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 middleclass 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
self-determination
 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. 2230)
 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