1. American Stories: A History of the United States Second Edition Chapter American Stories: A History of the United States, Second Edition Brands Breen Williams Gross Affluence and Anxiety 1945–1960 29

2. The houses of Levittown spread over 1,200 acres of former potato fields on Long Island, New York.

3. Affluence and Anxiety 1945–1960 The Postwar Boom The Good Life? The Struggle Over Civil Rights

4. Levittown: The Flight to the Suburbs Residential areas surrounding cities nearly doubled in 1950s Baby boom accompanied massive shift away from cities; economy boomed Obsession with affluence causes concern as did nuclear bomb, Red Scare Civil rights movement shows change at work

5. Figure 29.1 Birthrate, 1940–1970 Source: Compiled from U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, Bicentennial Edition, Washington, DC, 1975.

6. The Postwar Boom

7. 1945–1960: Rapid economic growth 1960: Fear of another depression wanes

8. Postwar Prosperity Stimuli to consumer goods industry  Baby boom  Population shift to suburbia Increased defense spending; capital investments Employment expands

9. Postwar Prosperity (cont’d) Problems with agricultural overproduction, low prices Older industrial areas declined 1957–1958: Recession slowed decade's economic growth

10. Life in the Suburbs Suburbia inhabited by middle class Characteristics of suburbs  Dependence on the automobile  Family togetherness Traditional feminism discouraged Entrance of more women into workplace stimulated new feminism

11. The Good Life?

12. Consumerism the dominant social theme of the 1950s Quality of life left Americans anxious and dissatisfied

13. Areas of Greatest Growth Church membership School attendance Television watching

14. One of the most popular television programs of the 1950s was I Love Lucy, a situation comedy featuring the real-life husband-and-wife team of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz portraying the fictional couple Lucy and Ricky Ricardo.

15. Critics of the Consumer Society Social critics of suburban culture  John Keats  William Whyte  David Riesman C. Wright Mills criticized corporations Jack Kerouac, “Beat” artists promote counterculture

16. The Struggle Over Civil Rights

17. Cold War prompted quest for American moral superiority Legal discrimination against African Americans challenged U.S. self-image African-Americans expected more in postwar America

18. Civil Rights as a Political Issue Truman's civil-rights legislation failed 1948: African American vote gave Truman his margin of victory Civil rights made part of the liberal Democratic agenda Truman integrated the armed forces

19. Desegregating the Schools 1954: Brown v. Board of Education  Segregated schools unconstitutional  Desegregate "with all deliberate speed" Massive resistance in Deep South 1957: Eisenhower's actions  Federal troops sent to Little Rock, Arkansas  Commission on Civil Rights established

20. Demonstrators supporting the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling to desegregate the nation’s schools. The ruling also sparked protests, many of them violent and destructive, by opponents of integration.

21. The Beginnings of Black Activism NAACP: Pressed for civil rights in courts 1955: Martin Luther King, Jr. led Montgomery bus boycott 1956: Southern Christian Leadership Conference directed anti-segregation Sit-ins protested segregation laws 1960: Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

22. Rosa Parks’s refusal to surrender her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus led to a citywide bus boycott that brought Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., to prominence as a leader of the civil rights movement. Parks is shown here being fingerprinted in February 1956 after her arrest for violating an anti-boycott law.

23. In February 1960, black students from North Carolina A&T College staged a sit-in at a “whites only” lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. Their nonviolent protest spurred similar demonstrations in public spaces across the South.

24. Conclusion: Restoring National Confidence

25. American people more optimistic in 1960 than in 1950 Fear of economic depression waned Fear of Cold War continued Growing recognition of incompatibility of racial injustice with American ideals

26. Timeline