Chapter 29 America at Midcentury

1. Chapter 29 America at Midcentury

2. I. Shaping Postwar America • 1.8 million people laid off 10 days after the WWII victory • 640,000 filed for unemployment compensation • 1944 – Servicemen's Readjustment Act (GI Bill of Rights) • Kept veterans from overwhelming the economy • 1945 – Full Employment Act • Guaranteed work that were through public sector employment.

3. Postwar Strikes & Taft - Hartley Act • Strikers hoarded food & gasoline, union shut down coal, automobile, steel & electric industries stopped industries. • Taft – Hartley Act – allowed states to enact right to work laws that outlawed 'closed shops' where workers woiuld join unions if majority of workers favored union • 8 day cooling off period

4. Economic Growth • Due to saving through the war, once it was over spending increased & economy recovered. • U.S expanded global dominance because other countries were dead. • Largest co-ops; Cars, oil & electronics/communications • 1945 – farm output $24.6 billion to $38.45 billion in 1961 • Farm land grew from 195 acres to 306 acres • 1949 – GI Bill gave $4 million to veterans in unemployment & offered low interest loans so they could buy homes & businesses • GI Bill allowed more people to be educated, only %7.5 percent before, %50 after. • Benefited economy, allowed social mobility

5. Baby Boom • 1964 – highest marriage rate in the 20th century • 1957 – birth rate peak • 4 million babies born a year till 1965 • 1948 – 2 million families moved into together • 50,000 lived in Quonset huts • 250 trolleys were sol in Chicago for housing

6. Suburbanization • White Americans moved to suburbs to escape crowds, closer to city jobs, away from blacks & own home. • 18 million moved to suburbs between 1950 & 1960

7. Levitt Homes

8. Inequality in Benefits • Selective Service act – guaranteed veterans (men) priority in postwar employment • People were laid off so veterans could work • Women lost their jobs at a rate 75% higher than men • Non-white lost jobs first • Universities accepted veterans by excluding women • Blacks were considered blacks as 'high risk' for lending • Redlining – practice that outlined certain neighborhoods that would prevent blacks & Hispanics

9. II. Domestic Politics in the Cold War • Legislative Program – maintain federal government role in guaranteeing social welfare, promoting social justice, managing the economy & regulating business co-op power • Increased minimum wage, & housing through loans for mortgage. • Full Employment Act – would generate enough tax revenue & that consumer spending would increase economic growth • Was gutted & Congress refused to raise wage. • President Harry Truman's approval rates in 1945 – 87% • 1946 - 36%

10. 1948 Election • Republicans thought they had a sure win • Thomas Dewey nominated for President • Progressive Party – Henry Wallace • Advocated good relations with the Soviets, racial disintegration & nationalization of basic industries • The Dixicrats (States Rights Democratic Party) – white southerners- Nominated Storm Thurmond, a major segregationist. • Truman resorted to red-baiting or denouncing Wallace • Gained African American votes by being the first president to campaign in Harlem, NY which gave him the north majority

11. Truman's Fairdeal • Believed it was time for the government to fufill its duty & provide economic security to the poor & elderly. • Pushed for civil rights of Blacks • Proposed national Health insurance program & aid for education • Southern conservatists didn't pass civil rights bill, AMA said the health insurance was 'social medicine' & Roman Catholics opposed school aid because it excluded religious schools. • June 1950 – Truman ordered troops to Korea which caused Americans to panic & stock up with drove inflation up. • Unpopular war & charges influenced peddling to Truman's cronies pushed public approval to 23% in 1957

12. Eisenhower's “Its Time For Change' • Voters hoped that War Hero could stop the Korean War • Appealed to both parties – Democrats had even tried to recruit him. • First republican in office in 20 years. • Republicans hoped that he would get rid of the Liberal programs such as Social Security • Eisenhower considered to have 'Dynamic Conservatism' being conservative when it comes to money & liberal when it comes to human beings. • 1945 – signed amendments to the Social Security Act raising benefits & added 7.5 million workers to the Social Security rolls. • Increased government funding in education

13. Eisenhower • 1957 – Soviets launched Sputnik which made improving the sciences & technology education an issue of national security. • 1958 – National Defense Education Act (NDEA) funded enrichment of elementary & high school programs in math, foreign languages & science & offered fellowships & loans to college students.

14. Military/Industrial Growth • Eisenhower’s tax reform bill raised business' deprivation allowances • 1945 – Atomic Energy Act – granted private company’s the right to own reactors & nuclear materials to produce electricity • Tried to reduce Federal Government budget • Balanced 3 of 8 budgets, turning to deficit spending to cushion the impact of 3 depressions (53-54, 57-58, 60-61) & to fund US global activities. • 1959- federal expenditures were $92 billion: ½ to the military and ½ to developing new weapons • Farewell speech (1961-2nd term) – US had begun to have a large maintained army • More & more nations budget went to new weapon development

15. III. Cold War Fears and Anticommunism • 1940s – soviets take over of eastern Europe scares US citizens & makes them think US will appease the soviets

16. Espionage and Nuclear Fears • US and soviets were spying on eachother • “Veona” – top secret project that decrypted almost 3000 soviet telegraphic cables that proved soviet spies had infiltrated US gov agencies and nuclear programs • Resolved to prosecute spies • Kept evidence from US public • 1949 – soviets exploded atomic device • Children in school learned duck & cover, Lifemagizine features backyard fall out shelters

17. Politics of Anticommunism • 1947 – Truman purposely invoked ‘the communist threat’ to gain support for aid to Greece & Turkey • 1947 – Truman ordered investigations into the loyalty of more than 3 million US gov. employees • Gov. started discharging people who were ‘security risks’ – alcoholics, homosexuals, and debtors thought to be susceptible to blackmail • 1938 – Un-American Activities Committee(HUAC) created to investigate ‘subversive and un-American’ propaganda’ • Charged Shirley Temple (8 yrs old) w/ being a dupe of the Communist party • 1947 – HUAC attacked Hollywood using FBI files and testiments from Ronald Reagan • Screen writers & directors(“Hollywood Ten”) were sent to prison when refused to give names of communists

18. McCarthyism and the Growing ‘Witch Hunt’ • 1949 – HUAC demanded lists of textbooks used in courses in 81 universities • University of California instituted a loyalty oath for staff – fired 26 who resisted on principle • Staff across nation protested and made regents stand down • CIO expelled 11 unions(more than 900,000 members) for ‘communist domination’ • Feb. 1950 – a US senator came before an audience in Wheeling,WV and charged that the US State Dep. was ‘thoroughly infested with Communists’ • Republican senator Joseph R McCarthy (WI) • Claimed there were 205 communists then 57 and then 81 • Everyone even most random for worst reasons were questioned

19. Anticommunism in Congress • Most democrats supported domestic cold wars and its anticommunism • 1950 – Congress passed the International Security (McCarren) Act – required members of ‘Communist front’ organizations to register w/ the gov and prohibited them from having gov. jobs or traveling abroad • 1954 – senate unanimously passed the Communists Control Act – made membership in the Communist Party illegal • 1998 – US congressman Richard Nixon(CA) and HUAC member accused former State Department officer Alger Hiss of espionage • 1950 – Hiss convicted of lying about his contacts the soviets • 1950 – Ethel and Julius Rosenburg – arrested passing atomic secrets to the soviets; found guilty and executed in 1953

20. Waning of the Red Scare • 1954 – Senator McCarthy discredited on national TV • McCarthy became a celebrity because everyone was printing his stories • Took on the US army on National TV said army was shielding and protecting communists • Dec 1954 – senate voted to ‘condemn’ McCarthy for sullying the dignity of the senate • 1957 – died at 48

21. IV. The Struggle for Civil Rights : Growing Black Power • Blacks felt that as they helped with the winning of WWII that their lives in America after the war would be better. • People like Truman became aware of black rights & black votes ended up being a large majority. • Truman thought that every American regardless of race should enjoy the full rights of citizenship • December 1946 – Truman signed an executive order est. the President’s committee on civil rights. • Caked for ant lynching & anti segregation legislation & for laws guaranteeing voting rights & equal employment opportunities. • 1948 – Truman issued two executive orders declaring an end to racial discrimination in the federal government. • One proclaimed a policy of fair employment throughout the federal est. & created the Employment Board of the Civil Service Commission to hear charged of discrimination. • Other ordered the racial desegregation of the armed forced & appointed a committee to oversee the process. • A black middle class was emerging – full off college-educated activists, war veterans & union workers. • 1947 – Jackie Robinson was the first black baseball player & played for the Brooklyn Dodgers & was great at hitting & base running.

22. Supreme Court Victories and School Desegregation • 1939 – NAACP est. Legal Defense & Educational Fund under Thurgood Marshall which carried forward Charles Hamilton Houston’s plan of destroying the separate but equal doctrine established in the Plessy v Ferguson case by insisting on its literal interpretation • Won African American students admission to professional & graduate schools at formerly segregation state schools. • Marshall became the first black supreme court justice in 67 • Smith v Allwright (1944) – outlawed the whites-only primaries held by the democratic party in the south • Morgan v Virginia (1946) – struck down segregation in interstate bus transportation • Shelley v Kraemer (1948) – court held that racially restrictive covenants could not legally be enforced. • Brown v Board of Education of Topeka (1954) – chief justice Earl Warren ruled that ‘ in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” • 1955 – court ordered school desegregation “with all but deliberate speed”

23. Montgomery Bus Boycott • 1955 – Rosa Parks was arrested after refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a public bus in Montgomery Alabama. • Arrest gave black women’s organizations & civil rights groups a cause to organize a boycott of the public busses. • Martin Luther King Jr. was selected to lead the boycott • 26 yr old Baptist minister, believed in nonviolent protest & civil disobedience • The boycott lasted a year – blacks rallied in churches, sang hymns, & prayed. • With the bus co. near bankruptcy & downtown merchants suffering from declining sales the city officials went to harassment tactics to bring an end to the boycott. (didn’t work) • 13 months after the boycott began – supreme court declared Alabama’s bus segregation rules unconstitutional.

24. White Resistance • Border states (KA & MD) quietly implemented the desegregation while southern states went gradually. • August 1955 – Emmett Till (14 yr old Chicago black) was murdered by 2 white Mississippians who took offense at the way he spoke at a white woman. • White Citizens’ Councils – created by business & professional people for the purpose of resisting the school desegregation order. • Known as the ‘uptown KKK’ • Harry F. Byrd Sr ( VA’s US senator – pushed through states laws that provided private school tuition for white children who left public school to avoid integration & in VA, refused state funding to integrated schools. • FBI director J. Edgar Hoover warned Eisenhower in 56 of the communist influences among the civil rights activists & even suggested that if the citizens councils did not worsen the racial situation their actions might control the rising tension. • Chicago’s black pop: 1940 – 275,00 1960 – 800,000 • Increased number = political power • 1951 – huge black riot as white citizens of Cicero (small town adjoining Chicago) were determined not to let blacks move into their neighborhood. • 1959 – described as the most residentially segregated city in the nation (Chicago)

25. Federal Authority and States Rights • Eisenhower believed that race relations would improve if desegregation started locally so therefore didn’t come out & bluntly say anything about desegregation directly • Encouraged white resistance • September 1957 – Arkansas gov. Orval E Faubus defied a court- supported desegregation plan for Little rock’s central high school. • Went on public TV & said blood would run the streets if any blacks tried to enter the high school the next day. • Deployed 250 AR national Guard troops to block their entrance • 8 black students tried to enter the 2nd day, but were blocked by national guard. The 9th students only just survived being beaten by the crowd • Those 9 students entered the school 2 weeks later after a federal judge intervened. • Angry mob surrounded school • In response, Eisenhower nationalized the AK national guard placing it under federal control & sent 1000 army paratroopers to Little Rock. • Troops guarded the students for the rest of the year • 1957 – (Congress passed the first Civil rights act since reconstruction) Created the United States Commission on Civil rights to investigate systematic discrimination –voting • 1957 – Martin Luther King became the first Pres. Of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) organized to coordinate civil rights activities. • Blacks ready for a major national movement

26. V. Creating a Middle-Class Nation • Middle class and suburban culture less divided by class, ethnicity, religion and region • Middle class Americans look to national media rather than regional or ethnic traditions

27. Prosperity for More Americans • Economic boom due to consumer spending  industries expand to meet consumer demand • Cold War – government put money in defensences – create jobs and stimulate economy • Government weapon development and space programs need highly educated scientists, engineers, and other white collar workers • Universities receive billions of dollars • 1950s – transistor invented made possible computer revolution and transistor radio • United Auto Workers(AUW) and General Motors first to give workers health insurance, pension plans, and cost-living-adjustments(COLAs) • 1950 – “Treaty of Detroit” – GM workers 5-yr contract w/ regular wage increase tied to corporate productivity organize labor gave up demands for greater control in corporate affairs • Turning point for labor movement • Propelled union families into the middle class

28. Sunbelt and Economic Growth • Defense spending and aerospace industry shift economic development NEMWSSW • Gov help region – generous tax breaks for oil co., siting military bases, and defense/aerospace contracts • Sunbelt’s growth due to agriculture, oil industry, real estate development and recreation • Houston, Phoenix, LA, San Diego, Dallas, and Miami boom • 1940 1960 Houston population triple

29. A New Middle-Class Culture • 1956 – US had more white collar than blue collar • 1957 – 61% more salaried middle-class workers than the decade before • 60% of families had middle class income($3000-$9000 a year) • A family’s standard of living more important than what work they do – middle and working class lines blur

30. Whiteness and National Culture • 1950 – 88% of Americans of European ancestry, 10% African American, 2% Hispanic, 1/5 of 1% Asian and Native American • Most people at least one generation removed from immigration • Lose European ethnicity and become “white” • 1959 – Alaska and Hawai’i added more natives, Asian, and Pacific origin added to US population • New suburbs mostly white but more diverse • People from different regions of the nation, ethnic cultures, and religious backgrounds • Suburbs adopt the national middle class morms to create the middle class culture

31. Television • New people in middle class look to national mass media for instruction • Women’s magazines - replace dishes w/ “American” recipes created by a national brand name product • 1953 – almost half of US homes had TVs • 1960 – 90% had TVs • TV cost $300 $2000 today • “Father Knows Best” Anderson and “Leave It To Beaver” Cleavers help set family norms: properly set dinner, well groomed mother, crisis solved by parent wisdom and no one hit or yelled • Advertising paid for program tailored toward middle class • “Nat King Cole Show” AA musician drew millions but n sponsor due to AA little power in economics= canceled within a year • Only ABC, CBS, NBC available 70% or more of all viewers watching the same program

32. Father Knows Best

33. Consumer Culture • New abundance of consumer goods • Use consumer choices to express personal identity and claim status • Cars main focus of consumer fantisies • 1955 – spend $65 billion on automobiles • 20% of the gross national product • 1945 – consumer debt $5.7 billion • 1961 - $58 billion

34. Religion • Beginning of 1960s – membership to organize religion doubled • Mass media play role – Billy Graham(preacher) create national congregations from TV audiences • Local churches and synagogues offer suburbs a sense of community

35. VI. Men, Women, and Youth at Midcentury: Women at Work • suburban domesticity left women feeling isolated and cut off from the world their husbands' experienced • Unrealistic pressures placed on marriages and family relationships • many women had to manage both family and job responsibilities • twice as many women employed in 1960 than 1940 • 39% had children aged 6-17 • majority of women worked for a car, children's college, food etc. • want ads separated into "Help Wanted - Male" "Help Wanted - Female" • females made 60% what men were paid • restricted to positions as maids, teachers, nurses • college psychology/sociology textbooks warned women not to compete with men • med schools limited admission of women to 5% of each class • less than 4% of lawyers and judges were female in 1960

36. “Crisis of Masculinity” • sociologist William H. Whyte said postwar corporate employees succeeded through cooperation and conformity not individual initiative and risk • women's desire for security and comfort stifled men's instinct for adventure • unless men recovered masculinity lost with white collar or family centered work, the nation's future was at risk • men who didn't conform into being a husband, father, bread maker were condemned • an influential book advocated mandatory psychotherapy for men who didn't marry by 30

37. Sexuality • only heterosexual intercourse after marriage was deemed acceptable • women who became pregnant outside of marriage were ostracized • homosexuals could be expelled from school or work and/or jailed • Dr.Alfred Kinsey, director of the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University wrote "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male" "Sexual Behavior in the Human Female" • 80% of women disapproved of premarital sex morally, but 50% had still engaged • 37% men had had a homosexual experience • his books were best sellers, but he was quickly condemned • Hugh Hefner launched "Playboy" magazine in 1953 • in 3 years it had a circulation of 1 million

38. Youth Culture • youth culture was a set of subcultures, distinct from adult cultures • customs were created within peer groups and shaped by media • children's fads launched multi million dollar industries • 1947: slinky • Mr. Potato Head had $4 million in sales in 1952 • Walt Disney's TV show "Disneyland" featured Davy Crockett "King of the Wild Frontier" • raccoon fur went from 25 cents to $8 a pound • 1960: 18 million teens were spending $10 billion a year • 72% of movie tickets were sold to teens • Hollywood created a flood of teen films "Senior Prom" "The Cool and the Crazy" • youth was electrified by Bill Haley and the Comets, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly

39. Youth Culture Continued • 1956: Elvis on the "Ed Sullivan Show" set off a frenzy of teen adulation, parents were scandalized by performances • roots of rock 'n' roll lay in African American rhythms and beats • music industry had white performers do blander, more accepted covers of raw, sometimes sexually suggestive black music • parents worried that "going steady" increased the chance of premarital sex • crime rates for young people grew after WWII • curfew violation, sexual experimentation, underage drinking

40. Elvis – Ed Sullivan Show 1956

41. Challenges to Middle Class • beat writers rejected middle class social decorum and contemporary literary conventions • Beat Generation embraced spontaneity, freedom from demands of everyday life and open sexuality and drug use • Allen Ginsberg's angry, incantational poem "Howl" in 1956 was subject to an obscenity trial which opened publishing to a broader range • mainstream press made fun of the beats

42. VII. The Limits of the Middle Class Nation • critics rushed to condemn the middle class culture

43. Critics of Conformity • Americans obsessed with self criticism • rushed to buy John Keat's "The Crack in the Picture Window" (1957), J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye", Norman Mailer's "The Naked and the Dead" • critiques appeared in "Ladies' Home Journal" and "Readers' Digest" • 1956: "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", aliens grown in pods took over town, suburban conformity and homogeneity • large corporation replaced small business, mass production and consumerism, distinctions between ethnic groups declined in importance • critics often elitist and anti democratic • only saw bland conformity and sterility • identical housing didn't mean identical souls, instead gave inexpensive, healthier housing to millions who had grown up in tenements

44. Environmetal Degradation • corporations designed products to wear out so consumers would have to replace it • products were replaced because they were out of date, not because they didn't work • plastics and detergents were easier but not biodegradable • 1960s: US held 5% of the world's population, consumed 1/3 of its goods, services • steel mills, internal combustion engines polluted the atmosphere • Americans relied heavily on private vehicles, consumed non renewable resources, filled air with smog • water was diverted from lakes, rivers for golf courses and swimming pools • refuse from nuclear weapon facilities in Hanford, WA and Rocky Flatts arsenal, CO poisoned soil, water • DDT was used to kill mosquitoes, lice was used from 1945 • Rachel Carson, wildlife biologist, indicted it for killing mammals, birds, fish in "Silent Spring" • union members prospered but membership slowed

45. Continuing Racism • suburbs were almost always racially segregated • many white Americans had little to no contact with different races • 1960: 68 Chinese, 519 African Americans in VT, 181 Native Americans in WV, 178 Japanese in MS • 1 of 5 Americans lived in poverty, 1/5 of them people of color • 2/3 of the poor lived with the head of the house having an 8th grade education • 1/4 of the poor lived with the head of the house being a single woman • 1/3 of the poor were under 18 • 1/4 of the poor were over 65 • Social Security helped the elderly, but many weren't covered yet • medical costs drove many families to poverty

46. Poverty in an Age of Abundance • African Americans from the South, poor whites from the Appalachians to Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit, Baltimore • Latin Americans from Mexico, Columbia, Ecuador, Cuba • 1960 census: 1/2 million Mexicans migrated to Los Angeles since 1940 • 1940: NYC Puerto Rican population 70,000, 1960: 613,000 • endured crowded, decrepit housing, poor schools • National Housing Act of 1949: decent home for every American family • slums were leveled for high rise luxury housing, parking lots, highways • 1945 to 1961 farm population from 24.4 million to 14.8 million

47. Poverty in an Age of Abundance Continued • South mechanized harvesting cotton, 4 million displaced • 1959: 1 million Mexicans came legally to work, many more undocumented • Native Americans were the poorest, average annual income half of the poverty level • termination reversed Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 which removed reservation land from federal government protections which prohibited their sale • 1954-1960: 61 tribes terminated • termination only took place with tribe's agreement but reassure was intense • 4/5 Klamaths terminated for cash for ponderosa pine rich reservation land • way of life collapsed as the Indians moved to the cities • termination ended in 1960