1. Chapter 38: Postwar Prosperity

2. Dwight D. Eisenhower- 1952 Republican candidate for President
“I Like Ike”
Richard Nixon- Senator from California
Vice President under Eisenhower
Worked with Joseph McCarthy
Adlai Stevenson Democratic candidate for President
Illinois governor

3. Eisenhower’s Domestic Policy: Moderation
Eisenhower wanted to restore calm and wanted to have a peaceful nation. In 1953, he continued some of the plans FDR instated:
Department of Health
Education
Welfare programs
Extended Social Security benefits
Raised minimum wage to $1.00 an hour
Public Housing projects

4. Atomic Anxieties: Atomic Testing: “Duck-and-Cover Generation”
 U. S. exploded nuclear weapons over the Pacific and in Nevada.

5. The Nifty Fifties Economic Growth- lasted 15 years after WWII.
Factors:
Saved money
Cold War
Foreign Aid programs
Korean War
Consumer goods
Baby Boom

6. GNP- (Gross National Product) value of all goods and services produced in a nation.
Baby Boom- Period of high birth rate from 1945-early 1960’s. A baby was born every 7 seconds!
GI Bill- 1944, granted education, employment benefits, and loans.
Education- changes in books, more teachers, need for increased school buildings, and later expansion in colleges and universities.

7. Highway Act of 1956 Two things the highways achieved:
Congress Approved plans for a 41,000- mile interstate highway system.
Creation of multilane highways
Dependence on automobile
Two things the highways achieved:
Stimulated economy
Shortened travel time

8. Automobiles Became a necessity “Two car families”
Gas was only .30 cents per gallon!
Way to connect the suburbs and cities

9. The Culture of the Car
Car registrations:  25,000,  60,000,000
Two-family cars doubles from
1958 Pink Cadillac
1959 Chevy Corvette

10. Suburbs
Inexpensive homes built outside of cities provided the home-life for new families.
Families very important; promoted “togetherness”.
New models of the stove, refrigerator, dishwasher, and other kitchen appliances made being a housewife look like a luxury.
New: White-Collar Workers- Clerks, office workers, and bank tellers
Old: Blue-Collar Workers- Miners, factory workers, and mechanics

11. $7,990 or $60/month with no down payment.
Suburban Living
Levittown: “The American Dream”
1949  William Levitt produced houses per week.
$7,990 or $60/month with no down payment.

12. Consumerism

13. Entertainment and Technology
Television- Greatest impact on American life in the 1950’s
Competed with radio, movies, and magazines
1957- three major networks: CBS, NBC, and ABC
FCC- Government agency that regulates TV, telephone, radio, and other communication industries.

14. Television Truth, Justice, and the American way!
1946  7,000 TV sets in the U. S  50,000,000 TV sets in the U.S.
Mass Audience  TV celebrated traditional American values.
Truth, Justice, and the American way!

15. Suburban Living: The Typical TV Suburban Families
The Donna Reed Show
Leave It to Beaver
Father Knows Best
The Ozzie & Harriet Show

16. Television - Family Shows
Glossy view of mostly middle-class suburban life.
I Love Lucy
The Honeymooners

17. Movies and Musicals

18. Progress Through Science
UFO Sightings skyrocketed in the 1950s.
War of the Worlds
Hollywood used aliens as a metaphor for whom ??

19. Music Rock ‘n’ Roll became popular among teenagers.
Blend of Jazz, rhythm and blues, country western, and “pop” music.
Produced “teen idols”
Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis
Elvis Presley- “King of Rock ‘n’ Roll
Jazz- Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Theonius Monk
American Culture had an influence on the rest of the world.

20. 1951  “race music”  “ROCK ‘N ROLL” Elvis Presley  “The King”
Teen Culture
In the 1950s  the word “teenager” entered the American language. By 1956  13 mil. teens with $7 bil. to spend a year.
1951  “race music”  “ROCK ‘N ROLL”
Elvis Presley  “The King”

21. American Values Conformity of the suburban way of life.
Women in “traditional” roles.
Religion- Organized religion flourished and attendance in churches and synagogues climbed.
Billy Graham- Protestant revivalist who used the television for ministering.
Preached American Values against Communism.

22. Religious Revival Hollywood: apex of the biblical epics.
The Robe The Ten Commandments Ben Hur
It’s un-American to be un-religious! The Christian Century, 1954

23. Teen Rebels
Beatniks- Literary group that frequented coffee shops to contemplate philosophies.
Name comes from the quest for beatitude or “inner grace” in Zen Buddhism
Beat = weary or the musical beat
Beginnings of the Hippies of the 1960’s
“Ya dig cool cat?”
San Francisco- a city of refuge for artistic outlets and an escape form the materialism of the Post War America.

24. Teen Culture The “Beat” Generation “Beatnik” “Clean” Teen
"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars, and in the middle, you see the blue center-light pop, and everybody goes ahh..." from On the Road
“Beatnik”
“Clean” Teen

25. Jack Kerouac- Novelist wrote On the Road (1957) about the search for “IT”, life’s meaning and fulfillment.
Abstract Expressionism- Abandoned realism, use of bold colors and lines, an expression of feelings.
Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko

26. Teen Culture “Juvenile Delinquency” ???
1951  J. D. Salinger’s A Catcher in the Rye
Marlon Brando in The Wild One (1953)
James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955)

27. Lebanon- July 1958, possible Civil War between the Christian and Muslim groups. The U.S. fears communist intervention and the U.S. sends aid.
U.S. troops secured the Beirut airport
Sec. of state Dulles said: “… to reassure many small nations that they could call on us on times of crisis.”

28. Iran- 1953, the Shah of Iran, Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi was deposed by a communist political party.
Undercover CIA agents helped to overthrow the new communist government and reinstate the Shah of Iran.
Located south of Soviet Union
Became an important ally

29. Suez Canal- 1956 Egyptian ruler, Gamal Abdel Nasser, seized the canal.
100 mile long canal connecting the Mediterranean and Red Seas.
U.S. and Britain used the canal for oil from the Persian Gulf.

30. Cuba-1959, Fidel Castro comes to power by overthrowing the dictator Batista.