CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN SOCIETY AND CULTURE (1945-2000)

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CONTEMPORARY

AMERICAN

SOCIETY AND CULTURE

(1945-2000)

Unit VIIC

AP U.S. History

Fundamental Questions

 How did American society change in relation to America’s superpower status?

 To what extent did civil rights expand from

1950 to 1980?

Baby Boom (1946-1964)

Causes

 G.I. Bill

 Postwar recovery

 Economic expansion

Effects

 79 million

Americans born

 Marriage rates increase

 “M.R.S.

Degree”

 Family size increase

 3.77 (1957)

Rise of Suburbia

Causes

 Postwar economic expansion

 Great Migration

Levittown

Details

 Single-family homes

 Subdivisions and zoning

 Shopping malls

Effects

 Higher concentrations of upper-to-middle class whites

 Urban decay

Second Red Scare (1947-1957)

Cold War Fears

 Bomb shelters construction

 “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 - Homogenous Culture

The American Dream

 American Dream

Corporate America

 White-collar jobs

 Business dress codes

Consumerism

 Credit cards

 Shopping malls and strip malls

Advertising

 Brand name proliferation

 Franchises

Nifty Fifties - Homogenous Culture

Entertainment

Television

Replaced the radio as new broadcasting medium

 77% of households owned a TV

 Helped spread the American homogenous culture

 Ozzie and Harriet

Leave it to Beaver

Father Knows Best

Movies

Cold War-themed films

The Day the Earth Stood Still

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Music

 LP records

 Crooners to Rock and Roll

Literature

 Paperbacks

 Short stories

Realistic Modernists

The Catcher in the Rye (1951)

The Old Man and the Sea (1952)

 The Crucible (1953)

Nifty Fifties - Homogenous Culture

Religion and Rebellion

Increased religion

 Less doctrine, more faith

 Fear of Communism

 Evangelism

 Billy Graham

Rebellion

 Against conformity, consumerism, Corporate

America

 Juvenile delinquency

Beat Generation

 Rejection of conformity and materialism

 Experimentation

 Beatniks

Nifty Fifties - Homogenous Culture

Women

 Suburban and middle-class growth reinforced cult of domesticity

 “Know your role”

 The Common Sense Book of

Baby and Child Care by Dr.

Spock

 Increased employment opportunities

 Growing dissatisfaction concerning unequal wages

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)

World War II opportunities

 Northern factory and service jobs

 Executive Order 8802 (1941)

 Military

 Tuskegee Airmen

Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

(1942)

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. and Passive Resistance

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

(SCLC) (1957)

 Church network founded by MLK to promote civil rights

Student Nonviolent Coordinating

Committee (SNCC) (1960)

Sit-Ins

 Lunch counters at Woolworth’s

Freedom Riders

 Racially mixed bus trips through South

 Encountered violent Southern reaction

Birmingham Campaign (1963)

 MLK’s Letter from Birmingham Jail

March on Washington (Aug 28, 1963)

 I Have a Dream

Selma March (1965)

 March from Selma to Montgomery to end

Southern disenfranchisement laws

 Bloody Sunday (March 7)

Civil Rights Movement

Federal Government Intervenes

Civil Rights Act of 1957

 Civil Rights Commission

 Strom Thurmond filibuster

Civil Rights Act of 1960

24th Amendment (1964)

 Prohibited poll taxes

Civil Rights Act of 1964

 Ended racial segregation in employment and public accommodations

 Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United

States (1964)

Voting Rights Act of 1965

 Outlawed racial disenfranchisement

Thurgood Marshall on

Supreme Court (1967)

Civil Rights Movement

A Different Approach

Nation of Islam

 Elijah Muhammad

 Malcolm X

 Originally, taught Black supremacy and separatism

 Later, favored integration and Black selfdetermination

Black Power

 Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture)

 Black Panthers

 Huey Newton and Bobby Seale

 “Kill or Get Whitey!” “Burn, baby, burn!”

Public Reaction

 Race riots

 Backlash on Black Panthers and Nation of Islam

Swinging Sixties

New Left

 Students for a Democratic

Society (SDS) (1962)

 Tom Hayden

 Condemned corporatism, racism, poverty, Vietnam War

(“The Establishment”)

 Demanded participatory democracy

Berkeley Free Speech

Movement (1964-1965)

Weathermen

 Violent group branched off from SDS

Swinging Sixties

Counterculture Movement

Children Hippies/Flower

 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)

Drug Use

 Marijuana

 LSD (acid)

Swinging Sixties

Music as Expression

Themes

 Anti-Establishment

 Anti-war

 Promotion of counterculture

 War - Edwin Starr

Artists

 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

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

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

Inspired by civil rights movement, counterculture, and sexual revolution

The Feminine Mystique by

Betty Friedan

 Inspiration for women to seek higher opportunities beyond housewives

National Organization of

Women (NOW)

 Activist group for equality and opportunity for women

Gloria Steinem

Equal Rights Amendment

(ERA)

 Congress passed equality in all aspects of society based on gender

 Phyllis Schlafly inspires its defeat

Failure of ERA Ratification

Civil Rights Movement Fuels Other Minorities

Hispanics

United Farm Workers Organization

Cesar Chavez

Exploited for cheap labor, especially in agricultural sector

Boycotts in retaliation to exploitation of immigrants

 Si Se Puede!

Will become second largest demographic fueled by immigration

 Neo-nativism development

Natives

American Indian Movement (AIM)

 Indian Self-Determination Act (1975)

Homosexuals

Gay Liberation Movement

 Harvey Milk in San Francisco (1978)

 Setbacks

Bowers v. Hardwick (1986)

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (1993)

 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) (1996)

 Achievements

 Lawrence v. Texas (2003)

Contemporary Labor

 Taft-Hartley Act

 AFL-CIO (1955)

 United Farm Workers

(UFW)

 Labor weakens

 PATCO Strike (1981)

 NAFTA (1994)

 Private-sector union membership decreased

 Public-sector union organizations and membership expanded

The Sunbelt and Rustbelt

Why the Sunbelt?

 Low taxes, warmer climates, defense industries

Rustbelt

 Smokestack industries closing down due to globalization

Contemporary Immigration

Pushes

 Escape communist regimes or developing nations

Pulls

 Seek American Dream

Immigration Demographics by

1980s

 47% from Latin America

 37% from Asia

 12% from Europe and Canada

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

Multicultural Society

Health and Science Developments and Issues

Technology

 Automation

 Internet

Health

 Polio vaccine

 Jonas Salk (1955)

 Graying of America

 HIV/AIDS

Education

 Research and

Development

Environment

Silent Spring by Rachel

Carson (1962)

 Go Green

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