1. The U.S. Homefront during the Cold War

2. Post World War Economy Despite fears of an economic collapse, an increase in consumer demand, a $6 billion dollar tax cut, and the GI Bill helped the growth of the economy. III. 1) The GI Bill provided economic and educational assistance to veterans. 2) There was two years of inflation that increased prices of 14 to 15 percent annually

3. Labor in 1945-1946 Several major industry strikes including automobile, electrical, steel, and the United Mine Workers strike led by John L. Lewis took place after the war. Also the nation’s railroads suffered a total shutdown. 3) President Truman forcefully used his power of the presidency to pressure workers to end the strikes. Again in 1951 Truman ordered the government to seize control of the railroads.

4. Truman’s Fair Deal Truman’s domestic program was called the “Fair Deal”, continuing the progressive reforms of FDR’s New Deal. Many of Truman’s Fair Deal programs failed due to the growing public concerns about the economy and the New Deal. III. 4) The Republicans gained control of both houses in Congress in 1946 using the slogan “Had Enough?” thus revealing the growing conservatism of post-war America. Quickly Republican congressmen began moving to reduce government spending and chip away at New Deal reforms, led by Senator Robert Taft. 5) The most notable was the Taft-Hartley Act, making the closed shop illegal and allowing states to pass “right to work” laws known as open shop.

5. Election of 1948 Truman faced a difficult task headed into the election of 1948, including his personal unpopularity and the division within the Democratic Party. III. 8) Governor Strom Thurmond representing the Southern conservatives started the States’ Rights Party, and the left wing democrats formed a new Progressive Party, with Henry A. Wallace as its candidate.

6. Truman’s Second Term III. 9) After regaining control of Congress, Democrats helped Truman Fair Deal to raise minimum wage, expansion of the Social Security System, passed the National Housing Act of 1949, all issues that had been rejected by Congress in his previous term. III. 10) Issues of no progress—national health insurance and aid to education. III. 7) More importantly he was not able to persuade Congress to accept the civil rights legislation he proposed in 1949. it would have made lynching a federal crime, federal protection for black voting rights, abolished the poll tax, and established a new FEPC to curb discrimination in hiring.

7. The Crusade Against Subversion V. 18) Beginning in 1947, the Republicans formed the House Un- American Activities Committee (HUAC) which instituted a serious investigation of internal subversion. First arguing that communist had infiltrated Hollywood. 19) People in Hollywood who were suspected of being subversive were barred from employment. 20) Then HUAC investigations brought charges of disloyalty to high level members of the State Department. Alger Hiss was in part convicted of perjury by Whittaker Chambers’ “pumpkin papers”. 21) A freshman Republican congressman from California named Richard M. Nixon helped convict Alger Hiss

8. Fears that communism had infiltrated government led to more than 2,000 government employees resigning under pressure and 212 had been dismissed. In 1950, with FBI director J. Edgar Hoover investigating radicals, Congress passed the McCarran Internal Security Act requiring all communist organizations to register with the government 22) In 1951 Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for delivering secrets to the Soviet Union about the Manhattan Project

9. Red Scare Anti-communist hysteria was intensifying in the early 1950’s. 23) Senator Joseph McCarthy’s investigations claimed that there were 205 known communists in the State Department 24) Senator Joseph McCarthy routinely accused the Democrats of committing “twenty years of treason” 25) Dwight Eisenhower’s Democratic opponent in 1952 was Adlai Stevenson. He was described as “soft’ by McCarthy. 26) When he ran for president in 1952, Dwight Eisenhower refused to speak out against Senator McCarthy.

11. The Decline of McCarthyism Ch 28. 55) The rapid decline of Senator Joseph McCarthy came with the televised Army-McCarthy Hearings. McCarthy acting as he always had bullying witnesses, hurling accusations, and evading issues mad him look foolish and in December of 1954 the Senate voted to condemn his for “conduct unbecoming a senator” and was relieved from the Senate. He died three years later from in part alcoholism

12. 53) President Eisenhower’s secretary of defense, Charles Wilson, stated, stated his belief that “what was good for General Motors was good for the country” Much the success of the economy led even corporate leaders to accept Keynesian economics and the larger role of the government. Eisenhower appointed wealthy corporate lawyers and business executives to his cabinet, as a result. He opposes many of the earlier Truman reforms that involved federal spending including social service programs and supported private rather than public development of natural resources. He ended 1960 with a $1 billion budget surplus.

13. Eisenhower Eisenhower did not attempt, however, to dismantle the New Deal era liberal legislation passed in the 30’s and 40’s. He even extended some programs like Social Security, unemployment compensation, and the Federal Highway Act of 1956. Thus assuring the survival of the Welfare State. 54) His popularity showed in the 1956 election by winning in a landslide over Adlai Stevenson, however, Democrats retained control of both houses of Congress.