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Chapter 24. Norton Media Library. Chapter 24. An Affluent Society, 1953–1960. Eric Foner. I. The Nixon-Khrushchev “Kitchen Debates”. II. The Golden Age. The Golden Age After the war, the American economy enjoyed remarkable growth
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Chapter 24 Norton Media Library Chapter 24 An Affluent Society, 1953–1960 Eric Foner
II. The Golden Age • The Golden Age • After the war, the American economy enjoyed remarkable growth • Numerous innovations came into widespread use during these years, transforming Americans’ daily lives • A Changing Economy • The Cold War fueled industrial production and promoted a redistribution of the nation’s population and economic resources • Since the 1950s, the American economy has shifted away from manufacturing • The number of farms had declined since the 1950s, but production increased • The center of gravity of American farming shifted decisively to Texas, Arizona, and especially California
II. The Golden Age (con’t) • The Growth of Suburbia • The main engines of economic growth during the 1950s were residential construction and spending on consumer goods • The dream of home ownership came within reach of the majority of Americans • Levittown • California became the most prominent symbol of the postwar suburban boom • Western cities were decentralized clusters of single-family homes and businesses united by a web of highways
II. The Golden Age (con’t) • A Consumer Culture • In a consumer culture, the measure of freedom became the ability to gratify market desires • Americans became comfortable living in never-ending debt, once seen as a loss of economic freedom • Consumer culture demonstrated the superiority of the American way of life to communism • The TV World • Television replaced newspapers as the most common source of information about public events and provided Americans of all regions and backgrounds with a common cultural experience • TV avoided controversy and projected a bland image of middle-class life • Television also became the most effective advertising medium ever invented
II. The Golden Age (con’t) • A New Ford • Along with a home and television set, the car became part of what sociologists called “the standard consumer package” of the 1950s • Auto manufacturers and oil companies vaulted to the top ranks of corporate America • The automobile transformed the nation’s daily life
II. The Golden Age (con’t) • The Female Sphere • After 1945, women lost most of the industrial jobs they had performed during the war • By the mid-1950s women were working again, but the nature and aims of women’s work had changed • Women were expected to get married, have children, and stay at home • Baby boom • The Cold War Family • The family also became a weapon in the Cold War • Feminism seemed to have disappeared from American life
II. The Golden Age (con’t) • A Segregated Landscape • The suburbs remained segregated communities • Building Segregation • During the postwar suburban boom, federal agencies continued to insure mortgages that barred resale of houses to non-whites, thereby financing housing segregation • A Housing Act passed by Congress in 1949 authorized the construction of over 800,000 units of public housing in order to provide a “decent home for every American family” • Suburbanization hardened the racial lines of division in American life • Seven million whites left the cities for the suburbs while three million blacks moved into cities • Puerto Ricans
II. The Golden Age (con’t) • The Divided Society • The process of racial exclusion became self-reinforcing • Whites viewed urban ghettos as places of crime, poverty, and welfare • “Blockbusting” • Suburban home ownership long remained a white entitlement • The End of Ideology • To many observers in the 1950s it seemed that the ills of American society had been solved • If problems remained, their solution required technical adjustments, not structural chance or aggressive political intervention
II. The Golden Age (con’t) • Protestant-Catholic-Jew • There emerged a new “Judeo-Christian” heritage, a notion that became central to the cultural and political dialogue of the 1950s • The idea of a unified Judeo-Christian tradition reflected the decline of anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism in the wake of World War II • Secularization • Selling Free Enterprise • More than political democracy or freedom of speech, an economic system resting on private ownership united the nations of the Free World • The “selling of free enterprise” became a major industry • The Advertising Council
II. The Golden Age (con’t) • “People’s Capitalism” • Until well into the twentieth century, most ordinary Americans had been deeply suspicious of big business • Large-scale production was not only necessary to fighting the Cold War, it enhanced freedom by multiplying consumer goods • Stock market
III. The Eisenhower Era • Ike and Nixon • General Dwight Eisenhower ran for president in 1952 • Richard Nixon ran as his vice president • Nixon gained a reputation for opportunism and dishonesty • The 1952 Campaign • Nixon’s “Checkers speech” rescued his political career • It illustrated the importance of TV in politics • Eisenhower’s popularity and promises to end the Korean conflict brought him victory in 1952
III. The Eisenhower Era (con’t) • During the 1950s, voters at home and abroad seemed to find reassurance in selecting familiar, elderly leaders to govern them • Modern Republicanism • Wealthy businessmen dominated Eisenhower’s cabinet • Eisenhower refused to roll back the New Deal • Modern Republicanism aimed to sever the Republican Party’s identification in the minds of many Americans with Herbert Hoover, the Great Depression, and indifference to the economic conditions of ordinary citizens • Core New Deal programs expanded
III. The Eisenhower Era (con’t) • Government spending was used to promote productivity and boost employment • Interstate Highway Act • National Defense Education Act • The Social Contract • The 1950s witnessed an easing of the labor conflict of the two previous decades • AFL and CIO merged in 1955 • Social contract • Unionized workers shared fully in 1950s prosperity
III. The Eisenhower Era (con’t) • Massive Retaliation • Ike took office at a time when the Cold War had entered an extremely dangerous phase • “Massive retaliation” declared that any Soviet attack on an American ally would be countered by a nuclear assault on the Soviet Union itself • Critics called the doctrine “brinksmanship”
III. The Eisenhower Era (con’t) • Ike and the Russians • Eisenhower came to believe that the Soviets were reasonable and could be dealt with in conventional diplomatic terms • Khrushchev’s call for “peaceful coexistence” with the United States raised the possibility of an easing of the Cold War • In 1958, the two superpowers agreed to voluntarily halt the testing of nuclear weapons
III. The Eisenhower Era (con’t) • The Emergence of the Third World • The post–World War II era witnessed the crumbling of European empires • Decolonization presented the United States with a complex set of choices • The Cold War in the Third World • The Cold War became the determining factor in American relations with the Third World • Guatemala • Iran • The Suez Crisis in 1956 led to the “Eisenhower Doctrine”
III. The Eisenhower Era (con’t) • Origins of the Vietnam War • Anticommunism led the United States into deeper and deeper involvement in Vietnam • A peace conference in Geneva divided Vietnam temporarily at the seventeenth parallel • Events in Guatemala, Iran, and Vietnam, considered great successes at the time by American policymakers, cast a long shadow over American foreign relations
III. The Eisenhower Era (con’t) • Mass Society and Its Critics • Some intellectuals wondered whether the celebration of affluence and the either-or mentality of the Cold War obscured the extent to which the United States itself fell short of the ideal of freedom • Hans J. Morgenthau • C. Wright Mills • One strand of social analysis in the 1950s contended that Americans did not enjoy genuine freedom • David Riesman’s The Lonely Crowd
III. The Eisenhower Era (con’t) • Some commentators feared that the Russians had demonstrated a greater ability to sacrifice for common public goals than Americans • John Kenneth Galbraith’s The Affluent Society • William Whyte’s The Organization Man • Rebels Without a Cause • The emergence of a popular culture geared to the emerging youth market suggested that significant generational tensions lay beneath the bland surface of 1950s life
III. The Eisenhower Era (con’t) • Cultural life during the 1950s seemed far more daring than politics • Rock and roll • Playboy • The Beats • The Beats were a small group of poets and writers who railed against mainstream culture • Rejecting the work ethic, the “desperate materialism” of the suburban middle class, and the militarization of American life by the Cold War, the Beats celebrated impulsive action, immediate pleasure, and sexual experimentation
IV. The Freedom Movement • Origins of the Movement • The causes of the civil rights movement were many • Separate and Unequal • The United States in the 1950s was still a segregated, unequal society • Few white Americans felt any urgency about confronting racial inequality
IV. The Freedom Movement (con’t) • The Legal Assault of Segregation • It fell to the courts to confront the problem of racial segregation • League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) • Earl Warren • For years, the NAACP, under the leadership of attorney Thurgood Marshall, had pressed legal challenges to the “separate but equal” doctrine laid down by the Supreme Court in 1896 in Plessy v. Ferguson
IV. The Freedom Movement (con’t) • Brown v. Board of Education • Marshall brought the NAACP’s support to local cases that had arisen when black parents challenged unfair school policies • Warren’s Decision • Marshall argued that segregation did lifelong damage to black children, undermining their self-esteem • Earl Warren managed to create unanimity on a divided Court, some of whose members disliked segregation but feared that a decision to outlaw it would spark widespread violence • The black press hailed the Brown decision as a “second Emancipation Proclamation”
IV. The Freedom Movement (con’t) • The Montgomery Boycott • Brown ensured that when the movement resumed after waning in the early 1950s it would have the backing of the federal courts • Rosa Parks • Bus boycott
IV. The Freedom Movement (con’t) • The Daybreak of Freedom • The Montgomery bus boycott marked a turning point in postwar American history • Nonviolent movement • Gained northern support • Established Martin Luther King, Jr., as the movement’s national symbol • From the beginning, the language of freedom pervaded the black movement
IV. The Freedom Movement (con’t) • The Leadership of King • In King’s soaring oratory, the protesters’ understandings of freedom fused into a coherent whole • A master at appealing to the deep sense of injustice among blacks and to the conscience of white America, King presented the case for black rights in a vocabulary that merged the black experience with that of the nation • Echoing Christian themes derived from his training in the black church, King’s speeches resonated deeply in both black communities and the broader culture
IV. The Freedom Movement (con’t) • Massive Resistance • In 1956 King formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference • In 1956 many southern congressmen and senators signed a Southern Manifesto • Eisenhower and Civil Rights • The federal government tried to remain aloof from the black struggle • President Eisenhower failed to provide moral leadership
IV. The Freedom Movement (con’t) • In 1957 Governor Orville Faubus of Arkansas used the National Guard to prevent the court-ordered integration of Little Rock’s Central High School • Eisenhower
V. The Election of 1960 • The Nomination of Kennedy • The presidential campaign of 1960 turned out to be one of the closest in American history • John F. Kennedy was a Catholic and the youngest presidential candidate in history • Kennedy’s Election • Both Kennedy and Nixon were ardent Cold Warriors • Missile gap • Television debate • Eisenhower’s Farewell Address warned against the drumbeat of calls for a new military buildup • Military-industrial complex
The Presidential Election of 1952 The Presidential Election of 1952 • pg. 952
The Interstate Highway System • pg. 953 The Interstate Highway System
The Presidential Election of 1960 The Presidential Election of 1960 • pg. 973
