POST-WAR ECONOMY
Unlike post-WWI, economy after WWII continued to grow
• GI Bill
• Demand for goods led to higher prices and inflation
• Cost of living increased leading to labor strikes

LABOR UNREST
In response to labor strikes…
• Taft-Hartley Act
• Outlawed “closed shops”
• States passed “right-to-work laws”
• Prevented “featherbedding”

REPUBLICAN POLICIES
Dynamic Conservatism
• Targeted some New Deal programs that allowed for too much government control
• RFC, TVA
• Created the Federal Highway Act
• $25 billion for 40,000 miles of interstate

AMERICAN ABUNDANCE
Between 1940 and 1960, the average income tripled.
• Home ownership increased
• White-collar jobs (sales / management) outnumbered blue-collar jobs (physical labor / industry)
• Multinational corporations and franchises

THE NEW CONSUMERISM
Conformity of the 1950s led to people wanting to own what their neighbors had – “Keeping up with the Joneses”
• Luxury items: dishwasher, refrigerator, vacuum cleaner, coffee makers, automobiles
• Advertising became the fastest growing industry

THE GROWTH OF SUBURBIA
Levittown, New York
• Mass-produced affordable homes outside of the city
• $10,000 for a new home
• Led to mass-exodus from the cities = “White
Flight”
• “The American Dream”

THE 1950S FAMILY
The Baby Boom
• 1945-1961: 65 million children born
• A child born every 7 seconds
• Why did this happen?
Women in the Fifties
• Women left WWII jobs to assume their
“traditional roles”
• Women who worked did so to help their family, not for independence

ADVANCES IN ELECTRONICS
ENIAC – Electronic Numerical Integrator and
Computer – first computer
UNIVAC – Universal Automatic Computer

MEDICINE
Antibiotics for infections, drugs to fights arthritis, diabetes, cancer, and heart disease
No cure for polio
• 1952 – 58,000 new cases reported
• Jonas Salk developed a vaccine in 1955
• Tested it on himself and children first

SPACE
Soviet Union launched Sputnik in October 1957
• First space satellite
• Encouraged U.S. to catch up
• U.S. launched first satellite in January 1958
• American boys required to take more math and science