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1950s Culture THE RED SCARE The Rise of the Suburb Life in the Suburbs
The Red Scare • As after WWI, there was a Red Scare, or fear of communism, in the US after WWII. • However, the Red Scare after WWII was even more widespread and long term & was encouraged by the Truman administration, under pressure from Republican critics. • The Loyalty Review Board and Smith Act of 1940 were used to root out “communists” in the federal government , and to cripple the Communist Party. • The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) investigated communist activities in the government, armed forces, unions, education, science, newspapers, and TV and film.
The Red Scare, Cont. • The HUAC held their best-known hearings investigating the movie industry in 1947- the Hollywood Ten, the Fifth Amendment, blacklists, and Freedom of Speech. • Espionage Trials of Alger Hiss and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg helped fuel the Red Scare. • Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin made a name for himself as a communist hunter and became one of the most powerful men in the US 1950-1954: McCarthyism • The end of the Korean War in 1953 and McCarthy’s downfall in 1954 signaled the decline of the Red Scare, but not of the concern over the Cold War in general
Duck and Cover Everyone thought the world was going to end in Nuclear war, at Any moment.
Economic Boom & Consumerism • Prices skyrocket as WWII ends • Taft Hartley Act: outlawed a ‘closed shop’ a workplace in which only union members can be employed.
WWII Veterans Come Home GI Bill of Rights: gave veterans a number of services. Included: -A year of unemployment payments -loans for houses or businesses -financial assistance for higher education
The Baby Boom • Soldiers coming home from the war got married and had lots of kids. • 1957 at the height of the baby boom 4.3 million Americans are born
The National Highway Act • 1956 • Largest public works project in history. • Built 41,000 miles of federal highway • Made the car a necessity
The Suburbs • Large areas of mass housing outside of the cities. • Levittowns: The first example of the suburbs • Cookie-cutter housing
Life in the ‘Burbs • Family Focused • TV • Popular Music • Christian • The place of Women
Family Focused • Nuclear Family-parents and kids • Less focus on Extended family, like grandparents
Christianity Church membership went from 50 million to 80 million during the 50s. The 1950s especially saw a boom in the Evangelical Church in America. The post–World War II prosperity experienced in the U.S. also had its effects on the church. Church buildings were erected in large numbers, and the Evangelical church's activities grew along with this expansive physical growth. Billy Graham
Television • Sold faster than radios • Accelerated the trend towards mass culture • Portrayed ‘the ideal suburban life’
Bill Haley and the Comets performing "Rock Around the Clock" on TV in 1955 Rock and Roll • Adapted from a combination of African American Rhythm and Blues and Country Music of the 1930’s and 40’s • Originally called “race music” • The kids loved it • Their parents hated it Little Richard
Civil Rights in the 1950s Gains in the 40s Brown vs. Board of Education Nonviolent Civil Disobedience
Civil rights movement begins after WII • Segregation and Civil Rights quickly became important national topics after WWII. • Truman had desegregated the armed forces in 1948 by Executive Order 9981…why here first? • Truman would have liked to have done more but there was massive resistance to integration at the time. • However, racial segregation in America seemed hypocritical after a war against extreme racism (Nazis) and during a cold war of our “freedom and democracy” against Soviet communism
Segregation begins to break down Robinson broke the baseball color barrier when the Brooklyn Dodgers started him at first base on April 15, 1947. As the first major league team to play a black man since the 1880s, the Dodgers ended racial segregation that had relegated black players to the “Negro Leagues” for six decades. The example of Robinson's character and unquestionable talent challenged the traditional basis of segregation, which, at the time, marked many other aspects of American life, and contributed significantly to Civil Rights Mvmt.
NAACP challenged segregation in the Courts By 1950s the National Association For the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was the largest civil rights organization in the US. They decided to challenge Segregation and Plessy v. Ferguson through the court system. Their first target: public education
Brown v. Board of Education (of Topeka Kansas). May, 1954 • A team of NAACP lawyers, led by Thurgood Marshall (later the first African American Supreme Court Justice) argued that Plessy v. Ferguson’s “Separate but Equal” was not actually equal at all, especially in the area of public education, and that segregation went against the 14th Amendment of equal protection under the law” • Court ruled that all schools must be desegregated “with all deliberate speed,” overturning Plessy v. Ferguson
Southern Response 100 southern members of Congress (including Samuel and W. Kerr Scott (Democrat) of North Carolina) and signed an agreement (Southern Manifesto), opposing the integration of schools. Some states temporarily closed public schools, rather than integrate. Emmett Till example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8QXNyCvDP4 Ruby Bridges, escorted to and from school by US Marshalls in 1960 New Orleans
Federal and State Governments Clashed • Little Rock Central High School, Little Rock, AK. • 9 black students registered to attend the white school • As ordered by the Arkansas Governor the Arkansas National Guard blocked the students from entering the school way. • Having taken the Presidential Oath “to protect and defend the Constitution,” Eisenhower sent federal troops to protect the black students as they walked to school in 1956
Non-violent protest: The Montgomery bus Boycott • Rosa Parks ("the first lady of civil rights“) was asked to move from her bus seat on December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama. • When Parks refused to obey the bus driver’s order to give up her seat in the colored section to a white passenger, after the white section was filled, she was arrested. • An active member of the NAACP, Parks’ arrest touched off the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which lasted from 12/1/55 to 12/20/56, and which resulted in a federal civil rights victory and the legal desegregation of public buses.
