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Cold War America. AP United States History Unit 9. Election of 1948. Election of 1948. McCarthyism. Second Red Scare. FDR’s Statement on Signing G.I. Bill (1944 ). This bill, which I have signed today, substantially carries out most of [my] recommendations…
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Cold War America AP United States History Unit 9
FDR’s Statement on Signing G.I. Bill (1944 ) This bill, which I have signed today, substantially carries out most of [my] recommendations… 1. It gives servicemen and women the opportunity of resuming their education or technical training after discharge, or of taking a refresher or retrainer course, not only without tuition charge up to $500 per school year, but with the right to receive a monthly living allowance while pursuing their studies. 2. It makes provision for the guarantee by the Federal Government of not to exceed 50 percent of certain loans made to veterans for the purchase or construction of homes, farms, and business properties.
A Critic of Suburbanization Levittown – a New York town that was the first mass-produced suburb and is considered typical of 1950s suburbia – was “a multitude of uniform, unidentifiable houses, lined up inflexibly, at uniform distances on uniform roads, in a treeless command waste, inhabited by people of the same class, the same incomes, the same age group, witnessing the same television performances, eating the same tasteless, prefabricated foods, from the same freezers, conforming in every outward and inward respect to a common mold….” -- Lewis Mumford, The City in History, Its Origins, Its Transformation, and Its Prospects
A Defense of Suburbanization “Those who lambasted suburbia…tended to ignore several basic facts: the boom in building energized important sectors of the economy, providing a good deal of employment; it lessened the housing shortage that had diminished the lives of millions during the Depression and war; and it enabled people to enjoy conveniences, such as modern bathrooms and kitchens, that they had not before….[Suburbanites] often worked hard to keep up their properties and to bring personal touches to their homes….Many suburbanites also took pride in the community life that evolved around schools, churches, and other institutions….Above all, millions of suburbanites were delighted to have space—a profound human need—and to own property.” -- James Patterson, Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945—1974
1950s Television The Donna Reed Show1958-1966 Leave It to Beaver1957-1963 Father Knows Best1954-1958 The Ozzie & Harriet Show1952-1966
1950s Television Truth, Justice, and the American Way
Consumerism and Credit All babies were potential consumers who spearheaded a brand-new market for food, clothing, and shelter. -- Life Magazine (May, 1958)
Rejecting Conformity Sloan Wilson’s The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1955) David Riesman’s The Lonely Crowd (1950) William Whyte, Jr.’s The Organization Man (1950)
1950s Religious Revival Church Membership 1940 – 64 million 1960 – 114 million • Prominent Ministers • Billy Graham • Norman Vincent Peale • Oral Roberts It’s un-American to be un-religious! -- The Christian Century, 1954
Cycle of Religiosity Great Awakening (1730s-1740s) 2GA (1800s-1840s) Social Gospel/ Fundamentalism (1890s-1920s) “Religious Right” (1980s-) Puritanism (1600s) Cold War (1950s) Half-Way Covenant (1660s) Revolution/ Enlightenment (1760s-1800) Civil War/ Industry/ WWI (1860s-1910s) Depression/ WWII (1930s-1940s) Counterculture (1960s-1970s) “Is God Dead?” (1966)
1950s Gender Roles The ideal modern woman married, cooked and cared for her family, and kept herself busy by joining the local PTA and leading a troop of Campfire Girls. She entertained guests in her family’s suburban house and worked out on the trampoline to keep her size 12 figure.-- Life magazine, 1956 The ideal 1950s man was the provider, protector, and the boss of the house. -- Life magazine, 1955
Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the twentieth century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night – she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question – “Is this all?”
The “Kitchen Debate” Kitchen Debate, 1959 (2:29)
The postwar era witnessed tremendous economic growth and rising social contentment and conformity. Yet in the midst of such increasing affluence and comfortable domesticity, social critics expressed a growing sense of unease with American culture in the 1950s. Assess the validity of the above statement and explain how the decade of the 1950s laid the groundwork for the social and political turbulence of the 1960s.
Civil Rights and the “Second” Reconstruction • What were the failures/shortcomings of the “first” Reconstruction? • Political? Economic? Social? • What factors made the “second” Reconstruction (Civil Rights Movement) possible in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s? [Think causes] • How did the Civil Rights Movement address the failures of Reconstruction? • Political? Economic? Social?
