Chapter 22

Postwar Confidence and Anxiety1945-1960

GI’s after the war; return to peacetime economy

• After we won WWII, demobilization started happening and tons of GI’s returned home.

• Also, the gov’t had cancelled defense contracts causing millions to lose their jobs.

GI Bill of Rights• Servicemen

Readjustment Act, education, and a years worth of unemployment as they job hunted.

• Also offered low interest fed’l funded loans

• This cause a boom in home building

• Vets got $500/yr for college and living expenses

LEVITTOWNS/THE SUBURBS•Lots of vets were coming home and this started a housing crisis.•William Levitt and his partner started building ready-made houses in a assembly line and started offering homes in small residential communities outside cities (suburbs)•The first of these towns was in Long Island…built on treeless lots and the houses looked exactly alike. others were built near Philly and NJ also•On installment plan - $58/month

Baby Boom• Soldiers coming back

from WW II got back into family life and there was an explosion in the number of births from the late 40’s until the 60’s

• In 1957, 1 baby every 7 sec was born.

• Pop grew 27% from 1940 to 1955

The Family and Economy• Divorce was high b/c of

the fact that when men went overseas women started working

• Price controls ended and prices soared, people got laid off b/c of war’s end, but b/c of price control people saved and b/c of cold war, defense spending got big again and then people got hired and bought again.

• US was the biggest producer in the world

Truman and Labor• Trade unionists wanted

pay increase to deal w/ inflation and they went on strike.

• Taft Hartley Act – despite Truman’s veto, Congress passed this: outlawed closed shop unions...a workplace where only union members can be hired

AFL-CIO

• A labor union that united in 1955 due to the good times.

• They had a lot of political influence, especially w/Democrats.

• However, white collar workers didn’t join unions as much.

RACIAL ISSUES AND ELECTION OF 1948

(WHISTLE STOP TOUR)•In 1948, Truman issued a executive order demanding the integration of the armed services, an end to discrimination in hiring of federal employees...also Supreme Court said lower courts could not bar African Americans from neighborhoods. •DixieCrats (State’s Rights Party) – Southern (D) formed this against Truman’s emphasis on civil rights for election of ‘48…they nominated Strom Thurmond•Truman campaigned all around the country denouncing the (R) Congress and he won over (R) Thomas Dewey, governor of NY.

Truman’s Domestic Policy• Fair Deal – Extension of

New Deal, proposed nationwide health insurance, and a crop subsidy system

• Congress raised minimum wage, extended SSA coverage, initiated flood control and irrigation projects, helped clear out bad parts of cities, and build houses although he didn’t win Congress’s support for other reforms

EVERYBODY “LIKES IKE”•Truman doesn’t run in 1952 and Eisenhower takes office b/c of stalemate in Korea, McCarthyism...Nixon is his running mate and gets accused of taking bribes…he apologizes on TV w/58 million Americans watching – Checkers Speech (brilliant Press Relations)•Eisenhower walked the middle road, dynamic conservatism/moderate (R)…conservative w/ money...but liberal w/civil policy

THE AUTOMOBILE•After war, rationing of gas stopped and people started buying cars on credit again.•Suburbia made cars necessary.•Interstate Highway Act 1956 – signed by Eisenhower, built 41k miles of national highway – this helped homogenize the nation and made trucking more accessible thus bypassing RR•People w/ cars moved to the suburbs widening the economic gap, noise and air pollution, accidents shift...public trans. declines

Sunbelt: Defense, Aerospace, and Electronic Industries plus a great Climate

• Name given to the southern and western states. People started moving to CA and soon it passed NY as the most populous state.

• Disney opened a park in LA and so people vacationed there.

• Dodgers and Giants moved out to CA.

• This started to change the political landscape.

The New Service Sector Grows 1947-1957

• Along w/ the shift in where people lived came a shift where they worked

• White collar v Blue collar• White collar workers

started working for conglomerates (a corp. that has smaller unrelated companies under it…International Telephone and Telegraph – they bought car-rental companies, insurance, hotels

• They started working with Computers the 50’s

NEW CORPORATE STRUCTURES

•Franchising came out at this time – a corp. that offers similar products in many locations.•McDonalds came out w/ their assembly line style fast food…Ray Kroc bought it from the McDonald brothers for $2.4 million.•Social conformity – Corporation wanted people to “fit in” and to be good company people.•Multinational corporations were gaining such as Coke, GM

Middle Class• This repression of

oneself at work led to job security and families getting the ‘good things’

• 85% of new homes were being built in the ‘burbs in the 50’s

• By mid 50’s nearly 60% of US was middle class

• Consumerism: buying material goods = success

Mass Consumerism• Planned obsolescence

and the throw away society – Companies building things to break so we’ll buy more.

• Diner’s Club introduced credit cards in 1950 and American Express in 1958

• Spend, not saving was the thing

• TV became the way to advertise

TV AND IT’S HUGE IMPACT ON AMERICAN SOCIETY (BABY

BOOMERS)•1950 = 55 % of US homes had one, by 1960, almost 90%•Microwave relays allowed TV signals to be sent over long distances and that was it.•By 1956 the FCC allowed 500 new stations to broadcast.•I Love Lucy came out, westerns, Howdy Doody, TV Guide and tv dinners came out in 1954 so you didn’t have to miss your favorite show•Ads on TV went from $170 mil. in 1950 to $2 bil. in 1960

Popular Culture• Popular magazines, TV and

movies urged women to stay at home but by ’60 40% of mothers were working

• Leisure time rose b/c people worked a 40 hr wk and had vacation...they had washing machines, clothes dryers and lawn mowers.

• People watched sports and read books, JD Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye

The Baby Boom Generation Begins (Oh My)

• new medicine’s, such as Jonas Salk’s cure for polio, helped with the boom

• This caused schools to be overcrowded and toy sales to reach 1.2 billion

• Dr. B. Spock, in his book, Common Sense book of baby and child care, recommended women to stay at home to be with their children…this book sold 10 million copies.

RADIO + MOVIES + ELVIS (MORE MASS CULTURE AND

THE RISE OF THE TEENAGER)•Started focusing on news, weather and community issues…advertising rose by 30%•Movies took a hit at first but then capitalized on stereophonic sound, color (54), smell•Elvis, Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Lewis made rock and roll famous – influenced by gospel, country, and blues (et al.)…45 of Elvis’ records sold over 1 mil…some adults saw rock and roll as leading to teenage delinquency but TV and record sales helped keep it’s popularity.

Counter Culture: A Real Cultural Alternative

• Beat Movement was artists poets and writers who lived non conformist lives…Beatniks

• Alan Ginsberg’s Howl and Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, are example’s

• “I have nothing to offer anybody but my own confusion” - Kerouac

PROBLEMS IN THE CITIES•From of WWII to 1960 5 mil African Americans went from rural south to city.•B/c whites moved to the suburbs and took business’s, the cities missed out on taxes and couldn’t repair schools, public trans•National Housing Act 1949 – tore down run down neighborhoods and constructed low income housing – this was urban renewal, but let to “projects” (inner-city)•Michael Harrington’s: The Other America