APUSH Chapter 26 Vocab

Television; influence of

TV overpowered newspapers, magazines, radios as source of news info and diversion. TV advertising = vast market for new fashions and products. TV made athletic events popular, created a popular image of what American life should be (oppressed people saw how everyone else lived)

McDonald's restaurant; Ray Kroc

an American businessman and philanthropist. He joined McDonald's in 1954 and built it into the most successful fast food operation in the world. Kroc was included in Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century, and amassed a fortune during his lifetime

Displaced Persons Act 1948

authorized for a limited period of time the admission into the United States of certain European displaced persons for permanent residence, and for other purposes after World War II.

Jack Kerouac, "On the Road"

based on the travels of Kerouac and his friends across America. It is considered a defining work of the postwar Beat and Counterculture generations, with its protagonists living life against a backdrop of jazz, poetry, and drug use.

McCarran-Walter Act 1952

restricted immigration into the U.S. and is codified under Title 8 of the United States Code (8 U.S.C. ch. 12). The Act governs primarily immigration to and citizenship in the United States

Rock 'n' Roll

"Crossover" musical style that rose to dominance in the 1950s, merging rhythm and blues with white bluegrass and country; featuring a heavy beat and driving rhythm, rock 'n' roll music became a defining feature of 1950s youth culture

Veteran's Administration

A federal agency that assists former soldiers. Following World War II, the VA helped veterans purchase new homes with no down payment, sparking a building boom that created jobs in the construction industry and fueling home appliances and automobiles

International Monetary Fund (IMF)

A fund established to stabilize currencies and provide a predictable monetary environment for trade, with the US dollar serving as the benchmark

Collective Bargaining

A process of negotiation between labor unions and employers, which after World War II translated into rising wages, expanding benefits, and an increasing rate of home ownership

Restrictive covenants (neighborhoods, suburbs)

A restrictive covenant is a clause in a deed or lease to real property that limits what the owner of the land or lease can do with the property. Restrictive covenants allow surrounding property owners, who have similar covenants in their deeds, to enforce the terms of the covenants in a court of law.

Beats

A small group of literary figures based in New York City and San Francisco in the 1950s who rejected mainstream culture and instead celebrated personal freedom, which often included drug consumption and casual sex

Teenager; youth culture

A term for a young adult. American youth culture, focused on the spending power of the "teenager," emerged as a cultural phenomenon in the postwar decades

Military-Industrial Complex

A term president Eisenhower used to refer to the military establishment and defense contractors who, he warned, exercised undue influence over the national government

Cuban immigration

Escalated after Fidel Castro came into power in Cuba. 3rd largest group of Spanish speaking immigrants

Shelley v. Kraemer, 1948

A 1948 Supreme Court decision that outlawed restrictive covenants on the occupancy of housing developments by African-Americans, Asian Americans, and other minorities. Because the court decision did not actually prohibit racial discrimination in housing, unfair practices against minority groups continued until passage of the fair housing act in 1968

National Interstate and Defense Highways Act

A 1956 law authorizing the construction of a national highway system

National Defense education act

A 1958 act, passed in response to the Soviet launching of the Sputnik satellite, that funneled millions of dollars into American universities, helping institutions such as the University of California at Berkeley and the Massachusetts Institute of technology, among others, become the leading research centers in the world

John Kenneth Galbraith, "The Affluent Society"

A 1958 book that analyzed the nations successful middle class and argued that the poor were only an "afterthought" in the minds of economists and politicians

Michael Harrington, "The Other America"

A 1962 book by left-wing social critic Michael Harrington, chronicling "the economic underworld of American life." His study made it clear that in economic terms the bottom class remained far behind

Billy Graham

American evangelical Christian evangelist, ordained as a Southern Baptist minister, who rose to celebrity status in 1949 reaching a core constituency of middle-class, moderately conservative Protestants. He held large indoor and outdoor rallies; sermons were broadcast on radio and television, some still being re-broadcast today

Norman Vincent Peale

American minister and author (most notably of The Power of Positive Thinking) and a progenitor of "positive thinking". His ideas were not accepted by mental health experts

Dr. Benjamin Spock

American pediatrician whose book Baby and Child Care, published in 1946, is one of the best-sellers of all time. Its message to mothers is that "you know more than you think you do."

Allen Ginsberg

American poet and one of the leading figures of both the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the counterculture that soon would follow. He vigorously opposed militarism, economic materialism and sexual repression

William J. Levitt (Levittown)

American real-estate developer. In his position as president of Levitt & Sons, he is widely credited as the father of modern American suburbia. He was named Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People of the 20th Century

World Bank

An international bank created to provide loans for the reconstruction of war-torn Europe as well as for the development of former colonized nations in the developing world

Bretton Woods Agreement

An international conference in New Hampshire in July 1944 that established the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund

Kerner Commission

Informal name for the national advisory commission on civil disorders, formed by the president to investigate the causes of the 1967 urban riots. Its 1968 report warned that "our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white, separate and unequal."

Puerto Rican immigration

Instead of being a technical "alien" in country, they already have citizenship. Despite being new in the country and knowing nothing (just like other immigrants), they don't have to go through the naturalization process

Sunbelt

Name applied to the southwest and south, which grew rapidly after World War II as a center of defense industries and non-unionized labor

Baby boom

The surge in the American birthrate between 1945 and 1965, which peaked in 1957 with 4.3 million birds

Sputnik

The worlds first satellite, launch by the Soviet Union in 1957. After its launch, the US funded research and education to catch up in the cold war space competition

Lives of Women 1945-63

Two powerful forces shaped women's relationships to work and family life in the postwar decades. One was the middle-class domestic ideal where women were expected to raise children, attend to other duties in the home, and devote themselves to their husbands happiness. The second was the job market. Most women had to earn a paycheck to help their family, and despite their education, women found that jobs in the professions and business were dominated by men and often closed to them. Most women jobs were teaching, nursing, and other areas of the service sector

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)

a multilateral agreement regulating international trade. According to its preamble, its purpose was the "substantial reduction of tariffs and other trade barriers and the elimination of preferences, on a reciprocal and mutually advantageous basis."

Servicemen's Adjustment act 1944 (GI Bill)

law that provided a range of benefits for returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I.s). Benefits included low-cost mortgages, low-interest loans to start a business, cash payments of tuition and living expenses to attend university, high school or vocational education, as well as one year of unemployment compensation

Fair Housing Act 1968

provided for equal housing opportunities regardless of race, creed, or national origin and made it a federal crime to "by force or by threat of force, injure, intimidate, or interfere with anyone ... by reason of their race, color, religion, or national origin

Griswold v. Connecticut, 1965 Supreme Court decision

the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Constitution protected a right to privacy