CHALLENGE & CHANGE IN THE 1950’S Chapter 27, Lesson 5

 Dwight D. Eisenhower (R) is elected President in 1952

 Americans returned home from WWII and started families  Economy does very well when “Ike” is in office  Lives of most Americans improved during this time

 Americans are still worried about nuclear war  Cities set up air raid warning signals  People built bomb shelters in their back yards  Air raid drills done in school

MCCARTHYISM  RED SCARE  Government workers during Truman & Eisenhower’s presidencies who were thought to be “security risks” were forced to resign or were fired  Senator Joe McCarthy used this fear to grow his own political power  Accused educators, journalists, entertainers, etc.  McCarthy investigates the Army looking for communists  Investigation seen on TV turns public opinion against him  He loses his power in the Senate as a result

CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT  Brown vs. Board  Young black girl must travel through a dangerous rail yard to get to her all black school – her father sues for the right to send his daughter to the closer by all white school  Thurgood Marshall  First African-American Supreme Court Justice works on the case  Rosa Parks  Parks refused to give her Montgomery Alabama bus seat to a white person and was arrested

CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT  Martin Luther King Jr.  Montgomery Bus Boycott  Non-violent protest  This drew attention to the racial discrimination against blacks in America  1957 Civil Rights Law  First civil rights law since the end of reconstruction  Little Rock Nine  Arkansas governor tries to prevent 9 African-American high school students from attending an all white school  National guard is called to keep students out  US Army troops arrive to protect the 9 students (101 st Airborne)  Eventually the governor backed down

LIFE IN THE 1950’S  More products, more jobs, higher standard of living  “Family” and “Home” became symbols of American life  Husbands were “breadwinners” and women were “housewives”  Women did have jobs, but those jobs were seen as temporary until they had children  Eventually, women begin to question the narrow role assigned to them by society  In the early 1960’s, the women’s movement would begin

LIFE IN THE 1950’S  Interstate highway system

LIFE IN THE 1950’S

SPACE RACE  Soviets launch Sputnik on 10/4/57  First satellite  Concern grows over the Soviet Union being able to do something that America could not  Sputnik II carried a dog into space – before the Americans got there  Explorer I – 1/31/58  The following October NASA is born