Pg. 739 – 748, Questions, Answers, and Themes

What is the Golden Age of Capitalism? Characteristics – Economic Expansion – Stable Prices – Low Unemployment – Rising standards of Living (continue until 1973) Diet, Housing, Income, Education, and Recreation all improve from previous generations

Define Gross National Product The total value of the goods and services produced by the people of a nation during a year. Gross Domestic Product – the total value of the goods and services produced by the people of a nation during a year not including the value of income earned in foreign countries

How do ordinary citizens benefit? Numerous innovations come into use – Television – Home air-conditioners – Automatic Dishwashers – Cheap Long Distance telephone calls – Cheap jet air travel

How is the economy changing for Americans? Geography – Western states benefit from government contracts Aircraft, guided missiles, radar systems – Home of numerous military bases and government shipyards Jobs shift toward services from manufacturing – Toward education, information, services, finance, and entertainment – Employment in manufacturing jobs declined.

Describe life in 1950s suburbia What are the consequences of the growth of suburbia? Prefabricated houses built in mass quantity – Levittown Needed new stores: The mall The Automobile is the center of all these innovations. – Interstate highway system New travel habits: Long-distance vacationing and commuting to work.

Describe life in 1950s suburbia What are the consequences of the growth of suburbia? Businesses based on travel open – Motels – Fast food – Drive in movies The Car symbolizes freedom – Individual mobility  Private choice,

What Spurs the Growth of the West? The car – Life centers around the car – Must drive to work – Must drive to malls

Why is the mass consumption of TV so important? What does it cause? By the end of the 1950s roughly 90% of American families own a T.V. Changes the American culture – Become the source of information – Leisure activity – Changes American diets (Example, T.V. Dinners) Most effective advertising medium ever.

What is the important goal of the average American woman as portrayed in the 1950s? Marriage is the most important goal of a woman (average age of marriage  22) – Films, advertisements, and T.V. shows promote the message

Did this goal appear to lead to happiness? Why or why not? Feminism is put down – Mental disorder – Failure to accept a “Maternal Instinct”

Explain how suburbia represents uniformity. Economically Diverse – Upper class suburbs – Working-class suburbs – Industrial suburbs BUT Racially very uniform – Federal agencies continue to insure houses not to be sold to non-whites

How do private businesses and government contribute to segregated neighborhoods? Supreme Court declares these provisions illegal in 1948 – The government still refused to subsidize mortgages unless they were segregated. – Levittown does not allow blacks Gentrification: Displacing the a segment of a population for a different group – The poor displaced in cities for shopping centers Poor whites move to suburbia Non-whites: run-down city neighborhoods

Themes we can pull from this reading: Unprecedented economic expansion Economic Change: Transition from Industrial Jobs to a service industry. New way of life (suburbia) based on the car (epitomizes freedom). T.V. becomes a center for entertainment, news, and advertising Women are sold the idea of marriage Government Actions push uniformity along racial lines in the country