Chapter. 29
America at Mid-Century, 1945-1960
America at Mid-Century, 1945-1960
• Economy prosper; birthrate balloon
• Nat’l middle class culture form in suburbs:
– focus = family/material comfort/consumption
• USG actions (GI Bill, etc) help many join
suburban middle class
• Civil Rights Movement challenge:
– that all are sharing American Dream
• Politics:
– Cold War focus + domestic anticommunism
I. Postwar Uncertainty
– Re-conversion = economic and social stress
– Millions of vets return home
• Unemployment soar:
– industries lay off workers
• GI Bill (1944) ease vet re-entry:
–
–
–
–
unemployment pay
loans (buy house/start business)
funding for education
big increase in number of people with post-High School
education
– benefit economy and increase social mobility
II. Economic Growth;
Baby Boom
• Spur = war savings and consumer spending
• Increasing output and demand = key to boom
• Big agribusinesses boost productivity:
– with machines, fertilizers, pesticides
• Baby boom = cause and effect of prosperity
– Figure 29.1
– largest generation in US history
– reverse earlier birth rate decline
Fig. 29-1, p. 799
III. Inequality in Benefits
• USG programs discriminate:
– gender and race
• Women lose jobs to returning vets:
– push women back to low-pay jobs
• Colleges make room for vets:
– by excluding women
• VA/FHA “redline” people of color:
– exclude from suburbs
– lose major investment opportunity
IV. Raising a Family
•
•
•
•
Women -emphasis on child rearing-role of the
mother-full time homemaker?
No, number of working women increased –part
time jobs to achieve a middle class income.
Dr. Benjamin Spock- “Baby and Child Care”
- Child-Centered Approach (mother’s needs
come second to the child's)
V. Truman (HST) and
Postwar Liberalism
• FDR (1944) assert USG help all:
– get decent work, food, housing, health care
• Postwar liberal agenda for USG:
– manage economy and improve social welfare
• FDR’s death (1945) leave HST ill-prepared
• Face strong opposition in Congress
• Full Employment Act (1946) affirm:
– USG manage economy to prevent depression
VI. Problems for HST
• No depression, but USA suffer:
– strikes
– inflation
– shortages
• Republicans and conservative Democrats:
– Taft-Hartley Act, 1947
– ban closed shop
– restrict union growth in South and West
• Republicans expect win in 1948 with Dewey
• Democrats divide with Wallace, Thurmond
p. 802
VII. Truman’s Victory in 1948
and the Fair Deal
• HST red-bait Wallace
• Black vote in North and New Deal coalition
• HST try to extend New Deal:
– civil rights
– national health insurance
– aid to ed
• Opponents (AMA) block reform
• Korean War (inflation) destroy Fair Deal
• HST leave office with little popularity
VIII. The Fair Deal
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•
•
•
•
•
•
Broader SS Coverage
Increased Minimum Wage ($.40-%.75 p/hr)
Aid to Education
Expanded Public Housing Program
Dept. of Welfare
National Health Insurance System
To pay- $4Billion tax increase
VIII. The Eisenhower (Ike) Presidency,
1953–1961
• 1st Rep president in 20 years
• Pursue “dynamic conservatism”:
–
–
–
–
accept New Deal
expand Social Security
promote economic growth and Cold War
e.g., National Defense Education Act (1958)
• Pro-business
• Try to cut taxes/limit spending
IX. The Eisenhower Presidency, 1953–
61 (cont.)
• In 1957, USSR used first ICBM to launch
Sputnik, the first satellite into space
• Sputnik shocked Americans
– Feared U.S. fallen behind USSR in science &
technology
• As a result of Sputnik, the Cold War escalated
into a space race to show American & Soviet
dominance
The USSR repeatedly
In 1958, the USA created
beat the USA in space
National Aeronautics &
Space Administration (NASA) by launching the first
man into orbit &
to catch up to the USSR
orbiting the moon
NASA’s original seven NASA
Mercury astronauts
IX. The Eisenhower Presidency, 1953–
61 (cont.)
• Tolerate deficits:
– to pursue Cold War and
– cushion recessions (‘53–’54, ‘57–’58, ‘60–’61)
• In farewell, fear military-industrial complex
endanger democracy
• Military spending = 50% of 1959 budget
• Foreign policy take priority, post-1945:
– liberal Democrat/moderate Republican consensus
X. The Eisenhower Era
• Curb “Creeping Socialism” of the New Deal
• Balance the budget
• Reduce government influence in the economy
• Felt the government was overstepping itself and hurting
private enterprise
• Wanted to eliminate the TVA - Congress refused to do this
• “Modern Republicans”- conservative (money), liberal (human
beings)
• Created the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.
XI. The Affluent Society
• The Affluent Society – (1958) book by Harvard
economist John Kenneth Galbraith
• Post-World War II America - wealthy in the
private sector but remained poor in the public
sector
• Lack social and physical infrastructure
• Perpetuate income disparities
• Galbraith's popularizing of the term
"conventional wisdom".
XII. Consumer Culture
• Prosperity of the 50s was consumer driven.
• Consumerism – conformity, advertisement, household
appliances, cars, “Keep up with the Joneses”
• New Products: dishwashers, garbage disposals,
televisions, and stereos.
• National Crazes: Hula Hoop; Walt-Disney
XII. Consumer Culture
XIII. Suburbanization
• 18 million move, 1950-60 (Table 29.1)
• Whites move to:
– find affordable housing
– escape urban problems/newcomers
• Levitt pioneer assembly-line building
• USG help with easy credit (VA/ FHA)
• 1956 Highway Act:
– largest public works program in US history
– spur suburbs and economy
XIV. Creating a Middle Class Nation
• Suburbs:
– less divided by class/ethnicity/religion/region
• After trauma of Depression and WWII:
– consumption emphasis transforms culture
• Soaring GNP and per capita income:
– raise living standards for most (Figure 29.2)
• Most blue-collar workers prosper:
– labor-management cooperation
Fig. 29-2, p. 810
Suburbia
The Suburban Family
XV. The Sunbelt
(Map 29.1)
• Cities and suburbs of southern USA boom
• Defense plants/bases key to growth
– + agribusiness/recreation/oil
•
•
•
•
Weak unions, low taxes
Mild winters, AC
CA = most populous state by 1963
Universities:
– focus on military/USG research
– create new products (transistor)
Map 29-1, p. 812
XVI. New Middle Class Culture;
Whiteness
•
•
•
•
1956: more white collar than blue collar
1957: 60% of families middle class
Unskilled workers identify with middle class
because of immigration restrictions:
– most American-born
– 88% of European descent
• Suburbs = contact between whites of different
backgrounds, but not with non-whites
• Homogenous, white-focused culture:
– Map 29.2
– see their culture as “American”
Map 29-2, p. 820
Map 29-2a, p. 820
Map 29-2b, p. 820
XVII. Television and Culture
• Huge growth in ownership
• Advertising fund
• Celebrate:
– family togetherness (Leave It to Beaver)
– Consumption (46 million)
• Consumer debt increase:
– $5.7 billion (1945)
– $58 billion (1961)
• Affect religion (Graham)
TV
XVIII. Gender Roles in 1950s Families
• Women and men face narrow gender roles
• Society promote youth marriage:
– to prevent premarital sex
– 50% of brides under age 19
•
•
•
•
Most marry
Most want big families
Most households = 2-parent; few divorces
because of economy, a male worker can
support a middle-class family
• Spock encourage mothers to stay home
XIX. Women and Work;
“Crisis of Masculinity”
• Popular culture stress housewife ideal
• Number of working wives/mothers grow:
– Figure 29.3
– work to boost family income
– face job and pay discrimination
• Media:
– claim career women = imitation men
– white-collar work stifle male risk-taking
– criticize men who don’t marry by age 30
Fig. 29-3, p. 815
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•
XX. Sexuality;
The Youth Culture
Critics see Kinsey as attack on family ideal
Playboy challenge suburban sex rules
Music (rock n’ roll)
Movies (Rebel Without a Cause)
Link youth culture with consumerism
Adults:
– criticize youth
– fear Juvenile delinquency -1951  J. D. Salinger’s A Catcher in the Rye
• Music industry hide rock n’ roll’s black roots
Marlon
Brando
XXI. McCarthyism
• Hunt for communists start before McCarthy:
– Red Scare, 1919–20
•
•
•
•
•
Soviet espionage exist
HST and Ike overreact
Alarmist rhetoric to fund Cold War
Politicians red-bait opponents
1947, HST start firing “security risks”:
– for most, no evidence of disloyalty
• HUAC attack Hollywood
p. 805
In 1947, numerous Hollywood writers & executives
were investigated by HUAC; 500 were blacklisted
from the film industry & some were sent to prison
for refusing to testify (the “Hollywood Ten”)
XXI. McCarthyism (cont.)
• Dissenters lose jobs
• Hysteria weakens labor unions
• McCarthy = most successful red-baiter:
– guilt by association and lies
– manipulate media
• McCarthy = demagogue:
– exploit Cold War fears, esp. nuclear war
• Nixon and HUAC lead efforts against Hiss
• Internal Security Act (‘50) weaken CPUSA
• Communist Control Act (’54) ban CPUSA
XXII. Waning of McCarthyism
• Eventually go too far:
– claim Army communist (on TV, 1954)
– Senate censor him
• Many innocent victims
• Block discussion of ideas/ dissent
• Fear maintain Cold War consensus
XXIII. The Civil Rights Movement
in the 1940s
• Domestic racism interfere with Cold War:
– esp. propaganda and appeals to 3rd World
•
•
•
•
Post-WWII, blacks challenge racism
Whites (Hoover) red-bait activists
Black political power grow in urban north
HST need vote and upset by racial violence:
– Committee on Civil Rights (1946)
– desegregate USG/ military (1948)
XIII. Supreme Court Decisions
• NAACP challenge segregation:
– admission to professional and grad schools
• Brown v. BOE of Topeka (1954):
– “separate but equal has no place” in ed
– energize African American action/protest
– delay implementation in 1955
• Besides courts/laws, blacks:
– use grassroots protest
XXIV. Montgomery Bus Boycott
(1955–56)
• Protest city bus segregation
• Organized, non-violent, mass protest
• Economic pressure and Supreme Court
decision bring success
• Churches key in grassroots activism
• King organize SCLC (1957):
– coordinate growing protest
p. 808
XXV. White Resistance to Civil Rights
• KKK violence surge
• White Citizens’ Councils use economic
pressure
• South pass laws to resist Brown
• Race riots occur in northern cities
• Ike refuse to say he will enforce Brown
• Act in Little Rock, AR (1957–’58) because:
– state resist federal authority
– white mobs on TV
•“When I got in
front of the school .
. . I didn’t know what
to do . . . . Just
then the guards let
some white students
through. . . . I
walked up to the
guard who had let
[them] in. . . . When
I tried to squeeze
past him, he raised
his bayonet, and
then the other guard
moved in. . . .
Somebody [in the
crowd] started
yelling , ‘Lynch her!
Lynch her!’”
•Elizabeth
Eckford
XXVI. Critics;
Environmental Degradation
• Some criticize conformity/consumerism:
– but many want to live in suburbs
• Massive waste from:
– new designs (cars)
– throwaway products
• Most ignore:
– environmental damage from rapid growth
– air/water/ground pollution (DDT)
• Seeds of post-industrial service economy
XXVII. Poverty in an
Age of Abundance
• More than 20% poor
• Suburban whites oblivious
• Poor:
– elderly = ¼
– more than ⅓ under age of 18
– 20% = non-whites
– people of color = 12% of population
• 50% of African Americans poor
XXVII. Poverty in an
Age of Abundance (cont.)
• Many poor in cities:
– not benefit from interstates
– displaced by redevelopment
• Rural poverty continue:
– agribusinesses replace tenants/small farmers
– with migrant labor
• Native Americans = poorest group:
– termination increase poverty
– whites covert Indian land
p. 811
p. 811
p. 822
XXVIII. Preparation for Nuclear War
• National and local governments prepared citizens
for a Soviet nuclear attack on the United States
• Fallout Shelters
• Cities and schools practiced building evacuations
and “duck & cover” drills
Duck & Cover Video
Summary: Discuss Links to the World
and Legacy
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Barbie as link? An immigrant?
Why controversial from start?
Production in PRC?
Pledge of Allegiance as Cold War legacy?
1892 origin; Congress not adopt until 1942
1954: Congress add “under God”:
– to stress difference between USA and USSR
– symbol of Cold War loyalty to USA
• Controversy over “God” in pledge