1950s Economic Boom, Pop Culture, & Cold War Politics

Post-WWII Changes in America

1. Economic Boom
   1. anxieties over post war economic depression but that did not happen, period when most number of Americans entered the middle class (record challenged only by the 1990s), large amounts of savings were spent in late 1940s and 1950s, age of first credit cards and heightened consumer credit/loans
   2. high levels of consumption (with those of wealthier status)
      1. household goods:
         1. now standard appliances like refrigerator, vacuum, backyard grills, lawn equipment
         2. television (75% of Americans had one TV by 1959, an astounding marketing coup): sponsors left production to others, many movie studios converted to TV formats, initially had situation comedies (sit-coms) among urban ethnic communities but late 50s saw idealized white, middle-class suburban families with few controversial issues presented–CONFORMITY WAS KEY! Westerns and cop shows were popular as well, new age of advertising takes off by late 1950s
      2. big ticket items:
         1. cars (at least one or more per family), generally promoted car for him and her, size, design, speed, and power more important than fuel economy or efficiency, auto loans hit an all-time high
         2. new homes instead of apartments or existing homes, premier example was Levittown–mass manufactured cookie cutter houses, “ranch-style” popular, funds from GI Bill (Servicemen’s Readjustment Act), FHA (Federal Housing Administration), and VA (Veteran’s Affairs) provided loans to build new homes and provide reasonable rates for home mortgages
         3. vacations (with Interstate Highway System, Route 66)–long distance family summer vacations by car promoted, including food franchises, McDonalds, White Castle, Burger King, Dairy Queen
2. Pop Culture
   1. Age of the Teenager: mostly middle class, teen years (12-18) and high school supreme; music, retail, and visual media geared toward teens with money
      1. “rock ‘n’ roll” period: in large part, musical forms were taken from African American culture and converted for white Americans, much of the music had sexual overtones which were written out of the mass versions (Shake, Rattle n Roll, for example, originally inferred sex between unmarried couples)
      2. Alan Freed (white Cleveland DJ) credited with bringing rock to white audiences
      3. Elvis Presley reached icon status but parents feared his rebel-like image and sensual body movements (for the time)
      4. Chuck Berry was popular black musician who crossed the color line in music
   2. Youth culture focus of concern
      1. defining themselves as neither adult nor child, what to do? Saw themselves as a special community, rock was “their” music and expressed their feelings
      2. Rising rates of juvenile delinquency: high school dropouts, teen pregnancies (which promoted marriages or backstreet abortions as a result), truancy, crime (as much from idleness, pranks as pointed crimes motivated by ill-intent and economic necessities or wants)
      3. Moral control in TV, movies, music a problem: media promoted items that spoke of these trends and warned of the shocking problems in American life, films like Rebel Without a Cause and The Wild One depicted teenage James Dean and Marlon Brando as heros/antiheros
   3. Women’s Fall to Darkness and Hope for Ascendancy
      1. Though more women were employed after WWII overall than before the 1940s, many white middle class women were resigned to returning to the home environment. Ethnic women, particularly African Americans, had little options to not work, along with single women and widows. Some women (regardless of marital status) worked part-time, sort of the supplement income to afford their mass consumerism, but often only until marriage or the arrival of children.
      2. Ideology in the popular media (film, TV, print) advocated that women’s proper place was at home, caring for children (a result of the Baby Boom) and the new household, granted women had more domestic labor than ever but these were unpaid and mostly unappreciated work
      3. The countless hours of work provided by mothers and wives in the home were not and are still not part of the gross national product, despite the fact that these labors provide a significant portion of the labor in the US for childcare and domestic services.
      4. Many women graduated from high school and attended college in higher numbers but over 60% dropped out when they married (either because their goal was supposedly to meet a husband and gain their “MRS” or that they were pregnant); women were discouraged from careers in science and technical degrees and female education saw a boom in degrees for Home Economics
      5. Few real advances for women’s rights during the 1950s period, some anthropological changes that showed the sexuality of women and intellectual ability yet popular culture denied these ideas in favor of traditional values (continued ideas such as women were best suited to domesticity, less intelligent than men, needed protection from the world, etc.) and lauded family units (played on fears of child inadequacy, juvenile delinquency, skewed development if mothers not at home full time)
      6. Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique as a challenge to that idea
         1. series of articles put into a book form that detailed her discontent with her life, she was in her 40s when she wrote them and her kids were off at college
         2. She had attended a college reunion where she observed that many of her female peers were unhappy and disillusioned by their lives, felt that they had no purpose and a sense of general low self-worth
         3. Wrote this book and later ones to call attention to the creeping fatigue and discontent of gender norms, feminists to follow her example included leading authors such as Gloria Steinem (1970s), Camille Paglia (1980s), and Naomi Wolfe (1990s) among others
3. The Disenfranchised and Struggling
   1. not all participated in the post-war prosperity, though a helping of the mass consumerism was the same goal however for most
      1. African Americans suffered most perhaps with overt racism in daily living but discrimination largely depended on who you were and were you lived; i.e. Asian Americans and Mexican Americans suffered tremendous racial slights in California and the West Coast as compared to African Americans in the same area whereas African Americans in the South experienced the greatest proportion of discrimination for that region
         1. segregation reached its height during the 1950s, few changes from the Reconstruction period except to worsen since Plessy v Ferguson in 1896
         2. many workers returned to low paid jobs, women to domestic and service labor, men to farm work, grunt industrial labor, custodial works, etc.
         3. Some improvements, Truman helped pass the Civil Rights Act in 1957 which sought to equalize pay and opportunity but was little enforced
      2. Mexican Americans
         1. Racially charged anti-immigration policy nicknamed “Operation Wetback” emerged: large scale deportation efforts after WWII, Mexican laborers had been brought in as labor for SW and Pacific coast but jobs went back to traditional workers after war while the Mexican workers were expected to return home to Mexico
         2. additional problems occurred because legal US citizens of Mexican descent also ended up in Mexico and wrongfully being accused of illegal immigration
      3. Native Americans:
         1. attempts to rescind the reservation system, and outlaw Indian lands; met with massive resistance across US
         2. anti-Communist fears led to virtual abandonment of aid to communal living natives, AZ and NM Navajos denied food assistance in 1956-57 because of these fears
4. Cold War politics in the 1950s, at home and abroad
   1. Harry S. Truman (1945-1952)–Democrat
      1. upheld New Deal legislation and reforms, tried to push for reform legislation but stymied by Republican congress who wanted to limit excesses of socialist-leaning programs
      2. over his veto, passed Taft-Hartley Act (1946): curtailed power of labor
      3. politics split over civil rights issues, Dixiecrats split off from Democrats with Strom Thurmond as their candidate
      4. 1948 Election, defeats John Dewey despite media overconfidence and poll numbers saying otherwise (landslide victory with 61% Popular vote—a huge margin)
      5. FAIR DEAL (1949): enlarge new deal programs for economic security, conservation, and housing, sought new initiatives in civil rights (desegregated the military primarily in 1947), national health insurance, federal aid to education, and agricultural subsidies—in large part all of his initiatives failed.
      6. Helped define Cold War liberalism as promoting economic growth through expanded foreign trade and federal expenditures (defense spending)
   2. Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower (1953-1960)–Republican
      1. 1952 Election, Ike (with VP Richard Nixon) ran against Adlai Stevenson (D); Ike wins effectively on “red” campaign and promise to end Korean War
      2. business-like approach, moderate but rejected efforts to dismantle welfare state–social security benefits and real wages increased despite two recessions while in office, created Modern Republicanism (also called dynamic conservatism)
      3. Interstate Highway Act: established 41,000 mile cross-state system, St. Lawrence Seaway (large scale destruction of the environment to achieve his “reforms” but opened American interior for shipping and trade)
      4. Considered one of the best choices as President in prosperity decade, moderate and restored a sense of harmony (one reason that he and the Republican congress did not push civil rights legislation, though the Supreme Court did)
      5. the so-called Military-Industrial Complex emerged under his watch, Cold War politics was primary on his agenda and building the defensive/offensive capabilities of the US to stave off war
   3. Secy of State John Foster Dulles called for an offensive aimed at liberating the captive peoples of Eastern Europe and China under Eisenhower by 1953
      1. Eisenhower Doctrine: called for US military aid to halt communism in the Middle East. Ike refused to intervene in E Berlin or Hungary though because wanted cautious approach in Europe so as not to touch off conflict with largest adversary, the USSR.
      2. “New Look” defense program had 3 new approaches:
         1. defensive alliances such as the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) for collective defense and mutual defense treaties with South Korea and Taiwan
         2. massive retaliation: actively posed a threat versus the USSR that US would not be restricted to conventional weapons and that would employ nuclear arsenal if threatened
            1. It actually reduced the specter of nuclear war because the USSR became less likely to provoke or invade US for fear of nuclear annihilation
            2. In hindsight, the US was the numerically dominant nuclear power through the Cold War, even though reports at the time obscured just how many nuclear weapons the USSR held at given times so the US was never sure how effective their position was
         3. use the CIA for subversive activities, including infiltration, assassination, and training for anti-communist military action (mostly in border countries of the USSR)