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Dwight D. Eisenhower Social Aspects of the 1950s

Dwight D. Eisenhower Social Aspects of the 1950s. 1950s Economy. a. Post-war spending trends continued into the 1950s b. Americans invested in items based around the home and family life

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Dwight D. Eisenhower Social Aspects of the 1950s

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  1. Dwight D. EisenhowerSocial Aspects of the 1950s

  2. 1950s Economy a. Post-war spending trends continued into the 1950s b. Americans invested in items based around the home and family life c. The American consumer was praised as a patriotic citizen – one who contributed to the overall success of the American way of life

  3. Westinghouse RefrigeratorExample of 1950s Consumerism

  4. d. Defense spending accounted for half of the federal budget e. Nation’s first nuclear power plant opened in 1957 – the chemical and electronics industry boomed f.Beneath this widespread prosperity, poverty was becoming more prevalent and the gap between rich and poor widened (more than 1/5 lived below the poverty line)

  5. Big Business & Labor Unions of the 1950s a. Big business flourished in the 1950s– less than .05% of American corporations controlled more than half of the nation’s corporate wealth b. Advances in science and technology decreased the amount of labor necessary for industry and agriculture to be financially successful which led to consolidation of industry and agriculture into large corporations

  6. c. Unions consolidated as well – AFL and CIO merged in 1955 d. Prosperity meant high wages and few labor complaints – depriving unions of the needed membership

  7. Affluent Society a. Term coined by John Kenneth Galbraith in The Affluent Society (1958) b. Ironic term that described the 1950s U.S. as rich in the private resources but poor in public ones because of misplaced priority on increasing production of trivial consumer goods

  8. John Kenneth Galbraith

  9. Baby Boom and the Overall Impact a. Prosperity led Americans to start families earlier and have more children b. Birth rate grew steadily from 1950 to its peak in 1957 c. U.S. population grew from 150 million to about 180 million during the 1950s

  10. d. Dr. Benjamin Spock author of Baby and Child Care (1946) suggested mothers devote themselves to the fulltime care of their children

  11. e. Popular culture depicted marriage and taking care of the family as the primary goal of the American woman f. Religious messages began to merge into popular culture – during the 1950s Congress added “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance (due to the fight against communism)

  12. Consumer Culture - Television a. TV dominated American culture during the 1950s – only 6 TV stations broadcast in 1946 and by 1956, 442 stations were operating b. 7 million TV sets were sold in 1951 c. TV portrayed a cookie-cutter stereotyped image of happy, prosperous Americans

  13. d. TV brought messages of conformity and consumerism e. TV produced fads for the hula hoop and Davy Crockett’s coonskin cap

  14. Consumer Culture -Rock-n-Roll a. Elvis Presley epitomized rock-n-roll of the 1950s b. Born in Tupelo, MS in 1935 c. Presley produced 14 consecutive records between 1956 and 1958 – each sold over a million copies

  15. Duck and Cover a. Fears of nuclear attacks from the Soviets prompted a new social phenomenon b. Americans began building bomb shelters or fallout shelters

  16. c. U.S. Government produced Duck and Cover (1951) as a public awareness campaign to illustrate that nuclear attacks could occur at anytime

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