America in the 1950s

Images and sounds of the era

End of World War II

12 Million Gis return home for jobs, homes, family

The alliance with Russia ends and the Cold War begins

The Baby Boom

The New Prosperity

The impact of Television

Rosie the Riveter

Higher WagesJobs in war industries meant 40-50% higher wages for women and created large savings to be used in postwar demand.

Women and the Work Force

From 1940 to 1945, women had come to make up 36% of the work force

Nearly 5 million worked in industrial jobs

Three million left those jobs in 1945-46, and the numbers dropped further in 1947-48

By late 1950s, 75% of working women had “female jobs” – secretarial, nursing, etc.

Russian allies aided by American Lend-lease program

Russia had suffered highest losses of the war – 20 million deaths and much of its industry destroyed. But it had the largest army in Europe.

Losses

StalinUS news had tried to reassure readers that Stalin was like a “kindly uncle” to the Russian people – he executed 3-5 million Russians during the war.

Russian Bloc in Eastern Europe

POLAND

RUSSIA

ROUMANIA

YUGO.

In response to the Russian domination of Poland, President Truman cut of aid to Russia and invited Churchill to the U.S., to warn Americans that an “iron curtain” was falling over eastern Europe. The Cold War was on.

“Iron Curtain”

Baby Boom

Levittown – prototype for suburbia

Open, modern style

Children as Adults

Television

•In 1950, only 10% of American families had television sets

•Over 60% had sets by 1954

Early Television

•Early television was dominated by sports (especially boxing), wrestling, comedies and variety shows

•Some special shows included Captain Video (left) and “The Goldbergs”

Comedy•Ernie Kovacs’ comedy show was a forerunner to “Second City TV” and “SNL” – inspired “shock” comedians like Lennie Bruce and George Carlin

Race and TV•Amos ‘n Andy, easily the most controversial show on TV, was pulled in 1953 after 2 years on the air.

Civil Rights in Wartime

Civil Rights FEPC

The Fair Employment Practice Commission was established in 1942 to ensure that African Americans could receive jobs in war industries

1 million African Americans moved to northern states during the war for better employment

Army Service in WWII

“White Flight” to Suburbs

While millions of white families obtained GI or FHA loans for suburban homes, blacks were often “screened out” of the process

Local banks generally refused loans to blacks if they wished to live a new suburban neighborhood

Homes in urban centers were cheaply bought, divided into smaller units and rented to black families at 10-25% higher rents

Southern states remained strictly segregated

Parting the Waters

By the early 1950s, the US military had been desegregated

Segregated facilities had ceased to exist in most states that had not been part of the Civil War-era Confederacy

Segregation in the “Old South” was well-entrenched; even though national public opinion favored desegregation, this would not occur peacefully

Martin Luther King

In 1954, Martin Luther King became a pastor in Montgomery Alabama. Twenty-nine years old, King was determined to begin ending segregation in Alabama.

Freedom Riders

1955 – King leads a boycott of the Montgomery bus system

National Publicity1955 – Rosa Parks arrested in Montgomery for refusing to sit “in the back of the bus.”

Civil Rights and Television

Television played a major role in the civil rights movement from the beginning (left --camera crew in 1963 covering King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington

Television Entertainment

Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz pioneered the 3-camera studio set that became the standard for most television recording until the 1970s

Breaking into the Act

“I Love Lucy” was so popular that Lucille Ball’s real-life pregnancy was written into the show – TV never showed pregnant women on the air until then (and seldom did again until the 1960s).

The “family of four” (or five) was the standard focus of most situation comedies on 1950s television. “Mom” always stayed at home.

Television and the Family

The Suppressed Fear

Russia detonates an atomic bomb in August 1949. U.S. responds by developing H-bomb, NATO, giving atomic secrets to Britain

Russia tests hydrogen bombs in August 1953. U.S. concludes spies have stolen atomic secrets.

The Red Scare

Alger Hiss (left); Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (right)

Television and Communism

The Goldberg’s, an unusual sitcom about a Jewish family, did well from 1949 to 1951, when Philip Loeb (left) was “blacklisted” from show business for “pro-communist” sympathies. The show died soon after he did.

“Red Channels”

After star Edward G. Robinson was threatened because he had given a donation to a “communist front” group, he published “How the Reds Made a Sucker Out of Me” as an apology.

Joe McCarthy’s fame as “America’s number one commie hunter” was made by newspapers – in 1954, he was ruined by television

Joe McCarthy

Parody

In 1974, Sam Eagle (of The Muppet Show) parodied McCarthy by announcing “I have a list” of the so-called “endangered species” in America – including the Bald Eagle.

Critics of Middle-Class Culture

Lenny Bruce used comedy to challenge Americans to recognize racism, challenge complacency, and reject long-held taboos in the arts.

“The White Negro”In essays like “Jazz and America,” and “The White Negro,” Norman Mailer wanted readers to see that insecurity underlay much of American culture in the 1950s.

Jack Kerouac

Kerouac rejected both liberalism and conservatism, saying that the only Marxism that made sense to him was “Harpo Marxism.”