1. History 17C The American People, World War I to the Present

2. The Fifties

4. Themes: For most Americans, the Fifties were a decade of unprecedented affluence, yet millions of Americans were prevented from fully partaking of the American Dream

5. Themes: On the surface, conformity and passivity prevailed, but below the surface there was considerable dissatisfaction with the status quo

6. Prosperity in the 1950s

7. Fuller Employment Rising Home Ownership

8. Federal involvement in private economy increased citizens’ purchasing power and solved problem of underconsumption

9. With Cold War came renewed government spending on military production

10. ... which led to civilian spin-offs

11. Consumption was fueled by advertising— increasingly on television

12. GI Bill of Rights (1944) helped to lift millions of Americans into middle class

13. Those left behind

14. Suburbia

15. Suburbanization was facilitated by GI Bill loans

16. William Levitt... and by revolution in construction and marketing of housing

17. Levitt’s mass-production techniques

18. “Levittown”

19. Levittowns

20. Life in the suburbs

23. William Levitt

24. Anticommunism

25. Science fiction movies

27. The cult of female domesticity

28. Betty Friedan 1963

29. World War II legacy: Influx of women into workforce

30. World War II legacy: Myth and reality of “Rosie the Riveter”

31. World War II legacy: Gordon Parks, “American Gothic,” 1942

32. Women’s Employment, 1940-1970 YearPercentage of Women in Paid Employment 194025.4 195029.1 196034.8 197043.3

33. Women’s Employment, 1940-1970 YearPercentage of Paid Workers Who Were Women 194024.6 195027.8 196032.3 197038.0

34. Women in Higher Education

35. Arthur Schlesinger Critics

36. Allen Ginsberg Jack Kerouac The “Beats”

38. Rhythm and Blues

40. Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953-1961

41. With Vice President Richard M. Nixon Eisenhower was highly popular with the general public but less so with liberal intellectuals

42. Eisenhower’s Army Background

44. With Prime Minister Winston Churchill With Gen. George C. Patton

45. Eisenhower’s Army Background With Gen. Douglas MacArthur during the Bonus March, 1932

50. Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953-1961

51. Ike and Mamie Eisenhower host a state visit by the Khrushchevs, 1959 Eisenhower and foreign relations

52. 1954—Declined to bail out France in Vietnam Eisenhower and foreign relations

53. ... and allowed communists to take over northern half of Vietnam Eisenhower and foreign relations

54. Eisenhower’s failings Appeasing Sen. Joseph McCarthy

55. Eisenhower and Marshall

56. 1954—Army-McCarthy Hearings were televised, causing McCarthy to lose public support

58. Lack of leadership on Civil Rights Eisenhower’s failings

59. Citizens of Topeka, KS, protesting school segregation Brown vs. Board of Education, 1954

60. Nettie Hunt and Daughter Nickie on Supreme Court Steps, 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education, 1954

61. Lack of leadership on Civil Rights Eisenhower’s failings

62. Little Rock, Arkansas, school desegregation crisis, 1957

63. Emmett Till case, 1955 Mose Wright (Emmett Till’s Great-Uncle) and Mamie Bradley (Till’s Mother)

64. Arrest of Rosa Parks, December 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955-1956

65. Martin Luther King speaking at Holt Street Baptist Church, December 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955-1956

66. Jo Ann Robinson and other local black women activists Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955-1956