The Politics and Culture of Abundance

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• CHAPTER 27
• The Politics and Culture of Abundance
• 19521960

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• Eisenhower and the Politics of the Middle Way
• Modern Republicanism
• Old Guard conservatives - repeal many New Deal
  legislation- unilateral approach to foreign
  policy but Eisenhower - modern Republicanism-
  no change in course set by FDR and Truman.
• Distance from anti-Communist fervor but refused
  to publicly denounce Senator McCarthy.
• Believed government best when left to states and
  economic decisions to private business but
  welfare state grew as did federal government
  projects - expanding Social Security, continuing
  federal governments modest role in financing
  public housing.
• Greatest domestic initiative - Interstate Highway
  and Defense System Act of 1956.
• Resisted federal role in health care, education,
  and civil rights.

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• Termination and Relocation of Native Americans
• New direction in Indian policy - reverse emphasis
  on strengthening tribal governments and preserve
  Indian culture established by Indian
  Reorganization Act of 1934 - three-part program
  of compensation, termination, and relocation.
• Commission to settle Native Americans claims for
  lands taken by government - 1978 settled 285
  cases - 800 million.
• Bills to transfer jurisdiction over tribal lands
  in several states to state and local governments
  - loss of federal hospitals, schools, and other
  special arrangements devastated Indian tribes.
• Encouraged Indians to move to cities - one-way
  bus tickets, relocation centers, housing, job
  training, and medical care.
• One-third Indians relocated eventually went back
  to reservation - those who stayed faced great
  difficulties - racism, lack of adequately paying
  jobs for skills possessed, poor housing (Indian
  ghettos), and loss of traditional culture.
• Few overcame these obstacles and applauded the
  program but most urban Indians remained in or
  near poverty.

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• The 1956 Election and the Second Term
• Nation at peace and economy booming - Eisenhower
  wins.
• Democrats won significant gains in midterm
  election of 1958 - Eisenhower serious leadership
  challenges in second term - recession.
• First Republican administration after New Deal -
  size and functions of federal government intact
  and tipped policy more in favor of corporate
  interests.
• Liberation Rhetoric
• and the Practice of Containment
• The New Look in Foreign Policy
• To balance federal budget and cutting taxes
  Eisenhower determined to control military
  expenditures.
• U. S. military strength in nuclear weapons with
  planes and missiles to deliver them - instead of
  spending huge amounts for large ground forces
  gave friendly nations American weapons.

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• Nuclear weapons could not stop Soviet nuclear
  attack, but could inflict enormous destruction on
  the USSR - nuclear standoff or mutual assured
  destruction, or MAD.
• Nuclear weapons were useless in rolling back the
  iron curtain U. S. did not offer support when
  Hungarian freedom fighters revolted against
  Soviet-controlled government.
• Applying Containment to Vietnam
• In 1945 Vietminh, nationalist coalition led by Ho
  Chi Minh, proclaimed Vietnams independence from
  France - Communism in Vietnam viewed in the
  context of the domino theory.
• U. S. contributed 75 percent of Frances war no
  larger role.
• Vietminh defeated French at Dien Bien Phu in May
  1954 - two months later France signed truce -
  temporarily divided Vietnam at seventeenth
  parallel - Vietminh in the north and French
  puppet government in the south.
• U. S. joined Southeast Asia Treaty Organization
  (SEATO) to defend Cambodia, Laos, and South
  Vietnam.
• Between 1955 and 1961, U. S. provided 800
  million to the South Vietnamese army.

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• Army of the Republic of Vietnam grossly
  unprepared for guerrilla warfare that began in
  late 1950s.
• The situation and commitment to defend South
  Vietnam against communism passed on to successor.
• Interventions in Latin America and the Middle
  East
• Foreign policy work of the CIA - topple
  unfriendly governments in Latin America and the
  Middle East
• Clandestine activities in Guatemala - government
  not Communist or Soviet but accepted support from
  local Communist Party.
• Jacobo Arbenz sought to nationalize land owned
  but not used by United Fruit Company - Eisenhower
  authorized CIA to conduct covert operations to
  destabilize Guatemalas economy - assisted in a
  coup - led to decades of destructive civil wars.
• U. S. tried similar policy in Cuba to overthrow
  Fidel Castro who defeated U.S.-supported dictator
  Fulgencio Batista.
• In the Middle East - CIA intervened to support of
  dictatorship unfriendly to American corporations
  - instigated coup against the nationalist head of
  Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh - bribed army officials
  and paid Iranians to demonstrate against their
  government.

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• Shifted from Trumans all-out support for Israel
  to fostering friendships with Arab nations.
• In 1955, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles
  began talks with Egypt about American support to
  build the Aswan Dam on the Nile River.
• In 1956, Gamal Abdel Nasser, sought arms from
  Communist Czechoslovakia.
• Dulles called off deal for the dam - Nasser
  seized Suez Canal, then owned by British and
  French - Israel responded by attacking Egypt with
  the help of France and Britain.
• Eisenhower opposed intervention - Egyptians had
  claimed their own territory.
• U. S. remained out of the Suez crisis but stated
  U. S. would actively combat communism in the
  Middle East, invoking the Eisenhower Doctrine.
• The Nuclear Arms Race
• Countering perceived Communist inroads abroad but
  reduction of superpower tensions.

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• Eisenhower and moderate Khrushchev met in Geneva
  in 1955 for the first time since the end of World
  War II.
• In August 1957 Soviets test-fired first
  intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and two
  months later beat the U. S into space by
  launching Sputnik, first artificial satellite to
  circle the earth.
• Eisenhower created National Aeronautics and Space
  Administration (NASA) and signing the National
  Defense Education Act - assistance for students
  in math, foreign languages, and science -
  diminish public panic.
• American nuclear superiority no guarantee for
  security - Soviet Union possessed nuclear weapons
  to devastate the United States.
• Eisenhower cancelled espionage flights over the
  Soviet Union for a possible nuclear test ban
  treaty - order one day too late - Soviet missile
  shot down a U-2 spy plane over Soviet territory.
• Eisenhowers more bang for the buck defense
  budget increased U.S. nuclear capacity
  -quadrupling stockpile.
• Eisenhower warned about the growing influence of
  the military industrial complex in American
  government and life.

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• New Work and Living Patterns in an Economy of
  Abundance
• Technology Transforms Agriculture and Industry
• 1940 to 1960 increased output of American
  farms - number of farm workers declined by nearly
  one-third.
• Greater crop specialization, more intensive use
  of fertilizers, and mechanization.
• Decline of family farms and the growth of
  agribusinesses -causes and consequences of
  mechanization.
• Small farmers core of rural poverty - overlooked
  in celebration of affluence.
• Southern landowners replaced sharecroppers with
  machines - thousands of African Americans moved
  to cities and urban poverty.
• New technology, cheap oil, ample markets abroad,
  and little foreign competition increased
  industrial production.
• Labor unions enjoyed greatest success in the
  1950s, and real earnings for production workers
  shot up 40 percent.

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• Workers not represented by unions severely
  disadvantaged.
• Percentage of unionized workers declined -
  economy shifted from production to service - most
  service industries resisted unionization.
• Demand for female workers grew more clerical
  and service jobs.
• Burgeoning Suburbs and Declining Cities
• In the 1950s suburbs symbolized affluent society.
• Government subsidized home ownership with
  low-interest mortgage guarantees through Federal
  Housing Administration, Veterans Administration
  and by making interest on mortgages tax
  deductible.
• By 1960s suburbs came under attack - bulldozing
  natural environment, creating groundwater
  contamination, disrupting wildlife patterns, and
  adding to the polarization of society, especially
  along racial lines.
• White residents joined the suburban migration -
  blacks moved to cities for economic opportunity
  black population in most cities increased by 50
  percent during the 1950s.
• The Rise of the Sun Belt
• Americans on the move westward as well as to the
  suburbs.

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• Pleasant natural environment and promise of
  economic opportunity drew new residents to the
  West and Southwest.
• Importance of defense industry to South and West
  - referred to as Gun Belt.
• Surging population and industry soon -
  environmental concerns - water to cities and
  agribusinesses necessitated building dams and
  reservoirs on previously free-flowing rivers.
• High-technology basis for postwar economic
  development drew well educated, highly skilled
  workers to the West, but the economic promise
  also attracted the poor.
• Mexican American population grew, especially in
  California and Texas.
• Hernandez v. Texas - Supreme Court ruled that
  systematic exclusion of Hispanics from juries
  violated constitutional guarantee of equal
  protection.
• The Democratization of Higher Education
• More families could afford to keep children in
  school longer - tax dollars spent on higher
  education doubled from 1950 to 1960.

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• Though enrollments of black students and white
  female students increased modestly through the
  1950s, the increase did not nearly match that of
  white males.
• The Culture of Abundance
• Consumption Rules the Day
• Consumption a reigning value, vital for economic
  prosperity - to individuals identity and status.
• Population surge and consumer borrowing, spurred
  abundance.
• Women in the labor force to support themselves
  and their families - desire to secure new
  consumer products.
• The Revival of Domesticity and Religion
• Married women in the labor force but dominant
  ideology celebrated traditional family life
  gender roles.
• Emphasis on home and family life reflected
  anxieties about the cold war and nuclear menace.
• Writer and feminist Betty Friedan idealized
  womens domestic roles in her book The Feminine
  Mystique.

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• Glorification of domesticity clashed with married
  womens participation in the labor force - most
  Americans embodied the family ideal.
• Surge of interest in religion.
• Reassurance and peace of mind in the nuclear age
  - ministers such as Billy Graham turned cold war
  into a holy war - communism a great sinister
  anti-Christian movement masterminded by Satan.
• Television Transforms Culture and Politics
• New medium of television offered Americans
  welcome respite from cold war anxieties.
• Comedies that projected family ideal and feminine
  mystique.
• In the 1950s viewers tuned in to debates and
  candidates forced to spend huge sums of money for
  TV spots.
• Television dubbed a vast wasteland, but it
  dominated Americans leisure time, influenced
  their consumption patterns, and shaped their
  perceptions of the nations leadership.

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• Countercurrents
• Pockets of dissent underlay complacency of the
  1950s.
• Politics of consensus, materialism and conformity
  celebrated in popular culture.
• Questioned loss of traditional masculinity
  Playboy in 1953.
• Alfred Kinseys studies on sexual behavior -
  mens and womens sexual conduct.
• Rock and roll music.
• Beat generation - a small group of literary
  figures based in New York Citys Greenwich
  Village and in San Francisco.
• Bold new styles in the visual arts
• Emergence of a Civil Rights Movement
• African Americans Challenge the Supreme Court and
  the President
• Black migration from South to areas where they
  could vote and exert political pressure, cold war
  concerns raised by white leaders, and
  organizational structure for blacks in the
  segregated South spurred black protest in the
  1950s.

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• The legal strategy of the National Association
  for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) -
  crowning achievement with the Supreme Court
  decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.
• Eisenhower refused to endorse Brown - keep his
  distance from civil rights issues - fortified
  southern resistance to school desegregation -
  fueled the gravest constitutional crisis since
  the Civil War.
• Little Rock, Arkansas (1957) governor, Orval
  Faubus, ordered National Guard troops to block
  the enrollment of nine black students at Central
  High School.
• Eisenhower forced to send army troops to enforce
  desegregation at Little Rock - first federal
  military intervention in the South since
  Reconstruction.
• Eisenhower ordered integration of public
  facilities in Washington, D.C., on military
  bases, and supported first federal civil rights
  legislation since Reconstruction.
• Montgomery and Mass Protest
• Black protest had a long tradition in American
  society.

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• 1950s and 1960s - masses involved, willingness to
  confront white institutions directly, and use of
  nonviolence and passive resistance to bring about
  change.
• First sustained protest to claim national
  attention in Montgomery, Alabama, on December 1,
  1955 - Rosa Parks violated local segregation
  ordinance - city-wide boycott of buses.
• Parks from local NAACP - critical foundations for
  the black freedom struggle throughout the South.
• The Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA)
  organized a bus boycott - leader was Martin
  Luther King Jr., a pastor at the Dexter Avenue
  Baptist Church.
• Montgomerys blacks summoned their courage and
  determination demonstrating that blacks could
  sustain a lengthy protest and would not be
  intimidated.
• In January 1957 - black clergy from the South me
  to coordinate local protests against segregation
  and disenfranchisement.
• Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC),
  NAACP, and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
  - centers in southern cities - paved way for
  mass movement that would revolutionize the racial
  system in the South.

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