APUSH Chapter 28
In relation to the population, how fast did the economy grow?
10 times as fast as the population in 30 years after the war. Growth affected most of society, but was still unequally distributed
Antibiotics
1870 Louis Pasteur and Jules-Francois Joubert produced the first conclusive evidence that virulent bacterial infections could be defeated by other more ordinary bacteria. Using their discoveries, the english physician, Joseph Lister, reeled the value of antiseptic solutions in preventing infection during surgery. 1930s scientists in Germany, France, England demonstrated the power of sulfa-drugs derived from sulfanilamide which treated streptococcal infections. Soon being developed a lot and improved a lot.
Penicillin
1928 Alexander Fleming, British researcher accidentally discovered this organism. Little progress on this medicine until a group of researchers at Oxford University, directed by Howard Florey and Ernest Chain, learned how to produce stable, potent penicillin in sizable quantities to make it a practical weapon against bacterial disease. 1941 trials showed how effective it was. Mass availability of it in England stalled because of WWII. American factories took the next steps to develop mass distribution which became readily available in 1948.
DDT
1939 discovered by a Swiss chemist Paul Muller. Harmless to human beings and other mammals, extremely toxic to insects. American scientists learned of this discovery in 1942 as the army was dealing with insect-borne diseases such as malaria and typhus that threatened American soldiers overseas during WWII. DDT seemed like a godsend. Helped end a typhus breakout in Italy 1943-1944. Was being sprayed on mosquito infested areas of Pacific Islands where American troops were fighting the Japs. Malaria incidences declined a lot. Only later did scientists recognize that DDT had long term toxic effects on animals and humans.
Postwar electronic research
1940s and 1950s saw dramatic new developments in electronic technology
Levittown
1947 Mass-produced housing development -> Levittown, started in Long Island, copied across country. Consisted of several thousand 2 bedroom Cape-Cod style houses with identical interiors and only slightly varied faces, each perched on its own concrete slab (to eliminate excavation costs) facing curving, treeless streets. Sold under $10,000
Transistors
1948 Bell Labs-a research arm of AT&T produced the first transistors-small device capable of amplifying electronic signals (worked much better than prior vacuum tubes). Made possible the miniaturization of many devices and were important in aviation, weaponary, and satellites. Contributed to the development of the integrated circuits in the late 1950s.
Reviving of the Environmentalism Movement.
1950 Bernard DeVoto published and essay in The Saturday Evening Post titled: "Shall we let them ruin our national parks? Sensational impact that aroused opposition to the Echo Park Dam. Sierra Club was reborn. By mid-1950s a large coalition of the environmentalists, naturalists, and wilderness vacationers had been mobilized in opposition to the dam.
Growth in the population of African American bands
1950s did see a growth in the popularity of these among black and white audiences such as Chuck Berry, Little Richard, B. B. King, Chubby Checker, and the Temptations, and others-many of them recorded by the African American producer Berry Gordy, the founder and president of Motown Records in Detroit-never rivaled Presley in their popularity among white youths. But they did develop a significant multiracial audience of their own.
H-Bomb
1952 US detonates its first H-bomb. Soviets detonate one a year later. Derives power from fusion. Explosions more powerful than fission bombs.
Salk vaccine for Polio
1954 American scientist Jonas Salk introduced it against the virus that killed and crippled thousands of children and adults. Free to the public by the federal gov beginning in 1955. 1960 an oral vaccine developed by Albert Sabin-usually administer in a sugar cube-made widespread vaccination a lot easier. By early 1960s polio pretty much gone.
Montgomery Bus Boycott
1955 protest action to end segregation on buses in Montgomery, Alabama. Owed much of its success to the prior existence of well-organized black citizen's groups. A black women's political caucus had been developing plans for a boycott of the segregated busses for some time. Seized on Rosa Parks as the symbol of that movement. Instead of going on busses, black workers carpooled and walked. This boycott put economic pressure on the bus company and Montgomery merchants as well as blacks started to shop in their own neighborhoods to avoid figuring out a ride downtown. Supreme Court in 1956 declared segregation in public transportation illegal
The Suburban nation
1960 1/3 of population living in suburbs. Result of innovations in home building that made them affordable.
Evidence that Keynesian economics works
1963 JFK proposes a tax cut to stimulate economy, measure passed after h is death but as Keynesian economics predicted, there was an increase in predicate demanded, which stimulated economic growth and reduced unemployment.
Persistent Poverty
20 percent of the poor had continues poverty with no easy escape. Included half of the nations elderly and a large proportion of African Americans and Hispanics. Native Americans constituted the single poorest group in the country due to government policies that undermined the economies of the reservations and drove many Indians into cities where some lived in poverty worse than they had left. These were the people Harrington had written about in "The Other America". This poverty rebuked the argument that economic growth would bring prosperity to all.
Baby boom
30 million war babies were born between 1942 and 1950; population rose 20 percent. Contributed to increased consumer demand and expanding economic growth
Corporate Consolidation
4,000 mergers took place in 1950s and more than ever before, a relatively small number of large-scale organizations controlled an enormous proportion of the nation's economic activity. Especially true with industries benefiting from government defense spending. As during WWII the government gave these contracts to few large corporations so a lot of money lay with only a few firms.
What did suburban life mean for professional men?
A rigid division between their working and personal worlds
Pressure from whom was the crucial element in raising the issue of race to prominence?
African Americans
Automobiles impact on houseing
Allows families to move out of urban areas to suburbs where they can afford larger homes with garages, swing sets, barbecues, private swimming pools became focus of life.
Industrial Workers
Also confronted large bureaucracies, both in the workplace and their own unions
Labor Unions with Substantial Black Membership
Also played an important role in supporting and funding the civil rights movement.
What did the detonation of an H-bomb lead to?
An arms race to develop un-manned missiles capable of carrying the new weapons.
What image did TV create?
An image that was predominantly white, middle-class, and suburban, and that was epitomized by such popular situation comedies as Ozzie and Harriet and Leave it to Beaver. Reinforced the concept of gender roles that many embraced aka Father knows best.
What happened as many families moved to the suburbs from the cities?
Became vast repositories for poor ghettos.
Rock and Roll
Became very popular. Elvis Presley became a symbol of youthful determination to push at the borders of conventional and acceptable; good looks, fashion and sexuality of music made him popular among young Americans in the 1950s. First great hit: "Heartbreak Hotel" established him as a national phenomenon in 1956 and he remained a powerful figure in American pop culture well beyond his death in 1977.
Why was military spending so high?
Because of the Korean War
Why did white rock musicians arise?
Because of the limited willingness of white audiences to accept black musicians.
Why were radios, television, and jukeboxes important for the recording industry?
Because they encouraged the sale of records.
Computers in the 1950s
Began to perform commercial functions as data-processing devices used by businesses and other organizations.
Advancements in ICBMs
By 1958, scientists had created a solid fuel to provide the tremendous power needed to launch missiles beyond the atmosphere. Replaced the volatile liquid fuel of earlier missiles. Produced mini guidance systems to make sure that missiles could travel to reasonably precise destinations.
Growth in the West
By the 1960s some areas of the west most populous and industrial areas of the nation. Growth is a result of federal spending and investment on dams, power stations, highways, and other projects, and military contracts that went disproportionally to factories in CA and Texas. Increase in suburban growth and therefore growth in automobile industry made the petroleum industry growth with more oil fields in Texas and Colorado (Houston, Dallas, Texas). State governments invested heavily on universities such as University of Texas and University of California that became largest and best centers of research. They helped attract technology-intensive industries in the region.
Favorable Climate in the West
CA, Nevada, AZ, attracted migrants from the east due to warm climate. LA is an example where more than 10 percent of new business in the US between 1945 and 1960 started in LA an dits population rose 50 percent.
Operation Dixie
CIO's operation aimed at unionizing southern textile workers and steelworkers. One of the failed organizing drives of the least 30 years after WWII.
What forces were inspiring whites to join the Civil Rights Movement?
Cold War, Political mobilization of northern blocks.
Response to school desegregation in Washington DC
Compliance came quickly and quietly
Early Missile Research
Conducted almost entirely by the Air Force. There were significant early successes in enveloping rockets capable of traveling several hundred miles.
How did TV influence the Civil Rights Movement?
Constant reminders of how whites lived and how they were constantly excluded. Also conveyed demonstrations and protests and inspired others in other areas.
What was the prosperity of the 1950s and 1960s driven by?
Consumer driven (as opposed to investment driven)
Frustrations with dealing with bureaucracies
Consumers were frustrated with dealing with large companies and were becoming convinced that the key to a successful future lay in acquiring the specialized training and skills necessary for work in a large organization.
Concessions to Unions
Corporations did not want strikes to interfere. 1949 Walter Reuther of the United Automobile Workers obtained a contract from General Motors that included a built-in "escalator clause"-an automatic cost o living increased pegged to the consumer price index. In 1955 he received a guarantee from Ford of continuing wages to auto workers even during layoffs. By mid 1950's wages in all industries had risen substantially.
Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham board of education
Declared pupil placement laws unconstitutional
What had the Brown decision actually done?
Did not actually end segregation, launched a long battle between federal and state authority and between those who believed in racial equality and those who did not.
Future of Manned Space Program
Did not lie in efforts to research distant planets as originally envisioned; rather to make travel in near space easier and more practical with the development of the space shuttle-an airplane-like device launched by a missile capable of both navigating in space and landing on earth much like a conventional aircraft. First space shuttle launched in 1982
Martin Luther King's strategy
Doctrine on non-violence. Drew from teachings of Ghandi and Thoreau. Captured the moral high ground of his supporters. Engaged to peacefully protest, be arrested, beaten, respond to hate with love. As leader of the Southern Christian Leadership conference, an interracial group he was the most influential and most widely admired black leader in the country.
Rock and Roll black roots
Drew heavily from black rhythm and blues traditions which appealed to people because of their pulsing, sensual rhythms and their hard edged lyrics. Sam Philips said that if he could find a white man with a negro sound he would make a billion dollars and then he found Presley. Other famous people were Buddy Holly and Bill Haley who were closely connected to African American musical traditions. Rock n Roll also drew from country western music, gospel music, and jazz.
Impact of cars on drive ins
Drive in theaters started becoming more popular, 4,000 drive ins by 1958.
Reunification of the labor movement
Due to economic successes, the AFL and CIO merged and ended their 20 year rivalry to form the AFL-CIO under George Meany. Relations between the leaders of the former were not always comfortable since the CIO thought (correctly) that the AFL hierarchy was dominating the relationship. However, tensions eventually subsided.
Consumer crazes
Due to national marketing and advertising, 1950s known for rapid spread of great national consumer crazes. Ie hula hoop and the Mickey Mouse club house.
Declining Agricultural Prices
Due to surpluses in basic staples prices fell 33 in those years while national income rose 50% at the same time. Farmers that managed to survive still lost income.
PostWar poverty
Economic expansion reduced some poverty but did not eliminate it. In 1960, at any given moment, more than 1/5 of all American families (over 30 million people) lived at or below poverty (1/3 15 years earlier). Million lived above with incomes that gave them little comfort.
How did the Growth in the Urban Middle Class lead to the Civil Rights Movement?
Educated people more aware of what is going on. As more people become educated more people become aware of injustices. Also, urban blacks had more freedom to associate with one another and to develop independent institution that did rural blacks who were often under the very direct supervision of white landowners.
Highways and economic impacts
Encouraged manufacturing out of cities into suburban and rural areas where land was cheaper. Resulted in the decline of many traditional downtowns as many workers worked outside the urban core. Resulted in the rapid growth of "edge cities" and other new centers of industry and commerce outside traditional city centers.
Immunization
English researcher Edward Jenner developed the smallpox vaccine in the late 18th century. A typhoid vaccine was developed by an English bacteriologist, Almorth Wright in 1897 and was in wide use by WWI. Vaccination against tetanus because widespread in many countries just before and during WWII. BCG against tuberculosis in 1920s but controversy in its safety stalled its adoption in the US for many years. Not widely used until after WWII. Growth against viruses except smallpox slow until 1930's when scientists figured out how to grow viruses and figured out how to grow viruses incapable of causing a disease but capable of triggering antibodies against the disease. Effective vaccine against yellow fever was developed in the late 1930s and one against some forms of influenza.
NASA
Established in 1958 and was a manned space program. Astronauts became the nations most revered heroes. Initial effort was the Mercury Project-designed to launch manned vehicles into space to orbit the earth.
Development of TV
Experiments in broadcasting began as early as 1920s but commercial TV began shortly after WWII. 1946 only 17,000 TVs. 1957 there were 40 million TV sets. Almost as many sets are there were families. More people had TV sets than fridges.
John Glenn
February 2, 1962 first American to orbit the earth.
Change broadcasting among radios and TVs
Felt less obliged to present mostly live programming, instead played recorded music. "Disk Jockey's created programming aimed at rock and roll fans. American Bandstand for rock and roll began in 1957 and featured a live audience dancing to mostly recorded music. Helped spread the popularity of rock and made its host, Dick Clark, one of the best-known figures in America among young Americans.
Relationship between economic prosperity and the Korean War
First half of 1950's economic growth rate is 4.7 a year, but after the war ends it is 2.25 a year.
Evidence of economic growth
GDP increased, unemployment low, inflation is minimal
Causes of economic growth
Government spending, interstate highway program, military spending
Eisenhower's opinion on the Brown ruling
Greeted the decision with skepticism and once said it had set back progress on race relations at least 15 years. However, felt compelled to act when Little Rock happened
The Beat Generation
Group of non-conformist writers that rejected America's social traditions. Said American life was meaningless, like their politics, and the banality of popular culture. Allen Ginsberg "Howl" (1955). Jack Kerouac produced the Bible of much of the Beat Generation in his novel "On the Road" (1957)-an account of a cross-country automobile trip that depicted the rootless, iconoclastic lifestyle of Kerouac and his friends.
What was at the center of the middle class culture?
Growing absorption with consumer goods.
juvenile delinquency
Growing attention towards it in politics and popular culture. 1995 book blackboard Jungle was a frightening depiction of crime and violence in the city schools. Scholarly studies, presidential commissions, and journalistic exposes all contributed to the sense of alarm about the spread of delinquency-although youth crime did not dramatically increase in the 1950s.
Criticism of bureaucracies
H Whyte Jr produced one of the most widely discussed books of the decade" "the Organization man "(1956) which described the change in mentally being from self reliance to get along and work as a team. Sociologist David Riesman wrote "The Lonely Crowd" (1950) which said man now had to change from the inner directed man to the man trying to win approval from a large group.
Amos' n' Andy
Hapless African Americans
How did suburban growth help the economy?
Helped stimulate growth in several important sectors of the economy: more privately owned cars, more homes so helped housing industry, more construction of roads and highways
Success of Disneyland
Highway access from urban areas and vast parking lots that surrounded it. Symbol of the influence of automobiles on American life and American landscape in the postwar era.
Paid Vacation
Idea started in 1920s but now more possible due to construction of highways, increasing affluence, and automobiles.
Rural Poverty
In 1948 farmers had received 8.9 percent of the national income, in 1956 received only 4.1 percent. Reflected the shrinking farm population. Black sharecroppers and tenant farmers continued to live at or below subsistence level throughout the rural south due to the mechanization of cotton and the development of synthetic fibers which reduced the demand for cotton. Migrant farmers aka Mexicans and Asians also had terrible conditions. Appalachian regions in the East coal declined and that was the major support of the region so whole communities lived in poverty there vulnerable to malnutrition and starvation.
Rural Population
In 1956 10 percent of the rural population moved into or was absorbed by cities.
How did the economic growth impact the average american?
In 1960 had 20% more purchasing power than in 1945. Per capita income rose $500 from 1945. The American people had achieved the highest standard of living of any society in the history of the world.
What did suburban life mean for middle-class married women
Increased isolation from the workplace. Emphasis on family life strengthen the popular prejudice against women entering the workforce. Many middle-class husbands saw it as bad for their wives to be employed and many women stayed home if they could financially manage to do that.
What caused an increase in people's interests for consumer goods?
Increased prosperity, increasing variety and availability of products, and of advertiser's adeptness in creating a demand for those products. Growth of consumer credit which increased by 800 percent between 1945 and 1957 through the development of credit cards, revolving charge accounts, and easy payment plans. People were attracted to dishwashers, garbage disposals, televisions, hi-fis, and stereos.
Sale of Records
Increased threefold from $182 million to $521 million between 1954 and 1960.
What was a result of vaccines?
Infant mortality and death rate among young children declined significantly in the first 25 years after the war (although not as much as in Western Europe). Average life expectancy rose by 5 years to 71.
ICBMs
Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. Capable of traveling through space to distant targets. Both Americans and Soviets were struggling to make these. America experimented in the 1950s with first the Atlas and the Titan ICBM. Early successes and setbacks-mainly providing sufficient amounts of fuel.
Gemini program
Introduced by NASA. Spacecraft could carry two astronauts at once.
The Honeymooners
Jackie Gleason showed the gritty urban working class famines
Racial Change in Other Areas
Jackie Robinson signed into the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 and was the first AA to play Major League Baseball. Mid 1950s blacks had established themselves as a powerful force in all professional sports. President Eisenhower completed integration of the armed forces, attempted to desegregate the federal workforce, and in 1957 passed a civil rights act (passed without active support from the White House, by a democratic Congress) providing federal protection for African Americans who wished to register to vote but it was a weak bill with few enforcement mechanisms. But first civil rights bill to win passage since the end of reconstruction and it served as a signal that the executive and legislative branches were beginning to join the judiciary in the federal commitment to the "second reconstruction"
The Challenger
January 1986, space shuttle exploded and killed 7 astronauts, putting the space program on stall for 2 years. Missions resumed in late 1980s for commercial purposes.
United Mine Workers Scandal
John L Lewis' last years as the head of the union were plagued with scandals and dissent within the organization. His successor Tony Boyle was ultimately convicted of complicity in the 1969 murder of the leader of a dissident faction within the union.
Keynesian economics
John Maynard Keynes argued that by varying the flow of government spending and taxation (fiscal policy) and managing the supply of currency (monetary policy), the government could stimulate the economy o cure recession and damped growth to prevent inflation. Last years of depression and onset of war seemed to confirm this policy. Government intrudes directly into private sector . Mid 1950's this theory was becoming a fundamental article of faith
Why did people want to move to the suburbs?
Larger homes, liked the idea of living in a community, women valued the presence of other nonworking women nearby, race (for AA there were few suburbs but many were restricted to whites). In the era when the black population of most cities was rapidly growing, many white families moved to the suburbs to escape the integration of urban neighborhoods and schools.
First Color Television
Late 1950's scientists at RCA's David Sarnoff labs in NJ developed the first color television. Became widely available in the 1960s
Impact of TV on American life
Late 1950s TVs had replaced newspapers, magazines and radios as the most important for info. Helped create a vast market for new fashions and products. Made college and professional sports one of the most important sources of entertainment and one of the biggest businesses in America. TV entertainment programming-almost all of is controlled by the three national networks and their corporate sponsors-replaced movies an radio as the principal source of diversion for American families.
Causes of the Civil Rights Movement
Legacy of WWII. Growth of an urban middle class. Televisions and other forms of popular culture.
Similarities among suburbs
Levittown and inexpensive developments became the homes of mainly lower-middle class people one step removed from the inner city. Other expensive suburbs became enclaves of wealthy families. In virtually every city, a clear hierarchy emerged of upper-class suburban neighborhoods and more modest ones, just as gradations had emerged years earlier among urban neighborhoods
How much success did Remington Rand have in marketing the UNIVAC?
Little
How did the Cold War make whites join the Civil Rights Movement?
Made racial injustice an embarrassment to Americans trying to present their nation as a model to the world.
The Shock of Sputnik
Made the Americans invest into their space program in 1957 as the Soviets had launched an Earth orbiting satellite into space. Federal policy began encouraging and funding efforts to improve scientific education in the schools, to create more research laboratories and to the speed the development of America's own exploration of outer space.
Impact of auto on fast food
Many began with drive in restaurants. First one was Royce Hailey's Pig Stand which opened in Dallas in 1921. White Tower opened a decade later and created franchises. McDonalds opened in Cali 1955 5 years later 228 outlets. Large supermarket chains arose. Large shopping centers and complexes moved the center of retailing out of cities and into widely separated complexes surrounded by parking lots.
What happened as the expectations of material comfort rose?
Many families needed a second income to keep up with the standard. Number of working women increased in the postwar years as social pressure for them to not work grew. By 1960, nearly 1/3 of all married women were part of the paid workforce.
White collar workers
Many worked in corporate settings with rigid hierarchal structures.
What was an important result of the Montgomery Boycott?
Martin Luther King Jr. Was the leader of the movement and it brought him to prominence. At first reluctant to take the role but later became consumed by it.
Alan Shepard
May 5 1961 was the first American launched into space. Came several months after a Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had made a flight in which he had orbited the earth.
Agricultural Consolidation
Mechanization makes the work force decline. Threatens the family farm. By 1960s, few could afford to buy and equip a modern farm and much of the productive eland had been purchased by financial institutions and corperations.
International Business Machines Cimpany
Mid 1950s introduced its first major data-processing computers and began to find a wide market for them among businesses in the US and abroad. Early success along with a lot of invested money for research made the company the leader in computers for many years.
Ending Poverty through economic growth
Mid-1950's reformers concerned about poverty were arguing that the solution lay not in redistribution but in economic growth. Everyone would benefit and rich would not have to sacrifice.
Expansion of Hispanic Neighborhoods
Migrations from Puerto Rico and Mexico resulted in growth. 1940 through 1960 nearly 1 million Puerto Rican's moved into American cities (the largest group to NY). Mexican workers crossed the border in Texas and California and swelled the already substantial Latino communities of such cities as San Antonio, Houston, San Diego, and LA (had the largest population of MA by 1960)
How did the Legacy of WWII cause the Civil Rights Movement?
Millions of black men and women had served in the military or worked in war plants and had derived from teh experience a broader view of the world and their place in it.
Inconsistent Poverty
Most of the poor got into poverty recently and got out of it faster once they found a job which indicated how unstable employment could be at the lower end of the market.
Black urban migration
Moved out of the countryside and into the city and contributed to the growth of ghettos. More than 3 million black men and women moved from the South to northern cities between 1940 and 1960. Eastern and midwestern cities experienced a great expansion in their black populations.
Where was surge in vacationing the most visible?
Natural parks
What did TV sought to do
Not only create an idealized image of homogenous suburban Americans but to also convey experiences at odd with that image in warm unthreatening ways.
How did the political organization of Northern Blacks inspire whites to join the Civil Rights movement?
Now a substantial voting block in the Democratic Party so politicians from northern industrial states could no ignore their views.
Polaris
Nuclear missile capable of being carried and fired by submarines. Could launch from below the surface of the ocean by compressed air. First successfully fired from underwater in 1960. Developed by American scientists.
By fall of 1957, how many school districts in the south had begun to desegregate their schools?
Only 684 of 3,000
Growth of specialized education.
People are trying to get education to work in corporations. Schools focus on teaching science, languages, math more taught at elementary and secondary schools. Universities in the meantime were trying to provide opportunities for students to create more specialized skills. Committed to the idea of "multiversity" coined by the chancellor at UC Berkeley.
How did TV create social tensions?
People could get a vivid picture of how the rest of their society lived. And while reinforcing the homogeneity of the white middle class-it was also contributing to the sense of alienation and powerlessness among groups excluded from the world it portrayed.
Jukeboxes
Played individual songs on 45s (records with one song on each side) and proliferated in soda fountains, diners, bars, and other places where young people were likely to congregate.
Increase in automobiles in comparison to the increase in population
Population increased from 1950 to 1980 by 50% while cars did 400%
How did the UNIVAC gain publicity?
Predicted 1952 election results of Eisenhower beating Stevenson in a landslide. Resulted in a critical breakthrough in public awareness in computer technology.
Teamsters Union Scandal
President David Beck was charged with misappropriation of union funds. Jimmy Hoffa replaced him, who government investigators pursued for nearly a decade before finally winning a conviction against him (for tax evasion_ in 1967.
Urban Renewal
Principal policy response to poverty of inter cities was urban renewal: the effort to tear down buildings in the poorest and most degraded areas. 20 years post WWII these urban renewal projects destroyed over 400,000 buildings, among them homes of nearly 1.5 million people. In some cases provided new public housing for the poor city residents; some better than the housing they had left and some was poorly designed and deteriorated quickly.
Federal Highway Act of 1956
Provided federal funding to build a nationwide system of interstate and defense highways. Appropriated $25 billion for highway construction. 40,000 miles of concrete spread across the nation. Reduced time needed to travel and made trucking more economical than railroads. Cars/automobiles faster now and results in the steady decline of railroads.
The Apollo Program
Purpose was to land men on the moon. Setbacks in Jan 1967 fire killed 3 astronauts. July 20 Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin, Micheal Collins successfully traveled in a space capsule into orbit around the moon. Armstrong and Aldrin then detached a smaller craft form the capsule, landed on the surface of the moon, and became the first humans to walk on a body other than earth. 6 more lunar missions followed, the last in 1972 but then the government started to cut funding and popular enthusiasm faded.
Minuteman
Range of several thousand miles, became the basis of the American atomic weapon arsenal.
Most striking social developments
Rapid expansion of a middle-class lifestyle and out-look. Products more available, people have more prosperity, suburb movement.
Invention of Television
Researches in the 1940s produced the first commercially viable televisions and created a technology that made it possible to broadcast programming over large areas.
Criticm of bureaucracies by novelists
Saul Bellow : The Adventures of Augie March (1953), Seize the Day (1956), Herzeg (1964) and others that chronicled the difficulties Jewish men had in finding fulfillment in modern urban America. J. D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye (1951) who could not find any part of society that he liked.
Brown II (1955)
School desegregation implemented with all deliberate speed but it set no timetable and left specific decisions up to lower courts.
Rosa Parks
Secretary of NAACP, spurred the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Refused to give up seat on a Montgomery bus to a white passenger. She was arrested and this resulted in outrage and helped local leaders organize a successful boycott of the buss system to demand an end to segregated seating.
Culture of Alienation
Sense in teenage rebelliousness, youthful fascination with fast cars and motorcycles and the increasing visibility of teenage sex-resulted in the greater availability of birth control devices "Rebel without a Cause" 1955 movie by James Dean among "East of Eden" 1955, and "Giant" 1956 conveyed a powerful image of youth culture in the 1950s. Dean became an icon of the unforced rebelliousness of American youth in his time.
Little Rock
September 1957, Federal Courts had ordered the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock Arkansas. An angry white mob tried to block the entrance of the school and governor Orval Faubus refused to do anything about it. President Eisenhower send the National Guard to make sure court orders were obeyed.
Automobiles impact on motels
Shift from train to auto leads more motels to appear. 26,000 by 1948, 60,000 by 1960, well over 100,000 by 1970. Holiday Inn opened along a highway connected Memphis and Nashville in 1952.
All-white segregation academies
Some parents withdrew their kids from public schools and enrolled them here. Some state and local governments diverted money from newly integrated public schools and used it to fund these academies.
Why did many inner-city communities remain so poor?
Some say because the new migrations were victims to their own pasts, that the work habits, values, and family structures they brought from their rural homes were poorly adapted to the needs of the modern industrial city. Others argued that the inner city itself-its crippling poverty, its crime, its violence, and hopelessness created a culture of poverty that made it difficult for individuals to advance. Some argue it was the combination of declining blue-collar jobs, inadequate support for minority-dominated public schools, and barriers to advancement rooted in racism-not the culture and values of the people themselves was the source.
Affluent Farmres
Some substantial landowners weathered and even managed to profit from the changes in American agriculture.
Space program 1980s
Space shuttle launched and repaired communication satellites and inserted the Hubble space telescope into orbit in 1990 (and later repaired its flawed lens) but problems continued to plague the program into the early 21st century.
Taft Hartley Act of 1947
State right-to-work laws were specifically permitted by this. Made it difficult to form and sustain unions.
Government spending
Stimulated growth through public funding of schools, housing, veterans benefits, welfare, the 100 billion interstate highway program which began in 1956 and military spending.
Massive Resistance to Disegregation
Strong local opposition produced long delays and bitter conflicts. Some school districts ignored the ruling and others attempted to circumvent it by making tiny efforts to integrate. 100 southern members of congress signed a manifest in 1956 denouncing the brown decision and urging their constituents to defy it. People including "White Citizens' Councils" all worked to obstruct desegregation. Many places enacted "pupil placement laws" that allowed school officials to place students in schools according to their scholastic abilities and social behavior.
Suburban growth
Suburban population grew 47% in the 1950's which was more than twice as fast as the population as a whole.
Brown v. Board of Education
Supreme Court case that rejected the idea that separate could be equal in education on May 17 1954. Overturned Plessy v Ferguson. Decision was the culmination of many decades of effort by blacks and NAACP lawyers (trained at Howard University by Charles Houston) who had spent years filing legal charges against segregation.
seperate but equal doctrine overturned
Supreme Court justices concluded that school segregation inflicted unacceptable damage on those it affected, regardless of the relative quality of the separate schools. Chief Justice Earl Warren explained the unanimous opinion of his colleagues: in education "separate but equal" has no place since it makes them unequal.
Explorer 1
The US launched its first satellite in January 1958
What region benefited the most from the economic growth?
The West
What did prosperity fuel?
The automobile industry and Detroit responded to the boom with ever-flashier styling and accessories.
Widespread restlessness among young Americans in the 1950s
The beats were the most visible evidence. Restless a result of prosperity, of a growing sense among people of limitless possibilities, and other the declining power of such traditional values such as thrift, discipline, and self restraint. Young middle-class Americans were growing up in a culture that encouraged them to expect rich and fulfilling lives but they were living in a world in which almost all of them experienced obstacles to that fulfillment.
What was involved in the Topeka suit?
The case of an African American girl who had traveled several miles to a segregated public school even though she lived next door to a white school.
What was central to the culture of the postwar era?
The development of TV
Payola Scandal
The practice of record companies' bribing disk jockeys to secure airplay for their records. Exposed in the late 1950s and 1960s.
What did the TV industry emerge from?
The radio industry. All 3 major networks-the National broadcasting company, the Columbia Broadcasting System, and the American Broadcasting Company started as radio companies. Like radio, TV industry driven by advertising. Sponsors played an important role in determining the content broadcasted. Many TV shows bore the names of the corporations that were paying for them: the GE Television Theater, the Chrysler Playhouse, and Camel News Caravan. Some daytime series were actually written and produced by Procter and Gamble and other companies.
The reality of American life for white middle class Americans
Thought that every American experienced economic growth, personal affluence, and cultural homogeneity. Many people in fact did share these values but even within the middle-class there was considerable restiveness among women, intellectuals, young people, and others who found the middle-class consumer culture somehow unsatisfying, even stultifying. Large groups of Americans remained outside the circle of abundance and shared in neither the affluence of the middle class nor its values.
Who were the NAACP lawyers involved in Brown v Board of Education
Thurgood Marshall, William Hastie, and James Narbit
Pesticides
To prevent crops from being destroyed by insects and protect humans from such insect-carrying diseases such as typhus and malaria.
Limited Gains for Unorganized Workers
Total union membership remained relatively stable at 16 million, result from blue collar to white collar jobs also the result o new obstacles to organization.
UNIVAC
Universal Automatic Computer; first commercially successful electronic digital computer. Initially developed for the US Bureau of the Census by the Remington Rand Company. Could handle both alphabetical and numerical info easily. Used tape storage and was fast at performing calculations in comparison to its predecessor ENIAC (developed by the same researchers who developed the UNIVAC).
Our Miss Brooks and My Little Margie
Unmarried professional women
Computers prior to 1950
Used to perform complicated math tasks such as in military operations.
Echo Park
Valley in the Dinosaur National Monument, on the border between Utah and Colorado near the southern border of Wyoming. In early 1950s the Bears of reclamation proposed building a dam across the Green River to create a lake for recreation and a source of hydroelectric power. Revived the American environmentalism movement since the Hetch Hetchy Valley Controversy. 1956 Congress gave into public pressure and blocked the projected and preserved Echo Park in its natural state.
Integrated circuits
Very small regions of semiconductor material (silicon) that support a huge number of transistors. Combined many small parts. Circuit board. Made advanced technology possible; especially the development of the computer.
Sierra Club Reborn
Was quiet in previous decades moved into action and elevated an aggressive leader, David Brower, who eventually transformed the club into the nation's leading environmental organization.
White collar workers vs blue collar workers
White collar workers came to outnumber blue collar workers for the first time 1950s.
The Postwar Contract
Workers in steel, automobiles, and other large unionized industries were receiving generous increases in wages and benefits. In return, the unions agreed to refrain from raising other issues-issues involving control of the workplace and a voice for workers in the planning of production. Strikes became far less frequent.
The Other America
Written by the socialist writer Michael Harrington in 1962. Chronicled the continuing existence of poverty in America. Conditions not new but the attention he was bring to them was.
Dr. Benjamin Spock
encouraged mothers to stay home with their children in The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care published in 1946. Child raising should be child-centered as opposed to parent centered. Mothers should teach children how to grow and realize their potential. All mothers feelings should be subordinated to those of the child. At first did not consider fathers role important but later changed his view on that.
I love Lucy
most watched TV show in the 1950's-childless show-business family