1. 1950s Economic and Social Themes
People of Plenty and Conformity
-GDP Doubles
GDP = consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports − imports)

7. GI Bill Went to veterans of WWII 1) College scholarships
2) Loans for Houses
3) Unemployment Pay
Gave Opportunities to the average blue- collar soldier after the war.

9. d

11. Economics of 1950s 1950s=Cash Money
Victorious in WWII. Now control trade. Only Super Power to NOT have their country torn to shreds from WWII
Causes of Economic Boom
1) New Business Techniques-white collar jobs
2) Improved Technology
Effects
1) Consumerism
2) Growth of Suburbs (Levittowns)

15. Baby Boomers (1945-1961) Couples start having children after WWII
Couples could now afford a family, house, life, etc.
Conform to society (don’t draw attention to yourself)
-Marriage, Pregnancy, parenthood, large families

17. Consumer Culture Television-brought people together
-1946=7,000-media is building
1960=50 million
-by 1970, 9 out of every 10 homes had one
-projected new image of America
-helped fight communism

18. Rock ‘N Roll…daddy-o
Helped foster differences between parents and teenagers (youth culture)
Loud, rhythmic, promoted movement (freedom), full of energy
Adults didn't get it and even FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover called the new music "a corrupting influence"

19. Automobile Sales increased 300% during the 1950’s
The public desired speed, luxury, travel, freedom, and privacy in a car
Promoted creation of drive-ins, diners
Dates and promiscuous behavior
Poor gas mileage
Chrome everything!
Detroit’s “Golden Age”

20. Riddle
What’s College?

21. Answer
“That’s where girls who are above cooking and sewing go to meet a man they can spend their lives cooking and sewing for.
-ad for Gimbals’ department store campus clothes, 1952.

22. Conform, or be scorned Middle Class, White values Normalcy
Fears of standing out (communism)
Women return to the home (uniformity)

23. Health Class in 1954….

24. This quote is in your book and you don’t have to write this down
This quote is in your book and you don’t have to write this down. Just listen to Mr. Werner and everything will be fine.

25. John Keats
“You too can find a box [house] of your own,” wrote Keats, “inhabited by people whose age, income, number of children, problems, habits, conversations, dress, possessions, perhaps even blood types are almost precisely like yours.”

26. Generation Gap
Marked differences between teenagers and parents began to emerge
Beat generation
Ducktail haircuts
Television portrayed “juvenile delinquents”
Marlon Brando- The Wild One
James Dean- Rebel Without a Cause
J.D. Salinger- The Catcher in the Rye