Postwar America: The Affluent Society

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Postwar AmericaThe Affluent Society

• U.S. History

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The Fair Deal

• Truman asked Congress for
• national health insurance
• increased minimum wage
• full employment guarantee
• civil rights for African Americans
• Republican-controlled Congress blocked his
  programs, but Truman vetoed their tax cut
• Desegregated armed forces by executive order in
  1948

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The Election of 1948
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Population Growth and Shifts

• 20 million move from rural to urban areas
• By 1970, 76 million in suburbs, 64 million in
  cities
• Govt subsidized
• FHA insured builders loans buyers mortgages
• Veterans got additional benefits
• Expressways built

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Levittown
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Levitt Home Styles
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Levittowns
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Building the New York Thruway
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Postwar Economic Boom

• White-collar workers outnumber blue-collar
  workers for first time
• Rosie the Riveter went back to being Rosie the
  Secretary

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Television the Consumer Economy

• Postwar marketing used powerful new medium of TV
• Business model based on radio
• Nationwide networks
• Advertisers sponsors shows to reach demographic
  groups
• Advertisers increasingly targeted teenagers
• Increasing disposable income
• Highly susceptible to emotional manipulation

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Other Postwar Trends

• Christian revival, but mainline Protestant
  churches focus more on soothing middle-class
  anxieties than preaching the gospel
• Consensus conformity characterize the national
  mood, but not a return to traditional values

Rev. Norman Vincent Peale
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Eisenhowers Dynamic Conservatism

• U.S. Canada agree to jointly develop St.
  Lawrence Seaway (1954)
• 1954 Housing Act supposed to build low-income
  housing for those displaced by urban renewal
• Atomic Energy Act (1954) allowed private
  companies to build nuclear power plants
• 1956 Highway Act spent 31 billion to create
  41,000-mile interstate highway system

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Automobile America