Notes on Cold War Culture

Baby Boom: dramatic inc birthrates following WWII (1946-1964)

1. Effect: Levittown – the first postwar suburb (Long, Island, NY)

2. Effect: Interstate Highway Act created 41,000 miles of new highway to connect major cities

Red scare: fear communist conspirators would overthrow the government

1. Effect on televisiona. TV = social influence

i. Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best

ii. TV dinners = popular

TelevisionTelevision

I Love I Love LucyLucy

SupermanSuperman Davy CrockettDavy Crockett

““Leave it to Leave it to Beaver”Beaver”

““Bonanza”Bonanza”

Hollywood used Hollywood used aliens as a aliens as a metaphor metaphor

for whom for whom ????http://www.imdb.com/video/http://www.imdb.com/video/

screenplay/vi3014131993/screenplay/vi3014131993/

b. Popular movies reflects the fears of the time

i. “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” ii. “War of the Worlds”

c. TV = Political Influencei. Senator Joseph McCarthy: Claimed to have list

of known communists in state department… Targets government employees, those in the entertainment industry, educators, and union activists

ii. HUAC = (House of Un-American Activities Committee) – investigated suspected communists in Hollywood

iii. Presidential debates (Kennedy / Nixon, 1960)

iv. Civil Rights Movement – shows violence in South

•Reason for Nixon’s defeat…. Kennedy is just sooooo cute

2. Effect on technologya. Space Race

i. US develops hydrogen bomb

ii. Soviets develop Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles

iii. Soviets launch sputnik: orbiting satellite

iv. US (Neil Armstrong) lands on the moon (1969)

b. Computers, televisions, cell phones

I’m gonna make bigger and better

guns than you!!! HA!

3. Effect on education… Eisenhower’s response

a. NASA – National Aeronautic Space Administration

b. National Defense of Education Act of 1958: improve science and math in schools to defeat Soviets

a. Atomic Anxietiesa. Atomic Anxieties::

““Duck-and-Cover Duck-and-Cover Generation”Generation”

b. Atomic Testingb. Atomic Testing::1946-1962 1946-1962

i. U. S. exploded 217 i. U. S. exploded 217 nuclear weapons over nuclear weapons over Pacific and in Nevada. Pacific and in Nevada.

4. Fear of nuclear war