16.1Truman and Eisenhower

Postwar America

Lesson Objectives

1. The students will be able to explain what the GI Bill did for veterans.

2. The students will be able to discuss what the Fair Deal was.

3. The students will be able to explain how Eisenhower and Truman's domestic policies differed.

A. GI Bill

1. Benefits paid out to veterans after returning from WWII

a. Education; partial pay of tuition

b. Unemployment benefits; one year

c. Low-interest loans

B. Economic Problems

1. Some inflation

-Labor unrest, strikes result

2. Congress attacks unions - Closed and union shops outlawed.

3. Truman vetoed these items, Congress passed them.

C. Truman's Fair Deal

1. Extension of FDR's New Deal

a. Expand Social Security

b. Raise min. wage

c. Public housing

d. National health care

2. Civil Right's Issues

a. Protect vote

b. Abolish poll tax

c. Lynching a fed. crime

d. Executive order against discrimination

i. In federal jobs and desegregate army.

D. Election of 1948

1. Democrats split

a. Truman

b. Strom Thurmond

c. Henry A. Wallace

2. Republicans

- Thomas Dewey

3. Dixiecrats

a. Southern Democrats who opposed Truman’s civil rights platform

b. Wanted to protect “the Southern way of life”

c. Southern states start to shift to Republicans

E. Successes and Failures of Truman

1. Passed

a. Minimum wage increase

b. Social Security

c. National Housing Act, 1949

2. Rejected

a. National health care

b. Money for farmers and school

c. Civil Right's legislation

F. Eisenhower Years

1. Wins 1952 election

2. “I like Ike” slogan

3. Republican House

4. Split Senate

G. Eisenhower in Office

1. Conservative

2. Cut federal spending

3. “Creeping socialism”

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H. Federal Highway Act

1. $25 billion for

10 years

a. 40,000 miles constructed

I. Extending Social Security

1. 10 million more people get SS

2. 4 mil. more get unemployment benefits

3. Increase in min. wage

4. Some aid to farmers