APUSH 32 Through The Picture Window: Society and Culture

rock 'n' roll

'Race music' for white people, bridge gap between white and black music, euphamism for dance and sex. "Communist tool to corrupt youth."

Servicemen's Readjustment Act

1944 GI Bill, jobs and money for education for WWII vets

Levittown

1947 William Levitt builds mass produced identical low cost suburbs, helps surburban growth.

"In God We Trust"

1954 added to currency showed Eisenhower's desire to return to a religious America.

Howl

1956 Prose by Allen Ginsberg, tried to grasp the movement and tempo of life.

The Crack in the Picture Window

1956 criticized uniformity of levittown as "postwar Hell"

Death of a Salesman

A play by Arthur Miller whose protagonist has based his life on being popular, called a failure by his boss, suicides.

On the Road

An autobiographical novel by Jack Kerouac that displayed the Beats' life and the adventures that went with it.

Jackson Pollock

Decided that postwar society was so chaotic that it could not be literally represented but abstractly represented.

baby boom

High birth rate as WWII vets returnede home, showed positive American view of their economy.

Elvis Presley

White singing race music, Rock n Roll singer, sugguestive dancing, very popular.

white flight

Whites to suburbs after blacks move to N cities, creates areas of poverty in cities.

white collar

Workers paid on salary instead of hourly (blue collar) shows newfound consistancy in work as white outnumber blue.

The Affluent Society

Written by John Kenneth Galbraith criticized post-war American life, argued that economic growth doesnt mean no social problems, points to deteriorating public works.

Invisible Man

Written by Ralph Ellison tied alienation to race by using a black narrator in his novel.

Dangling Man

Written by Saul Bellow (1946), the essence of life is the "desire for pure freedom." Lead to 'the Beats'

Norman Vincent Peale

WroteThe Power of Positive Thinking (1952) most prominent 'feel good' preacher which was popular in this period because it reassured society they were doign right.

juvenile delinquency

Rebellion due to conformity, free time, lack of religion, car culture.

the Beats

Rebellious young writers, poets, painters, and musicians against monotony and war. Salvation in rebellion. Lead to term "beatnik"

neo-orthodoxy

Religious people against "positive-thinking" felt Peale was more sedating the public than turning them to God.

Sunbelt

South, the Southwest, and the West, arc from Carolinas to CA that was filled with urban population growth.

Reinhold Niebuhr

Most prominenty figure in the neo-orthodoxy.

David Riesman

Noted American personality shift from the "inner-directed" (care about self) to the "other-directed" (care about appearance) type. Blamed growth of corperations and trying to please boss instead of trying to survive. Wrote The Lonely Crowd