APUSH - Unit 11 Terms
"Losing China" - In China, US efforts (mediating and money) to block communism failed; Communist forces led by Mao led to the establishment of the People's Republic of China. The most populous nation in the world, seen as a counterforce to Asian communism and a market for American trade, had become "Red China." The "who lost China?" debate raged, with conservative particularly embittered and charging Truman with being soft on communism.
"Losing China"
1947 HUAC hearings (Hollywood Ten, Hollywood Blacklist) - Millions of fearful Americans enlisted in a crusade that would find scapegoats for the nation's problems, in particular, the Second Red Scare, which took root in the creation of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). The Second Red Scare was a postwar anticommunist hysteria that cast a cloud of suspicion over government, academia, and even Hollywood. The HUAC was a "Red-hunting" House committee that in 1947 began hearings to expose Communist influence in American life. This included many in the Hollywood / entertainment industry: when several prominent film directors and screenwriters refused to cooperate, HUAC had them cited for contempt and sent to federal prison. Blacklists in Hollywood barred the unemployment of anyone with a slightly questionable past, thereby silencing many talented people.
1947 HUAC hearings (Hollywood Ten, Hollywood Blacklist)
1947 Loyalty Security Program - In March 1947, Truman issued Executive Order 9835, establishing the Federal Employee Loyalty Program to root out subversives in the government; it authorized the attorney general to prepare a list of "subversive" organizations and made association with such groups grounds for dismissal. Many schoolteachers and city/state employees signed loyalty oaths or lost their jobs. (Republicans had accused Truman's of being soft on communism, so this was a response). This federal loyalty probe fed mounting anti-communist hysteria and legitimized a witch-hunt for subversives.
1947 Loyalty Security Program
American Indian Movement - AIM - Militant group that attracted attention to problems facing Native Americans by occupying Alcatraz for 19 months.
American Indian Movement
Arthur Levitt and Levitt-towns - Arthur Levitt used mass production techniques to construct thousands of look-alike homes with "Levittown" as the ground-breaker 85% of the 13 million new homes built in the 1950's were in the suburbs. This was the greatest internal migration with some 20 million Americans moving into the suburbs in the 1950s, making the suburban population making that nearly equal in suburban cities. Suburban life embodied the American Dream for many families who longed for their own home.
Arthur Levitt and Levitt-towns
Asian American Political Alliance - another movement in ethnic pride and power, formed in 1968; encouraged Asian-American students to claim their own cultural identity. Asian-American students marched, sat in, and went on strike to gain courses on Asian-American studies; some agitated for restitution for the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII.
Asian American Political Alliance
Bay of Pigs - Kennedy's first major foreign policy crisis; Kennedy approved a CIA plan to invade Cuba in 1961. Fifteen hundred anti-Castro exiles landed at Cuba's Bay of Pigs, assuming their arrival would trigger an uprising to overthrow Castro. It was a disaster. Deprived of air cover because Kennedy wanted to conceal US involvement, the invaders had no chance against Castro's forces.
Bay of Pigs
Berlin Blockade and Airlift - In 1948, Berlin was blocked off by the Soviet Union in order to strangle the Allied forces. To combat this, the US began to airlift supplies into Berlin. America's use of cargo planes to supply Berlin with supplies, blockaded by Stalin, highlighted American determination and technological prowess; the situation revealed Stalin's readiness to use innocent people as pawns, and it heightened anti-Soviet feeling in the West. More background: In May 1949, the U.S., Britain, and France ended their occupation of Germany and approved the creation of West Germany (the Federal Republic of Germany). While Germany had been divided into four zones by the Potsdam Agreement of 1945 (administered by France, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the U.S.), the western nations gradually unified their zones as a buffer against Soviet expansion. Stalin responded by blocking rail and highway routes through the Soviet zone into Berlin, and Truman responded with the Berlin Airlift.
Berlin Blockade and Airlift
Berlin Wall - the Soviet Union threatened war unless the West retreated from Berlin, and Kennedy stood firm and increased defense spending and the threat of nuclear war ensued; in response, the Soviet Union constructed a wall to seal off Soviet-held East Berlin and end the exodus of brains and talent to the West. The Berlin Wall became a concrete symbol of communism's denial of personal freedom until it fell in 1989.
Berlin Wall
Betty Friedan and The Feminine Mystique - feminist author of "The Feminine Mystique" (1960). Her book sparked a new consciousness among suburban women and helped launch the second-wave feminist movement
Betty Friedan and The Feminine Mystique
Black Panther Party - Militant group advocating racial separatism and Black Power. Urged black me to overthrow their oppressors by becoming "panthers... cunning, striking by night and sparing no one." Black Panthers died in violent confrontations with police, which splintered the black-white civil rights alliance and contributed to the rightward turn in politics.
Black Panther Party
Black Power - Militant movement for black autonomy and self-respect; rejected the goal of integration. It paralleled the fury or the urban riots; expressed the eagerness for rapid social change. Owed much to the militant rhetoric of Malcolm X.
Black Power
The Breton-Woods agreement secured the US dominance in world finance; little competition from other industrial countries. The GNP (gross national product) increased 50% by the end of the 1950's, incomes rose, and the U.S. produced and consumed nearly half of everything made and sold on Earth (although just 6% of the world's population). Rapid technological advances accelerated the growth and power of big business, with wealthy firms swallowing up weak competitors and becoming oligopolies (three TV networks, three main auto companies, etc.). Executives replaced capitalists and the new "company people" seemed more conformist. Changes in agriculture paralleled industry, with farming growing more and more scientific and mechanized, using more and more machines and chemicals. In 1956, for the first time white collar workers outnumbered blue collar workers. Automation had cut membership in unions by more than half, and the percentage of the unionized labor force kept dropping through the 1960's - much more middle class than laboring class. Americans in the 1950's spent less on necessities and more and more on unnecessary luxuries, borrowing and becoming indebted in the process (in fact, the first credit cards arose in the 1950's). Americans purchased 58 million new cars during the 1950's (borrowing to do so), and federal spending on highways skyrocketed. This contributed to the rise of suburbs, which were predominately white. The GI bill democratized higher education and helped propel millions of veterans into the middle class.
Breton-Woods Agreement
Brown vs. Board of Education - The Brown decision declared the practice of racial segregation in the schools to be unconstitutional. The new Chief Justice, Earl Warren, appointed by Eisenhower, reversed the separate but equal doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson in the landmark case of Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka. Earl Warren was the Chief justice of the Supreme Court who broadened constitutional protections for individual rights. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was a 1954 Supreme Court decision that declared "separate but equal" doctrine unconstitutional; paved the way for the end of segregation. The Brown case overturned more than 60 years of legal segregation. Yet the South fought desegregation and defended segregation, and the KKK revived. Southern legislatures adopted a strategy of "massive resistance" to the decision, and more than 100 members of Congress signed the Southern Manifesto denouncing Brown.
Brown vs. Board of Education
CIA Activity in Iran, Guatemala, Egypt, and Vietnam - CIA Covert Actions - The CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) began to carry out undercover operations to topple regimes friendly to Communism. The CIA sponsored anticommunist events, magazine articles, and tried to influence foreign thinkers away from Communism. The CIA orchestrated a coup to overthrow the government of Iran and replaced Iran's Prime Minister with the pro-American Shah Reza Pahlavi, thus gaining an ally on the Soviet border and helping American oil companies because of low-priced oil made available by the Shah. Yet Iranian hatred of America took route. The CIA also intervened in Philippine elections in 1953 to ensure a pro-American government. In 1954, the CIA supported a group in Guatemala that overthrew the Communist-influenced regime, which had seized land from the American-owned United Fruit Company. The new pro-American government restored United Fruit's' properties and trampled political opposition. Eisenhower faced his greatest crisis in the Middle East with Egypt and the Suez Crisis (Suez Crisis was a situation in which Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal, prompting Britain, France, and Israel to take military action. The Suez Crisis had major consequences: it swelled third world anti-western sentiment, and the U.S. replaced Britain and France and the protector of Western interests in the Middle East.)
CIA Activity in Iran, Guatemala, Egypt, and Vietnam
Cesar Chavez and UFW - Chavez was a Latino civil rights leader who founded the United Farm Workers to help migrant Mexican farm hands, who worked long hours for meager pay. As leader of the United Farm Workers, Chavez won the enactment of a CA law requiring growers to bargain collectively with the elected representatives of the farm workers.
Cesar Chavez and UFW
Cesar Estrada Chavez was the Mexican-American leader of the United Farm Workers.
Cesar Estrada Chavez
Chicano Movement - In the mid-1960s, young Hispanic activists began using the term "Chicano" to express a militant collective identity. Chicano student organizers came together to demand bilingual education, more Latino teachers, Chicano studies programs. Hispanic-American activists tried to elect Latinos and instill cultural pride.
Chicano Movement
Chief Justice Earl Warren and Brown vs. the Board of Education: the 1954 Supreme Court Decision that declared "separate but equal" unconstitutional; paved the way for the end of desegregation.
Chief Justice Earl Warren and Brown vs. the Board of Education
White opposition in Little Rock, Arkansas, and throughout the South slowed the process of school integration to a crawl. A successful boycott of segregated buses in Montgomery, Alabama, vaulted Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to the forefront of the civil rights movement. SNCC and other groups used nonviolent civil disobedience to expose the inherent violence of segregation. There was southern resistance in Little Rock, Rosa Parks incident, influence of MLK jr., the SNCC Birmingham incident led to Kennedy saying Civil rights a moral crusade and he proposed a bill outlawing segregation in public facilities and withholding of funds from federal programs that discriminated; civil rights adherents planned to march on Washington to support the legislation.
Civil Rights
Civil Rights Act of 1964 - Major legislation that created the Equal Opportunity Commission; the most significant civil rights law in US history. It banned racial discrimination and segregation in public accommodations and outlawed bias in federally funded programs, granted the federal government new powers to fight school segregation, and created the Equal Opportunity Commission (EEC) to enforce a ban on job discrimination on the basis of race, religion, national origin, or gender.
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Clean Air Act of 1963 - Passed by Congress to regulate automotive and industrial emissions; after decades of pollution, an indicator that Washington starting to address environmental problems.
Clean Air Act of 1963
Commissioner "Bull" Connor - Bigot Police commissioner in Birmingham, AL who pledged that "blood would run in the streets of Birmingham before it would be integrated." Unleashed his rage on MLK's non-violent demonstrators with attacks that were caught on TV. JFK remarked "The civil rights movement should thank God for Bull Connor; he's helped it as much as Abraham Lincoln." The Birmingham demonstrations pushed Kennedy to fight for civil rights and outlawing segregation.
Commissioner "Bull" Connor
Council of Mutual Assistance & Warsaw Pact - Council for Mutual Economic Assistance: Soviet dominated group that provided resources to Soviet bloc countries; Warsaw Pact: treaty signed in 1945 that formed an alliance of the Eastern European countries behind the Iron Curtain; USSR, Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania.
Council of Mutual Assistance & Warsaw Pact
Creation of World Bank & IMF - Under the Bretton-Woods agreement (1944) among the Allies, the US became the leader of the non-communist world. The agreement created several institutions to oversee international trade and finance, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. These powerful economic institutions gave the US an especially favorable position in international trade and finance.
Creation of World Bank & IMF
Cuban Missile Crisis - Brinksmanship between the US and Soviet Union over Russian nuclear missiles in Cuba (in striking range of the US) in 1962 that nearly led to nuclear war. Resulted in a "détente" phase of the Cold War (a move from confrontation to negotiation), although the Cuban missile crisis escalated the arms race by convincing both sides of the need for nuclear superiority. Brinksmanship (the art or practice of pursuing a dangerous policy to the limits of safety before stopping, typically in politics) between the US and Soviet Union over nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962 that nearly led to nuclear war.
Cuban Missile Crisis
Downfall of Joseph McCarthy: McCarthy was brought down in a nationally televised Senate investigation. Still, the paranoia he exploited lingered, and McCarthyism remained a rallying call of conservatives.
Downfall of Joseph McCarthy
Dr. Benjamin Spock - a physician and author who urged mothers to devote themselves full time to the welfare of their children; no one did more to emphasize the link between full-time mothers and healthy children than Spock. His Baby and Childcare was hugely popular in the 1950's
Dr. Benjamin Spock
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was an African-American minister whose emphasis on nonviolence catapulted him to leadership of the civil rights movement.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Economic Growth of 1950s, Growth of Middle Class - There was postwar prosperity and an economic boom with Americans spending money on new products such as TVs, freezers, and air conditioners, which became hallmarks of the middle-class lifestyle. The U.S. had little competition from other industrial countries, and there was U.S. economic dominance because of the ability to import raw materials cheaply, increasing exports and because of wartime advances they gained in science and technology, which increased productivity and lead to revolutionary developments in industries such as electronics and plastics. The 1950's "affluent society" seemed the fulfillment of the American Dream, and the U.S. achieved the world's highest standard of living ever.
Economic Growth of 1950s, Growth of Middle Class
Eisenhower announced the Eisenhower Doctrine: The Eisenhower Doctrine committed the United States to a policy of intervention in the Middle East. Such interventions intensified anti-American feelings in third world nations, such as Peru, Venezuela, and Cuba.
Eisenhower Doctrine
Eisenhower's "Modern Republicanism" - Eisenhower's method was to be conservative on federal spending, liberal about personal freedoms. Believed in a balanced budget and lower taxes, but not in getting rid of existing social and economic legislation. He was a likable war hero with a low-key style that masked a hidden hand presidency that enabled him to work successfully behind the scenes. He pursued a moderate course, and while he reduced taxes and tried to stimulate the economy (traditionally conservative ideals), he also supported extending Social Security benefits, raising the minimum wage, offering unemployment benefits, and providing public housing for low-income families, approved the creation of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and in 1956, he backed the largest and most expensive public works program in American history: the Interstate Highway Act (of 1956) - a 41,000 system of expressways across America, which accelerated suburban growth.
Eisenhower's "Modern Republicanism"
Eisenhower's Policy of Containment - Eisenhower essentially maintained Truman's containment policy; his basic commitment to contain communism remained, and to that end he increased American reliance on a nuclear shield. In practice, however, Eisenhower deployed U.S. military forces with great caution, resisting all suggestions to consider the use of nuclear weapons. His Secretary of State Dulles was a proponent of "brinksmanship," yet Eisenhower preferred conciliation in part b/c he feared a nuclear war. He ended the Korean War, avoided direct intervention in Vietnam, yet presided over an accelerating nuclear-arms race and Cold War that encircled the globe.
Eisenhower's Policy of Containment
Election of 1948 - Republicans re-nominated NY governor Thomas E. Dewey. Democrats nominated Truman for another term because Eisenhower refused to run. The Southern Democrats refused to support him because he was in favor of civil rights for blacks, so they nominated Governor J. Strom Thurmond from South Carolina, on a States Rights' party ticket. Former Vice President Henry A. Wallace ran as nominee of the new Progressive party. Wallace assailed dollar imperialism and seemed to be pro-Soviet. Because the Democrats were split between three candidates, Dewey seemed sure to win. However, Truman won and the Democrats regained control of Congress. Truman won because of support from farmers, workers, and blacks and because Dewey came across as arrogant and evasive.
Election of 1948
Emmett Till - Emmett Till was a fourteen year old African American boy who was murdered in Mississippi in 1955. Emmett was beaten and murdered then dumped in a river for simply whistling at a white female. The two white men who were put on trial for murder but were not convicted or punished for their racial crimes. Since justice was unable to be reached Emmett Till's death sparked the Civil Rights movement.
Emmett Till
Federal Housing Administration - US government agency that insured loans for home buying. Goals were to improve housing standards and conditions; to provide an adequate home financing system through insurance of mortgage loans. In the 1950s, low-interest loans from the FHA encouraged home buying and spurred suburbanization.
Federal Housing Administration
Firing of General McArthur - Although the original objective was to restore the integrity of South Korea, General MacArthur urged that the U.S. seek total victory in Korea, even at the risk of an all-out war with China. MacArthur wanted to free all of Korea from Communism. Truman fired MacArthur, yet public opinion backed the general, as a growing number of Americans were concerned about Communist agents controlling American policy.
Firing of General McArthur
Formation of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) - was a U.S.-led political and military alliance against the Soviet Union. Truman convinced Congress to authorize $1.3 billion for military assistance to NATO nations. The U.S. officially joined NATO, marking the formal end of America's tradition of avoiding alliances abroad. The Soviet Union responded by creating East Germany (German Democratic Republic) in 1949 and by exploding its own atomic bomb and by forming an eastern block military alliance called the Warsaw Pact.
Formation of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
1944 Servicemen's Readjustment Act (G.I. Bill) - provided college or vocational education for returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I.s) as well as one year of unemployment compensation. It also provided many different types of loans for returning veterans to buy homes and start businesses. The GI Bill was the act that allowed education and homeownership for veterans; it was also important in that the government paid for veterans to attend college, and by 1947, veterans made up over half of college students, which led to the percentage of female college graduates dropping. The GI Bill democratized higher education and led to millions of veterans being propelled into the middle class. Two decades later, these more affluent and educated veterans expected their children to follow suit, and higher education became an accepted part of the American Dream.
G.I. Bill
George F. Kennan and Containment - George Kennan was an American diplomat, advisor and ambassador in Moscow, architect of the Cold War policy of containment, or continuous confrontation to stop Soviet expansion. Best known as "the father of containment" and as a key figure in the emergence of the Cold War. Containment: American policy of resisting further expansion of communism around the world
George F. Kennan and Containment
Growth of the Military Industrial Complex - The military-industrial complex was the US arms industry, whose growing influence worried Eisenhower.
Growth of the Military Industrial Complex
Hispanic-Americans was also inspired by fight for civil rights (The Immigration Act of 1965 did away with national-origins quotas and increased legal immigration, the majority of which were Hispanics and Asians)
Hispanic-Americans
Immigration Act of 1965 - Did away with national origins quotas and increased legal immigration. Increased legal immigration, the majority of which would come from Asia and Latin America.
Immigration Act of 1965
Impact of Election of John F. Kennedy - promised to win the Cold War and fulfill America's destiny as the last hope of mankind; his rhetoric generated fervent hopes and lofty expectations. A "cold warrior" who projected youthful dynamism His assassination, at a time of peace and prosperity, would bring a long descent toward national disillusionment. First Catholic president. He seemed more a celebrity than a politician, yet public new nothing of his failings and were unaware of his lackluster social legislation. He grew defense, supported "race to the moon," and his tax cuts stimulated the economy; economic expansion.
Impact of Election of John F. Kennedy
Impact of Sputnik - Sputnik was the first man-made satellite to orbit Earth; launched by the Soviet Union. Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik worried Americans and caused the government to invest funds in missile development (NASA was created in 1958) and space probes. Spurred by Sputnik, Americans embarked on a program to improve American education with more government funding going towards universities and government research, primarily defense projects. The launch of Russia's Sputnik satellite spurred crash programs in space research and education to catch up with the Soviets.
Impact of Sputnik
Impact of Television - No cultural medium ever grew so huge so quickly as TV; by 1960 90% of households owned one. Not only could TV influence consumer spending and trends, it could influence politics (election of 1960 debate with Kennedy and Nixon) and showcase atrocities (such a violence in riots), leading to public outcries and support of causes. It reflected American society and stimulated the desire to be included in that society, it spawned mass fads, spread the message of consumerism, reinforced racial stereotypes, changed political life, helped produce a more national culture.
Impact of Television
JFK's New Frontier program - Kennedy's theme that exhorted Americans to "get this country moving again;" about pumping new life into the nation and steering it in new directions.
JFK's New Frontier program
Korean Armistice, 1953 - Impact of Korean War on Presidential Power - Finally agreed on July 23, 1953, it set the boundary between N. and S. Korea at about the 38th parallel (where it was pre-war, so still left Korea divided). Major consequences of Korean War: expansion of containment doctrine, huge increase in defense spending, atomic stockpile, US bases established around the world, underscored commitment to anticommunist struggle. Re Presidential Power: Truman's actions enhanced the powers of an already powerful presidency and set the precedent for later undeclared wars, added fuel to a second Red Scare, and fostered Cold War attitudes that lasted long after the war ended.
Korean Armistice, 1953 - Impact of Korean War on Presidential Power
Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki involved the nuclear attack on the Japanese city of Hiroshima by the United States Army Air Forces on August 6, 1945 with the nuclear weapon "Little Boy," followed three days later by the detonation of the "Fat Man" bomb over Nagasaki during World War II against the Empire of Japan, part of the opposing Axis Powers alliance. The prevailing view is that the bombings ended the war months sooner than would otherwise have been the case, saving many lives that would have been lost on both sides if the planned invasion of Japan had taken place. (lead up: Japan had aggressively been expanding, particularly in China, joined alliance with Germany and Italy, then attacked at Pearl Harbor, bringing the US into the war. After victory in Europe over the Germans, the war in the Pacific continued, which led to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.)
Lead-up to Hiroshima & Nagasaki
"Victory in Europe Day." The German government surrendered unconditionally during WWII on May 7, 1945. Allied armies had closed the vise on Germany, advanced and met the Russians at the Elbe River at the end of April. The Russian Red Army had overrun Vienna and reached Berlin. Hitler committed suicide, Berlin fell to the Soviets and the Germans surrendered.
Lead-up to V-E Day
Little Rock 9 - Southern resistance to desegregation reached a climax in 1957 in Little Rock with Arkansas' governor mobilizing the National Guard to block enforcement and bar nine African American students from entering school. Eisenhower became the first president since Reconstruction to use federal troops to enforce the rights of Blacks, first in Arkansas.
Little Rock 9
Malcolm X - Militant Nation of Islam leader who urged African-Americans to separate themselves from "the white devil" and to take pride in their African-American roots and blackness. Claimed that blacks had to rely on armed self-defense. Was assassinated and his "Autobiography of Malcolm X" (1965) became the main text for the rising Black Panther movement.
Malcolm X
March on Washington, 1963 - To compel Congress to act, nearly 250,000 Americans converged on the Capitol on August 28, 1963. There they heard the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. proclaiming that he "had a dream" of brotherhood, freedom and justice, a dream that "all of God's children, black and white, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics" would be able to join hands and sing "free at last." The political rally became a historic event with one of the greatest speeches in history.
March on Washington, 1963
Marshall Plan - Massive US assistance for European recovery; was aid to rebuild Western Europe, including Germany. The Marshall Plan was another weapon in the arsenal against the spread of Communism (Truman thought economic devastation spawned Communism). The Marshall Plan stimulated Western European economic recovery, and by 1952, industrial production had risen 200% in Western Europe, and the economic chaos that the Communists had exploited had been overcome in the 16 nations that shared the $17 billion in aid. Introduced by Secretary of State George G. Marshall in 1947, he proposed massive and systematic American economic aid to Europe to revitalize the European economies after WWII and help prevent the spread of Communism. The Soviet Union reacted to the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan by tightening its grip on Eastern Europe.
Marshall Plan
National Interstate & defense Highway Act - the largest and most expensive public works program in American history: the Interstate Highway Act (of 1956) - a 41,000 system of expressways across America, which accelerated suburban growth. Federal spending on highways skyrocketed; urban workers could now commute to suburbs.
National Interstate & Defense Highway Act
National Security Act of 1947 (National Security Council, Dept. of Defense, CIA) - To back up the new international initiative of the Truman Doctrine, Congress passed the National Security Act of 1947, unifying the armed forces under a single Department of Defense, creating the National Security Council (NSC) to advise the president on strategic matters, and establishing the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) to gather information abroad and engage in covert activities in support of the nation's security.
National Security Act of 1947 (National Security Council, Dept. of Defense, CIA)
NSC-68 - The National Security Paper 68 (NSC-68) was a blueprint for the Cold War; called for military buildup, H-bomb / hydrogen bomb, and worldwide containment. NSC-68 called for a mass American military buildup and quadrupling the defense budget to wage a struggle against Communism. The U.S. adopted a more aggressive defense policy and issued National Security Paper 68 (NSC-68) to counter the Soviet Union's "design for world domination."
National Security Paper 68 - NSC-68
Native American Activism - Inspired by black activism, the American Indian Movement (AIM) was a group that attracted attention to problems facing Native Americans by occupying Alcatraz.
Native American Activism
North Korean Invasion 38th Parallel, 1950 - After WWII, Korea had been temporarily divided, but the dividing line solidified into a political frontier into the Soviet-supported North Korea and the American-supported South Korea. North Korea swept across the boundary (the 38th Parallel) to attack South Korea, and Truman was convinced that Stalin was to blame. Having been accused of "selling out Eastern Europe" and "losing China," Truman needed to prove that he could stand up to "the Reds" (Communists) and ordered air and naval forces into Korea, which ultimately led to the Korean War. Thus, the Cold War turned hot. The Chinese got involved in the war and counterattacked.
North Korean Invasion of 38th Parallel
Peace Corps - Kennedy had increased economic assistance to Third World countries to counter the appeal of communism. The Peace Corps, established in 1961 exemplified the New Frontier's liberal anti-communism. By 1963, 5,000 Peace Corps volunteers were serving 2-year stints as teachers, engineers, crop specialists and health workers in more than forty Third World nations.
Peace Corps
Potsdam Conference - A war-time conference held at Potsdam, Germany from July 16 to August 2 to complete the post-war arrangements begun at Yalta, attended by Truman, Churchill, and Stalin. But the Allied leaders could barely agree to demilitarize Germany and to punish Nazi war criminals. A diplomatic impasse. It agreed on the establishment of the Oder-Neisse line as the border of areas administrated by government of Poland, the expulsion of the German populations remaining beyond the borders of Germany, war reparations, reversion of all German annexations in Europe after 1937, statement of aims and means of the occupation of Germany, and the prosecution of Nazi war criminals. In addition, the Allies issued the Potsdam Declaration which outlined the terms of surrender for Japan.
Potsdam Conference
Rise and Fall of Joseph McCarthy - McCarthyism - There were widespread fears about the "diabolical" Red conspiracy, and a Communist underground in the government. The ultimate symbol of this was Republican senator Joseph McCarthy, who warned that Communists in the government had betrayed America. McCarthy offered a list of names without any proof. McCarthyism became a synonym for attacks on individuals by means of indiscriminate allegations and unsubstantiated charges (especially of Communism). McCarthyism appealed to Midwestern Republicans who opposed the welfare state and restrictions on business. For them, anti-Communism was a weapon of revenge against liberals. McCarthy's scorn for state department liberals also attracted blue collar workers and Catholic ethnics who hoped to be accepted as "100% American" by showing anti-Communist zeal.
Rise and Fall of Joseph McCarthy - McCarthyism
Rise of Sun Belt Region - Americans also moved South and West into the Sun Belt - states of the southwestern US; increasingly populous and conservative in the 1950s. California's population more than doubled between 1945 and 1964, and senior citizens and industry headed to the South and West, bringing a conservative outlook.
Rise of Sun Belt Region
Rise of the Civil Rights Movement - (NOTE: see individual terms below) - There was a new robustness in the fight against racial discrimination and segregation in the postwar era, with expectations for racial equality, demands for a permanent Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC), the outlawing of lynching, and the right to vote. Fearful of Black assertiveness in seeking the vote, white racists accelerated their repression and violence. These events horrified President Truman, who genuinely believed that every American should enjoy the full rights of citizenship. In 1946, Truman established the "President's Committee on Civil Rights" to investigate race relations. President's Committee on Civil Rights was empaneled by Truman; recommended a legal assault on segregation. The committee called for the eradication of racial discrimination and segregation and proposed anti-lynching and anti-poll tax legislation. Truman issued executive orders barring discrimination in federal employment and creating a committee to ensure "equality and treatment of opportunity" in the armed services. the Supreme Court declared segregation in interstate bus transportation unconstitutional and outlawed housing that forbade the sale or rental of property to minorities.
Rise of the Civil Rights Movement
Rosa Parks and Montgomery Bus Boycott - Rosa Parks was a Civil-rights leader whose refusal to give a white man her bus seat triggered the Montgomery bus boycott. In 1955, the Rosa Parks incident sparked a boycott and protest and lead to the election of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to lead the boycott.
Rosa Parks and Montgomery Bus Boycott
SEATO - 1954 - Southeast Treaty Organization; An alliance, set up by Secretary Dulles on the model of NATO, to help support the anti-communist regime in South Vietnam; Included USA, UK, France, Pakistan, Thailand, the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand; opposed communism and indicated that the US could get help from other countries against communism.
SEATO - 1954 - Southeast Treaty Organization
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) - In 1957, King and a group of black ministers formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), whose movements triumphed in the decade ahead would depend on thousands of ordinary people who marched, rallied, and demonstrated in grassroots protest movements. Determined to win a strong voting-rights law, the SCLC organized mass protests in Selma, AL in 1965. State police stormed the defenseless protesters, and the spectacle was showcased on TV, provoking national outrage and support for the voting rights bill.
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
Southern Manifesto was a 1956 statement of southern congressmen opposing the Brown decision and defending racial segregation.
Southern Manifesto
Start of Korean War through United Nations Security Council - (Korean War, 1950-1953) The Korean War was war with communist North Korea to contain the spread of communism in Asia. The Korean War had major consequences, costing the U.S. over 54,000 lives and millions of civilian deaths and Chinese and Korean deaths. The Korean War accelerated implementation of NSC-68 and the expansion of the Containment Doctrine into a global commitment (started with Greece and Turkey, but expanded). From 1950 to 1953, defense spending zoomed from $13 billion to $60 billion, the U.S. acquired new bases around the world, committed itself to rearm West Germany, increased military aid to Taiwan, and to France's fight against Communism in Indochina. The intervention in Korea underscored the administration's commitment to the anti-Communist struggle. Truman asked the United Nations to authorize action to repel the invasion, and Truman gained approval for a UN "police action" to restore South Korea's border. He appointed McArthur to command the UN effort and ordered American ground troops into what became the Korean War.
Start of Korean War through United Nations Security Council - (Korean War, 1950-1953)
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) - was a youth auxiliary of the NAACP; involved in sit-ins and rallies.
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 - a measure that limited the power of labor unions. Unions termed the law a "slave labor" bill; Truman vetoed it, but Congress overrode the veto. A conservative Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act, which barred the "closed shop" and permitted the President to delay any strike that might endanger national safety. Still, Truman had taken a major step towards regaining organized labor's support and reforging FDR's New Deal coalition. Truman was now an unabashed liberal who urged Congress to repeal the Taft-Hartley Act, provide federal aid to education and housing, national health insurance, and farm price supports. He wooed ethnic voters of Eastern European descent by railing against Soviet Communism, and he courted Jewish American voters.
Taft-Hartley Act of 1947
The Baby Boom - Americans in the 1950's tended to marry young, have babies quickly, and have more of them. The fertility rate peaked in 1957; this "baby boom" led to a 19% population spurt during the 1950's. The baby boom was an enormous population spurt from 1946 to 1964. The sheer size of the Baby Boom generation ensured its impact and contributed to school construction, home construction, and made child rearing a foremost concern and reinforced the idea that the woman's place was in the home.
The Baby Boom
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the most significant civil rights law in US history, it banned racial discrimination and segregation in public accommodations, outlawed bias in federally funded programs, and created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to enforce a ban on job discrimination on the basis of race. (but it didn't address the right to vote, so...)
The Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Montgomery Bus Boycott demonstrated African American strength and discrimination and vaulted Dr. King into the national spotlight. King's philosophy of civil disobedience fused the spirit of Christianity with the strategy of achieving racial justice by nonviolent resistance. King urged his followers to love their enemies in an effort to convert their oppressors.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Post-War Housing Boom, Suburbanization - Automania and federal spending on highways spurred America's exodus to the suburbs as people could commute to once remote areas. The income tax code stimulated home sales by allowing deductions for mortgage payments and property taxes. Levitttowns (see below) made homes more available. The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Veterans Administration (VA) offered low-interest loans to whites; In 1960, suburbia was 98% white. In the greatest internal migration in its history, some 20 million Americans moved to the suburbs.
The Post-War Housing Boom, Suburbanization
The Truman Doctrine (Greece & Turkey) - an implementation of containment: the United States would support any government facing communist challenge. It also included $400 million in military assistance to Greece and Turkey. The Truman Doctrine represented a symbol of global struggle for "freedom and liberty" vs. oppression. It laid the foundation for American foreign policy for the next four decades. The Truman Doctrine was indicative of the U.S. policy to support free peoples everywhere and proclaimed the nation's' intention to be a "global policeman," and guard against advances by the Soviet Union and its allies. (Containment was originally advanced to justify US aid to Greece and Turkey, but it would become an ideological foundation for war in Korea and Vietnam).
The Truman Doctrine (Greece and Turkey)
The Voting Rights Act was a law that allowed the federal government to protect the rights of blacks to vote; dramatically expanded black suffrage, transformed southern politics. In spite of these important laws, there was still economic inequality, which lead to the Watts riots, the rise of the Black Power militant movement for Black autonomy and self-respect; influence of Malcolm X, Black Panther party and the rejection of the goal of integration.
The Voting Rights Act (1965)
Truman's Fair Deal - The Fair Deal was Truman's unsuccessful programed extension of Roosevelt's New Deal. The Fair Deal was a broad liberal agenda including civil rights, national health care, and federal aid for education. Unlike New Deal liberalism, the Fair Deal counted on continued economic growth. Congress rejected the Fair Deal, and although they extended some existing programs such as the minimum wage and social security and the construction of some low income housing, Congress would go no further.
Truman's Fair Deal
Voting Rights Act - 1965 Law that allowed the federal government to protect the rights of blacks to vote; dramatically expanded black suffrage, transformed southern politics.
Voting Rights Act
Watts Riots - Involved a confrontation between white police and young blacks in Watts, the largest African-American district in Los Angeles. The most destructive race riot in decades. Blacks looted shops, bombed white businesses, sniped at police. When the riot ended, 34 people were dead and 900 injured, 4000 arrested. Watts was a prelude to other riots.
Watts Riots
Women in the 1950s - Domesticity - Popular culture in the 1950's glorified marriage and parenthood and depicted a woman's devotion to life at home with her children as the main goal. Education reinforced these ideas, and of the 1/3rd of the labor force that was female, only 1 out of 3 married women worked outside the home and most held "pink collar" jobs in the service industry. Most women worked to augment family income, not to challenge stereotypes of women, yet many developed a heightened sense of empowerment, which transmitted to their daughters would fuel a feminist resurgence in the late 1960's. Hollywood reflected the diminished concern with political issues, portraying Americans as one happy white middle-class family, with minorities and the poor remaining invisible and women appearing as "dumb blonde" types.
Women in the 1950s & Domesticity
Yalta Conference - Yalta Accords - 1945 agreements in which FDR made concessions to Stalin to induce him to join the Pacific war; Stalin promised to declare war on Japan "two or three months" after Germany's surrender, and in return FDR and Churchill promised the Soviet Union concessions in Manchuria and territories it had lost in the Russo-Japanese War. Stalin accepted the temporary partitioning of Germany and the postponement about reparations discussions. Stalin approved plans for a United Nations conference to establish a permanent international organization for collective security. However, Stalin was adamant about Poland and established a communist regime there, and they could do little about it. They hoped Stalin would keep his word.
Yalta Conference
Youth Culture in the 1950s - Despite talk of family togetherness, parents seemed to pay little attention to their children, and traditional values like thrift and self-denial had declined in relevance. A national craze for rock and roll music developed, and many parents linked rock and roll with disobedience and crime. Elvis Presley was a Mississippi-born rock-and-roll singer beloved among younger Americans in the 1950s. Presley typified this new 1950's rock and roll generation. Teens cherished rock and roll for define adult propriety (correctness) and started to reject society by delighted in magazines such as Mad, which ridiculed the phony and pretentious in middle class America. Nonconformist writers known as the Beats expressed a revolt against middle class society; the Beats were a group and movement of 1950s poets and writers who criticized American materialism. Many youths took up the Beat message, read poetry, protested against capital punishment, the House Un-American Activities Committee, the nuclear arms race, and desegregated schools. Together with the Beats and rock music, this vocal minority of the "silent generation" heralded a youth movement that would explode in the 1960's.
Youth Culture in the 1950s