Cold War Era

1. USHG (Cold War Era) Resource Cold War Era US History and Geography 8.1.1 8.1.2 KC 4 Social Studies 2013 modifed by K. Auwers / 2009 KISD @

2. THE 1950s: “Conservatism, Complacency, and Contentment” OR “Anxiety, Alienation, and Social Unrest” ? What do you know about the decade of the 1950’s?

3. 1A. Baby Boom Generation 1946-1964 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… What years did the population grow the most?

4. 1B. Baby Boom Spock encouraged parents to be flexible and affectionate with their children a dramatic change from previous generations. His book Baby and Child Care was a best seller for years. Dr. Benjamin Spock and the Anderson Quintuplets What ramifications are there with such a large increase in the population?

5. Levittown, N.Y.: “The American Dream” 2A. Suburban Living 1949  William Levitt produced 150 houses per week. $7,990 or $60/month with no down payment.

6. 2B. Suburban Living:The New “American Dream” • 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.

7. 2C. Suburban Living 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 What area experienced the greatest shift in population from 1940-1970?

8. 2D. Suburban Living:The Typical TV Suburban Families The Donna Reed Show1958-1966 Leave It to Beaver1957-1963 Father Knows Best1954-1958 The Ozzie & Harriet Show1952-1966

9. 3a. Consumerism 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. 3B. Consumerism Prentice Hall - Consumerism Click on the Mouseketeers

11. Planned Obsolescence an Economic Model for Growth • A program to encourage consumers to purchase more, the latest and greatest, and the idea it was important to “keep up with the Jones’s” all added to the process of planned obsolescence. • Did you know light bulbs could be made to last 100 years, or that women’s nylons could be made not to run? Vacuum cleaners , washing machines, ovens, etc. could all be made to last virtually forever, but to spur economic growth planned obsolescence was encouraged by creating products that had to be replaced. How was this made possible? • Credit became readily available, • the Middle Class grew to twice the WWII Era or 60% of Americans, considered themselves Middle Class • and new products by the 100’s were introduced every year.

12. 4A. A Changing Workplace 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 or the start of the “Military Complex” as an industry.

13. 4B. A Changing Workplace New Corporate Culture:“The Company Man” 1956  Sloan Wilson’s The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit

14. 5A. The Culture of the Car 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. • Why was it built?

15. The Interstate is Born “National System of Interstate and Defense Highways” that would, according to Eisenhower, eliminate unsafe roads, inefficient routes, traffic jams and all of the other things that got in the way of “speedy, safe transcontinental travel.” At the same time, highway advocates argued, “in case of atomic attack on our key cities, the road net [would] permit quick evacuation of target areas.” For all of these reasons, the 1956 law declared that the construction of an elaborate expressway system was “essential to the national interest.” history.com What were the ramifications to the cities and to the suburbs with the construction of the highway system?

16. The Result When the Interstate Highway Act was first passed, most Americans supported it. Soon, however, the unpleasant consequences of all that road-building began to show. Most unpleasant of all was the damage the roads were inflicting on the city neighborhoods in their path. They displaced people from their homes, sliced communities in half and led to abandonment and decay in city after city. The highways took people to the suburbs, where communities were built that included: homes, schools, shopping, and work (land zoned for factories) and away from the cities. The federal government offered money to expand rather than rebuild the cities which previously contained all of these amenities. .

17. 5B. The Culture of the Car America became a more homogeneous nation because of the automobile. First McDonald’s (1955) Drive-In Movies Howard Johnson’s

18. 5C. The Culture of the Car 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 of California, most by car.) Frontier Land Main Street Tomorrow Land

19. End of Part One

20. 6A. Television 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 traditional American values. Truth,Justice,and the American way!

21. 6B. TV and The Westerns Davy CrockettKing of the Wild Frontier Sheriff Matt Dillon, Gunsmoke The Lone Ranger(and his faithfulsidekick, Tonto): Who is that masked man?

22. 6C. Television - Family Shows Glossy view of mostly middle-class suburban life. But... Click on pictures I Love Lucy The Honeymooners Social Winners?... and Losers?...

23. 7A. Teen Culture 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. 7B. Teen Culture 1951  J. D. Salinger’s novel A Catcher in the Rye James Dean inRebel Without a Cause (1955) Marlon Brando inThe Wild One (1953)

25. The Beat Generation “A generation of crazy, illuminated hipsters suddenly rising and roaming America, serious, bumming and hitchhiking everywhere, ragged, beatific, beautiful in an ugly graceful new way… It never meant juvenile delinquents, it meant characters of a special spirituality who didn’t gang up but were solitary Bartlebies staring out the dead wall window of our civilization.” –Jack Kerouac, author and noted Beatnik Beatniks were rebellious poets within a segment of the younger generation who grew dissatisfied within the prosperity and complacency of American society and adopted alternative lifestyles in the 1950s… [and] laid much of the groundwork for the counterculture of the 1960s… Two aspects of Beat culture were particularly significant for future generations: their practices of coffeehouse readings and self-publication of their writings provided an informal forum for intellectual exploration. 

26. 8A. Religious Revival 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.

27. Well-Defined 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 MarilynMonroe The ideal 1950s man was the provider, protector, and the boss of the house. -- Life magazine, 1955

28. 10A. Progress Through Science 1951 -- First IBM Mainframe Computer 1952 -- Hydrogen Bomb Test 1953 -- DNA Structure Discovered 1954 -- Salk Vaccine Tested for Polio 1957 -- First Commercial U. S. Nuclear Power Plant 1958 -- NASA Created 1959 -- Press Conference of the First 7 American Astronauts

29. 1957  Russians launch SPUTNIK I 10B. Progress Through Science 1958  National Defense Education Act Federal legislation passed in 1958 providing aid to education in the United States at all levels, public and private. NDEA was instituted primarily to stimulate the advancement of education in science, mathematics, and modern foreign languages; but it has also provided aid in other areas, including technical education, area studies, geography, English as a second language, counseling and guidance, school libraries and librarianship, and educational media centers. Infoplease.com

30. The Cold War Several things can be attributed to the Cold War 1. The Soviets had the technology for an atomic bomb and they were seizing neighboring countries 2. China had recently become yet another Communist country with closed doors to the Western Press 3. The Korean Police Action was an American failure or at the very least an embarrassment – Often known as the “Forgotten War” 4. The inequities in America and its capitalistic economy made some think it was time for a change and yet another Red Scare took place…the period is known as McCarthyism…

31. 11b.The Cold War Atomic Anxieties: • “Duck-and-Cover Generation” Atomic Testing: • 1946-1962  U. S. exploded 217 nuclear weapons over the Pacific and in Nevada.

32. The Civil Rights Movement Timeline: 1954 – Supreme Court passes Brown vs. the Board of Education 1955 - Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on the bus Dr. King begins his crusade for equality for all Montgomery Bus Boycott Chuck Berry initiates Rock ‘n Roll 1956 – Supreme Court Rules segregation on the bus lines are illegal 1957- Dr. King begins Southern Christian Leadership Conference Little Rock Nine need government escorts to attend school 1958 – Althea Gibson first African American to win at Wimbleton Alvin Alley founds the first African American dance studio 1959 – Motown Records is formed

33. The Civil Rights Movement Timeline of the Civil Rights Movement can be found here…please Open to discuss each event… At the conclusion of this review please respond to the first slide… “Conservatism, Complacency, and Contentment” OR “Anxiety, Alienation, and Social Unrest” ? What did you decide about the decade of the 1950’s?