership
Conference (SCLC)
 Network of churches to organize nonviolent civil rights demonstrations
Civil Rights Movement
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)



Sit-Ins
Freedom Rides
“By 1965, SNCC fielded the largest staff of any
civil rights organization in the South. It had
organized nonviolent direct action against
segregated facilities, as well as voter-registration
projects, in Alabama, Arkansas, Maryland,
Missouri, Louisiana, Virginia, Kentucky,
Tennessee, Illinois, North and South Carolina,
Georgia, and Mississippi; built two independent
political parties and organized labor unions and
agricultural cooperatives; and given the
movement for women's liberation new energy. It
inspired and trained the activists who began the
"New Left." It helped expand the limits of political
debate within Black America, and broadened the
focus of the civil rights movement. Unlike
mainstream civil rights groups, which merely
sought integration of Blacks into the existing
order, SNCC sought structural changes in
American society itself”. - Julian Bond
Civil Rights Movement
Birmingham and Washington

Birmingham Campaign (1963)
 Letter from Birmingham Jail


“Injustice anywhere is a threat
to justice everywhere. We are
caught in an inescapable
network of mutuality, tied in a
single garment of destiny.
Whatever affects one directly,
affects all indirectly… Anyone
who lives inside the United
States can never be considered
an outsider anywhere within its
bounds.”
March on Washington (8/27/63)
 I Have a Dream

Civil Rights Act of 1964
Civil Rights Movement
Selma March (1965)



From Selma to
Montgomery (Alabama)
Blood Sunday (March 7)
Voting Rights Act of 1965
Civil Rights Movement
Malcolm X and Nation of Islam

Malcolm X
 Promoted black separatism,
black nationalism, black
supremacy
 “We don’t teach you to turn
the other cheek. We teach
you to obey the law… But at
the same time, we teach you
that anyone who puts his
hands on you, you do your
best to see that he doesn’t
put it on anybody else.”

Nation of Islam
 Elijah Muhammad
 Black separatism and black
pride
Civil Rights Movement
Black Power

Stokely Carmichael
 SNCC

Black Panthers
 Huey Newton and Bobby
Seale
 “Kill Whitey!”
 “Burn, baby, burn!”
Civil Rights Movement
Urban Riots

Los Angeles (1965)
 Watts neighborhood
 34 deaths, over 1000 injured

Detroit (1967)
 National guard and federal
troops and tanks sent
 43 deaths, over 1000 injured

Kerner Commission
 Frustration among
impoverished urban blacks due
to white racism
 Attempt to improve inter-racial
communications
Swinging Sixties
New Left

Students for a Democratic
Society (SDS) (1962)
 Condemned corporatism,
racism, poverty, Vietnam War
(“The Establishment”)

Berkeley Free Speech
Movement (1964-1965)
Swinging Sixties
Counterculture Movement

Hippies/Flower Children
 Non-violent anarchism
 Rejection of materialism
 Concern for the environment

Youth International Party (Yippies)
 Abbie Hoffman
 Radical hippies known for theatrical
protests and tactics

Sexual Revolution (1960s-1980s)
 Kinsey studies, novels, magazines
 Contraception and premarital sex
 Abortion and Roe v. Wade (1973)
Swinging Sixties
Music as Expression

Themes





Artists







Anti-Establishment
Anti-war
Promotion of counterculture
War - Edwin Starr
Bob Dylan
Jim Morrison
Rolling Stones
The Beatles
Joan Baez
Jimi Hendrix
Woodstock (1969)
 500,000 attend 3-day rock concert
Vietnam Protests
Self-immolation
was an extreme
form of protest.
Here, Buddhist
monk, Thich Quang
Duc, before the
U.S. escalation. A
few Americans
engaged in this
extreme act of
protest during
Vietnam.
1968
The Year of Rage

Tet Offensive (Jan. 30)
 Nguyen Van Lem Assassinated
(Feb. 1)
 My Lai Massacre (Mar. 16)
 LBJ Withdraws (Mar. 31)
 MLK Assassination (Apr. 4)
 Columbia University Protests
(Apr. 23-30)
 Robert Kennedy Assassination
(June 5)
 Democratic National
Convention Riots (Aug. 22-30)
 Nixon wins election (Nov. 5)
Kent State University (1970)

Student protests of
Cambodia invasion
 Ohio National Guard
opened fire, killing 4
students and wounding 9
students (May 4, 1970)
 President Nixon responded
with indifference
 Majority of Americans
blamed students
 Emphasized turmoil in
America over Vietnam and
the youth-based
counterculture
Mary Ann Vecchio in anguish over Jeffrey Miller
* Pulitzer Prize winning photo
Feminist Movement





The Feminine Mystique by
Betty Friedan (1963)
National Organization of
Women (NOW)
Gloria Steinem
Roe v. Wade (1973)
Political Gains
 Sandra Day O’Connor - first
female Supreme Court justice
(1981)
 Geraldine Ferraro - first major
party Vice Presidential
candidate (1984)
 Madeline Albright - first female
Secretary of State (1997)
 Nancy Pelosi - first female
Speaker of the House (2006)
Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)
“Equality of rights
under the law shall
not be denied or
abridged by the
United States or by
any State on
account of sex.”
 Phyllis Schlafly

Red - ratified
Yellow - rescinded ratification
Green - ratified by only one state legislative chamber
Blue - not ratified
Civil Rights
Hispanics

Hernandez v. Texas (1954)
 Chicano Movement
 El Movimiento
 La Raza Unida

Cesar Chavez
 Viva la Causa
 Si Se Puede

Bilingual Education
 Coral Way Elementary (1963)
 Bilingual Education Act (1968)

Political Gains
 Sonia Sotomayor - first
Hispanic Supreme Court
justice (2009)
Civil Rights
Natives

American Indian
Movement (AIM) (1968)
 Civil rights organization for
native property rights and
cultural preservation and
restoration

Indian Self-Determination
Act (1975)
 Sports team references
 Washington Redskins
Civil Rights
LGBT

Gay Liberation Movement
 Stonewall Riots (1969)


AIDS
Setbacks
 Anita Bryant and Save Our
Children (1977)
 Bowers v. Hardwick (1986)
 Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (1993)
 Defense of Marriage Act
(DOMA) (1996)

Achievements
 Lawrence v. Texas (2003)
 United States v. Windsor
(2013)
 Same-sex marriage
Contemporary Labor Developments


Taft-Hartley Act (1947)
AFL-CIO (1955)
 United Farm Workers
(UFW)

United Farm Workers
 Cesar Chavez and
Dolores Huerta

Labor Unions Weaken




PATCO Strike (1981)
NAFTA (1994)
Right-to-Work States
Outsourcing

The Sunbelt and Rustbelt
Why the Sunbelt?
 Low taxes, warmer climates, defense industries, right-to-work, immigrants

Rustbelt
 Deindustrialization due to globalization, domestic policies, demographics.
migration
Contemporary Immigration

Pushes
 Escape communism, violence

Pulls
 Seek American Dream

Immigration Policies
 Immigration Act of 1965

Eliminated 1920s quota laws
 Immigration Reform and Control Act (1986)


Penalties for illegal immigration employment
Illegal immigrants before 1982 granted residency
Contemporary Society and Culture
Multiculturalism

Melting Pot
 Americanization and
assimilation of diverse
cultures

Salad Bowl
 Cultural mosaic
 Promotion of cultural
diversity

Contemporary nativism
 American exceptionalism
 English Language
Amendment
Contemporary Society and Culture
Environmental Movement




Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
(1962)
Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) (1970)
Earth Day - April 22
Fossil Fuels
 Oil
 Natural gas/fracking
 Coal

Alternative Fuel Sources
 Nuclear

Three Mile Island (1979), Chernobyl
(1986), and Fukushima (2011)
 Solar energy
 Electric hybrids

Global Warming/Climate Change
 Human impact on CO2 levels
Contemporary Society and Culture
Health

Medical Breakthroughs
 Polio Vaccine and Jonas
Salk (1955)
 CAT Scan (1971)
 MRI (1971)
 Stem cell therapy (1998)

Epidemics
 HIV/AIDS
 Cancer
 Obesity
Contemporary Society and Culture
American Family and Lifestyle

Graying of America
 1/8th of Americans are 65 or
older (2000)
 Life expectancy is 78 years old
(2012)
 Baby boomers retiring and
impact on Social Security

American Family
 Nearly 50% divorce rates
 Single parenthood
 Different forms of family

Education
 1 in 4 of 25-34 year olds a 4year college graduate
 Internet
Contemporary Society and Culture
Technology and the Future

Automation
 Internet
 World Wide Web

Genetics
 DNA structure (1953)
 Human Genome Project