1. The Other side of American Life

2. Consensus and Conformity in the 1950’s
American Dream
Housing (levittown,’burbs), clothing (suits, poodle skirts) fads (Barbies, hula hoop)
1950’s cult of Domesticity (return to pre WWII gender roles)
Children seen and not heard
Anti-communism (McCarthyism)
TV reinforce perfect middle class (Ozzy & Harriett, Leave it Beaver, etc)

3. Poverty Amid Prosperity
1 in 5 (30 million) below the poverty line
Minimum income needed to support family

4. tens of millions of Americans are, at this
very moment, maimed in body and spirit,
existing at levels beneath those necessary
for human decency.  If these people are
not starving, they are hungry, and
sometimes fat with hunger, for that is
what cheap foods do.  They are without
adequate housing and education
and medical care.

5. Decline of Inner Cities

6. Urban Renewal Government tries to eliminate poverty
Tears down slumps to erect high rises and build parks, highways, etc

8. Problems with Urban Renewal
Create crowded, violent conditions
Have to remain poor or will be evicted

9. African Americans 1940-1960 migrate North for work and opportunity
Find little improvement in lives
Fewer jobs as factories move to ‘burbs
Long standing patterns of discrimination, remergence of KKK
Poll taxes, “separate but equal”

11. African American Attempt Change
Emergence of cultural icons
Music = Little Richard, Chuck Berry
Sports = Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Joe Louis, Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russel
Legacy of WWII (intergration of military
Government involvement
Truman committee on CR Brown V Topeka (1954) Thurgood Marshall
CRA 1957
Eisenhower/little rock/Governor Faubus

12. African Americans Beginning CR movement CORE
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Martin Luther King
Medger Evers
Emmitt Till
Malcolm X late 1950’s

13. Hispanics 1950-1960 Bracero Program
Mexicans migrate to US to work on farms and ranches in SW
Long hrs little pay

16. Native Americans Poorest Group
Termination Policy – w/drew recognition of tribes
Force assimilation into mainstream culture

19. Appalachia

20. Juvenile Delinquency (youth)
Resist the lives their parents had created
Blamed on: poverty, boredom, divorce rate, movies, lack discipline
Young teens stereotyped

21. The Beatniks
Mostly white artists who felt “beat down” by American culture. Looked for alternative lifestyles
Meet at coffee houses
Ex: Jack Kerouac
“On The Road” (1957)
JD Salinger “Catcher and
the Rye” (1951)

22. - Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Part 1, Ch. 1
"They danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because 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 that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn..."
- Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Part 1, Ch. 1

23. Rock n Roll Rock ‘n’ roll = music with a loud and heavy beat.
1st played by Alan Freed, Cleveland, Ohio
Influenced by African American rhythm and blues.
SCARED parents! = Generation gap

24. Rock 'n' Roll ICONs
LISTEN!
The Drifters
Chuck Berry
Little Richard

25. Marlon Brando The Wild One