I. Under Eisenhower Skies

II. The Golden Age

A. The Golden Age 1. After the war, the American economy enjoyed remarkable growth 2. Numerous innovations came into widespread use during these years,

transforming Americans’ daily lives

B. A Changing Economy 1. The Cold War fueled industrial production and promoted a

redistribution of the nation’s population and economic resources 2. Since the 1950s, the American economy has shifted away from

manufacturing3. The number of farms had declined since the 1950s, but production

increased a. The center of gravity of American farming shifted decisively to Texas,

Arizona, and especially California

II. The Golden Age (con’t)

D. A Consumer Culture 1. In a consumer culture, the measure of freedom became the ability to gratify

market desires 2. Americans became comfortable living in never-ending debt, once seen as a

loss of economic freedom 3. Consumer culture demonstrated the superiority of the American way of life

to communism

E. The TV World 1. Television replaced newspapers as the most common source of information

about public events and provided Americans of all regions and backgrounds with a common cultural experience

2. TV avoided controversy and projected a bland image of middle-class life 3. Television also became the most effective advertising medium ever

invented

fig24_20.jpgDo I even need to say who this is?

Figure 24.1 • pg. 941

II. The Golden Age (con’t)

C. The Growth of Suburbia 1. The main engines of economic growth during the 1950s were

residential construction and spending on consumer goods2. The dream of home ownership came within reach of the

majority of Americans a. Levittown

3. California became the most prominent symbol of the postwar suburban boom

4. Western cities were decentralized clusters of single-family homes and businesses united by a web of highways

fig24_03.jpg

Levittown, New York, perhaps the nation’s most famous suburban community, photographed in 1954. Eventually, home owners would make individualized changes to their houses, so today Levittown looks far less uniform than when it was built.

II. The Golden Age (con’t)

F. A New Ford 1. Along with a home and television set, the car became

part of what sociologists called “the standard consumer package” of the 1950s

2. Auto manufacturers and oil companies vaulted to the top ranks of corporate America

3. The automobile transformed the nation’s daily life

The Interstate Highway System • pg. 953

The Interstate Highway System

Residents of Los Angeles don gas masks at a 1954 luncheon to protest the government’s failure to combat the air pollution, or “smog,” that hung over the city.

II. The Golden Age (con’t)

G. The Female Sphere 1. After 1945, women lost most of the industrial jobs they had

performed during the war 2. By the mid-1950s women were working again, but the nature

and aims of women’s work had changed 3. Women were expected to get married, have children, and stay at

home a. Baby boom

H. The Cold War Family 1. The family also became a weapon in the Cold War

a. Feminism seemed to have disappeared from American life

Figure 24.2 • pg. 944

Maybe modern motherhood isn’t so idyllic after all.

But with a kitchen like this it must be worth it!!

II. The Golden Age (con’t)

I. A Segregated Landscape 1. The suburbs remained segregated communities

J. Building Segregation 1. During the postwar suburban boom, federal agencies continued

to insure mortgages that barred resale of houses to non-whites, thereby financing housing segregation

2. A Housing Act passed by Congress in 1949 authorized the construction of over 800,000 units of public housing in order to provide a “decent home for every American family”

3. Suburbanization hardened the racial lines of division in American life

a. Seven million whites left the cities for the suburbs while three million blacks moved into cities

b. Puerto Ricans

II. The Golden Age (con’t)

K. The Divided Society 1. The process of racial exclusion became self-reinforcing

a. Whites viewed urban ghettos as places of crime, poverty, and welfare

b. “Blockbusting” 2. Suburban home ownership long remained a white entitlement

L. The End of Ideology 1. To many observers in the 1950s it seemed that the ills of

American society had been solved a. If problems remained, their solution required technical

adjustments, not structural chance or aggressive political intervention

II. The Golden Age (con’t)

M. Protestant-Catholic-Jew 1. There emerged a new “Judeo-Christian” heritage, a notion that

became central to the cultural and political dialogue of the 1950s

2. The idea of a unified Judeo-Christian tradition reflected the decline of anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism in the wake of World War II

a. Secularization

N. Selling Free Enterprise 1. More than political democracy or freedom of speech, an

economic system resting on private ownership united the nations of the Free World

2. The “selling of free enterprise” became a major industry a. The Advertising Council

II. The Golden Age (con’t)

O. “People’s Capitalism” 1. Until well into the twentieth century, most ordinary

Americans had been deeply suspicious of big business

2. Large-scale production was not only necessary to fighting the Cold War, it enhanced freedom by multiplying consumer goods

a. Stock market

III. The Eisenhower Era A. Ike and Nixon

1. General Dwight Eisenhower ran for president in 1952 2. Richard Nixon ran as his vice president

a. Nixon gained a reputation for opportunism and dishonesty

B. The 1952 Campaign 1. Nixon’s “Checkers speech” rescued his political career

a. It illustrated the importance of TV in politics 2. Eisenhower’s popularity and promises to end the Korean

conflict brought him victory in 1952

The Presidential Election of 1952 • pg. 952

The Presidential Election of 1952

III. The Eisenhower Era (con’t)3. During the 1950s, voters at home and abroad seemed to find

reassurance in selecting familiar, elderly leaders to govern them C. Modern Republicanism

1. Wealthy businessmen dominated Eisenhower’s cabineta. Eisenhower refused to roll back the New Deal

2. Modern Republicanism aimed to sever the Republican Party’s identification in the minds of many Americans with Herbert Hoover, the Great Depression, and indifference to the economic conditions of ordinary citizens

a. Core New Deal programs expanded

III. The Eisenhower Era (con’t)

3. Government spending was used to promote productivity and boost employment

a. Interstate Highway Act b. National Defense Education Act

D. The Social Contract 1. The 1950s witnessed an easing of the labor conflict of the two

previous decades a. AFL and CIO merged in 1955 b. Social contract

2. Unionized workers shared fully in 1950s prosperity

III. The Eisenhower Era (con’t)

E. Mass Society and Its Critics 1. Some intellectuals wondered whether the celebration of

affluence and the either-or mentality of the Cold War obscured the extent to which the United States itself fell short of the ideal of freedom

a. Hans J. Morgenthau b. C. Wright Mills

2. One strand of social analysis in the 1950s contended that Americans did not enjoy genuine freedom

a. David Riesman’s The Lonely Crowd

III. The Eisenhower Era (con’t)

3. Some commentators feared that the Russians had demonstrated a greater ability to sacrifice for common public goals than Americans

a. John Kenneth Galbraith’s The Affluent Society b. William Whyte’s The Organization Man

F. Rebels Without a Cause 1. The emergence of a popular culture geared to the

emerging youth market suggested that significant generational tensions lay beneath the bland surface of 1950s life

III. The Eisenhower Era (con’t)2. Cultural life during the 1950s seemed far more daring

than politics a. Rock and roll b. Playboy

G. The Beats 1. The Beats were a small group of poets and writers

who railed against mainstream culture 2. Rejecting the work ethic, the “desperate materialism”

of the suburban middle class, and the militarization of American life by the Cold War, the Beats celebrated impulsive action, immediate pleasure, and sexual experimentation

A Beat coffeehouse in San Francisco, photographed in 1958, where poets, artists, and others who rejected 1950s mainstream culture gathered.

IV. The Freedom Movement

A. Origins of the Movement 1. The causes of the civil rights movement were many

B. Separate and Unequal 1. The United States in the 1950s was still a segregated,

unequal society 2. Few white Americans felt any urgency about

confronting racial inequality

IV. The Freedom Movement (con’t)

C. The Legal Assault of Segregation 1. It fell to the courts to confront the problem of racial

segregation a. League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)b. Earl Warren

2. For years, the NAACP, under the leadership of attorney Thurgood Marshall, had pressed legal challenges to the “separate but equal” doctrine laid down by the Supreme Court in 1896 in Plessy v. Ferguson

IV. The Freedom Movement (con’t)

D. Brown v. Board of Education 1. Marshall brought the NAACP’s support to local cases that had

arisen when black parents challenged unfair school policies

E. Warren’s Decision 1. Marshall argued that segregation did lifelong damage to black

children, undermining their self-esteem 2. Earl Warren managed to create unanimity on a divided Court,

some of whose members disliked segregation but feared that a decision to outlaw it would spark widespread violence

3. The black press hailed the Brown decision as a “second Emancipation Proclamation”

IV. The Freedom Movement (con’t)

F. The Montgomery Boycott 1. Brown ensured that when the movement

resumed after waning in the early 1950s it would have the backing of the federal courts

a. Rosa Parks b. Bus boycott succeeds after 11 months

IV. The Freedom Movement (con’t)

H. The Leadership of King 1. In King’s soaring oratory, the protesters’ understandings of

freedom fused into a coherent whole2. A master at appealing to the deep sense of injustice among

blacks and to the conscience of white America, King presented the case for black rights in a vocabulary that merged the black experience with that of the nation

3. Echoing Christian themes derived from his training in the black church, King’s speeches resonated deeply in both black communities and the broader culture

IV. The Freedom Movement (con’t)

I. Massive Resistance 1. In 1956 King formed the Southern Christian

Leadership Conference 2. In 1956 many southern congressmen and senators

signed a Southern Manifesto J. Eisenhower and Civil Rights

1. The federal government tried to remain aloof from the black struggle

a. President Eisenhower failed to provide moral leadership

IV. The Freedom Movement (con’t)

2. In 1957 Governor Orville Faubus of Arkansas used the National Guard to prevent the court-ordered integration of Little Rock’s Central High School

a. Eisenhower federalizes National Guard and soldiers literally escort students from class to class throughout the school year

fig24_24.jpg

fig24_25.jpg

Litle Rock’s Central High School with federal troops escorting the “Little Rock 9” students into school for the first time.

V. The Election of 1960 A. The Nomination of Kennedy

1. The presidential campaign of 1960 turned out to be one of the closest in American history

2. John F. Kennedy was a Catholic and the youngest presidential candidate in history

B. Kennedy’s Election 1. Both Kennedy and Nixon were ardent Cold Warriors

a. Missile gap – Ike (and Nixon) had allowed Soviets to get ahead in nuclear missile/warhead production (untrue)

b. Television debate – JFK is telegenic= victory, but radio listeners call it a draw or say Nixon won

2. Eisenhower’s Farewell Address warned against the drumbeat of calls for a new military buildup

a. Military-industrial complex – defense contractors would push for more spending and want Cold War tensions high

fig24_27.jpg

Kennedy and Nixon shake hands before the first televised presidential debates in American history.

fig24_26.jpgJohn and Jackie looking cool at Hyannisport.

The Presidential Election of 1960