THE POSTWAR ERA Chapters 19 and 20

THE POSTWAR BOOM Chapter 19

19.1 POSTWAR AMERICA pp

READJUSTMENT AND RECOVERY Many veterans saw a severe housing shortage at the time, living in cramped apartments with no space.  The result of this saw the beginning of the suburbs, planned communities outside of cities. The country saw a rise in the divorce rate as many women were reluctant to give up their jobs. The cancelling of defense contracts meant that over a million defense workers were laid off from their jobs. The Office of Price Administration halted the controls on food prices which caused prices to skyrocket. By the late 1940’s, however, the economy exploded as Americans found themselves with greater savings.

MEETING ECONOMIC CHALLENGES After the death of President Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman was sworn into office. Truman had many ambitions for continued economic growth but was unable to get his legislation passed by Congress. Republicans gained control of Congress in the midterm elections and passed the Taft- Hartley Act, overriding Truman’s veto.  The act overturned many union victories from the New Deal, most noticeably putting an end to the “closed-shop” practice of employers being forced to only hire union workers.

SOCIAL UNREST PERSISTS Truman put his presidency on the line for civil rights, accomplishing what Roosevelt was afraid to do.  Executive order demanding the integration of the military.  Banned racial discrimination in federal hiring practices.  Supreme Court rules that lower courts could not bar African-American families from residential neighborhoods. By publicly advocating civil rights legislation, Truman found himself the target of Southern Democrats from his own party known as the Dixiecrats.  Dixiecrats were conservative democrats from southern states that were major supporters of states rights over a centralized government. The Election of 1948 was seen as a near impossible victory for Truman.  The Dixiecrats formed the States’ Rights Democratic Party and nominated South Carolina governor Strom Thurmond, who went on to serve in the Senate for 48 years before retiring in January 2003 at the age of 100.  Henry Wallace formed the Progressive Party, a far left group appealing to the northeast urban population.  Finally, the Republicans nominated the New York Governor Thomas Dewey.  Truman wins in an upset victory. Following his reelection, Truman passed the Fair Deal legislation which was a continuation of New Deal policies, though some were defeated by Congress.

REPUBLICANS TAKE THE MIDDLE ROAD A falling approval rating caused Truman not to seek reelection in Winning election in 1952 was General Dwight D. Eisenhower, known popularly as “Ike.” Eisenhower was famously quoted as saying the government should be “conservative when it comes to money and liberal when it comes to human beings.”  Eisenhower, though fiscally conservative was largely considered to be a centrist, taking a moderate form of governing that borrowed ideas from both liberal and conservative ideology and Democrat and Republican practices.

THE AMERICAN DREAM IN THE FIFTIES pp

THE ORGANIZATION AND THE ORGANIZATION MAN Several new business models were introduced in the 1950’s.  Conglomerates were major corporation with several smaller companies in unrelated industries such as AT&T, Xerox, and General Electric.  The franchise allowed for an individual to buy into a business and sell their products and services. This allowed for greater business expansion and the rise of businesses such as McDonald’s. Although purchasing power and job stability increased, so did conformity, as corporate workers were turned into “company men” that lost their individuality.  William H. Whyte’s book The Organization Man looked into this “company man” phenomenon and how “fitting in” was important in corporate culture.

THE SUBURBAN LIFESTYLE The baby boom accounted for a rise in the birth rate, which caused a rise in the economy as well as teacher shortages due to the large number of school children. Dr. Jonas Salk developed a vaccine for polio. Women increasingly became more and more involved in the workforce but were still limited in terms of wages and employment opportunities.

THE AUTOMOBILE CULTURE Following the rationing and conservation of gasoline during World War II, the postwar era saw a large supply of petroleum, which led to increased automobile production at affordable prices. President Eisenhower put into place the Interstate Highway System.  The result of the Interstate Highway System was the creation of more suburbs even further away from cities.  Another result was the rise in long-haul trucking which contributed to the decline of the railroads. There were some negative consequences of the automobile.  Middle class white Americans leave the cities for the suburbs and take jobs with them.  Air pollution.  Decline in public transportation.  Growing gap between urban and suburban Americans.

CONSUMERISM UNBOUND New products came from mail order catalogs. Planned obsolescence meant that manufacturers deliberately designed products to become outdated very quickly so that the consumer would expect and later buy the new product. Credit card debt rose from $73 billion to $179 billion. Advertisements rose in popularity and usage.

POPULAR CULTURE pp. 652-

NEW ERA OF THE MASS MEDIA Television was the fastest growing mass media, or a means of communication that reached the most amount of people.  By 1960, 90% of American households had a TV. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) expanded from only two hours of programming per week to small portions of the east coast in 1949 to over 500 new stations across the country in Advertising expenditures rose from $170 million to $2 billion from 1950 to Critics of television pointed out to stereotyping of women and minorities on TV and violence in other shows such as Gunsmoke.

THE BEAT MOVEMENT Emerging as a precursor to the modern-day hipster, the beatniks were rebellious nonconformists who participated in the Beat Movement. The movement was centered in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and the Greenwich Village in Manhattan and focused on poetry and the arts. Most beatniks were nonconformists who enjoyed things such as Zen Buddhism and what we know today as “Indie” music. Rather than owning a house in the suburbs or wearing the usual clothes of the era, beatniks were city dwellers with their own style of dress.

AFRICAN AMERICANS AND ROCK ‘N’ ROLL Rock ‘n’ Roll was built off of the blues and was a music movement that transcended racial boundaries, and instead appealed to all Americans. Guitarists such as Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley became pop culture icons to American youth while being condemned by adults. African Americans helped revitalize the jazz genre into a style of music known as swing, featuring musicians such as Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie.

THE OTHER AMERICA pp

THE URBAN POOR Nearly one out of every four Americans at this time were below the poverty level, in particular the elderly, single women, and minorities. The phenomenon known as white flight occurred as middle-class white Americans left the cities and took their jobs and resources with them to the suburbs.  White flight contributed to a widening racial and social class gap. Inner cities eventually saw the practices of urban renewal to bulldoze dilapidated neighborhoods to create safe, low-income housing.  The cabinet position of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was created in the late 1960’s.  Some individuals were displaced from their homes with nowhere to go, such as Latinos living in the barrio on what we today know as Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

POVERTY LEADS TO ACTIVISM During World War II, several temporary immigrant workers from Mexico known as braceros were hired as farm laborers. When the war ended the braceros were expected to return to Mexico, though many remained in the US illegally. Perhaps the worst example of prejudice against Mexican Americans occurred in what became known as the Longoria Incident.  Felix Longoria was a Mexican American killed overseas on the Philippines.  The town refused to provide the surviving family with funeral and burial services on account of Longoria’s race, causing Mexican Americans to join the G.I. Forum to combat racism. In 1944 the National Congress of American Indians was formed with two major goals: equal civil rights as white Americans, and enabling the preservation of tribal customs on reservation lands. Beginning in 1953 the federal government adopted a termination policy that eliminated federal funding and discontinued the reservation system in an attempt to relocate Native Americans, though the policy was a dismal failure and was abandoned ten years later in 1963.