Chp 28 Items
Polaris Missiles
American nuclear missile capable of being carried and fired by submarines, launched from below the surface of the ocean
Federal Highway Act of 1956
Authorized $25 billion for a 10 year project that built over 40,000 miles of interstate highways; largest public works project in American history
The Organization Man
Book by William H. Whyte Jr.; attempted to describe the special mentaity of the worker in a large bureaucratic setting; self reliance was losing place to conformity and the ability to get along or work as a team
"The Lonely Crowd"
Book written by sociologist David Riesman in 1950, argued that the traditional man who judged himself on the basis of his own values was giving away to another man only concerned with winning approval from his community
Montgomery Bus Boycott
Boycott of busses because of Rosa Parks, was almost completely effective, ended segregation on busses
Sputnik
The Soviet Union's first earth-orbiting satellite in 1957
Brinkmanship
The attempt to gain a negotiating advantage by pushing a situation to the edge of war or other disaster; pushed the Soviet union to the brink of war
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
The court rejected it's own Plessy versus Ferguson decision; segregating public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional; must do it with deliberate speed
The most significant & largest public works under the federal government under Dwight Eisenhower was
The federal highway system
Exploerer I
US' satellite launched in 1958
Rock n' Roll
Music genre that came about in the 50s, exeplified by Elvis Presley
Baby Boom
National birthrate reversal after a long pattern of decline; began in WWII; peaked in 1957; population rose 20% in the decade; 150 mil to 179 mil; increased consumer demand and expanding economic growth
Juvenile Delinquency
Phenomenon during the 1950s, liked beats, growing criminality of American youth
Apollo Program
Purpose was to land astronauts on the moon; Jul. 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin and Michael Collins successfully traveled in a space capsule to orbit the moon
U-2 Crisis
Soviet Union said they shot down an American and U2; a high altitude spy plane, over Russian territory
Challenger
Spacecraft that exploded in 1986 killed 7 astronauts
Army-McCarthy Hearings
Special investigation of influential members of Congress because McCarthy demanded that communists had entered the military; led to the decline of the red scare
In his farewell address to the nation, Dwight D. Eisenhower warned against the dangers of
The "military industrial complex"
The significant public awareness of computers in the US came from
1952 election tabulations
Suez Crisis
1956; Israeli forces attacked Egypt; British and French landed in Suez to drive Egyptians from the canal; US feared new world war; US helped pressure French and British to withdraw
During the 1950s, the American environmental preservation movement was mobilized by
A proposed dam on Green River in echo park in Utah
DDT
Chemical pesticide discovered in 1939; its first use was to stop the spread of typhus among American soldiers fighting Japan in the Pacific Islands
Transistor
Created by Bell Labs in 1948, solid-state device capable of amplifying electrical signals, made miniaturization of devices possible
Levittowns
Created by William Levitt; low-cost, mass-produced houses in large suburban developments; popped up throughout the country
Integrated Circuit
Created in the late 1950s, combined a number of separate electronic elements (transistors, resistors, diodes, etc.) and combined them into a single microscopic device, made it possible to create complex electronic devices
Reminton Rand Company
Created the first computer to be used by the Bureau of the Census
Beats
Defensive critics of bureaucracy and middle-class society; group of young poets, writers, and artists; known as this term by disapproving critics; wrote harsh critiques of what they considered the sterility and conformity of American life, the meaninglessness of American politics, and the banality of popular culture
Little Rock 9
Desegregation of a school led president Eisenhower to respond by sending federal groups to ensure the court orders were obeyed
Penicillin
Discovered in 1928 by Alexander Fleming, actual drug created by Howard Florey & Ernest Chain, cured bacterial infections
Echo Park
Early 1950s fight to preserve this park; wanted to build a dam along the Green River to create a lake for recreation and a source of hydroelectric power; ended up preserving this park
ICBMs
Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles; long-range missiles that were capable of traveling through space and across oceans and continents to reach distant targets
UNIVAC
First significant computer of the 1950s was the Universal Automatic Computer; developed for the census by the Remington Rand Company; analyzed voting results; performed calculations; etc.
The Other America
In 1962, the socialist writer Michael Harrington published this celebrated book; chronicled the continuing existence of poverty in the United States
AFL-CIO
In Dec. 1955, the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations; ended 22 year rivalry and combined and merged; under the leadership of George Meany