The 1950s: Economic Boom, Civil Rights, McCarthyism

1. Mr. Porter APUSH POWERPOINT CHAPTER 37 THE 1950’s

2. KEYS TO THE CHAPTER • Economic Prosperity • McCarthyism • Civil Rights Era begins • Cold War Escalates • Space Race begins • Election of 1960

3. Economic Prosperity • Single Family Homes and Suburbs • Technology changes employment sector • Unions down & “white collar jobs” up • “Cult of Domesticity” returns for women • Women move into office employment

4. expansion of middle class and consumer culture • Easy credit, fast food, new forms of recreation • 1948 – first McDonald’s • 1949 – first credit card • 1955 – Disneyland opened • Rock and Roll and Sex part of consumer culture

5. The Television Revolution

6. Election of 1952 – Republicans • Nominate Dwight D. Eisenhower • General during WWII • Richard Nixon nominated as vice president • Election of 1952 – Democrats • Weak because of Korea, Truman’s clashes with MacArthur, inflation, seeming spread of communism • Nominate Adlai Stevenson

7. Nixon’s “Checkers Speech” • Speech on national TV to confront $ allegations, made himself seem like a “regular guy” with a family and dog (Checkers) • Will lose race for President in 1960 but come back from the dead and win presidency in 1968

8. Senator Joseph McCarthy {a quick rise and fall} • Elected in 1946 to US Senate from Wisconsin • February 1950 – accused State Department of knowingly employing 205 Communist party members • Failed to produce evidence of even 1 • Americans believed communists infiltrating gov’t and initially approve of McCarthy’s tactics • McCarthy and the Republicans • Eisenhower was afraid to confront McCarthy, even though he disagreed with McCarthy’s tactics

9. McCarthy Making Accusations

10. Spring of 1954 – McCarthy attacked US Army • 35 days of televised hearings • December 1954 – Senate censures him • 1957 – McCarthy died of chronic alcoholism • Effects of McCarthyism • McCarthyism – okays practice of publicizing accusations despite insufficient evidence • Damaged traditions of free speech • Careers of many ruined

11. Civil Rights Movement Begins • Life for blacks in the South in the 1950s • 15 million blacks lived in US and 2/3rd in South • Lived under segregation (Jim Crow laws) • Isolated from whites, economically & politically powerless • Separate schools, toilets, drinking fountains, restaurants, waiting rooms, train and bus seating 1947 Jackie Robinson breaks the baseball color barrier • 1950 – Sweatt v. Painter • Separate Professional schools ruled unequal

12. 1954 – Brown v. Board of Education • Segregation in public schools was “inherently unequal” and therefore unconstitutional • Decision reversed Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) • Desegregation must occur “with all deliberate speed” • “massive resistance” in Deep South • 1956 -100 southern Congressman signed “Declaration of Constitutional Principles” pledging resistance to segregation • Some states used public money to set up private schools • 1964 – only 2% of eligible blacks in desegregated classes

13. It is only after the 1964 Civil Rights Act that actual desegregation begins in the schools

14. The Montgomery Bus Boycott--------------December 1955 –January 1957

15. 1957 – Congress passed first Civil Rights Act since Reconstruction • Eisenhower is reluctant to act quickly • Authorized federal injunctions (court orders) to protect voting rights 1957 – Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) 1957- Little Rock, Arkansas confrontation

16. The “Little Rock Nine” Escorted by Federal Troops

17. “The Problem We All Live With”

18. February 1, 1960 – “sit-ins” begin in Greensboro, North Carolina • Four students demanded service at whites-only lunch counter in Woolworth’s and were refused • End of the week – over 1,000 students had joined sit-ins in Greensboro • Sit-in movement then spread across South • April 1960 – Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced “snick”) begins

19. IKE SPENDS BIG ON MILITARY DEFENSE AND THIS CREATES ECONOMIC PROSPERITY • Interstate Highway Act of 1956 • Public works project much bigger than New Deal • $27 billion to build 42,000 miles of interstates • Effects • Many new jobs • Suburbanization of US • Air quality problems and Increased energy consumption • Railroads hurt by competition from trucks and cars

20. Defense Spending as a Percentage of GDP, 1950 - 1997

21. Problems with “massive retaliation” • {more bang for the buck theory} • 1956 – Hungary rose in revolt against USSR • USSR used troops to put down rebellion • Revealed that nuclear weapons were overkill for a small incident like Hungary • Long-range planes and nuclear weapons more expensive than Eisenhower first believed • Fear of Nuclear War makes threats less believable against conventional weapons

22. Main US Highways, 1930 – 1970

23. Highway Construction in the 1950s

24. The Vietnam Nightmare Begins • US helps France battle the nationalists • To oppose communism as well as gain French support for rearming of West Germany By 1954, US paying 80% of costs of French army • 1954 – French surrounded at Dienbienphu but Ike refuses to use bombers to help

25. ---------------Following 1954 Geneva Agreementthat USA doesn’t sign----------------17th Parallel

26. Cold War Crises in the Middle East • The Suez crisis • October 1956 – Britain, France (with Israel) launch assault on Egypt but failed to tell IKE • Britain and France forced to withdraw • The Eisenhower Doctrine (1957) Military and economic aid promised to Middle Eastern nations threatened by communist aggression OPEC is formed in 1960 and becomes a power in 1970s when it cuts off oil exports

27. Sputnik I and Sputnik II 1957 The Race is On

28. Effects of Sputnik • American superiority in science, military, and education questioned and NASA established • 1958 – US put satellite in orbit • By 1960, US had developed its own ICBMs • US education criticized for being too easy • Drive to replace electives with math and science courses

29. Federal gov’t gets involved in Education

30. U-2 incident May 1, 1960 • Gary Powers (CIA pilot) shot down while spying in Soviet airspace • US denied he was spying, but USSR brought out proof • Summit ruined when Khrushchev stormed out • Tensions remain high between countries and now Cuba becomes a problem

31. The Cuban Revolution • January 1959 – Fidel Castro carried out revolution and deposed Batista • Castro seizes property from Americans to carry out land distribution • Castro allied with USSR when US cut off sugar imports • US threatened to enforce Monroe Doctrine, but did not when Khrushchev threatened war

32. Nixon and Kennedy Debate: Election 1960

33. Election of 1960 – results • Kennedy won, narrowly • Margin of only 118, 574 votes (out of 68 million cast) {“the Chicago factor”?} • First Roman Catholic, and youngest ever elected • Received strong support in big cities, from workers, Catholics, blacks • Democrats won both houses of Congress

34. Accomplishments under Eisenhower • US was extremely prosperous • With pockets of poverty and some farm problems • Some Civil Rights victories (but hated Warren pick) • Controlled military through rough decade with USSR • Warned of “military-industrial complex” in farewell address in 1961 • Reality was Eisenhower a strong president despite critics; gained greater reputation as time has passes

35. POST WAR LITERATURE • In fiction, some prewar realists continued • Ernest Hemingway: The Old Man and the Sea (1952); killed himself in 1961 • John Steinbeck: East of Eden (1952) and Travels with Charley (1962); • Norman Mailer: The Naked and the Dead • Joseph Heller: Catch-22 • Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse 5

36. Post War Playwrights Tennessee Williams wrote of psychological misfits trying to hold it together in modern life • A Streetcar Named Desire; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof • Arthur Miller’s plays about American values • Death of a Salesman (1949); The Crucible (1953) • Lorraine Hansberry: A Raisin in the Sun • Edward Albee: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962) • exposed the darker side of middle-class life

37. Bestselling books by black authors • Richard Wright: Native Son (1940) • Ralph Ellison: Invisible Man (1952) about blacks’ search for identity • James Baldwin: The Fire Next Time (1963) explored racial questions