1. Postwar America

2. Peacetime Americans increase spending, postwar economy booms
Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 (G.I. Bill): help veterans start businesses, buy homes, pay for college
1946 Election: Worker unrest related to rising cost of living/inflation sweeps Republicans to office
Anti-union laws passed by new Republican Congress
Right to work laws: allowing closed shops to work along side union shops
Union money cannot be donated to political campaigns
Truman vetoes anti-union laws, Congress overrides Truman’s veto
Truman wants to continue FDR’s reforms started by the New Deal
Wants to expand Social Security, public housing, and raise minimum wage
Proposes a civil rights bill protect African-American voting rights by abolishing poll taxes
Issues executive order ending segregation in the armed forces/discrimination in federal offices
Prosecutes lynching as a federal crime
Most of Truman’s agenda fails due to coalition b/w Southern Democrats and Republicans

4. Election of 1948
Truman expected to lose his campaign for reelection in 1948
Two groups leave Truman’s coalition of voters:
Southern Democrats “Dixie-crats” leave over civil rights issues
Liberal Democrats leave over ineffective reforms and anti-Soviet foreign policy
Republican governor of New York, Thomas Dewey runs against Truman
Nation shocked with Truman victory
Democrats also take back both houses of Congress

5. The Fair Deal Truman reintroduces domestic reforms—The Fair Deal
Some resistance from Congress
Minimum wage raised to 75 cents/hour
Social Security increased by 75%
National Housing Act of 1949
National health insurance, aid to farmers and schools, and civil rights blocked by Congress

6. The Eisenhower Years
Korean War ends Truman’s Fair Deal—Truman doesn’t run for reelection in 1952
Republicans run popular WWII hero, General Dwight D. Eisenhower
Democrats nominate Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson
“I like Ike” becomes campaign slogan
Ike’s philosophies: “Middle of the Road” and “dynamic conservatism”
Ended price and wage controls
Cut aid to school building programs and housing assistance “creeping socialism”
Cut New Deal programs like RFC and TVA
Federal Highway Act: $25 Billion to build interstate highway system
Construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway
Expands Social Security
Eisenhower oversees a time of prosperity and is reelected in 1956

9. Work On It…
On page 358 write and answer questions 1-10