Ch. 28 - The Affluent Society

1
Ch. 28 - The Affluent Society

• America in the 1950s
• Part 1

2
America after the War

• Celebration.
• and
• DEMOBILIZATION
• 1945 12m military
• 1947 -- 1.6m military

3
Demobilization

• War industries convert to peace production
• Autos, TV's, household appliances, cameras
• War-time price controls/rationing removed
• Prices rise
• Increased demand
• Inflation sky rockets1945-1947
• Labor Strikes (5 million strikers 1946)
• Trumans Fair Deal
• Taft-Hartley Act
• Limits union power
• Many women exit the labor market

4
(No Transcript)
5
The Economy Grows in the 50s
Real Income up 20
1950--1960
6
Consumer Society

• 1950s We were 6 of the worlds population,
  producing and consuming 50 of the worlds
  products.

7
Why were the 50s so prosperous?

• Rise in real income/savings from WWII
• Pent-up demand
• Little consumer spending WWII/Great Depression
• New Technologies
• GI Bill

8
GI Bill of Rights Servicemen's
Readjustment Act of 1944

• Provides funds for education for Veterans
• an estimated 2.2 million veterans received
  education at colleges and universities
• A total of 7.8 million veterans, or 50.5 percent
  of the World War II veteran population, received
  training or education under the bill.

9
GI Bill

• Funds Home Loans
• Over 2 million loans by 1950
• Housing starts
• 1944 -114,000
• 1950 - 1.7 million
• Home ownership increases to 62 of the population
  by 1960

10
New Jobs

• White collar jobs
• Big Business
• Finance
• Advertising
• (mostly white and male)
• Service Industry
• Insurance
• Transportation
• Retail
• Hospitality
• MacDonalds
• Holiday Inns
• Service and repair workers
• (service jobs gt manufacturing
  jobs)
• A shift from producing goods to providing
  services

11
Why were the 50s so prosperous?

• Bigger is Better efficiencies in industry
• IBM sales grow 10x between 1946-1961
• GM doubles its assets to 2.8 billion in 1960
• Conglomerates-large companies with holdings in
  unrelated industries, brought about by business
  mergers
• benefit company could grow without violation of
  anti-trust law
• Example General Electric, Berkshire-Hathaway,
  Time-Warner, Phillip-Morris

12
Farms Become Big Business

• Small family farms replaced by agribusiness
  corporations.
• Cost efficiencies on larger farms
• Expense of new technologies
• Pesticide/Synthetic fertilizers
• 1940 to 1960
• Farm size doubles
• Total farms 6 million to 4 million (2.3 million
  now)
• Farm population 30 million to 13 million

13
Mobility

• Post-war shifts in population
• To Sunbelt
• Rural to Urban
• (20 of American moved each year of the
  50s)
• The Automobile Culture
• 58 million cars purchased during the 1950s
• Highway Act of 1956
• 32 billion to build 40,000 miles of roads
• Interstate Highway System

14
(No Transcript)
15
Supporting Businesses
16
Suburbia
Small, mass-produced homes that the middle-class
can afford
17
Sunbelt Growth
18
Part 2

• Eisenhower in the White House

19
Eisenhowers New Look

• Many Americans were ready for a change in
  leadership
• Truman did not run again
• Dwight D. Eisenhower vs. Adlai Stephenson (IL)
• Eisenhower won in a landslide (head of D-Day)

20
More Bang for the Buck

• Key to victory in Cold War was strong military
  and economy
• Had to show the world that free enterprise was
  better than communism
• Instead of maintaining a large and expensive
  army, the nation must be prepared to use atomic
  weapons in all forms

21
Massive Retaliation

• Eisenhower concluded that we could not win the
  war on communism by fighting a few small wars
• Best way was to threaten to use nuclear weapons
  (Massive Retaliation)
• Cut military spending from 50 to 34 billion
• Increased nuclear arsenal from 1,000 bombs to
  18,000

22
The Sputnik Crisis

• B-52 bomber revealed that it could fly across
  continents and drop nuclear bombs anywhere in the
  world
• Could be shot down!
• Developed intercontinental ballistic missiles
  that could deliver bombs anywhere in the world

23
The Sputnik Crisis cont.

• At the same time Soviets had launched Sputnik,
  the first artificial satellite to orbit the earth
• Made the U.S. think we were falling behind the
  Soviets
• Developed NASA National Aeronautics and Space
  Administration
• National Defense for Education funds for
  education and training in math, science, and
  foreign languages

24
Brinkmanship in Action

• There were critics to Eisenhowers policies
• Critics called this brinkmanship the
  willingness to go the brink of war to force the
  other side to back down---argued that this was
  too dangerous

25
The Korean War Ends

• Eisenhower promised to end the war in Korea
• Eisenhower was convinced that the ongoing battle
  was costing too many lives and bringing too few
  victories
• Quietly let China know that the U.S. might
  continue the Korean War under circumstances of
  own choosing
• Hinting of a nuclear attack

26
The Korean War Ends cont.

• The threat of nuclear war was enough
• The battle line between the 2 sides, became the
  border between North Korea and South Korea
• A demilitarized zone (DMZ) separated them
• There was no victory, but the war had stopped the
  spread of communism in Korea-the goal of
  containment

27
The Taiwan Crisis

• Chinese nationalists still controlled Taiwan even
  though Chinese communist had taken over the
  mainland
• Communists threatened to take it from the
  nationalists
• Eisenhower warned the communists that the US
  would use nuclear weapons to stop an invasion and
  they back down

28
The Suez Crisis

• Middle East Eisenhowers goal was to prevent
  Arab nations from aligning with the Soviet Union
• To build support the U.S. offered to help Egypt
  finance the construction of a dam on the Nile
  River
• Egypt had bought weapons from Communist
  Czechoslovakia
• Had to withdraw offer
• Arab nations supported Communists

29
Fighting Communism Covertly

• To prevent communist uprisings in other
  countries, Eisenhower decided to use covert or
  hidden operations conduction by the CIA-Central
  Intelligence Agency
• Providing developing countries with financial aid
• Staged covert operations to overthrow
  anti-American leaders and replace them with
  pro-American leaders although it didnt always
  work and created more tensions

30
Continuing Tensions

• Nikita Khrushchev became leader of Russia
• We will bury capitalismYour grandchildren will
  live under communism
• 1960 Khrushchev and Eisenhower were to meet at a
  summit formal face to face meeting of leaders

31
Continuing tensions..cont.

• Before the summit was to begin, the Soviet Union
  shot down the American U-2 spy plane
• Soviets produced the pilot Soviets wanted
  Eisenhower to apologize refused
• Khrushchev called off the summit
• Eisenhower then left office