Lesson 2: The 1950’s
The Dwight D. Eisenhower (“Ike”)
Administration
1953-1961
Politics of Anticommunism
I. Introduction
• Modern Republicanism =
moderate Republicanism
• Dynamic/Progressive
Conservatism:
responding to Americans’
desire for stability
• Low-key, pragmatic nonideological style of
leadership
II. Eisenhower’s Dynamic Conservatism
Believing that traditional American values
encompassed change and progress
– 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:
Connecting major American cities…
• Financed entirely by increased gasoline taxes (cost
more than the New Deal from 1933-1941!!)
• Justified vis à vis conservative constituents as
needed escape routes in case of atomic bomb
Impact # 1
• Lots and Lots of jobs…
• Easier to vacation… Road trips…
• Disneyworld…
• Made suburbs practical
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
• Permanent War Economy
Aerospace, plastics, and electronics
High tech innovations resulted from military
spending
• Passenger jets & Computers
• Major shift in political power
B. St Lawrence Seaway
• Revolutionized the American transportation
system
• Opened the Great Lakes to ocean traffic
• Financed through selling of bonds by the U.S.
Canadian Seaway Development Corporation
C. The Middle Road
Balance the
Budget
Lower Taxes
End farm
supports
Keep Social
Legislation
End wage and
price controls
Federal Support of
Desegregation Rulings
Federal Aid to
Education
Conservatives under Ike concerned with:
• Declining religious sentiment
• Sexual freedom
• Civil Rights
• NAACP (National Association for the
Advancement of Colored Peoples)
• Brown v Board of Education 1954
+COMMUNISTS!!!
III. Cold War Paranoia and the
Scare
Civil Defense Poster
nd
2
Red
A. Fear of the Russians dropping the
Atomic Bomb
1. Bomb Shelters built
• People prepared
by building bomb
shelters in their
homes
2. Duck and Cover Drills in Schools: By-Product of
Hysteria
Duck and Cover Drills
3. Media
hype
feeding
paranoia
B. Fear of not Keeping up with the Russians
•Space Race
•1957 Sputnik
•NASA
•National Defense
and Education Act
(
spending on
math and science)
C. Anti-communism legislation
• Already Present under Truman
• National Security Act 1947
– Established the Department of Defense
– Created the CIA
• McCarran Internal Security Act 1950
• Passed over Truman’s Veto
• Communist organizations must register with the government
• Loyalty Program
• Truman issued an executive order for federal employees to
take a loyalty oath
D. 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
1. Alger Hiss Trial (1950)
•
•
•
•
Works for U.S. State Department
Instrumental in setting up the U.N.
Convicted 5 years for perjury (not treason)
Denounced by a former communist party
member
2. 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: Alger Hiss and the
Rosenbergs
Video: Killed for Believing in
Communism
3. 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
-June 1949What is the
Washington Post
cartoonist
portraying in his
drawing?
Conclusion
A. Eisenhower’s 1950’s Legacy of Peace
and Prosperity
“There is no alternative to peace.”
– Great political acumen; knew that casualness inspired
confidence
– 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)
– Ike worked easily with the Democrat majority in Congress
– Appointed Earl Warren to the Supreme Court who launched a
judicial revolution
– Launched the National Defense Education Act which introduced
the radical precedent of the federal gov’t directly funding
education
– Reduced military spending and balanced the federal budget!
B. Eisenhower Legacy – a bitter taste
– Middle of the road course, pleasing neither rightwingers nor liberals
– Accused by
liberals: failure to denounce McCarthy and racism
conservatives: not repealing fair and new deals
(Republicans in Congress blocked Health Care bill
(=socialism)
– 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
Homework
• Reading
– Preface to Eisenhower in War and Peace by Jean
Edward Smith (see blog)
– Why we fight Post-WWII (1 page)
– McCarthyism Reading (2 pages)