The Postwar Years at Home
Chapter 27
Don’t Forget What it Was Like
• What was the economy like before the
war?
– Describe the conditions in the US.
• What have we discussed about America’s
Post War years at home?
– List the different topics.
Setting the Scene
• “Socially, these communities have neither
history, tradition, nor established
structure…Everyone lives in a ‘good
neighborhood’, there is, to use that classic
American euphemism (using different words),
‘no wrong side of the tracks.’
-Harry Henderson, “The Mass-Produced Suburbs,”
Harper’s 1953
• Describe how this authors feels about the
Suburbs. Does he think they are a good thing or
do they have negatives?
Businesses Reorganize
• Vocab Word:
– Per Capita Income: The average annual
income per person.
» Per Capita means “per person”
/
=
16.6 Nuggets
per capita
Vocab: Conglomerate
• Conglomerate: A corporation (a type of
business) made up of three or more
unrelated business.
Vocab: Franchise
• Franchise- A business sells the rights for a
person to open one of their stores.
– A McDonald’s Franchise costs over a Million
dollars today
– Early McAdd
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIuXv7Y8QA
4
Television: The reason people
don’t go outside
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNjEIfZl
A2s&feature=related
– I love Lucy
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdVl_R
40e4M&feature=related
– Honeymooners
Advances in Medicine
• Answer these questions?
– Can you name a famous Person with Polio?
– Have you ever met a person with Polio?
Homework
• http://www.franklincountyauditor.com/
The Computer Industry
• Vocab: Transistor: A tiny circuit device that
amplifies (makes louder or larger) controls,
and generates electrical signals.
– “Transistor Radio (1950’s) = Ipod (2010’s)
=
Nuclear Power
• 1954: First Nuclear Powered Submarine
• 1957: First Nuclear Power Plant on land
How it works
Vocab: Blue/White Collar
Blue Collar
• Depends on manual labor
• Service industry or
manufacturing
• Working class
White Collar
• Used more intellectual
skills
• Often college graduates
• Office Jobs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaIU7IP2SVQ
White Collar Conformity
Vocab: Baby Boom
• A dramatic increase
in babies being born
after WWII
• Remember our lesson
on women in the
1950’s
Moving to the Suburbs
• GI Bill of Rights
– provided ways for service
men to get cheap loans for
houses and to go to college
for free
• Mass production of
homes
– Made quickly a almost
identical
Cars and highways
• Suburbs too far away
for public
transportation
• Cars become a status
symbol
• I-270 built from 19621971
UGH!!! What does this have to do
with anything?!?!
What did Westerville
look like 20, 30,
40,000
35,000
or 40 years ago?
30,000
25,000
20,000
15,000
10,000
5,000
0
Population
Students
'70 '80 '90 '12
To Rock or not to Rock?
• Rock n roll… is sung,
played and written for
the most part by
[mentally deficient]
goons and by means of
its almost imbecilic
repetition and sly, lewd,
in plain fact, dirty
lyrics… it manages to
be the music of every
side burned delinquent
on the face of the
earth.”
• http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=j9h0MNMfKuQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9h0MNMfKuQ
To Rock or not to Rock?
• “Rock and roll
music, if you like
it, if you feel it,
you can't help
but move to it.
That's what
happens to me. I
can't help it.'
http://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=tpzV_0l5ILI
Rock n Roll- doing what you want
since the 1950’s
• Rock and Roll was a complete rejection of
white mainstream society
• Began as “Black rhythm and blues”
• Alan Freed “Moondog Rock ‘n’ Roll Party”
Elvis brings Rock to White
audience
• Elvis Presley may seem tame but he was
Lady Gaga and Kanye West rolled into
one.
– People had to be told he was white because
at the time they said he “sounded black”
• Sexual tones and flamboyant dancing
scared many adults
Review
• Families move to the Suburbs
– Cheap loans
– College Educations and the new “white collar”
jobs
– Highways to get them to the Suburbs
– Cheap new houses
Review
• Rock and Roll
– Comes out of an African American tradition of
Rhythm and Blues
– Not everyone happy
about new kind of
music
– Who wants to share
their song?
The “Beat
Generation”
• Vocab-Beatniks
-Members of a movement
that promoted being
spontaneous, or acting at a
moment’s notice without
planning.
Jack Kerouac- leader of the
beat generation
• “The only people for me are the mad ones,
the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk,
mad to be saved, desirous of everything at
the same time, the ones who never yawn
or say a commonplace thing, but burn,
burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman
candles exploding like spiders across the
stars and in the middle you see the blue
centerlight pop and everybody goes
"Awww!”
The “Silent Generation”
• Many children
continued to conform
• Stayed in school
longer than before
• More free time
• Girls begin Baby
sitting
• The “teen” is born1941
Religion is back!
• Many people had stopped attending
Churches and Synagogues before the
1950’s
• “Godless Communism” brings them back
• 1954- “Under God” added to pledge of
allegiance
• 1955- “In God we trust” added to money
Billy Graham- Evangelist
Preacher
• “A child who is allowed
to be disrespectful to
his parents will not
have true respect for
anyone.”
•
Billy Graham
Home Work
•Due Monday
•Write a 2 paragraph
journal entry from the
perspective of a student
your age in the 1950’s.
Find the table that corresponds to
the age of your home
• In your groups find
each of your homes
on the map of
Westerville
• Do any of you live in
the same
neighborhood?
• Assign a group
member to mark them
on the board with
group age.