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The Cold War

The Cold War. Through the Picture Window: Society and Culture, 1945-1960. “This is a dream era, this is what every one was waiting through the blackouts for. The Great American Boom is on.” –Fortune magazine, 1946. A New World Power. People of Plenty. PROSPERITY!

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The Cold War

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  1. The Cold War Through the Picture Window: Society and Culture, 1945-1960

  2. “This is a dream era, this is what every one was waiting through the blackouts for. The Great American Boom is on.” –Fortune magazine, 1946 A New World Power

  3. People of Plenty • PROSPERITY! • Poverty still high among rural poor, urban minorities • Consumer good production up • Why? • Gov. spending for military needs  end of GD • Cold war tensions  gov. spending in defense  new industries (chemicals, electronics, aviation) • Wartime devastation to other industrial powers • Automation of the workplace  increased productivity • PENT-UP CONSUMER DEMAND

  4. The GI Bill • Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 •  creation of Veteran’s Administration • Unemployment pay, preference for gov. jobs, loans, access to healthcare, EDU • 1944-1956 • 8 million vets, $14.5 billion – college, training programs • 5 million vets – homes • Social result? • Most educated workforce in world, working class have opportunity for college degree  lever into middle class • No broken racial barriers • Segregated colleges/universities

  5. The Baby Boom • Why the boom? • Return from war, end of depression • 1946 – 1964 = 76 million births • Impact? • High demand • Diapers, toys, houses, furniture, medicine, schools, books • Raised during 50s-60s = US prosperity, expansion abroad • Adults in 70s = energy crises, inflation, diminished nat’lpresitge • Enter in time of prosperity, leave in time of debt

  6. It seems to me that every other young housewife I see is pregnant. -- British visitor to America, 1958 1957  1 baby born every 7 seconds

  7. Dr. Benjamin Spockand the Anderson Quintuplets

  8. The Expanding Consumer Culture • Baby boom + construction boom  homeowners up 50% • Demand for newer technology = household appliances • Refrigerators, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, ELECTRIC. . . • Television • ‘46- 7k black & white sets  ‘60- 50 million high-quality  ‘70- 38% color • TV Guide in 50s • Overtook radio as daily activity • TV will make the US “ a more democratic, more progressive, more closely knit community.”

  9. 1950  Introduction of the Diner’s Card All babies were potential consumers who spearheaded a brand-new market for food, clothing, and shelter. -- Life Magazine (May, 1958)

  10. 1946  7,000 TV sets in the U. S.1950  50,000,000 TV sets in the U. S. Television is a vast wasteland. Newton Minnow, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, 1961 Mass Audience  TV celebrated traditionalAmerican values. Truth, Justice, and the American way!

  11. Davy CrockettKing of the Wild Frontier Sheriff Matt Dillon, Gunsmoke The Lone Ranger(and his faithfulsidekick, Tonto): Who is that masked man??

  12. Glossy view of mostly middle-class suburban life. But... I Love Lucy The Honeymooners Social Winners?... AND… Loosers?

  13. What’s so different? • Post-WWII prosperity vs. previous periods of prosperity • Wide-spread dispersion of wealth • African-Americans • Surface look? Prosperity! Wages 4x higher than ‘40 • Rate of improvement behind whites in income • neglect to address due to boosterism, need for united from vs. communism •  explode during 60s • Emphasis on: consensus, conformity, economic growth

  14. Marketing • ADVERTISING- consumer desires, social envy • 1000% increase in TV ad expenses • . . . “advertising has created an American frame of mind that makes people want more things, better things, and newer things.” –NBC President, ‘56 • Buying • Credit! • Savings drop to 5% • 1945-1960- credit increases 800% • Shopping = recreation • Teen baby boomers- rock-n-roll records, hula hoops, Seventeen magazine • “Never before have so many owed so much to so many. Time has swept away the Puritan conception of immorality in debt and godliness in thrift.”

  15. The Suburban Frontier • 50s’-60s population increase- urban AND suburban • AG technology  less need for manual laborers • Farm to city. . . AGAIN (‘40-’70) • Growth in South, SW, West (Carolinas  Texas, CA = SUNBELT) • Air-conditioning = more attractive to Yankees! • Suburbs grow 6x faster than cities • “Suburbia is now a dominant social group in American life.” –Christian Century, ’55 • Cars, highways, government-backed home mortgages, entrepreneurs • William Levitt- NY based developer • 1,200 acres in Long Island = 10,600 houses  “Levittowns” • Car production up, highway construction up (local, state, federal) • Federal Housing Administration- loans to builders for low-cost homes

  16. Levittown, L. I.: “The American Dream” 1949 William Levitt produced 150 houses per week. $7,990 or $60/month with no down payment.

  17. 1 story high • 12’x19’ living room • 2 bedrooms • tiled bathroom • garage • small backyard • front lawn By 1960  1/3 of the U. S. population in the suburbs.

  18. SHIFTS IN POPULATION DISTRIBUTION, 1940-1970 1940195019601970 Central Cities 31.6% 32.3% 32.6% 32.0% Suburbs 19.5% 23.8% 30.7% 41.6% Rural Areas/ 48.9% 43.9% 36.7% 26.4% Small Towns U. S. Bureau of the Census.

  19. The Donna Reed Show1958-1966 Leave It to Beaver1957-1963 Father Knows Best1954-1958 The Ozzie & Harriet Show1952-1966

  20. Car registrations: 1945  25,000,000 1960  60,000,000 2-family cars doubles from 1951-1958 1958 Pink Cadillac 1959 Chevy Corvette • 1956 Interstate Highway Act largest public works project in American history! • Cost $32 billion. • 41,000 miles of new highways built.

  21. America became a more homogeneous nation because of the automobile. First McDonald’s (1955) Drive-In Movies Howard Johnson’s

  22. The U. S. population was on the move in the 1950s. NE & Mid-W  S & SW (“Sunbelt” states) 1955  Disneyland opened in Southern California. (40% of the guests came from outside California, most by car.) Frontier Land Main Street Tomorrow Land

  23. In the 1950s  the word “teenager” entered the American language. By 1956  13 mil. teens with $7 bil. to spend a year. 1951 “race music” “ROCK ‘N ROLL” Elvis Presley “The King”

  24. “Juvenile Delinquency” ??? 1951 J. D. Salinger’sA Catcher in the Rye James Dean inRebel Without a Cause (1955) Marlon Brando inThe Wild One (1953)

  25. The “Beat” Generation: • Jack Kerouac On The Road • Allen Ginsberg  poem, “Howl” • Neal Cassady • William S. Burroughs “Beatnik” “Clean” Teen

  26. Behavioral Rules of the 1950s: • Obey Authority. • Control Your Emotions. • Don’t Make Waves  Fit in with the Group. • Don’t Even Think About Sex!!!

  27. The Great Migration Continues • Mass migration of rural, southern blacks • Post-’45: 5 million head north, west • Better jobs, better pay, better housing, more equality • Many displaced from Delta region- illiterate, provincial (Chicago) • Reality? • Slumlords, employers refusing to hire, denial of union membership • Dysfunctional families, illiteracy, welfare dependency, gangs, crime, racism • Tension as wave of black migrants stretch resources of urban govs, tolerance of whites • White mobs attack blacks moving to white neighborhoods (Nat’l Guard) •  massive public housing projects (all-black)

  28. Conforming Culture

  29. 40s and 50s Culture • Suburbs = white middle-class homogeny • All same price ($7,990), same plan, tree every 28 ft, cut grass, no fences, etc. • Fear from Cold War  encourage orthodoxy, tradition, uniformity • Seen in suburban life- need for companionship, sense of belonging • Fed by advertising, marketing, corporations

  30. Corporate Life • WWII- big business bigger! • Relaxed antitrust activity, gov. defense contracts  corporate consolidation • Continues after way- less are self-employed • Corporations, large gov. agencies, universities • New managerial personality, ethic of cooperation, achievement (vs. strong-minded individuals, hardworking, competitive, creative)

  31. Automation: 1947-1957  factory workers decreased by 4.3%, eliminating 1.5 million blue-collar jobs. By 1956  more white-collar than blue-collar jobs in the U. S. Computers Mark I (1944). First IBM mainframe computer (1951). Corporate Consolidation: By 1960  600 corporations (1/2% of all U. S. companies) accounted for 53% of total corporate income. WHY?? Cold War military buildup.

  32. New Corporate Culture:“The Company Man” 1956 Sloan Wilson’sThe Man in the Gray Flannel Suit

  33. Women’s “Place” • The “ideal” middle-class woman • 32, “pretty and popular” housewife, mother of four, size 12, married at 16, good volunteer, good hostess, good mother/wife, “home manager”, sang in choir, worked with PTA, devoted to husband (Life, 1956) • = revival of cult of feminine domesticity • Reinforced by increased birthrate (women where? In the home.) • “Of all the accomplishments of the American woman, the one she brings off with the most spectacular success is having babies.” -Life • The ex-serviceman is “head man again. . . Your part in the remaking of this man is to fit his home to him, understanding why he wants it this way, forgetting your own preferences.” – House Beautiful, 1945

  34. Changing Sexual Behavior:Alfred Kinsey:1948 Sexual Behavior in the Human Male1953 Sexual Behavior in the Human Female • Premarital sex was common. • Extramarital affairs were frequent among married couples. Kinsey’s results are an assault on the family as a basic unit of society, a negation of moral law, and a celebration of licentiousness.-- Life magazine, early 1950s

  35. Search for Community- the “Joiners” • Growth of social clubs, organizations (civic clubs, garden clubs, car pools) • Why? Better mobility • 20% move each year, relocation of sales/management •  desire for connection, community, “rootedness” • Growth of churches, synagogues • Renewal of religion in 50s- upbeat, soothing (no brimstone and fire) • Away from personal sin, social guilt (segregation, inner-city poverty)  reassurances in own comfortable way of life as God’s will • Rev. Norman Peale- impresario of “positive thinking” & feel-good theology • The Power of Positive Thinking (‘52)- simple how-to course in personal happiness • “Start thinking faith, enthusiasm, and joy.”  “more popular, esteemed, and well-liked individual.”

  36. Today in the U. S., the Christian faith is back in the center of things. -- Time magazine, 1954 Church membership: 1940  64,000,000 1960  114,000,000 Television Preachers: 1. Catholic Bishop Fulton J. Sheen “Life is Worth Living” 2. Methodist Minister Norman Vincent PealeThe Power of Positive Thinking 3. Reverend Billy Graham ecumenical message; warned against the evils of Communism.

  37. Hollywood: apex of the biblical epics. The Robe The Ten Commandments Ben Hur1953 1956 1959 It’s un-American to be un-religious! -- The Christian Century, 1954

  38. Neo-Orthodoxy • Peale too shallow, misleading for some • Xnty/gospel message should be for . . . • Promoting sociability, belonging • Criticism of those who see US as only providential society, use faith to keep status-quo • Reinhold Niebuhr- preacher/professor @ Union Theological Seminary (NY) • Complacency, conformity of postwar life • Against popular religion of self-assurance, material success • Spiritual peace = reality of pain, love, responsibility for well-being of entire human race

  39. Cracks in the Picture Window

  40. The Lonely Crowd • Contrast b/t public mood & social criticism from intellectual world • Fear of US slipping more into conformity, succumbing to corporate “rat race,” consumer culture • The Affluent Society (‘58), John Kenneth Galbraith • Economic growth DOES NOT = end of social problems, poverty • Kennedy, Johnson • Criticism of middle-class bliss • The Crack in the Picture Window (’56), John Keats • Against Levittown- “conceived in error, nurtured in greed, corroding everything they touch.” •  monotonous routines, mediocrity, suburbs  “postwar hell”

  41. The Lonely Crowd (‘50), David Riesman • Shift in American personality • Now- no internal values, hollow, grasp for sense of belonging and affection • “inner-directed”  “other-directed” • Individual vs. conformist • White Collar Society (‘51), C. Wright Mills • “When white-collar people get jobs, they sell not only their time and energy, but their personalities as well. They sell by the week or month their smiles and their kindly gestures, and they must practice the prompt repression of resentment and aggression.”

  42. Alienation and Liberation

  43. The Stage, Novel, Art • Stage- reinforcement of Riesman’s “lonely crowd” • Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman (‘49 • material wealth gained through popularity, personality • Novel- individual’s struggle for survival amid disorienting forces of mass society • Characters are restless, tormented, socially impotent, no contentment, no respect from overpower or uninterested world • James Jones- From Here to Eternity (‘51), J.D. Salinger- Catcher in the Rye (’51), Joseph Heller- Catch-22 (61) • Ralph Ellison- Invisible Man (‘52) • “All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers, too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer.” • John Updike- Rabbit, Run (‘61)

  44. Painting • Edward Hopper • Desolate loneliness, isolated individuals, motionless, melancholy, “silence” • Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko • NYC- younger • “the modern painter cannot express this age- the airplane, the atomic bomb, the radio- in the old form of the Renaissance or of any past culture. Each age finds its own technique.” –Pollack • =abstract expressionism (40s-50s), act of painting as important as result • “Abstract art is an effort to close the void that modern men feel.” -Motherwell

  45. No. 13 Fishes with Red Stripe

  46. The Beats: “mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved.” • Who? • Young writers, poets, painters, musicians- rebel vs. horrors of war & middle-class life • Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs • Bohemian underground- Greenwich Village, NY • Goal? • The “desire for pure freedom.” • Liberate self-expression, overcome organizational constrains, discard tradition

  47. Look for visionary sensibility, spontaneous way of life, idealistic, desire to transform selves (vs. reform the world), personal solutions to anxieties (vs. social) • How? Salvation through drugs, alcohol, sex, jazz, street life of urban ghettos, Buddhism, vagabond spirit • NY San Francisco • Was an existential mania for intense experience, frantic motion • Howl, ’56 • On the Road, ‘57 • Others- James Dean, Marlon Brando (Beat anti-heroes) •  youth revolt of 60s

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