Lesson 2: The 1950’s
The Eisenhower Administration
1953-1961
Politics of Anticommunism
Introduction
• Modern Republicanism
• Dynamic Conservatism:
responding to Americans’
desire for stability
• Low-key, pragmatic nonideological style of
leadership
I. Eisenhower’s Dynamic Conservatism
• Department of health
• Department of Education and Social Welfare
• Interstate highway system: 41,000 miles of
new highways (largest public works project in
American history)
A. Interstate Highway System
• Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway Act of 1956:
Connect major American cities…
• Impact # 1
• Lots and Lots of jobs…
• Easier to vacation… Road trips…
• Disneyworld…
• Makes suburbs practical
I. Dynamic Conservatism
Impact # 2 Migrating to the Sunbelt
• Sunbelt States: states in the south and west
• During the 1950’s Americans began to flock to
these states
Air Conditioning
Lots of Jobs in South
• Oil, Space, and Defense Industries
• Major shift in political
power
I. Dynamic Conservatism
B. The Middle Road
Lower Taxes
End farm
supports
End wage and
price controls
Balance the
Budget
Keep Social
Legislation
II. Cold War Paranoia and the
Scare
Civil Defense Poster
nd
2
Red
II. Cold War Paranoia and the 2nd Red
Scare
• People prepared
by building bomb
shelters in their
homes
Bomb Shelters
Duck and Cover Drills in Schools: By-Product of Hysteria
Duck and Cover Drills
II. Cold War Paranoia and the 2nd Red Scare
What if
you
were
outside?
II. Cold War Paranoia and the 2nd Red Scare
• Fear of not Keeping
up with the Russians
• Space Race
• 1957 Sputnik
• NASA
• National Defense and
Education Act
(
spending on
math and science)
II. Cold War Paranoia and the 2nd Red Scare
• Conservatives were also
concerned with:
• Declining religious sentiment
• Sexual freedom
• Civil Rights
II. Cold War Paranoia and the 2nd Red Scare
• Alger Hiss Trial
• Convicted 5 years for perjury
• Video: Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs 2’28
II.Cold War Paranoia and the 2nd Red Scare
• Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (1951)
• Convicted of giving atomic secrets to the
Soviets
• Convicted of Treason and Executed!!!
• Guilt not proved until the 1990’s
Video: Killed for Believing in
Communism 0 – 5’03
II.Cold War Paranoia and the 2nd Red Scare
•HUAC (House Un-American Activities
Committee)
•went after Hollywood writers and directors who
were suspected of being Communists
•Richard Nixon led the investigations
• Hollywood Ten: refused
to answer questions
(5th Amendment)
Blacklisted
II. Cold War Paranoia and the 2nd Red
Scare
• McCarthyism
• Junior Senator from Wisconsin claimed
to have a list of Communists in the gov’t
• Went after people he suspected of being
Communist
• Made America even more paranoid
• When accused the US Army, lost his
credibility
• Eisenhower and others stayed out of
his way
• Video: Better Dead than Red 6’
-June 1949What is the
Washington Post
cartoonist
portraying in his
drawing?
Conclusion
A. 1950’s Economic Boom and Prosperity
– G.I. Bill enabled millions of vets to attend college,
start businesses, buy homes
– Election of 1952: Ended first phase of post-war
era, ending period of Democratic Presidents in
office (FDR, Truman)
Conclusion
B. Eisenhower Legacy
– Middle of the road course, pleasing neither rightwingers nor liberals
liberals: failure to denounce McCarthy and racism
conservatives: not repealing fair and new deals
(Republicans in Congress blocked Health Care bill
(=socialism)
Conclusion
– Left office warning countrymen of the growing
influence of military-industrial complex over US
society
– Anti-communism rhetoric silenced dissenters and
weakened democratic liberalism
• Video: Happy Daze 0 – 21’20