1946 to 1961:

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1946 to 1961
Four Main Themes

• COLD WAR
• A CONFIDENT NATION
• CONSUMERISM
• CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Was it a time of happy days or anxiety,
alienation and social unrest?
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The Eisenhower Years

• 1953-1961

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PRESIDENT DWIGHT EISENHOWER

• Nickname "Ike"
• Born Oct. 14, 1890, in Texas
• Died March 28, 1969, in Washington, D.C.
• Education Graduate of West Point
• WWII Supreme Allied Commander during WWII

• 34th President Republican, 1953 to 1961
• VP Richard Nixon

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PRESIDENT DWIGHT EISENHOWER
Issues/Events

• Civil Rights
• Plessy vs. Ferguson overturned
• Public Schools Integrated
• Rosa Parks
• Montgomery Bus Strike
• Rise of Martin Luther King
• Little Rock Nine
• Cold War
• Ended the Korean War
• Suez Canal
• Hungary
• Berlin
• Sputnik
• U-2 Spy Plane

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Domestic Policy

• Balanced, moderate
• Bland leading the bland
• Overall, a time of prosperity
• New Deal a part of modern life
• Expands farm aid, Social Security, housing,
  health services
• Highway Act of 1956
• 42,000 miles of interstate highways linking major
  cities
• Improve national defense
• Good for jobs, trucking
• Bad for the poor, public transportation

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The Culture of the Car
America became a more homogeneous nation because
of the automobile.
First McDonalds (1955)
Drive-In Movies
Howard Johnsons
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The Culture of the Car

Car registrations 1945 --gt 25,000,000
1960 --gt
60,000,000 2-family cars doubles from 1951-1958
1956 --gt Federal Interstate Highway Act --gt
largest public works project in American
history! Cost 32 billion
42,000 miles of new highways built
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The Culture of the Car

1959 Chevy Corvette
1958 Pink Cadillac
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The Culture of the Car

1955 --gt Disneyland opened in Southern
California. (40 of the guests came from
outside California, most by car.)
Frontier Land
Main Street
Tomorrow Land
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The Culture of the Car

• The U. S. population was on the move in the
  1950s.
• NE Mid-W ---gt S SW (Sunbelt states)

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Foreign Policy

• Korean War ends in a stalemate.
• Shaped by John Foster Dulles
• Truman too passive
• Brinksmanship
• Push Communist nations to the brink of war, they
  will back down to U.S. nuclear superiority
• Massive Retaliation
• Focus on nuclear weapons, air power
• H-Bomb in 1953
• Criticized as mutual extinction

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KOREAN WAR

• Stalemate by 1953.
• Pres. Eisenhower negotiated an end to war
• Divided at 38th parallel
• Communism contained
• Remains divided today

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Soviet Concerns

• Stalins Death (1953)
• Khrushchev (1956) peaceful coexistence
• Hungarian Revolt (1956)
• Suez Canal Crisis (1956 to 57)
• Sputnik (1957)
• Second Berlin Crisis (1958)
• Khrushchev We will bury capitalism
• U-2 Incident (1960)
• Support for Castro in Cuba (1959)

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Nikita Khrushchev

• New Soviet leader after Stalins death in 1953 to
  1965.
• Not as harsh as Stalin
• Believed US and Soviet Union could peacefully
  co-exist with one another but the Soviet Union
  had to be as strong militarily as the US.

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The Suez Crisis 1956-1957
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The Hungarian Uprising 1956
Imre Nagy, HungarianPrime Minister

• Promised free elections.
• This could lead to the end of communist rule in
  Hungary.

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Sputnik I (1957)
The Russians have beaten America in spacethey
have the technological edge!
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1957 Russians launch SPUTNIK I

• Facts on Sputnik
• Aluminum sphere, 23 inches in diameter weighing
  184 pounds with four steel antennae emitting
  radio signals.
• Launched Oct. 4, 1957
• Stayed in orbit 92 days, until Jan. 4, 1958

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1957 Russians launch SPUTNIK I

• Effects on the United States
• Americans fear a Soviet attack with missile
  technology

• Americans resolved to regain technological
  superiority over the Soviet Union
• In July 1958, President Eisenhower created NASA
  or National Aeronautics and Space Agency
• 1958 --gt National Defense Education Act

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Effects of Sputnik on United States

• Atomic Anxieties
• Duck-and-Cover Generation

• Atomic Testing
• Between July 16, 1945 and Sept. 23, 1992, the
  United States conducted 1,054 official nuclear
  tests, most of them at the Nevada Test Site.

Americans began building underground bomb
shelters and cities had underground fallout
shelters.
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Desert Research Institute

• Between 1949 and 1963, the United States and
  Soviet Union conducted more than 100 above ground
  nuclear weapons tests.
• Limited Test Ban Treaty in 1963 banned all
  above-ground testing sending nuclear tests
  underground.
• On Oct. 26, 1963 at the Shoal underground nuclear
  test site 1,204 feet below the surface a nuclear
  detonation conducted in the Sand Springs Mountain
  Range about 30 miles southeast of Fallon, Nevada.
  
• Produced a yield of 12.5 kilotons and analyzed
  seismic detection of underground nuclear tests in
  active earthquake areas.
• The veiled purpose of the experiment may have
  been to discern the difference between Russian
  earthquakes and Russian nuclear testing.

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U-2 Spy Incident (1960)
Col. Francis Gary Powers plane was shot down
over Soviet airspace.
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U-2 SPY PLANE

• On May 1, 1960, a U.S. U-2 high altitude
  reconnaissance aircraft was shot down over
  central Russia, forcing its pilot, Gary Powers,
  to bail out at 15,000 feet.
• The CIA-employed pilot survived the parachute
  jump and was picked up by the Soviet authorities,
  who arrested him.
• On May 5, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev
  announced the capture of the U.S. spy, and vowed
  that he would be put on trial.

• After initial denials, U.S. President Dwight D.
  Eisenhower admitted on May 7 that the unarmed
  reconnaissance aircraft was indeed on a spy
  mission.
• In response, Khrushchev cancelled a long-awaited
  summit meeting in Paris, and in August, Powers
  was sentenced to ten years in a Soviet prison for
  his confessed espionage.
• However, a year-and-a-half later, on February 10,
  1962, the Soviets released him in exchange for
  Rudolph Abel, a Soviet spy caught and convicted
  in the United States five years earlier.
• Led to the Berlin Wall being built and the Cold
  War heating up again

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McCarthyism

• Claimed 205 communists working for State
  Department
• Attacked wealthy privilegedpopular appeal
• Even Eisenhower wouldnt challenge him
• Army hearings in 1954 televised
• McCarthy exposed as a bully (reckless cruelty

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red scare
RED SCARE

• Red Scare was Americans response to the fear of
  Communism
• Senator Joseph McCarthy accused 205 US Govt.
  officials of being Communist.
• McCarthyism to destroy or assassinate ones
  character without proof and it ruined the careers
  of many Americans.

Became a witch hunt that led to Americans
pledging a loyalty oath to the United States.
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red scare1
RED SCARE

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Popular Culture

• Consumer-driven mass economy
• Television
• By 1961, 55 million TV sets
• 3 national networks, bland sit-coms, westerns,
  quiz shows, sports,
• vast wasteland for children, culture
• Advertising
• All media, aggressive
• Shopping centers, credit cards
• Change from mom pop to franchises

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• Consumerism

Americans were caught up in the economic boom
that took place after WWII
1950 --gt Introduction of the Diners Card
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• Consumerism

Americans were becoming a consumer
society..Buying whatever new product that came
out that would make their lives comfortable.
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Television
1946 --gt 7,000 TV sets in the U.
S. 1950 --gt 50,000,000 TV sets in the
U. S.

Television is a vast wasteland --gt Newton Minnow,
Chairman of Federal Communications Commission,
1961

• Mass Audience
• TV celebrated traditional American values
• Superman-----Truth, Justice, and the American way!

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Television
Davy Crockett--King of the Wild Frontier
Sheriff Matt Dillon, Gunsmoke
The Lone Ranger (and his faithful sidekick,
Tonto) Who is that masked man??
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Television
Family Shows --gt glossy view of mostly
middle-class suburban life.

Wally and the Beav
I Love Lucy
Alice Kramden, The Honeymooners
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Popular Culture

• Paperback books
• Reading Increase despite television1 million
  copies a day
• Records
• Mass-marketed, inexpensive LPs or 45s
• Rock and Roll music becomes popular with
  teenagers

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elvis
RISE OF THE TEENAGE CULTURE
Elvis Presley Chuck Berry
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Teen Culture

• In the 1950s --gt the word teenager entered the
  American language.
• 1956 --gt 13 mil. teens with 7 billion to spend a
  year.

1951 --gt race music --gt ROCK N ROLL
Elvis Presley --gt The King
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Teen Culture
Happy Days OR Juvenile Delinquency?
Marlon Brando inThe Wild One (1953)
James Dean inRebel Without a Cause (1955)
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Popular Culture

• Role of Women
• Mass media reinforced traditional roles
• Lower wages in the workplace
• Social Critics
• Struggle against conformity
• Wanted increased social spending
• Beatniks
• Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg

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Well-Defined Gender Roles
Changing Sexual Behavior Alfred Kinsey --gt
1948 --gt Sexual Behavior in the
Human Male
1953 --gt Sexual
Behavior in the
Human Female
premarital sex was common.
extramarital affairs were frequent among
married couples.
Kinseys results are an assault on the family as
a basic unit of society, a negation of moral law,
and a celebration of licentiousness.
-- Life magazine, early 1950s
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Teen Culture
The Beatnik Generation Jack Kerouac
--gt On The Road Allen Ginsberg --gt
poem, Howl Neal Cassady
William S. Burroughs

• Jack Kerouac is said to have respondedWere a
  beat generation!
• Against traditional values of the Great
  Depressions and WWII generation (their parents)
• Would influence the counter-culture of the
  1960s

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Conformity

• Corporate America
• More white-collar jobs than blue-collar
• Teamwork, conformity, strict dress codes
• Big unions merge (AFL CIO)
• more conservativeindustrial jobs making
  middle-class income
• Suburbs, new cars, new schools, family vacations
• Religion
• After WWII, organized religion expands, becomes
  more tolerant
• 1000s of new churches, synagogues
• Less interest in doctrine, more in socialization,
  identity

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A Changing Workplace
New Corporate Culture The Company
Man 1947-1957 --gt factory workers decreased by
4.3, eliminating 1.5 million blue-collar jobs.
By 1956 --gt more white-collar than
blue-collar jobs in the U. S 1956 --gt Sloan
Wilsons The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit

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Well-Defined Gender Roles
The ideal 1950s man was the provider, protector,
and the boss of the house. -- Life magazine,
1955
1956 --gt William H. Whyte, Jr. --gt The
Organization Man a middle-class, white suburban
male is the ideal.
Young Gentleman
Family Man
The Provider
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Religious Revival

• Today in the U. S., the Christian faith is
  back in the center of things. -- Time
  magazine, 1954

Church membership 1940 --gt 64,000,000
1960 --gt
114,000,000
Television Preachers 1. Catholic Bishop Fulton
J. Sheen --gt Life is Worth Living 2. Methodist
Minister Norman Vincent Peale --gt The Power of
Positive Thinking 3. Reverend Billy Graham --gt
ecumenical message warned against the evils of
Communism.
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Religious Revival
Hollywood apex of the biblical epics.
The Robe The Ten Commandments
Ben Hur 1953
1956 1959
Its un-American to be unreligious! -- The
Christian Century, 1954
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Civil Rights

• Background
• Post WWI WWII movement to urban areas
• African Americans influencing party politics by
  the 1950s
• Conflicting feelings about Cold War message of
  freedom and democracy

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Civil Rights

• Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955)
• Rosa Parks, MLK, Jr.
• Civil Rights Acts of 1957 1960
• First since Reconstruction
• SCLC
• Greensboro sit-in
• SNCC

• Landmark in Desegregation
• Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954)
• Federal troops uphold in Little Rock, Ark.
• Little Rock 9

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Brown vs. board
CIVIL RIGHTS
Brown vs. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas

• May 1954, the Supreme Court overturned Plessy v.
  Ferguson and the "separate but equal" doctrine.
• Segregation of children in public schools on the
  basis of race was unconstitutional and
  discrimination.
• States ordered to integrate their schools.

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Rosa parks
CIVIL RIGHTS
December 1955, Rosa Parks, a 42 yr. old Black
woman was ordered by a Montgomery bus driver to
give up her seat to white passengers.

• Refused, arrested and fined 10 for sitting in
  the white section.
• Blacks refused to ride buses until the law was
  changed.
• Begins the Civil Rights Era as a national
  movement to bring about equality for Black
  Americans.

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Rosa parks
CIVIL RIGHTS

• Rosa Parks case led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott
  against segregation on public buses.
• Led by Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Montgomery City Government ended segregation.

• Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Leader for Black Civil Rights
• End Jim Crow
• Promote integration
• Increase voting rights
• Bring about a true democracy
• Rights deprived since Civil War

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LITTLE ROCK NINE
little rock

• Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas was
  the first high school in the South to integrate.
• 1958, President Eisenhower sent Federal troops to
  accompany the nine black students attending an
  all white high school...

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• Progress Through Science

1951 -- First IBM Mainframe Computer 1952 --
Hydrogen Bomb Test 1953 -- DNA Structure
Discovered 1954 -- Salk Vaccine Tested for
polio 1957 -- First Commercial U. S. Nuclear
Power Plant 1958 -- NASA Created
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• Progress Through Science

UFO Sightings skyrocketed in the
1950s.Hollywood used aliens as an allegory for
whom ??
War of the Worlds
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• The 50s Come to a Close

1959 --gt Kitchen Debate Vice President Richard
Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita KhrushchevU.S.
Embassy, Moscow, Soviet Union at the American
National Exhibition
Cold War Tensions ---gt lt---
Technology Affluence