1. POSTWAR US HISTORY Time of great social change and stress Insecure world—Cold War; fears of communism; changes in popular culture; changes in all major institutions and social relations Changing face of American cities New media communicated changes and often increased fears

2. POSTWAR US HISTORY: Economic Changes High employment; low inflation, cheap energy, federal and local subsidies to suburbanization, optimism, consumerism Uneven prosperity; decline of plantation system in the South, continuing rural and urban poverty Poverty associated with racial ethnic groups (structural unemployment); invisibility of white poverty Lack of a safety net for many caused by discriminatory nature of New Deal legislation (Social Security Act, minimum wage)—most black, Hispanic, and women workers excluded from coverage

3. POSTWAR US HISTORY – Cities: suburbanization and rising numbers of people of color in central cities Levittown (cheaper to build suburbs than rehab city housing); highways; federal mortgage policies; white resistance; restrictive covenants – Transportation, focus on highways – Education, more access, many more students went to high school and college (GI Bill); Brown v. Board – Frazier article and the anxieties generated by social and economic changes in schools

4. POSTWAR US HISTORY: Science and Technology Medical Advances: antibiotics, polio vaccine, birth control pill, psychotropic drugs (Milltown) Science linked to arms race and space race – Formation of National Science Foundation, 1946 – Admission of Nazi scientists to US – Sputnik, 1957; National Defense Education Act Television

5. POSTWAR US HISTORY: Gender and Family Changes in dating and sexuality: “going steady”; rising rates of teen pregnancy; politics of unwed pregnancy and rise in adoptions Birth rates for those aged 15-19 were 97 per 1,000 in 1957, 52 in 1983 Early marriage (1/4 to 1/3 of 1950s marriages ended in divorce) Pronatalism: Baby Boom Idea that nuclear family could meet all of its members’ needs

6. POSTWAR US HISTORY: Popular Culture Changes in Popular Culture: Rise of Television and Rock and Roll Popular Culture and Social Relations – Generational conflict and the teen market – Rock and Roll and race relations, generational conflict – Social Criticism: Folk Music (The Weavers, The Kingston Trio)

7. POSTWAR US HISTORY: Gender and Family Increasing labor force rates, especially for married women Public hostility to women’s employment Why did wives and mothers seek employment? Strength of consumer values; effects of early marriages; end of child labor. Rise of demand for clerical and service workers created jobs for women

8. POSTWAR US HISTORY: Gender and Family Emphasis on women’s sacrifice for families Freudian psychology: used to adapt women to subordination, sacrifice, domesticity – Need for women to accept their “femininity,” meaning subordination, domesticity, dependence; antifeminism of Freudians – Dissatisfaction seen as “masculinist strivings” – Nontraditional gender linked to family disorder Men’s roles: breadwinners, family authority and involvement

9. POSTWAR US HISTORY: Red Scare McCarthyism—named for Senator Joseph McCarthy, but was much broader and longer lasting than his campaign Red-baiting of unions, civil rights movement, and other progressive movements Story of Lee Lorch, CP member and civil rights activist Duck and Cover