1. The 1950s

2. 1950s BROUGHT CHANGES IN SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & MEDICINE
First IBM (commercial) Mainframe Computer
Hydrogen Bomb Test
DNA Structure Discovered
Polio Vaccine Tested – Jonas Salk
First Commercial U. S. Nuclear Power Plant
NASA Created
ENIAC, first mainframe computer, 1945
Text – Pojer
ENIAC - Tindall & Shi, America: A Narrative History (6th ed);
Automation: factory workers decreased by 4.3%, eliminating 1.5 million blue-collar jobs.

3. CONSENSUS AND CONFORMITY: Politics
Election of 1952: Dwight D. Eisenhower
“Modern Republicanism”
Fiscal Conservative: sound business principles, Reduce federal spending, balance budget and cut taxes
Social Moderate: maintain existing social and economic legislation
Federal Highway Act (1956)
President Eisenhower (Courtesy Dwight D. Eisenhower Library)
Interstate -
Ike with VP Nixon on the Links.

4. AN AFFLUENT SOCIETY: Growth of Suburbs
REASONS FOR THE GROWTH OF SUBURBS
Growth of families (“baby boom”)
Home-ownership became more affordable
Low-interest mortgage loans
gov’t-backed & interest tax-deductable
Mass-produced subdivisions
Levittown – 17,000 mass-produced, low-priced homes
William Levitt produced 150 houses per week.
$7,990 or $60/month with no down payment.
Expressways – facilitated commuting

5. CONSENSUS AND CONFORMITY: Television
Television arrived in the 50s
,000 TV sets in U.S.; ,000,000 “vast wasteland”
Common mass culture
Suburban middle class
Graph TV Ownership - Faragher, Out of Many, 3rd Ed.;
Description: Family watching television. Evert F. Baumgardner, ca Credit: National Archives and Records Administration.

6. Beginnings of Rock Music
Alan Freed
The Dominoes
Elvis
(Michael Barson Collection/Past Perfect)
Bill Haley & the Comets

7. U.S and Soviet aims around the world
United States
Encourage democracy in other countries to help prevent the rise of new totalitarian governments.
Rebuild European governments to ensure stability and to create new markets for American goods.
Reunite Germany, believing that Europe would be more secure if Germany were productive and less bitter about defeat.
Soviet Union
Encourage Communism in other countries as part of the worldwide struggle between workers and the wealthy.
Control Eastern Europe to balance the US influence in Western Europe.
Keep Germany divided and weak, since the Germans had waged war against Russia twice in 30 years and had caused most of the 20 million Soviet deaths in WWII.

8. Cold War Tensions & Society
Duck and Cover
"Fallout shelter built by Louis Severance adjacent to his home near Akron, Mich., includes a special ventilation and escape hatch, an entrance to his basement, tiny kitchen, running water, sanitary facilities, and a sleeping and living area for the family of four. The shelter cost about $1,000. It has a 10-inch reinforced concrete ceiling with thick earth cover and concrete walls. Severance says, 'Ever since I was convinced what damage H-Bombs can do, I've wanted to build the shelter. Just as with my chicken farm, when there's a need I build it." By an unknown photographer, ca National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the Defense Civil Preparedness Agency (397-MA-2s-160)
Duck and Cover. Unknown photographer. AM J Online
Such movies often focused on bodies being taken over by outside forces; otherwise-normal people were actually alien beings bent on destruction, forcing average Americans to flee for their lives, as in this scene from Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) [American Journey Online]

9. 1960s

10. KENNEDY’S “NEW FRONTIER”
1960 Election
John F. Kennedy defeats Richard Nixon
Strength was televised presidential debates
New Frontier
Debate -
Election – Brinkley 10e
JFK - also -
Presidential Election of 1960

11. Kennedy Assassination
November 22, 1963
Dallas, Texas
Lee Harvey Oswald—communist sympathizer
Warren Commission Report—Oswald acted alone!
As Jacqueline Kennedy reacts to her husband being fatally shot in the head, their open-air limousine races to nearby Parkland Hospital. The president died less than an hour later. CBS television news anchor Walter Cronkite cried as he told the nation the news. (National Archives)
Norton

12. JOHNSON’S GREAT SOCIETY
Lyndon B. Johnson
With assassination of Kennedy, LBJ tries to carry out his New Frontier.
He passes two important pieces of legislation:
Civil Rights Act of 1964—end racial and gender discrimination in employment opportunities
Economic Opportunity Act—creates Job Corps—to end poverty
Johnson wins election in 1964
Used theme GREAT SOCIETY
4 straight Democratic Presidents
LBJ -
AD -
Lyndon B. Johnson

13. JOHNSON’S GREAT SOCIETY
The Wilderness Protection Act saved 9.1 million acres of forestland from industrial development.
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act
The Voting Rights Act banned literacy tests and other discriminatory methods to deny African Americans the right to vote.
Medicare was created to offset the costs of health care for the nation's elderly.
The National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities used public money to fund artists and galleries.
The Immigration Act ended discriminatory quotas based on ethnic origin.
An Omnibus Housing Act provided funds to construct low-income housing.
Congress tightened pollution controls.
Standards were raised for safety in consumer products.
Description: Medicare Bill Signing. July 30, Keywords: Lyndon B. Johnson Credit: LBJ Library Photo

14. FOREIGN AFFAIRS

15. FOREIGN AFFAIRS in the 1960s: CONTAINMENT LEADS TO VIETNAM
Bay of Pigs
US plan to overthrow communist dictator Fidel Castro
Plan was to train and support Cuban immigrants
Total Failure
Made USA and Kennedy look weak
Map - Henretta, America’s History 4e from
Castro krushcheve – American Journey Online

16. FOREIGN AFFAIRS in the 1960s: CONTAINMENT LEADS TO VIETNAM
Nikita Khrushchev
Berlin Wall
Map - Nash, The American People: Creating a Nation (6th ed);
Pictures – American Journey Online
Soviet and American tanks face off. "Checkpoint Charlie," August 1961
Berlin Wall Goes Up, August 1961

17. FOREIGN AFFAIRS in the 1960s: CONTAINMENT LEADS TO VIETNAM
Cuban Missile Crisis
As close to Nuclear War as we got with the USSR.
A week long crisis where U2 spy plane takes pictures of Soviet missiles in Cuba
Kennedy announces and says USSR must remove
Soviet Ships sailing toward CUBA
USA blockade…who will blink?
Soviet ships turn around
JFK redeems himself and USA looks strong
Henretta, America’s History 4e from

18. Vietnam War
United States entered the war to stop the spread of Communism in Southeast Asia. American leaders feared that Communist forces would gain control of Vietnam. After that, nation after nation might fall.

19. FOREIGN AFFAIRS: CONTAINMENT LEADS TO VIETNAM
LBJ
“quagmire”
Problem was N. Vietnamese did not engage in traditional warfare
Used guerilla war
Could not tell allies from enemies
Friends during day; attack at night
Move to air attacks
Can’t win with air attacks and no ground support

20. My Lai Massacre, March 1968
My Lai Massacre was a mass murder of between 347 and 504 unarmed civilians in South Vietnam on March 16, It was committed by the U.S. Army soldiers
Victims included women, men, children, and infants. Some of the women were gang-raped and their bodies mutilated.
Twenty six soldiers were charged with criminal offenses, but only Second Lieutenant William Calley Jr., a platoon leader in C Company, was convicted.
Found guilty of killing 22 villagers, he was originally given a life sentence, but served only three and a half years under house arrest.
Bodies - Ajo
® Ronald Haeberle. My-Lai Massacre, March 16, PBS – American Photography

21. The War at Home

22. Costs of Vietnam
By the end of the 1960s, U.S. was tired of the war and looking for a way to end this costly war
--3,000,000 Vietnamese killed
--58,000 U.S. soldiers killed + 300, 000 wounded
--$150,000,000, 000 spent on the war—leads to under funded domestic program
--US morale is down, trust in government is down, and people generally lack nationalism
pojer

23. Space Program First man on Moon in 1969 Achieves JFK goal