Post World War II America Change in the United States and the origins of the cold war

Teaching, office work, nursing, retail When over 15 Million soldiers returned to the United States looking for work, many women were forced to give up jobs in factories, leave Rosie “the Riveter” behind, and adjust to a new economy.

Home Ownership Increases Dramatically! When American soldiers returned home, they wanted to have their own homes, find jobs, settle down, and begin families! The Baby Boomers followed quickly!

Levittowns William Levitt combined the genius of Henry Ford’s assembly line methods with the construction industry – and Levittowns followed!.

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Auto, Steel, Meatpacking, and Electrical Workers in 1946 went out on strike when they found that wages were too low to achieve the new American dream.

Desegregation, 1948 President Harry S Truman ended segregation and discrimination in the United States military by executive order in 1948.

Harry S Truman Not so, Chicago Tribune. Harry S Truman won most of the states in the West and managed to regain the Presidency in the Election of 1948.

Soviet Union’s Influence on Eastern Europe

The Cold War Between the United States of America and the Soviet Union, roughly between 1945 and 1991. There was no direct military conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union, and no declaration of war. There was continuous posturing and threatening language used by both nations towards the other. The nuclear arms race created a terrifying threat of nuclear holocaust. Frequent military conflict in peripheral nations.

Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain Speech.” Churchill claimed that the people of Eastern Europe were being held hostage by the Soviet Union – that an “Iron Curtain” had descended across the continent.

Containment The United States would not attempt to roll back communism in Eastern Europe, but we would forbid the Soviet Union from expanding its influence. Our goal was to stop the spread of communism!

The Truman Doctrine Harry Truman vowed to stop the spread of communism and promised to give money to any nation that committed itself to a future of democracy and capitalism. His first offerings were to two strong American allies in the world today which were threatened by Soviet aggression – Turkey and Greece.

NATO The nations in yellow are the founding nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, founded in 1949. The nations were devoted to defending one another from the threats of Soviet expansion and communism. Today, the group has grown to include other nations, some of them in Eastern Europe.

The Warsaw Pact Nations In 1955, the Soviet Union responded to NATO by organizing a defensive alliance of its own – the Warsaw Pact. It consisted of all the puppet governments in Eastern Europe which had been installed and maintained by the Kremlin in the first place.

The Marshall Plan The Marshall Plan was devised by General George Marshall to help our allies in Europe to rebuild following World War II. The United States handed out over $13 Billion to nations in Western and Southern Europe who pledged to maintain democratic governments and capitalist economic systems.

Joseph Stalin’s Berlin Blockade Joseph Stalin wanted to control all of the land within the Soviet Union’s territory in East Germany, even the divided city of Berlin. He blocked off all of the roads and canals leading into and out of Berlin in 1948.

Berlin – A Divided City After World War II, the United States, France, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union all took over a portion of Germany. In the same manner, the capital city of Berlin was divided between the four nations. The US, England, and France combined their sections to form West Berlin – an isolated island of freedom in Soviet Union controlled East Germany.

The Berlin Airlift The United States pledged to stay in Berlin. Following the policy of containment, Truman refused to allow even one city – even half of one city – to fall to communism. Over the course of 11 months, the United States and Great Britain sent over 275,000 supply planes to West Berlin filled with food, fuel, medicine, and other essentials to Berlin.

HUAC The House Un- American Activities Committee investigated many of the radical groups which existed in the United States in the 1950s under the protection of the Bill of Rights – communists, socialists, anarchists, and other radicals. During the 1950s, the HUAC investigated even the most paranoid rumors of radicalism – even in Hollywood.