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The Impact of Postwar Changes on American Culture: Conservatism vs. Anxiety

Explore the contrasting effects of postwar economic, demographic, and technological changes on American society, from the economic prosperity of the 1950s to the social unrest and anxiety that emerged. Dive into key factors like the rise of an affluent society, the growth of suburbs, and shifts in population distribution to dissect how these changes shaped American culture. By analyzing the era's economic boom, demographic shifts, and technological advancements, gain insights into the different facets of American life during this transformative period.

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The Impact of Postwar Changes on American Culture: Conservatism vs. Anxiety

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  1. Do Now! What was the impact of postwar economic, demographic, and technological changes on American culture [Defend your response with examples] “Conservatism, Complacency, and Contentment” “Anxiety, Alienation, and Social Unrest”?? OR

  2. ANAFFLUENT SOCIETYThe1950s Mr. Winchell APUSH Period 8 Cast of classic 1950s television show The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet

  3. Cheap oil fed the boom Europeans controlled the oil of the Middle East 90% of American children are in school Farm productivity skyrockets Only 2% of the nation are farmers Permanent War Economy Aerospace, plastics, and electronics High tech innovations result from military spending Passenger jets & Computers Economic Boom: 1950-1970 • America’s Golden Age • Income shot up • 6% of world’s population and 40% of world’s wealth • 40 million new jobs in the 1950’s • Shift from blue collar to white collar jobs • Middle Class expanded • Cars • TV’s: 90% had a TV by the end of the decade • Women entered the work force • Service industry

  4. AN AFFLUENT SOCIETY • Post-WWII Recession (1946) Some economic conditions affecting the U.S. Economy • Reduced spending by the U.S. federal government • High inflation [prices of goods and services rose] • pent-up demand, • available savings & income was limited to non-existent • elimination of government rationing & price controls • Labor unrest [low wages, poor working conditions] triggered desire by many workers to create labor unions.

  5. AN AFFLUENT SOCIETY: Economic Prosperity • General economic expansion occurred from 1945-1972 • GNP grew 250% between 1945 and 1960: From $200B to over $500B • Low Unemployment - 5% or less throughout the 1950s • Low inflation – during Eisenhower admin, averaged 1.5% per year • Rapid Growth of Incomes – more than tripled 1945-1960 • Average family in 1955 had double the income of comparable family during 1920s [this was a good thing!] • Highest standard of living in world was in the U.S. • The U.S. possessed the Dominant economy in the world Inflation, 1940-1980 Unemployment, 1950-1970

  6. AN AFFLUENT SOCIETY: Economic Prosperity Reasons for Prosperity: • Pent-up [stored] savings • Lack of foreign competition • Government spending • military (Korean War, Cold War) • G.I. Bill • Expansion of suburbs – grew 47% during decade • stimulated demand for cars and homes

  7. AN AFFLUENT SOCIETY: Economic Prosperity • G.I. Bill of Rights (Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944) • Education • job training • college • Loans for homes and businesses G.I. Bill & College Enrollment

  8. AN AFFLUENT SOCIETY: Economic Prosperity • Regional Growth: The Sunbelt • Warmer climate, lower taxes, lower labor costs • Military spending Population Change, 1950-1960

  9. Metropolitan Growth, 1950-1980 Henretta, America’s History 4e

  10. CHANGES IN SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & MEDICINE 1951 -- First IBM (commercial)Mainframe Computer 1952 -- Hydrogen Bomb Test 1953 -- DNA Structure Discovered 1954 -- Polio Vaccine Tested –JonasSalk 1957 -- First Commercial U. S. Nuclear Power Plant 1958 -- NASA Created ENIAC, first mainframe computer, 1945 • Automation: 1947-1957 - factory workers decreased by 4.3%, eliminating 1.5 million blue-collar jobs.

  11. CONSENSUS&CONFORMITY SUBURBIA AND MIDDLE-CLASS AMERICA IN THE 1950s

  12. CONSENSUS AND CONFORMITY: Politics • Election of 1952: Dwight D. Eisenhower vs. Adlai Stevenson • Ike won: 34 million to 27 million popular votes; 442 to 89 electoral votes. • “Modern Republicanism” • Fiscal Conservative: sound business principles, Reduce federal spending, balance budget and cut taxes • Social Moderate: maintain existing social and economic legislation • Tried to avoid partisan conflicts • Federal Highway Act (1956) President Eisenhower(Courtesy Dwight D. Eisenhower Library) Ike with VP Nixon on the Links.

  13. AN AFFLUENT SOCIETY: Society • baby boom • population grew 20% 1950s (150M  180M) U.S. Birth Rate, 1900–1980 Birthrate, 1940-1970

  14. The Baby Boom in Historical Context

  15. AN AFFLUENT SOCIETY:Growth of Suburbs SHIFTS IN POPULATION DISTRIBUTION, 1940-1970 1940195019601970 Central Cities 31.6% 32.3% 32.6% 32.0% Suburbs 19.5% 23.8% 30.7% 41.6% Rural Areas/ 48.9% 43.9% 36.7% 26.4% Small Towns U. S. Bureau of the Census. Nash, The American People 6e

  16. AN AFFLUENT SOCIETY: Growth of Suburbs REASONS FOR THE GROWTH OF SUBURBS • Growth of American families (“baby boom”)was largely due to higher standards of living and fathers employed “bread winners” could afford to financially support larger families. • Home-ownership became more affordable • Low-interest mortgage loans • government-backed & interest tax-deductable • Mass-produced subdivisions • Expressways – facilitated commuting • Decline in inner city housing stock • Also: congestion, pollution • Race – “white flight”working class whites left cities to avoid blacks, crimes, dense populations, and noise to the suburbs.

  17. AN AFFLUENT SOCIETY: Suburbia • Mass-produced housing on the edge of cities • Levittown – 17,000 mass-produced, low-priced homes • 1949  William Levitt produced 150 houses per week. • $7,990 or $60/month with no down payment [very affordable] in the 1950s but in the 2010s they sell for well over $500,000 in the first Levittown L.I., N.Y. • “The American Dream” • Effect on inner cities:increasingly poor and racially divided Typical homes had two bedrooms, one bathroom, a living room and a front and back yard.

  18. CONSENSUS AND CONFORMITY: SUBURBIA • Car culture • Car registrations: 1945 - 25,000,000; 1960 - 60,000,000 • 2-car families double from 1951-1958 [more women owned & drove] • Federal Highway Act (1956) • (National Defense and) Interstate Highway System [expanded access to easier travel across wider distances] • Result: a more homogeneous nation [less racially diverse] 1957 Chevy was the classic 1950s automobile.

  19. CONSENSUS AND CONFORMITY: CarCulture America became a more homogeneous nation because of the automobile. Drive-In Movies First McDonald’s (1955) Howard Johnson’s

  20. CONSENSUS AND CONFORMITY: Television • Television “arrived” in the ‘50s • 1946 - 7,000 TV sets in U.S.; 1960- 46,000,000 (1 per 3.3 persons) • “Vast wasteland”[Click on link] speech by F.C.C. chairman criticizing overall quality of television programming. • Common mass culture • Suburban white middle class RADIO AND TELEVISION OWNERSHIP, 1940–1960

  21. Suburban Living: The Typical TV Suburban Families The Donna Reed Show1958-1966 Leave It to Beaver1957-1963 Father Knows Best1954-1958 The Ozzie & Harriet Show1952-1966

  22. CONSENSUS AND CONFORMITY: Consumer Culture • Advertising(t.v., radio, magazines) name brand became well known • Suburban shopping centersmade availability of households more accessible to housewives • Credit Cardsextended credit to households without need for immediate cash • Rise of Franchises (McDonalds) many now iconic businesses were able to succeed due to increased consumer demand.

  23. CONSENSUS AND CONFORMITY: Corporate America • Consolidation • 1960- 600 corporations (1/2% of all U.S. corporations.) 53% of corporate income • Conglomerates (food processing, hotels, transportation, insurance, banking) • More Americans in white collar[management/high wage] than blue collar jobs [manual/lower wage]. • Corporate culture - “The Company Man” Sloan Wilson’sThe Man in the Gray Flannel Suit

  24. CONSENSUS AND CONFORMITY: Organized Labor • Taft-Hartley Act (Labor Management Relations Act of 1947) • Unions – big, powerful and more conservative • Merger AFL and CIO in 1955 • blue collar workers - enjoying middle-class incomes and benefits • Goal: preserve and extend compensation Labor Union Membership, 1920-1992

  25. CONSENSUS AND CONFORMITY: Gender Roles & Women • Traditional gender roles reaffirmed • baby boom • home in suburbs • mass media • Dr. Benjamin Spock’s best-selling book Baby and Child Care (1946)

  26. CONSENSUS AND CONFORMITY: Gender Roles & Women • At end of WWII, many women left the “man’s” work force • “pink collar” jobs [clerical, wait staff, hostess, cashiers] • Paid less - seen primarily as wives and mothers • Yet by end of decade 33% of women held jobs • More married women joined workforce, especially as they reached middle age

  27. CONSENSUS AND CONFORMITY: Religion • Organized religion expanded dramatically after WW2 • church/synagogue memberships reached highest level in US history • 1940  64,000,000; 1960  114,000,000 • thousands of new churches and synagogues built in suburbs • Why?? • more of a means of socialization and belonging than evidence of interest in religious doctrine? • atmosphere of tolerance • Stage of life? Guilt? Image?

  28. Other “Americas”

  29. Cold War Tensions & Society "Fallout shelter built by Louis Severance adjacent to his home near Akron, Mich., includes a special ventilation and escape hatch, an entrance to his basement, tiny kitchen, running water, sanitary facilities, and a sleeping and living area for the family of four. The shelter cost about $1,000. It has a 10-inch reinforced concrete ceiling with thick earth cover and concrete walls." Duck and Cover Invasion of the Body Snatchers

  30. OTHER “AMERICAS”: SOCIAL CRITICS • William H. Whyte, Jr., The Organization Man(1956) • conformity • David Riesman, The Lonely Crowd(1958) • “inner-directed” individuals →“other-directed” conformists. • John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society(1958) • failure to address significant social issues and common good (would influence JFK and LBJ) • Michael Harrington, The Other America • rural poverty, inner cities

  31. Other Americas “The entire invisible land of the other Americans became a ghetto, a modern poor farm for the rejects of society and the economy.” --Michael Harrington

  32. Bell County, Kentucky, August 31, 1946

  33. OTHER AMERICAS:NONCONFORMISTS & CULTURAL REBELS • Teen Culture developed (free time, spending money) • “teenager” • consumerism • By 1956, 13 million teens with $7 billion to spend a year. • Rock and Roll • Elvis Presley • James Dean, “Rebel without a Cause” • “juvenile delinquency” • J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

  34. Beginnings of Rock Music Alan Freed The Dominoes Elvis (Michael Barson Collection/Past Perfect) Bill Haley & the Comets

  35. OTHER AMERICAS:NONCONFORMISTS & CULTURAL REBELS • “Beats” – “Beatniks” • Allen Ginsberg – “Howl” (1956) controversial for its time this performance poem was perhaps the best example of a non-conformist piece of American literature. • Jack Kerouac, On the Road (1957) also very controversial for its time mostly due to its divorce and drug references as well as its message of a care-free lifestyle. Alan Ginsburg, 1953 Jack Kerouac with his cat

  36. Re-examining the Clarifying Question What was the impact of postwar economic, demographic, and technological changes on American culture “Conservatism, Complacency, and Contentment” “Anxiety, Alienation, and Social Unrest”?? OR

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