1950s

1. 1950s

2. House Un-American Activities Committee- it investigated alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part or private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having Communist ties.

3. Loyalty Review board 1947 • Check the background of Federal Government workers • Wanted to make sure that they were committed to the federal government and their country. • National Security Act 1947- This act mandated a major reorganization of the foreign policy and military establishments of the U.S. Government. The act created many of the institutions that Presidents found useful when formulating and implementing foreign policy, including the National Security Council. • National Security Council- A committee in the executive branch of government that advises the president on foreign and military and national security; supervises the Central Intelligence Agency • Department of Defense-The War Department and Navy Department merged into a single Department of Defense under the Secretary of Defense • CIA- grew out of World War II era office of strategic services and small post-war intelligence organizations. The CIA served as the primary civilian intelligence-gathering organization in the government.

4. Interstate Highway Act- Established an interstate highway system in the United States. The movement behind the construction of a transcontinental superhighway started in the 1930s when President Franklin D. Roosevelt expressed interest in the construction of a network of toll superhighways that would provide more jobs for people in need of work during the Great Depression. The resulting legislation was the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1938, which directed the chief of the Bureau of Public Roads to study the feasibility of a six-route network. But with America on the verge of joining the war in Europe, the time for a massive highway program had not arrived. Many towns and cities started to become more advanced with hotels popping up all over the place because of this act.

5. Trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg • Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were arrested and tried for espionage. They were accused of heading a spy ring that passed top-secret information concerning the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. The Rosenberg’s protested their innocence, but after a brief trial in March 1951 they were convicted. They were both executed and many feared that this could have lead to atomic war.

6. Beat movement-A group of American writers and artists popular in the 1950s and early 1960s, influenced by Eastern philosophy and religion and known especially for their use of nontraditional forms and their rejection of conventional social values. • American Dream- The ideals of freedom, equality, and opportunity traditionally held to be available to every American. A life of person happiness and material comfort as traditionally sought by individuals in the U.S. • Rock and Roll in the 50s- musicians were banned from television • crossed the racial gap • Elvis “King of Rock and Roll”