‘The American Century’
1940-60 GDP increased by 85%
Per capita disposable income rose by 37%
1945-1973: production of goods and services doubled
By 1960 US 6% of world’s population, but consuming 50% of world’s production

 The baby boom (1942-64)
 After war Americans begin to marry younger and create families at a younger age
 1950 Average marriage age 20.3
(women), 22 (men)
 After a century of declining birth rates we see an increase
 Why?
 Both Push and Pull Factors

Push
1) Peace and Prosperity
2) Fear - Prosperity may end (remember
Great Depression)
3) WWII - the women who had entered workforce during war are now replaced by returning men
4) Education - G.I.Bill (1944) democratizes education among white men women discouraged from education - men come with money
Non-whites often sent to technical schools

Pull
People want security and normalcy after the Great Depression and WWII
The idea of consumer culture takes hold
More is better
Spending on goods up 250% in 50s

Percentage of U.S. families owning specific items, by year
1920 1930 1970
Washing Machine 8 24 70
Mechanical Refrig. -
Vacuum Cleaner 9
8
30
99
92
By 1960 87% of families owned a TV

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G.I. Bill creates a new middle class 8 million strong
G.I. Bill or Serviceman’s readjustment act
Paid for college
Gave one year of unemployment pay
Provided, cheap, government secured loans for homes and business

Federal Housing Administration (FHA) cheap new housing but only in new suburbs
Didn’t look towards urban centers - often the poorer neighborhoods
Suburbs grow 40x as fast as cities

Levittown, Long
Island, 1947

Interstate Highway Act
(1956) largest ever public works program in US
1955: 8 million cars sold
By 1956 73% of families owned a car

Ray Kroc’s first
McDonald’s hamburger restaurant,
Des Plaines,
Illinois, 1955

Beat culture
1953 Alan Ginsberg produced “Howl” brought up on obscenity charges
1953 Playboy first published
All these changes are white based

In 1959 Teenagers spent
$20m on lipstick,
$25m on deodorant,
$75m on “pop” singles
Rebels without Causes

1953
1955

July 1954 records ‘That’s alright Mama’
Nov 1955 signs for RCA
1956 ‘Heartbreak Hotel’
No.1 for 8 Weeks (his songs filled the slot for 25 weeks in 1956, and again in 1957)
1956 TV appearances
1957 Drafted into army

WWII - a “hot war” - i.e. Military action
Ideological conflict that developed between
USA and USSR a “cold war” - i.e. No direct military confrontation between the two super powers

America showed its strength as it dropped two nuclear bombs on
Japan
Recognizing the threat that this posed to its system of government the USSR and others began working on their own weapons
1949 - 4 years after Hiroshima
USSR has bomb

Post WWII president Truman put in place various programs to strengthen his own position
- with regard to communism
Set up a federal loyalty program
Increases funding to FBI
Attorney general asked to draw up list of threatening people

Although the catalyst for this speech was the crisis in Greece and Turkey,
Truman and his advisors seized the opportunity to delineate their broader concept of the postwar world and
America's obligations.
By pledging to resist Communism anywhere and everywhere, Truman established a dangerous precedent.

1950
June 25 North Korea invades south Korea
UN Security Council demands NK stop its attack and return to its borders
June 30 President Truman commits US
Troops to enforce UN demand
October 14 China's support of North Korea begins
February 1 UN resolution to end the Korean
War
1953 July 27 Cease-fire signed.

June 25, 1950 - July 27, 1953
54,246 Americans, died during the Korean War.
228,000 South Korean soldiers and untold numbers of civilians
American estimates of enemy casualties, including prisoners, exceed 1,500,000, of which 900,000, almost two-thirds, were Chinese.

The House Committee on Un-American
Activities
Set up in 1938 to look at subversive activities
Republicans get control of House of
Representatives in 1946
Becomes focussed on Communists

Unknown Republican senator from
Wisconsin claims that
President Truman
FDR
New Deal are all communist

Wheeling West Virginia Feb 9 th 1950
Claimed to have a list of names of communists who had infiltrated the State Department
Claimed that Owen Latimore of Johns Hopkins was the ring leader
Proved to be a fraudulent claim
McCarthy responded by pointing to new names
The number of names on the list varied from 57 to 205 no one ever saw the list

McCarthy’s wild claims are believed or at least listened to because of the fear of nuclear war
The fears of the external threat are brought home
McCarthy was a very aggressive and Politically aware politician
Made use of TV to promote his message
You are either with us or against us
Accusation alone could destroy a life

Early on McCarthy began to focus on the entertainment industry and Hollywood in particular
Why?
There were communists in Hollywood
There were exiles from Fascist Europe

But, there were Communist elsewhere e.g. Communists led Unions
Did not get as much attention
Why?
Hollywood brings more attention and has its own publicity department
Higher exposure for McCarthy

1947 1st subpoenas issued against Hollywood
Congress cited ten screenwriters for contempt.
Produces meeting at the Waldorf Astoria hotel days later signaled their capitulation to the investigators by announcing that
"no Communists or other subversives will be employed by
Hollywood."

An appeal by the "Hollywood Ten" was turned down and by mid-1950 most of them had begun to serve one-year terms in prison
Spies
Black list produced

The blacklist mentality spread elsewhere
15,000 Federal employees resigned
20% of Longshoremen in San Francisco
13 million Americans within range of the screening tests (20% of population)

1953 Executive order 10450
Tightens up Truman’s
Security Acts
Revises loyalty oath
Becomes more difficult to prove you are not a communist

Homosexuality become focus and reason for exclusion
By 1950s anti-semitism was reducing - due in part to the horrors of WWII
But Jews were major victims of attacks

One of the Manhattan Project scientists working in
Los Alamos was a British physicist named Klaus
Fuchs.
Twice in 1945 Fuchs met with a Soviet agent named Raymond and provided notes on the working design for the atomic bomb.
Link to middle-aged chemist, Harry Gold
Link to David Greenglass machinist-soldier stationed in Los Alamos .
In his first interview, Greenglass admitted that he had passed information to Gold.
Also identified his wife, Ruth, and his brother-inlaw, Julius Rosenberg, as participants in the
Soviet spy ring.

June 19, 1953: Julius and Ethel
Rosenberg are executed
2001: David
Greenglass admits that the trial testimony concerning Ethel
Rosenberg's role in the conspiracy was perjured.

McCarthy’s power as head of HUAC was immense and could not be ignored
(Both Nixon and JFK launched careers as anti-communists)
Eventually power goes to McCarthy’s head and he oversteps his mark
McCarthy begins to attack the Army
Formally condemned by Senate in 1954