CH30
Joseph McCarthy's fall from power
By the time the hearings were over, McCarthy had lost most of his allies. The Senate voted to condemn him for his "inexcusable," "reprehensible," "vulgar and insulting" conduct "unbecoming a senator." He kept his job but lost his power, and died in 1957 at the age of 48.
Aftermath of World War II for women workers
In many ways, the story of women's employment during WWI was repeated during WWII. Despite their success in wartime industries during WWI, similar stereotypes about women's capacity and ability to engage in 'men's work' were circulated by the employers and the government. Trade unions again expressed concerns about men's pay being pushed down and sought assurances that women's wartime work would only be temporary. However, the needs of the wartime economy won again. In December 1941, the government conscripted single women aged 20-30 as auxiliaries to the Armed Forces, Civil Defence, or war industries. Propaganda leaflets urged women to participate in the war effort. Government figures show that women's employment increased during the Second World War from about 5.1 million in 1939 (26%) to just over 7.25 million in 1943 (36% of all women of working age). Forty six percent of all women aged between 14 and 59, and 90% of all able-bodied single women between the ages of 18 and 40 were engaged in some form of work or National Service by September 1943 (H M Government, 1943, p. 3). The level of employment could have been higher as domestic servants were excluded from these figures. Many domestic servants would have been redeployed to national service, but no exact figures exist.
The postwar economic boom
Several factors fueled the nation's unprecedented economic strength. First, the huge federal expenditures during the Second World War and the Korean War had catapulted the economy out of the Great Depression. The massive government assistance to the economy continued after 1945. No sooner was the war over than the federal government turned over to civilian owners many of its war- related plants, thus giving them a boost as they retooled for peacetime manufacturing. High government spending at all levels— federal, state, and local— continued in the 1950s, thanks to the arms race generated by the cold war as well as the massive construction of new highways, bridges, airports, and ports. The military budget after 1945 represented the single most important stimulant to the economy. Military- related research also helped spawn the new glamour industries of the 1950s: chemicals (including plastics), electronics, and aviation. By 1957, the aircraft industry was the nation's largest employer. A second major factor stimulating economic growth was the extraordinary increase in productivity stimulated by new technologies, including computers. Factories and industries became increasingly "automated." Still another reason for the surge in economic growth was the lack of foreign competition in the aftermath of the Second World War. Most of the other major industrial nations of the world— England, France, Germany, Japan, the Soviet Union— had been physically devastated during the war, leaving American manufacturers with a virtual monopoly on international trade After a surprisingly brief postwar recession in 1945-1946, the economy shifted from wartime production to the peacetime manufacture of an array of consumer goods. The economy soared to record heights. By 1970, the gap between the living standard in the United States and that in the rest of the world had become a chasm: with 6 percent of the world's population, America produced and consumed two thirds of its goods. During the 1950s, government officials assured the citizenry that they should not fear another economic collapse. "Never again shall we allow a depression in the United States," President Dwight D. Eisenhower promised. African Americans and other minority groups did not share equally in America's bounty, however. True, by 1950, blacks were earning on average more than four times their 1940 wages. And over the two decades after 1940, life expectancy for nonwhites rose ten years and black wage earnings increased fourfold. But African Americans and members of other minority groups lagged well behind whites in their rate of improvement. The gap between the average yearly income of whites and minorities such as African Americans and Hispanics widened during the decade of the 1950s. At least
The 1950s Beats
The desire expressed by the abstract expressionists to liberate self- expression and discard traditional artistic conventions was also the central concern of a small but highly visible and controversial group of young writers, poets, painters, and musicians known as the Beats, a term with multiple meanings: "upbeat," "beatific," and the concept of being "on the beat" in "real cool" jazz music. Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and other Beats rebelled against middle- class life and conventional literary expression.
Suburban growth
The second half of the twentieth century witnessed a mass migration to a new frontier— the suburbs. The acute housing shortage in the late 1940s (98 percent of cities reported shortages of houses and apartments in 1945) spurred the suburban revolution. Almost the entire population increase of the 1950s and 1960s (97 percent) was an urban or suburban phenomenon. Rural America continued to lose population as many among the exploding middle- class white population during the 1950s— and after— moved to what were called the Sunbelt states— California, Arizona, Florida, Texas, and the southeast region. Air conditioning became a common household fixture in the 1950s and enhanced the appeal of living in warmer climates. Suburbia met an acute need— affordable housing— and fulfilled a conventional dream— personal freedom and familial security within commuting distance of cities. During the 1950s, suburbs grew six times as fast as cities did. By 1970, more people lived in suburbs than in central cities. Governments encouraged and even subsidized the suburban revolution. Federal and state tax codes favored homeowners over renters, and local governments paid for the infrastructure required by new subdivisions: roads, water and sewer lines, fire and police protection.
Critics of 1950s society
Women, ethnic and racial minorities were pigeon holed into negative and restrictive roles in society. The former role of the extended family was replaced by the nuclear family, therefore modularizing people, and setting the country up for a cultural generation gap. Technologies were being picked for their immediate contribution to the wealth of industrialists as opposed to the long term good of the country. Street car systems were being torn up, public transportation systems were not being built at the same rate in suburban communities as they should have been. Renewable energy sources such as solar and wind were put aside for more immediate profitable energy production such as oil and nuclear energy. Rachel Carson's Silent Spring launched a concern for the pollution that was becoming rampant during the 1950's. Funding for research was geared towards big military projects without much attention of focusing on staying a head of the USSR technology that launched Sputnik ahead of the US. We fell asleep on that one.
"White flight"
a term that originated in the United States, starting in the mid-20th century, and applied to the large-scale migration of people of various European ancestries from racially mixed urban regions to more racially homogeneous suburban or exurban regions. The term has more recently been applied to other migrations by whites, from older, inner suburbs to rural areas, as well as from the US Northeast and Midwest to the milder climate in the Southeast and Southwest. The term has also been used for large-scale post-colonial emigration of whites from Africa, or parts of that continent driven by levels of violent crime and anti-colonial state policies. White flight was commencing leaving cities with large populations of urban poor and large and expensive infrastructures to maintain without a tax base to support either, creating also a further division of people of different races, and creatinging a disparity of opportunities.