Chapter 30: The 1950s: Affluence and Anxiety in an atomic age

A People of Plenty

• Postwar prosperity

• Brief recession in 1945… 1946 the economy began to thrive

• U.S. produce ⅔ of world goods

• Minority did not share equally

• 1950s black average of 4x their 1940 wage and life expectancy increases by 10 years

• WWII and Korean War

• Government spending and military tech

• Productivity

• lack of competition

• Carefree consumption

• Credit cards (1949)

• “throwaway “ culture

• Consumer Culture

• New houses → appliances

• TV dinners

• Television

• George Meany (AFL-CIO), “American labor never had it so good”

• Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 (GI Bill)

• Allowed veterans to go to college and take a loan to buy a house

• Only for whites

• Baby boom

• 76 million people were born, peak in 1957

• 16 million veterans return home

• Migration

• Suburbs and sunbelt

• Fed and state taxes favored homeowners

• Car Culture

• African-Americans’ more north

• Mexicans benefit from the GI Bill and move to serve in the U.S.

A Conformist Culture

• Conformity

• More white collars than blue collars

• Women in the homes

Cracks in the Picture Window

• Idyllic?

• Norman Mailer (Writer), “worst decade”

• Challenged moral complacency and bland conformity

• The Affluent Society (1958) by John Kenneth Galbraith attacked the economic prosperity due to social problems

• John Updike → Rabbit, Run (1961)

• Ralph Ellison → The Invisible Man (1952) explained the lonely individual imprisoned in privacy

• Abstract paintings like Jackson Pollock (Jack the Dripper)

• The Beats → Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and others

• Rock n roll → Alan Freed coined the name in 1951

• Elvis Presley → Heartbreak Hotel

• Not favored by Catholics or adults

Moderate Republicanism - The Eisenhower Years

• Eisenhower

• “Ike”

• Organizational and diplomatic abilities in coordinating the Allied invasion of Nazi-controlled Europe

• Bumper stickers read “I like Ike”

• Republican

• Peace in Korea and clean up the government

• 34 million votes to Stevenson 27million or 422 to 89 electoral votes

• Republicans won control of the house and senate was 50/50 + the vice president

• Professional soldier

• “The less he does, the more they love him”

• Conservatism

• Dynamic conservatism

• Conservative ⇒ money and liberal ⇒ human beings

• Restore power to the states

• Expanded New Deal programs

• Social Security Act in 1954 and 1956 expanded coverage

• St. Lawrence Seaway → opened the Great Lakes for commerce

• Interstate highway system → Federal-Aid Highway Act (1956), 25 years to construct a massive interstate highway system

• Red scare

• Joseph R. McCarthy to find communist spies in the federal government

• Died of alcohol abuse

The Early Years of the Civil Rights Movement

• Civil Rights

• Eisenhower was committed to the civil rights issue

• First African-American to executive office → E. Frederic Morrow ⇒ Administrative officer for special projects

• Eisenhower’s philosophies

• 1. State/local action > federal action

• 2. Doubt loans could change racist attitudes

• Civil Rights was led by the judiciary branch > executive or legislative branch

• Sweatt v Painter → separate black law schools in Texas are not the same quality as white schools

• Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas → segregated schools

• (17 May 1954) Chief Justice Warren wrote “separate but equal” has no place in public education

• Eisenhower fails to endorse desegregation of schools

• “Massive Resistance” (~Virginia’s Harry F. Byrd) accuses Broan case as abuse of judiciary power

• Montgomery, Alabama

• (1 December 1955) 42 years old Rosa Parks gets arrested for not giving up her seat on a bus

• Bus boycotts

• Martin Luther King Jr. is a brave and charismatic leader

• “Weapon of love” ~ MLK

• 381 days long boycott

• Civil Rights Act of 1957 → Civil Rights Commission and a New Civil Rights division in the Justice Department to prevent voting interference

• Civil Rights Act of 1960

• Little Rock, Arkansas

• Governor Orval Faubus caused Central High School to close to prevent African-American students

• Eisenhower sends troops to protect students

Foreign Policy in the 1950s

• Dulles

• John Foster Dulles

• Roll back communism

• Believed the U.S. must lead the world

• Liberation, massive retaliation using the threat of nuclear warfare

• Department of Defense cut troops

• Hungary

• Hydrogen bomb → 720x stronger than the 2 atomic bombs used on Japan combined

Foreign Interventions

• U.S. intervention

• CIA → Central Intelligence Agency

• Allen Welsh Dulles → head of CIA

• Iran → Mohammed Mossadegh

• Guatemala → Colonel Jacobo Arbenz Guzman

• U.S. over throw government suspected of communism

• Vietnam → Ho Chi Minh

• Dien Bien Phu → failed French attempt to take back Vietnam, 17th parallel, Viet Cong

Reelection and Foreign Crisis

• Hungary and Suez

• Hungary → revolt against Budapest, Soviets send troops

• Suez → King Farouk of Egypt tries to defeat Israel causing trouble over the Suez Canal

• Sputnik: U.S.S.R. sends Sputnik into orbit ⇒ fear

Festering Problems Abroad

• Eisenhower Doctrine: will assist Arab nations if communists attack militaristically

• Issues Abroad

• West Berlin cut off

• Berlin airlifts

• “Iron Curtain” ~ Churchill

• U-2 Summit → Spying planes

• Casto’s Cuba

Chapter 31