Post WW2,1950s

America, and the

Civil Rights

Movement

Economics after WW2

People worry about return to depression

Initial years after WW2

GNP slumped

Price controls relaxed – prices skyrocket,

inflation

Epidemic of strikes

Government reinstitutes controls

Unions lose power – Taft-Hartley Act

Outlaws closed shops

Union membership begins to decline

Economics after WW2

Economy recovers – why?

Cheap energy – low cost of petroleum

Productivity

cold war spending, marshall plan

1950-1970 long economic boom

National income doubles in 1950s and again

in 1960s

Middle class doubles

Agribusiness - mechanization

GI Bill of 1944

15 million returning veterans

Encourage veterans to get an

education

Unemployment benefits

Loans for homes, farms, businesses

Elections

1948 – Truman v. Dewey v. Thurmond

Truman-- Whistlestop campaign – country wide

train campaign against “do nothing congress”

Thurmond – Dixiecrat (anti-civil rights, pro

states’rights)

Thomas Dewey – Republican (gov. of NY)

1952 - Eisenhower (R) v. Stevenson (D)

Eisenhower – middle of the road approach

Pledged to personally go to Korea to end war

Nixon’s checker’s speech

Eisenhower

TV – commercialized campaign

Modern Republicanism – middle road

Conservative with money

Liberal with people

Raised minimum wage, extended Soc.

Sec., public housing, etc.

Video Clips

I Like Ike!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=va5Btg

4kkUE

Checkers Speech (start at 3 min)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4UEv

_jjPL0

Prosperity of 1950s/1960s

Result of colossal military budget, govt funded high tech industry, and R and D

Cheap energy – US controlled oil

Highways, air conditioners, etc.

Higher productivity – better educated and better equipped

Increased standard of living

Agribusiness – mechanized farming

More workers shift to industry/white collar

Middle Class doubles to 60% of pop’n

Own cars, TVs, washing machines

Suburban Living FHA/VA low interest loans

Tax deductions for mortgage payers

1956 Interstate Highway Act

By 1960, 25% of Americans live in suburbs

By 2000, the percentage goes up to 50%

White Flight –

Middle Class white Americans left the cities

Moved to the suburbs

Cities lose income

Poor suffers – education, police, fire

Suburban Living The American Dream

1949 William Levitt produced 150 houses per

week.

Standardized plans, factory assembled frames

$7,990 or $60/month with no down payment.

Consumerism

1950 Introduction of the Diner’s Card

Modern advertising

Baby Boom

It seems to me that every other young

housewife I see is pregnant.

-- British visitor to America, 1958

1957 1 baby born every 7 seconds

Largest generation in US history

Increase in school enrollments, canned

food.

Leads to a youth culture

Baby Boom

Teen Culture In the 1950s the word “teenager” entered

the American language.

1951 “race music” “ROCK ‘N ROLL” roots lay mainly in rhythm and blues, country, folk,

gospel, and jazz

“Juvenile Delinquency”

Teen Culture The “Beat” Generation:

rejection of mainstream American values

celebrated non-conformity and spontaneous

creativity Jack Kerouac On The Road

Allen Ginsberg poem, “Howl”

Neal Cassady

William S. Burroughs

A Changing Workplace Automation:

1947-1957 factory workers decreased by 4.3%, eliminating 1.5 million blue-collar jobs.

By 1956 more white-collar than blue-collar jobs in the U. S.

Computers Mark I (1944). First IBMmainframe computer (1951).

Corporate Consolidation:

By 1960 600 corporations (1/2% of all U. S. companies) accounted for 53% of total corporate income.

WHY?? Cold War military buildup.

A Changing Workplace New Corporate Culture:

“The Company Man”

1956 Sloan Wilson’s The Man in

the Gray Flannel Suit

Women lose factory jobs in the post war

period, but gain service sector jobs

“pink collar” sector – secretarial work

Pop culture still glorifies the housewife and the

cult of domesticity

Betty Friedan and NOW reject this image

Feminine Mystique

Well-Defined Gender Roles

The ideal modern woman married, cooked and

cared for her family, and kept herself busy by

joining the local PTA and leading a troop of

Campfire Girls. She entertained guests in her

family’s suburban house and worked out on the

trampoline to keep her size 12 figure.

-- Life magazine, 1956

The ideal 1950s man was the provider, protector,

and the boss of the house. -- Life magazine,

1955

The Culture of the Car

Car registrations: 1945 25,000,000

1960 60,000,000

2-family cars doubles from 1951-1958

1956 Interstate Highway Act largest

public works project in American

history! Cost $32 billion.

41,000 miles of new highways built.

The Culture of the Car

• America became a more homogeneous

nation because of the automobile.

The Culture of the Car

The U. S. population was on the move in

the 1950s.

NE & Mid-W S & SW (“Sunbelt” states)

1955 Disneyland opened in Southern

California.

(40% of the guests came from outside

California, most by car.)

Television

1946 7,000 TV sets in the U. S.

1950 50,000,000 TV sets in the U. S.

Mass Audience TV celebrated

traditional American values.

“Television is a vast wasteland.”

Newton Minnow, Chairman of the

Federal Communications Commission,

1961

Television in the 1950s and 1960s

Leave It to Beaver

1957-1963

Father Knows Best 1954-1958

The Ozzie & Harriet Show

1952-1966

Religious Revival

Church membership: 1940 64,000,0001960 114,000,000

Television Preachers:

1. Catholic Bishop Fulton J. Sheen “Life is Worth Living”

2. Methodist Minister Norman Vincent Peale The Power of Positive Thinking

3. Reverend Billy Graham ecumenical message; warned against the evils of Communism.

Progress Through Science

1951 -- First IBM Mainframe Computer

1952 -- Hydrogen Bomb Test

1953 -- DNA Structure Discovered

1954 -- Salk Vaccine Tested for Polio

1957 -- First Commercial U. S. Nuclear

Power Plant

1958 -- NASA Created

1959 -- Press Conference of the First 7

American Astronauts

The 50s Come to a Close 1959 Nixon-Khrushchev “Kitchen Debate”

An entire house was built that the American

exhibitors claimed anyone in America could

afford. It was filled with labor saving and

recreational devices meant to represent the fruits

of the capitalist American consumer market.

Civil Rights Movement – post WW2

through 1960s

Civil Rights Act of 1875 -- Outlawed segregation Supreme Court overturned it in 1883

Plessy v. Ferguson “separate but equal” did not violate the 14th amendment

(equal treatment)

Allowed Southern states to pass Jim Crow laws (separating the races)

Allowed restrictions on inter-race contact

WW2 set the stage for the civil rights movement Opened new job opportunities

One million African Americans served Came home and fought to end discrimination

During the war, civil rights organizations fought for voting rights and challenged Jim Crow laws

Truman ends segregation in civil service, armed forces

Civil Rights Movement

Campaign led by the NAACP

Focused on inequality between separate schools that

states provided

Thurgood Marshall argued many of these cases

1950 – Sweatt v. Painter

Separate professional schools are not equal

1954 - Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

Marshall’s most stunning victory

Supreme Court struck down segregation in public schools

as a violation of 14th amendment

2nd case - To be implemented “with all deliberate speed”

Civil Rights Movement

1955 – Montgomery Bus Boycott African Americans were impatient with the slow speed of change

Took direct action

1955 – Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat and was arrested

JoAnn Robinson suggested a boycott of the buses

Leaders of the African American community formed the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) Elected 26 yr old Martin Luther King to lead

Dr. King made a passionate speech and filled the audience with a sense of mission

African Americans boycotted the buses for 381 days and filed a lawsuit Organized car pools

Walked long distances

1956 – Supreme Court outlawed bus segregation

Civil Rights Movement

1957 – Little Rock 9 - State had been

planning for desegregation

Governor Faubus ordered the National Guard to

turn away the “Little Rock Nine”

the 9 African American students who would

integrate Little Rock Central High

A Federal judge ordered Faubus to let the

students attend the school

Eisenhower placed the National Guard under

federal control to watch the 9 attend school

A year later, Faubus shut down the high school

Civil Rights Movement

Civil Rights Act – 1957

Establishes Civil Rights Commission to investigate violations

1957 – Southern Christian Leadership Conference established (SCLS)

Mobilize black churches for civil rights

1960 – Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) formed

1960 – Sit-in movement – focus on segregated lunch counters

1st – Greensboro, NC

Civil Rights Movement

Freedom Riders

Civil Rights activists would ride busses to test the Supreme Court decision that banned segregation on buses and in bus terminals

Provoking a violent reaction to force the JFK administration to enforce the law

Riders were tormented and beaten

Newspaper coverage and the violence provoked JFK to send federal marshals to protect the riders

Segregation in all interstate travel facilities was banned

Civil Rights Movement

1962 – Integrating Ole Miss

Air Force Veteran James Meredith won a federal

court case that allowed him to enroll in the all-white

University of Mississippi (Ole Miss)

Governor Ross Barnett refused to let him register

Kennedy ordered federal marshals to escort

Meredith

Riots broke out and resulted in 2 deaths

Federal officials accompanied Meredith to class to

protect him

Civil Rights Movement

Birmingham Strictly enforced its segregation

Reputation for racial violence

Reverend Shuttlesworth, MLK, and the SCLC tested their non-violence

MLK and others were arrested during a nonviolent demonstration MLK wrote Letters from a Birmingham Jail

With MLK out of jail, the SCLC planned a children’s march in Birmingham Police Commissioner “Bull” Connor arrested them

Later, the police met the marchers with high pressure fire hoses and attack dogs

TV cameras captured the scene

Birmingham officials finally ended segregation

Convinced JFK to write a civil rights act

Civil Rights Movement

1963 - March on Washington To show support for JFK’s civil rights bill, a march on

Washington was formed

Aug. 28, 1963, 250,000 people assembled in Washington

MLK gave his “I have a Dream” speech Appeals for peace and harmony

Two weeks later, 4 girls were killed in a Birmingham church

Two months later, JFK is assassinated

LBJ pledges to carry out JFK’s work Passes Civil Rights Act of 1964

Prohibited discrimination

Gave equal access to public accommodations

Civil Rights Movement

1964 – 24th Amendment – abolished poll tax

1964 – Freedom Summer - CORE and SNCC worked

to register as many African-American voters as

possible – push for voting rights bill

1964 - SNCC organized the Mississippi Freedom

Democratic Party to give African Americans a political

voice

Fannie Lou Hamer spoke at the Democratic National

Convention in 1964

Support poured in for the MFDP

Civil Rights leaders compromised with the Democratic

Party (MFDP got two seats in Congress)

Civil Rights Movement

1965 - SNCC led a voting rights campaign in Selma, Alabama

After a demonstrator was shot, MLK organized a 50 mile march to Montgomery

Mayhem broke out and TV crews caught police beating and gassing marchers

Johnson presented a voting rights act and gave marchers federal protection

Voting Rights Act of 1965 – eliminates literacy tests, allows federal officials to oversee registration, voting

* end of nonviolence *

Civil Rights Movement

Malcolm X

Began as militant black nationalist

Black separatism

Went on Hajj, moved away from separatism

Assassinated in 1965

Black Power

Black Panther party

Stokely Carmichael – leader of SNCC began to preach black

power – 1966

Exercise political and economic rights to speed integration

Emphasized their distinctiveness

1968 – MLK assassinated