The United States from 1877 to 1977 The GI Bill, 1944-1955 4,300,000 home loans to veterans (worth 33 billion dollars) 8 million veterans went back to

The United States from 1877 to 1977

The GI Bill, 1944-1955• 4,300,000 home loans to

veterans (worth 33 billion dollars)• 8 million veterans went back to

school with a GI bill scholarship• 14.5 billion dollars in federal

money going to the nation’s schools and colleges

• 50 billion in direct or indirect subsidies to the American people

• 1/3 of the population received some sort of benefit from the GI

Bill


FDR’s Four Freedoms speech, via Norman Rockwell, January 6, 1941


The Yalta Conference, 1945

• In exchange the U.S.S.R. will declare

war on Japan• and hold free elections

in Poland.

• The U.S.S.R. will get three votes in the United Nations General Assembly


The Polish Corridor to Russia• 15th

century Teutonic invasion

• Napoleon’s 1812 invasion

• The Kaiser’s 1914 invasion

• The Nazi invasion of 1941


The Truman trajectory: Tom Pendergast and Harry Truman of Missouri; in Senate (far right); then President (below right)


Churchill, 1945

“An iron curtain has descended across the Continent. . . .


Nuclear weapons plans (1946)

• Acheson-Lilienthal Plan: UN would control atomic energy US would stockpile weapons until UN plan set up

• Baruch Plan: International agency would inspect countries to

prevent production of nuclear weapons Countries that did not have nuclear weapons could

not develop them Agency’s decisions would be immune to veto

power from UN Security Council or General Assembly


The Truman Doctrine (1947)• Massive military aid

to all goverments fighting communism

• 400 million dollars in military aid for Greece and Turkey


George Kennan’s “containment” thesis, 1946

• Stalin opposed west in order to justify his dictatorship

• Soviet Union had to be “contained by the adroit and vigilant application of counterforce at a series of constantly shifting geographical points . . . ”

• U.S. had to show that it had a better system for prosperity


Walter Lippman: “The Cold War” (1947)

• “Containment” basically put the strategic ball in the Soviet Union’s court

• The amorphousness of Kennan’s strategy will force the U.S. to place all its resources against Russia

• U.S. should most focus on Russia’s presence in Eastern Europe, not the whole world


The Marshall Plan, 1947• Massive aid to Europe

to reduce the influence of communism

• And strengthen European consumer markets

• “ . . . the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist.”


The Berlin Airlift, 1948-49

U.S. stands down Soviet threats to occupy West Berlin

West establishes Germany and Soviets establish German Democratic Republic


Communist revolution in China, 1949

Mao Zedong

Chiang Kai Shek

The United States from 1877 to 1977NSC-68 (National Security

Council document number 68), 1950

• U.S. and the Soviet Union were locked in a struggle for world power

• The Soviets had as their ultimate priority world domination

• Conflict between the two superpowers was “endemic” . . . like a disease, inherent

• The Soviets could only be stopped by military power• The Soviet people only supported the communists out

of fear; once the U.S. showed its strength, the Russian people would overthrow communism


Syngman Rhee of South Korea

Kim Il Sung of North Korea


The House Committee on Un-American Activities, (HUAC),

1937-1969

The United States from 1877 to 1977Starring:

Leonard Bernstein

Lee J. Cobb

Aaron Copland

Dashiell Hammett

Lena Horne

Langston Hughes

Burl Ives

Gypsy Rose Lee

Burgess Meredith

Arthur Miller

Zero Mostel

Edward G. Robinson

Pete Seeger

William L. Shirer

Orson Welles

Leftist actor John Randolph was one of many blacklisted performers who resurfaced in the 1960s


Democratic Party 3-way split, 1948

Strom Thurmond and the Dixiecrats

Henry Wallace and the Progressive Party

Incumbent Harry Truman


ThePresidential

election of 1948

0

5,000,000

10,000,000

15,000,000

20,000,000

25,000,000

Popular vote

Truman (24.1million)Dewey (21.9million)Thurmond (1.6million)Wallace (1.1 million)

Thomas (139,000)


The Smith Act (1940) and the McCarran Act (1950)

• Smith Act: "Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States . . . by force or violence . . .

• . . . shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both . . . ”

• McCarran Act: illegal to conspire to act in a way that will "substantially contribute" to the establishment of a totalitarian dictatorship in America

The United States from 1877 to 1977McCarthy era movies

• The Caine Mutiny, 1955 Based on the Herman

Wouk novel. The movie required permission from The Navy to be released!

• From Here to Eternity, 1953, a novel cleaned up

for The Army! Houses of prostitution turned into

USO clubs! In the novel the sadistic head of

the Army prison is promoted! In the film he gets fired!

In the novel one adulterous Army wife suffers from venereal disease!

In the movie she has a miscarriage!

• On the Waterfront, 1954


The flight to the suburbs• Levittown, Long Island:

population 88,000• 1950-1980: most major cities

lose population.• Suburbs gain 60 million

people• 83 percent of nation’s

growth takes place in suburbs

• By 1970 more people live in suburbs than in cities


The racialized suburbs

• Federal Housing Authority defines minority communities as financial risks

• Between 1934 and 1962, the federal government backed $120 billion of home loans.

• More than 98% went to white homebuyers


Growth of TV and Radio among households (in millions)

1940 1950 1960

Radio 30 42 50

Television 6 48

05101520253035404550

1940 1950 1960

Radio

Television


Poverty in the 1950s• 40 million Americans

still lived below the poverty level (almost

a quarter of the population)

• 2 million migrant workers lived on

subsistence wages• 27 percent of all

residential units were substandard

• As whites migrated to suburbs, many

cities lost their tax base

• slums proliferated• Legal segregation

and racial discrimination were

rampant in the south and the north


The Kitchen Debate, 1959

Players:Vice President

Richard Nixon vs.

Soviet Premier

Nikita Khruschev

(with future Premier

Brezhnev on the right)


Alfred Kinsey, 1894-1956Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, 1948, found that . . .

Most men masturbate

. . . and that’s fine . . .

One third of men have had a homosexual experience . . .

and that’s ok too . . .

Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, 1953, found that . . .

Most women achieve orgasm more “efficiently” via means other than vaginal penetration.

And, hey, that’s ok folks, just relax . . .


Founded in 1953 by Hugh Hefner

Celebrated the bachelor life

Celebrated home technology for men

Championed civil liberties for both men and women, including the right to choose pregnancy

Documents

The United States from 1877 to 1977 The GI Bill, 1944-1955 4,300,000 home loans to veterans (worth 33 billion dollars) 8 million veterans went back to