The Postwar World

1
The Postwar World

• Conformity and change
• from 1945 through the 1960s

2
A North American Society

• St. Lawrence Seaway a joint U.S.- Canadian
  project.
• Immigration from Caribbean to U.S. brings Latin
  influences to American culture from the Mambo and
  the Cha Cha to the character of Ricky Ricardo on
  I Love Lucy to the Puerto Rican characters in
  West Side Story.

3
Canada

• In Canada, the mid-century Liberal Party
  leadership of MacKenzie-King continued with the
  Liberal government of Louis St. Laurent (1948-57)
  but then switched to the Conservative government
  of John Diefenbaker (prime minister 1957-1963).
• Canada sees self tied more to North America and
  the U.S. for economics and defense instead of the
  fading British Empire.
• The postwar liberal consensus promotes major
  social programs such as universal health care and
  other social programs.

4
Mexico

• In Mexico, although still dominated by the PRI,
  leaders such as Miguel Aleman Valdes and A. Ruiz
  Cortines move away from the hard left Cardenas
  policies to more business-oriented approaches,
  including the development of the Mexican tourist
  industry.

5
In the Caribbean.

• British Caribbean Federation Act of 1956
  attempted to unify British islands. Results in
  the creation of the West Indies Federation in
  1958, which extended from Jamaica in the north to
  Trinidad and Tobago in the south.
• Capital in Trinidad and Tobago.
• Sir Grantley Adams of Barbados was first prime
  minister.

6
One from ten leaves nought

• Divisions and struggles plagued the federation
  from the start.
• Jamaica voted to leave the federation in 1961 to
  embark on its own course of independence, which
  it attained in 1962.
• With its largest member out, other islands
  considered leaving as well. The West Indies
  Federation collapsed in 1962.

7
From playground to proletariat Cuba

• While Havana was a hotspot for Americans in the
  1950s, political instability continued to mount.
• Marxist Fidel Castro launched an attack on
  military barracks in1953, but failed. Went to
  Mexico where organized movement with help of
  figures like Ernesto Che Guevara.
• Opposition to Batistas administration grew from
  both the right and the left.

8
Revolucion!

• In 1956, Castro landed at Sierra Maestra and
  established a revolutionary movement.
• In 1958, Batista goes into exile, leaving the
  military in charge.
• In 1959, Supreme Court says Castros movement is
  the legitimate government. Castros forces move
  into Havana and Fidel Castro named prime minister
  of Cuba.
• A program of nationalization of anti-foreign
  influence in Cuba began almost immediately.

9
Cold War Politics Domestic

• Election of 1948. Harry S. Truman (shown here,
  center, at the creation of the Atomic Energy
  Commission) defeats Dewey but Trumans pro-civil
  rights stand alienates white Southerners
• In 1952, Dwight D Eisenhower elected.
• By mid-1940s, conservative Republicans and
  Southern Democrats are the main influences in
  Congress (especially the Senate) and hold many
  governorships as well.

10
McCarthyism

• In early 1950s, Senator Joseph McCarthy announces
  that he has a list of known communists. Begins
  witch-hunt known as McCarthyism.
• Loyalty to the United States was considered
  important. The fear was that communism was not
  just a political force, but something subversive
  that would undermine American society if given a
  chance.
•  Remember that communism was relatively
  fashionable in the 1930s, esp. among
  intellectuals and entertainers. Now things are
  different.
• The result was a new Red Scare.

11
Anti-communism and society

• In popular culture, 1930s stars were targeted and
  ousted if perceived as communists.
• People could be fired for being suspected of
  communism.
• Speaking out against these actions could put one
  in trouble as being labeled a communist. Plays
  that criticized public tolerance of the witch
  hunts such as Arthur Millers The Crucible were
  shocking and controversial at the time.
• In April 1951, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were
  sentenced to death (and executed in 1953) for
  giving information about atomic technology to the
  Soviet agents in 1944.

12
Prosperity as National Security

• G.I Bill allows veterans access to loans for
  houses and education.
• Veterans preferences for hiring allows returning
  personnel to get jobs.
• Construction of high technology for the defense
  industry (Boeing, Motorola, etc.) as well as
  maintaining military bases and uranium mines
  opens new avenues for well-paid employment.
  (Wichitas Boeing plant is shown here).
• 1956 Highway Act supports federal construction of
  cross-country highways.
• Construction of Alaska Highway and Trans-Canada
  Highway bring development to western and northern
  North America.

13
The Result

• Growing dependence on automobile.
• Boom in suburbs such as Levittowns and other
  planned communities.
• Growth in universities, especially programs
  related to the sciences
• Prosperity for middle classes allows people more
  free time and disposable income to travel and
  purchase consumer goods.

14
The Good Life (for some)

• The ideal living arrangement was the ranch
  house surrounded by lawns in a suburb. The
  central room is not the formal parlor or even
  living room, but the family room where kids
  could be raised.
• For women, there is a renewed move towards
  domesticity, in image if not fact. The family
  wage allows the man to work while the woman can
  stay home to care for the children.

15
Modern Good

• Daily life centered around balancing traditional
  values with the latest modern technology.
• Appliances, especially televisions, became
  common, even expected parts of daily life.
• Science was to make things better and better,
  including research on child-rearing.
• The trend, promoted by Dr. Spock (no, not Mr.
  Spock) was that childrens creativity and
  individuality should be cultivated and nourished,
  rather than formed through strict discipline, as
  in earlier generations.
• Popularity of modern design concepts such as
  Googie
• Abstract Expressionism becomes popular in art
  circles.

16
The Consumer Society

• Shopping malls with vast parking lots become
  standard.
• Decline of mom and pop stores in favor of
  national chains such as Piggly Wiggly or
  Woolworths.
• Start of decline of downtown business districts.
• Children become increasingly important part of
  market. Childrens programs such as Howdy
  Doody, Lone Ranger, and Hopalong Cassidy are
  popular figures with their own line of
  merchandise.

17
The ideal

• Popular culture, including television shows,
  emphasized how America was a place of tolerance
  and freedom, compared to communism of the present
  or fascism of the past.
• In the words of a book of the time,
  Protestant-Catholic-Jew were all legitimate
  manifestations of American religious practice.
  Election of Catholic John F. Kennedy was seen as
  a case in point.

18
Fears and challenges

• American society was still highly segregated. By
  the mid-1950s, however, growing challenges to
  that segregation started emerging (to be
  discussed later in the course).
• Some popular culture also criticized the
  look-alike conformity of the age. There was a
  fear that American culture was so orderly, tame,
  and sanitized, that all the life was being
  drained from it.
• Fear that if Americans let their guard down,
  communists would take over and the Good Life
  would be lost. Symbolized, for example, in horror
  movies that featured zombie-like or evil
  creatures that attacked suburban society and
  reduced residents to mindless drones.

19
Books, authors, and documents

• David Riesman, et al. The Lonely Crowd
• Rachel Carson Silent Spring
• Jane Jacobs The Death and Life of Great American
  Cities
• Betty Friedan The Feminine Mystique
• Jessica Mitford The American Way of Death
• Roderick Nash Wilderness and the American Mind
• Barry Goldwater Conscience of a Conservative
• The Second Vatican Council aka Vatican II

20
Liberalism Returns

• Election of John F. Kennedy in 1960. Represents
  youth and promise of the World War II generation
  assuming the reigns of power. First Catholic
  elected president.

21
John F. Kennedy

• Embodied image of youthful exuberance. Appointed
  pragmatic intellectuals to cabinet.
• Dean RuskSecretary of State
• Adlai Stevensonto United Nations
• Robert McNamara, president of Ford Motor Company,
  was Secretary of Defense.
•  However, while was popular as a figure, had to
  contend with conservative Republicans and
  southern Democrats in Congress.
•  Programs of his New Frontier platform were to
  stimulate growth, helping needy groups with
  social welfare, etc. Yet had problems. Getting
  civil rights reforms passed was extremely
  difficult.  Anti-communist and foreign policy
  items were easier to get through. Also had to
  prove that he was not soft on communism.

22
Lyndon B. Johnson

•  From Texas. Like Kennedy, was from a very
  politically active family. Was in House of
  Representatives in 1937. Strong New Dealer.
  Senator in 1948. Late 1950s, was majority leader
  in the Senate.
•  Assassination of John F. Kennedy November 1963.
  Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) becomes president and is
  elected on his own terms in 1964.

23
The War on Poverty
24
The Great Society

•  Real passion was for a program called the Great
  Society, to wage a war on Poverty. At the
  time, 1/5 of population was still in poverty.

25
Great Society Programs

• Civil Rights Act of 1964
• Voting Rights Act of 1965
• Medicare and Medicaid
• Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
• Office of Economic Opportunity
• National Endowments of the Arts and Humanities
• Public Television

26
But.

• Yet, one historian put it that the so-called War
  on Poverty was in reality little more than a
  pilot project. Would largely be overshadowed by
  the conflict in Vietnam.  

27
The Times they are a-changin

• Changing cultural landscapes

28
Terms

• Racism The attitude that one race is inherently
  better than another.
•  Discrimination Practice of limiting what a
  person is allowed to do based on assumed
  characteristics other than merit or competency
  for an activity.
•  Segregation In the U.S. context, is a policy of
  restricting of access to a person or group of
  people based on race or ethnicity.

29
Segregation Types

• Legal-official ordinances either city, state, or
  county
• Policyeither intended or unintended
• Personal-individuals choosing where to live.
• Spatiala byproduct of how communities developed.
  May be based on things such as economics or
  transportation links.

30
Segregation Arenas

• Voting and governance
• Residential
• Work/commercial/social access
• Public facilities and services
• Education and institutions
• Lifestylese.g. marriage and adoption
•  

31
Tools and techniques

• Campaigns that gained media attention such as
  sit-ins, protest marches, civil disobedience.
• Tension between those who favored moderate reform
  in courts and public opinion to gain more civil
  rights within the societys existing framework
  vs. those in favor of more activist efforts to
  change the system itself.

32
Two phases

• 1945-1965
• Advocated reform within structures of society.
  Often targeted legal barriers and sought to bring
  the civil rights and opportunities that white
  males had long enjoyed to groups that had been
  excluded.

• 1965-1980
• Suggested that the very economic, social, and
  political dynamics within the society had to be
  changed. Saw problems as rooted in deep-seated
  attitudes that were hard to change with court
  decisions or new laws.

33
African Americans
34
Changes in 1940s

• World War II units were segregated.
• 1947 Jackie Robinson allowed to play for a major
  league team.
• 1948 Truman orders military to desegregate.
• Civil Rights became an issue in 1948 election.
  White southerners start leaving the Democratic
  party. Some, such as Strom Thurmond, become
  Dixiecrats.

35
Challenging legal segregation

• In Sweatt v. Painter, Supreme Court rules against
  segregated law schools in 1950.
• NAACP organizes five cases to go before the
  Supreme Court. One involved Brown v. the Board
  of Education of Topeka, Kansas.
• In 1954, Supreme Court rules that separate is
  inherently unequal. Overturns Plessy v. Ferguson.
  
• In 1955, the decision known as Brown II orders
  schools to desegregate.

36
Civil Rights activities

• December 1955. Rosa Parks refuses to give up her
  seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, AL. Is
  arrested. Results in Montgomery Bus Boycott lead
  by Martin Luther King.
• 1958. Students in Wichita conducted a sit-in at
  the Dockum Drug Store. Forced the chain to
  desegregate.
• 1960. A more publicized sit-in took place in
  Greensboro, NC.

37
Preserving Segregation

• Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas refuses to
  desegregate schools. Eisenhower calls in the
  National Guard to enforce desegregation.
• Renewed growth of the KKK
• One symbolic part of this movement was the
  embrace of the Confederate battle flag as a
  symbol of Southerness.

38
Organizations

• National Association for the Advancement of
  Colored People (NAACP)
• National Urban League
• Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
• Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
• Student Non-Violent Coordinating Commission (SNCC)

39
Activism in the 1960s

• White students from came to the South to
  challenge segregated facilities. Included
  freedom rides.
• Martin Luther King organized protest marches, the
  most famous included a march in Birmingham, AL,
  and one in Washington, D.C., both in 1963.
• Resulted in the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Outlawed
  discrimination and segregation. Established the
  Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to ensure
  prohibit discrimination in job settings.

40
Getting the voteagain

• Freedom summer of 1964. Organized efforts to get
  African Americans to vote.
• In 1965, Martin Luther King lead a march from
  Selma, AL to Montgomery. State troopers attacked
  the march, the violence of which got caught on
  tape and put on the evening news.
• Result was the 1965 Voting Rights Act bans
  restrictions on voting based on race.

41
Debate in the community

• Martin Luther King
• Baptist Minister
• Appealed to middle class African Americans and
  whites.
• Emphasized nonviolent tactics and peaceful civil
  disobedience to call attention to issues.
• Felt whites and African Americans must work to
  overcome racism.
• Assassinated in 1968.

• Malcolm X
• Became involved in the Nation of Islam
• Believed that racism was inherent in society and
  could not be erased.
• Advocated a African Americans separate from
  larger society to develop their own institutions.
• African Americans who were trying to work within
  the larger society were simply Uncle Toms who
  were still playing in the white mans game.
• Assassinated in 1965.

42
The debate, 1963

• King
• Now is the time to rise from the dark and
  desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path
  of racial justice. Now is the time to open the
  doors of opportunity to all Gods children. Now
  is the time to lift our nation from the
  quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock
  of brotherhood.

• Malcolm X
• An integrated cup of coffee isnt sufficient pay
  for four hundred years of slave labora better
  job in the white mans industry or economy is, at
  best, only a temporary solution. The only lasting
  and permanent solution is complete separation on
  some land that we can call our own.

43
Postwar urban issues

• The first migration of African Americans in the
  1910s and 1920s had been relatively urban even in
  the South with numbers of professionals and
  business leaders along with workers.
• Second migration from the 1930s through the 1950s
  consisted of more rural populations and more
  laborers. Found few opportunities up north.

44
One perspective

• It seems that Cousin Willie, in his lying haste,
  had neglected to tell the folks down home about
  one of the most important aspects of the promised
  land it was a slum ghettoThere were too many
  people full of hate and bitterness crowded into a
  dirty, stinky, uncared-for closet size section of
  a great city. Before the soreness of the cotton
  fields had left Mamas back, her knees were
  getting sore from scrubbing Goldbergs floor.
  Nevertheless she was better off she had gone
  from the fire into the frying pan. From Claude
  Brown, Manchild in the Promised Land

45
Urban responses, urban ironies

• Groups such as the Nation of Islam, advocating an
  African identity and emphasizing patronizing
  African American businesses.
• Formation of groups such as the Black Panthers.
• Race riots, one of the most infamous was Watts in
  1965.
• Government programs of President Lyndon Johnsons
  Great Society program thought the solution was
  large blocks of public housing that replaced
  earlier blight. Ended up concentrating the
  poverty even more.

46
Women
47
Issues

• Opportunity in the workplace
• Questioning role in society as only mothers or
  supporters of men as husbands and/or leaders.
• Harassment
• Legal rights in marriage and family matters

48
Questioning the roles

• Simone de Beauvoir published The Second Sex in
  1953, discussing womens subjugation in society.
• In 1963, Betty Friedan published The Feminine
  Mystique, noting that for many women, the
  suburban ideal did not turn out to guarantee the
  happiness the popular culture promised.

49
From The Feminine Mystique

• If I am right, the problem that has no name
  stirring in the minds of so many American women
  today is not a matter of loss of femininity or
  too much education, the demands of domesticityWe
  can no longer ignore that voice within women that
  says I want something more than my husband and
  my children and my home.

50
Early activities

• Kennedy administration was the first to study the
  status of women.
• 1964 Civil Rights Act included ban on
  discrimination based on sex. Was a last minute
  addition intended to kill the bill.
• 1966. Formation of the National Organization of
  Women (NOW).

51
First wave of feminists

• Tended to be white, middle class, and educated.
  Used similar tactics as African American civil
  rights movement. Issues included
• An Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution  
• Employment opportunity be guaranteed 
• Maternity leave established 
• Tax laws to permit the deduction of home and
  child-care expenses for working parents 
• Child Care facilities be established as public
  endeavors 
• Legislation (state and fed) support equal access
  to education
• Reproductive rights

52
Second wave (1960s and 1970s)

• Advocated not just legal or economic changes but
  rethinking of gender roles in society.
• Advocated a concept of sisterhood.
• Still middle class but more linked to
  anti-Vietnam war protest movement or
  counterculture movement.
• Growing awareness of different groups within the
  womens community such as Latinas, African
  American women, and lesbians.
• Began criticizing the sexism within the civil
  rights, protest, and labor movements.
• Also concerned that the womens movement had
  traditionally been of, by, and for middle class
  white women.

53
Changes in the 1970s

• Ms. Magazine published.
• 1973. Roe v. Wade legalized abortion.
• Military integrated women into the armed forces.
• Equal Rights Amendment passed Congress but failed
  to get enough states to support it to become an
  addition to the Constitution.
• Television programs such as Mary Tyler Moore
  showed single women as successful professionals.

54
Latino and Mexican Changes
55
Major demographic groups

• Latinos who were part of northern Mexico/American
  Southwest and were absorbed into the United
  States in the 1800s.
• Migrants from Mexico who fled poverty and the
  turmoil of the Mexican revolution. In Kansas,
  came to work on the railroads.
• Migrant workers from Mexico who came to work the
  fields of Texas, Arizona, and California. Became
  especially numerous with the Bracero program of
  the 1940s and 50s.
• Migrants from Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the
  Caribbean into the cities from Miami to New York.
• Migrants from Mexico and Central America who
  arrived in the wake of immigration laws of the
  1960s that did away with quotas.

56
Organizations

• La Alianza Hispano Americana formed 1894
• In 1929, several Latin American civic groups
  merge to form League of United Latin American
  Citizens (LULAC). Early efforts centered around
  desegregation and anti-discrimination issues.
• Brown Berets organized in 1967 as a more activist
  organization.
• National Council for La Raza promoted Hispanic
  pride and solidarity.

57
Cesar Chavez

• Cesar Chavez was a labor organizer among the
  migrant workers of California. Helped form the
  United Farm Workers (UFW).
• Used tactics of Martin Luther King to advocate
  non-violent protests to focus media and public
  attention on migrant worker issues.
• Advocated the public participate in boycotts of
  certain produce, especially grapes.

58
The Chicano/Xicano Movement

• A movement to promote a pride in a Mexican
  identity.
• Mexican identity, rather than being Spanish
  American or even a blending of Spanish and
  Indian, was seen as more connected to the Aztecs
  and native peoples of Mesoamerica.
• Rejected the Spanish heritage as simply the
  heritage of European conquerors.

59
The Left Returns to the Americas

• Fidel Castro overthrows the Batista government in
  Cuba in 1959.
• Rise of leftist sentiments in 1960s Mexico
  challenge the establishment. Particularly visible
  in student protest at the National University in
  1968.

60
The Qurious Qase of Quebec
61
Quebecs role in Canada

• Politically, it functioned akin to the U.S.s
  South in that it was a major force to be reckoned
  with. All national policies had to address a
  very powerful Quebecois political presence.
• Culturally, however, Quebec functioned akin to
  other marginalized minority groups asserting
  greater visibility in society with a
  reaffirmation of ethnic identity and solidarity.

62
Francophone Nationalism

• In Canada, greater emphasis on ethnic identity in
  the 1960s corresponded with a rise in Quebecois
  nationalism and the move towards bilingualism,
  especially under the administration of PM John
  Pearson.
• Books like Pierre Vallieres controversial The
  White Niggers of America argued that working
  class Quebecois had been an exploited people
  under the thumb of Quebecs elites, Canadian
  politics, and the U.S. domination of North
  America. The only way to change things is the
  completely overthrow the system.
• Quebecois presence in government included Prime
  Minister Pierre Trudeau.
• Meanwhile, politicians such as Rene Levesque
  moved for Quebecs provincial government to take
  a greater role in managing its own social
  programs and energy policy separate from that of
  the rest of Canada.
• Radicals disaffected with the Liberal Partys
  stance formed the Parti Quebecois advocating
  greater autonomy and even quasi-independence for
  Quebec.

63
Vallieres view of things

• It has become a cliché to say that Quebec is a
  colony, a sub-colony, a triple colony, etc. The
  dependence of Quebec in relation to foreign
  countries is a constant in its history.For ever
  since Champlain established a trading post in
  Quebec in 1608, Quebec has always been subject to
  the interests of the dominant classes of the
  imperialist countries first France, then
  England, and today the United States. Pierre
  Vallieres, White Niggers of America

64
The Environment
65
Outdoor Recreation Movement

• In middle of the twentieth century, environmental
  ethics were tied largely outdoor recreation
  activities such as hunters, hikers, and
  fishermen. Has mostly been an urban constituency.
• Groups like the National Park Association, Sierra
  Club, Audubon Society,and National Wildlife
  Federation worked for more parks, national
  forests, and game preserves. Opposed
  construction of dams in the American West that
  were flooding many scenic areas of the region.

66
Changing values

• In 1962, Rachel Carson published Silent Spring
  about the hazards of pesticides.
• Wilderness Movement advocated setting aside lands
  with little or no development, even for outdoor
  recreation.
• Growing awareness of ecology and that the
  environment is a web that if destroyed, will also
  harm humans. Encourages seeing habitat and
  ecosystems rather than just scenery. Groups such
  as Greenpeace took a more activist approach to
  environmental issues.

67
Policy Results

• Clean Air Act 1955 (amended several times in the
  1960s)
• Wilderness Act 1964
• National Environmental Policy Act 1969
• Earth Day 1970
• Environmental Protection Agency Act 1970
• Endangered Species Act 1973

68
Legacies
69
Uncertain paths

• By the 1970s, many of the official barriers of
  the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, such as legal
  segregation, had been done away with. Laws and
  policies promoted civil rights, addressed
  environmental concerns, and tried to deal with
  social and economic inequalities. However

70
Unintended consequences

• Integration got rid of Jim Crow but also
  eliminated the need for African Americans to
  patronize African American business.
• Integrating social institutions such as churches
  sometimes resulted in the closing of institutions
  that had been centers in their community.
• Urban renewal did away with some aspects of urban
  blight but concentrated that blight into larger
  housing blocks. Federal highways constructed
  within cities destroyed large sections of old
  neighborhoods.
• Integrated bussing, intended to bring the races
  closer together, sometimes resulted in friction
  within schools as different racial/ethnic groups
  came into conflict with each other in the school
  halls.
• Greater awareness of civil rights among many
  groups pointed out that there was no such thing
  as a simple division between oppressed and
  oppressor. The very groups advocating for
  change sometimes were blind to the sexism,
  racism, and cultural biases among their own
  ranks. It became increasingly apparent that
  someone to be oppressor and oppressed
  simultaneously.

71
Political Ramifications

• Issues of civil rights and the conflict in
  Vietnam drove wedges between the moderate and
  activist wings of both parties. Democrats became
  increasingly identified with ideological
  liberals, minority groups, and labor.
  Republicans became increasingly connected with
  ideological conservatives, business, the South,
  and West.