1950’s

1. 1950’s By: Jasmine, Jessica, Danielle & Shakyra

2. Growth of Suburbs • Most people resorted to homes outside the cities like suburbs. • Cheaper • Called “bedroom communities” • Every community in the suburbs were like it’s own little town. • Had schools, churches and parks • Usually created the illusion of a perfect traditional family • Became the new glamorous countryside http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=yLo9jhx3N8U

3. Consumerism • Consumerism • Buying as much as they could • Much of it on credit • “Good Life” • Provided more leisure and income • Americans were confident the good life was permanent • Brought about a material conformity • Social areas, like religion, and gender roles –seemed normal • Some celebrated conformity, others reveled in unconformity

4. New Family Culture • Median Family Income • Average family income • Headed by a male breadwinner-desired norm • Dark underside • Women were treated like second-class citizens • Some lived unhappily married because their financial and educational options were limited • Birth rate soared • Baby boom • A temporary marked increase in the birth rate • Some young women had two or more children in diapers at once “I Love Lucy”- Lucille Ball

5. The 1950’s Mall • Opened April 21, 1950 • Northgate Shopping Mall • Seattle • Planed by: • Rex Allison • Ben B. Ehrlichman • Designed by: • John Graham Jr. • First regional shopping center to be defined as a “mall” • “Everything in one place.” • The parking lot was jammed at all times for at least first 10 days • Just like our mall • Car giveaways • Children’s play place

6. Eisenhower Favors Massive Retaliation • Eisenhower opposed spending billions of dollars on conventional forces, such as troops, ships, tanks, and artillery. Instead, he focused on stockpiling nuclear weapons and building the planes and, missiles. • The chart below shows effects of the arms race. • Nuclear Warhead Proliferation

7. Unrest Explodes Behind the Iron Curtain • Iron Curtain-Term coined by Winston Churchill to describe the border between the soviet satellite states and western Europe. • In 1956, two uprisings shook Eastern Europe. First, workers in Poland rioted against soviet rule and won greater control of their government. Since the polish government did not attempt to leave the Warsaw pact. • Hungarian students and workers demanded that pro-Soviet Hungarian officials be replaced, that soviet troops be withdrawn, and that noncommunist political parties be organized.

8. The U.S. Defuses the Suez Crisis • Egypt’s president Gamal Abdel Nasser tried to use the U.S.-Soviet rivalry to his advantage. Nasser wanted to construct a dam on the Nile river at Aswan. • Nasser nationalized the Suez canal, placing it under government control. • Nasser’s action threatened the flow of middle eastern oil to Europe. Without consulting with Eisenhower, Britain and France plotted to get the canal back into western hands. Britain and France used the Suez crisis as an excuse to seize control of the Suez canal.

9. The cold war blasts off into space • On October 4, 1957, the soviet union launched a 184-pound steel ball containing a small transmitter into an orbit of earth. The soviets named the tiny satellite sputnik 1. • The following month they launched a much larger satellite. It carried a dog, named Laika, to see how a living creature would react to life in outer space. Laika died in orbit. • The dog Laika, aboard sputnik 2, was the first living creature to orbit earth. He was hailed as a soviet hero.

10. McCarthyism • McCarthyism-a mid-20th century political attitude characterized chiefly by opposition to elements held to be subversive and by the use of tactics involving personal attacks on individuals by means of widely publicized indiscriminate allegations especially on the basis of unsubstantiated charges

11. Joseph McCarthy • Joseph McCarthy was born on a farm in Appleton, Wisconsin, on November 14, 1908. • He was the leader of McCarthyism and a senator. • He was a circuit judge and had resigned during World War II. • McCarthy was a hero to the U.S., he had been in the U.S. Marines.

12. Red Scare • The red scare was happening because everyone was scared that communist were going to take over the U.S. • People were being arrested for just know someone that was communist. • People were arrested and even killed for being communist. • Everyone was turning on each other and trying to accuse someone else of being communist so they wouldn’t get in trouble. • Red Scare-the rounding up and deportation of several hundred immigrants of radical political views by the federal government in 1919 and 1920. This “scare” was caused by fears of subversion by communists in the United States after the Russian Revolution

13. HUAC • HUAC stand for House Un-American Activity Committee. • The HUAC was a committee of a U.S. House of Representatives • They investigated allegations of the communist activities. • They watched them through out the early years of the Cold War. • The HUAC started to decline in the late 50’s.

14. McCarthy’s Downfall • McCarthy’s downfall was all due to the fact that he went after the Army. • He was accusing some of our boys of being communist. • McCarthy thought that he could mess with our boys but he was wrong. • McCarthy didn’t win the case, he lost. • Even after all of that he was still considered a hero.

15. Segregation Divides America • African Americans had a long history of fighting for their rights. • After WWII, the struggles intensified • African Americans grew increasingly dissatisfied with their second-class status. • Jim Crow Law Limits African Americans • In south, laws enforced strict separation of the race -De jure segregation- segregation that is imposed by law. • In 1896, in Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court had ruled that such segregation was constitutional as long as the facilities for blacks and whites were “separate but equal.” • Facilities were rarely, if ever, equal

16. Brown vs. Board of Education • Although civil rights movement had made some gains in the 1940’s, it stalled in the early 1950’s. Feeling that the executive and legislative branches of government were unwilling to promote additional reforms, the NAACP decided to turn to the federal courts to attain its goals. • NAACP Challenges Segregation • By end of WWII, became the largest and most powerful civil rights organization in the nation. • Court Strikes Down Segregated Schools • Not long after it won these cases, NAACP mounted a much broader challenge to segregate public education at all grade levels. • Reaction to Brown • One of the most significant and controversial in American history. • Because public education touched so many Americans, it had a much greater impact than cases involving only professional and graduate schools. • Historically, education had been a state matter • State a local schools, and federal government had little involvement

17. Rosa Parks and The Montgomery Bus Boycott! • In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama. • This act inspired the Montgomery bus boycott • event historians call the beginning of the modern Civil Rights Movement. • Parks’s action set in motion a chain of events that transformed the civil rights movement. • Next few days, core of civil rights activists in Montgomery organized a one-day bus boycott. • Called upon black community to refuse to ride buses as a way to express their opposition to Parks’s arrest, in particular, and segregation, in general. • Meanwhile, Montgomery bus boycott, the NAACP began preparing a legal challenge

18. Martin Luther King Urges Nonviolence • On the evening following the boycott, Montgomery Improvement Association, organization that sponsored the bus boycott, held a meeting. • Babtist minister, addressed the group • Little time to prepare • Still delivered an inspirational speech that brought audience to its feet • Noting that African Americans were tired of segregation and oppression • Declared that there was no alternative but to protest • Called for protest to be nonviolent • Urged them not to become resentful • Would lead to hatred toward whites, but rather to follow Christian doctrine and love them • After he had spoken, MIA vowed to continue the boycott and chose king as leader. • More than year, African Americans in Montgomery maintained their boycott of the buses.

19. Timeline • 1950 • War in Korea • Credit card system • US average annual salary was $2992 • 1951 • Rock and Roll and color TV • Identity cards • African Americans • Dresses without waistlines • 1952 • New US president • Eisenhower • Clean Air Act

20. Timeline Continued • 1953 • McCarthy witch hunt hearings • A new regime took over in Russia when Stalin died • 1954 • US segregation made illegal in US • 54% of American homes had TVs • 1955 • The civil rights campaign • Warsaw Pact agreement signed • 60% of Americans were considered “middle class” • Incomes between $3,000 and $10,000 per year.

21. Cont. • 1956 • The Suez Canal was nationalized • Elvis Presley- “Love Me Tender” • 1957 • Sputnik 1 was launched into space • 1958 • NASA was founded • Shorter skirts to the knees • Family income reaches $5,000 • 1959 • Castro took power in Cuba • Alaska and Hawaii joined the US as states of North America

22. Music to song! • Rock around the clock