POST WORLD WAR II AMERICA

THE SOLDIERS COME HOME World War Two ended finally in the summer of

nineteen forty-five. Life in the United States began to return to

normal. Soldiers began to come home and find

peacetime jobs. Industry stopped producing war equipment

and began to produce goods that made peacetime life pleasant.

The American economy was stronger than ever.

POST WAR AMERICA The years following the World War II was a

time of great change in America.

Television, TV dinners, box cakes, and life in the suburbs became common for many Americans following the war.

A baby boom following the war increased the population by 20% in the 1950’s.

TECHNOLOGY ON THE RISE After the war, the technology in communications

were becoming more advanced at a rapid pace. For example, phones and radios, became a world

wide communication. This allowed different nations of power to

negotiate with each other before blowing each other up.

TV is another form of communication... Visual messages increased propaganda, advertisements were more wanting. 

MASS COMMUNICATION Telephone and answering machine Long distance phone calls, transatlantic

phone line Transistors make small radios available Radio pager- beeper

NEW MEDIA

After the war many Americans preferred to stay home and watch television rather that go out to shows or night clubs.

By 1960 45 million homes had televisions.

The 1960 Presidential election brought candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon into American homes.

NEW MEDIA During the coverage of the 1960 Presidential

election debates Nixon was recovering from knee surgery and appeared worn, pale, and sickly.

Kennedy, who had been at the beach, looked fit, tan, and charismatic.

Although those listening to the debate on the radio declared that Nixon was the winner, 50% of Americans said that the televised debates influenced their vote.

NEW MEDIA Television also brought out some problems that

existed in America as well.

In 1963, television stations aired footage of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and demonstrators in Birmingham, AL protesting the Jim Crow Laws of the south.

The footage showed snarling police dogs, and powerful fire hoses used against the protestors.

POST WAR AMERICA American workers had higher incomes which made the

“American Dream” possible. With higher wages Americans could afford to build in the

expanding suburbs. Many of the new parents moved to homes in the new suburbs.

The word suburb comes from the word urban, or having to do with cities. A suburb was sub, or something less than, a city.

Large suburban development offered inexpensive cookie-cutter homes.

America shifted from urban centers to suburban areas.

BABY BOOM Immediately after World War Two it

seemed, every family started having babies. Parents were hopeful about the future. There

were lots of jobs. People everywhere felt the need for a family and

security after the long, difficult years of the war. So the birth rate increased suddenly.

The number of children between the ages of five and fourteen increased by more than ten million between nineteen fifty and nineteen sixty.

AMERICA TAKES TO THE ROAD

With suburb living the need for and ownership of cars also increased. This in turn encouraged building of new roads.

People started to take more holidays, and to support this many new motels and restaurants were set up.

The Interstate Highway System was authorized by the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956—popularly known as the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956—on June 29.

TENNESSEE CHANGES MUSIC After World War II, Tennessee exploded

as a music production center. Country music, rock and roll, blues, gospel, and bluegrass were all recorded and produced in Tennessee. 

Radio and television helped to promote artists and their songs to Americans who now had more money to buy records, sheet music, and tapes.

TENNESSEE’S INFLUENCE IN MUSIC

  Elvis Presley was the king.

In Memphis a new type of music, rock and roll, emerged. Sun Studios and Stax Records produced artists like Elvis Presley and Otis Redding.

NASHVILLE INFLUENCE In Nashville country music was made popular

by the Grand Ole Opry created by George Hay. The Opry is the longest running radio program

in history. Nashville quickly became the center for

country music. Songwriters, publishers, and record companies

created an industry with artists like Eddie Arnold, Hank Williams , and Patsy Cline.   Nashville became known as "Music City."

NASHVILLE’S PREMIER RADIO STATION

WSM radio station is credited with shaping Nashville into a recording industry capital. Because of WSM's incredible reach, musical acts from all

across the eastern United States would come to Nashville in the early decades of the station's existence, in hopes of getting to perform on WSM.

Over time, as more acts and recording companies came to Nashville, the city became known as the center of the country music industry.

Disc jockey David Cobb is credited with first referring to Nashville as "Music City USA", a designation that has since been adopted as the city's official nickname by the local tourism board.

HOLLYWOOD The landscape of Hollywood began to change with

the mushrooming of the television industry in the 1950s.

Television and music recording studios and offices sprung up all over the city.

KTLA, the first commercial television station west of the Mississippi River, began broadcasting in January 1947.

By the end of that year, the first movie production made for television, The Public Prosecutor, was broadcast from Hollywood.

SPORTS People in the Fifties loved sports.  More leisure time and greater general prosperity led to greater participation in athletic activities for the average person

and added large numbers of fans to all types of sports.  Unlike many areas of society in this decade, athletes were a diverse

group.  Popularity was not based on social status, but on the ability of the

individual.  All American sports such as baseball and  football gave opportunities

for the rise of stars like Jackie Robinson,Roy Campanella, Henry (Hank) Aaron, Juan Marichal, Jim Brown,  and Frank Gifford.  Great women athletes played in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.

 Major names in basketball were Wilt Chamberlain,  Elgin Baylor,  Bob Cousy,Oscar Robertson and Dolph Schayes.  Another favorite, boxing, gave opportunities to great athletes,  Sugar Ray Robinson and Rocky Marciano.

CHANGES IN MEDICINE Post-1945, many advances were made in the

management of pregnancy and childbirth. This included the ability to induce labour

and the use of epidurals to ease difficult pregnancies.

As a balance to this, there was a move for less state intervention in childbirth and the development of the right for women to have more natural childbirth.

VACCINES More vaccines were developed to control childhood

diseases. After the war the health of children was generally

better than at any other time in history. Vaccines against polio, measles and rubella were

developed in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Tests were also developed for defects in babies

such as the amniocentesis for spina bifida and Down’s Syndrome.

Treatments were also developed for children with heart disease.

NEW DRUGS New drugs have also been created post-1945. The success of penicillin during the war,

prodded researchers to study other moulds. Streptomycin, found in chickens, was used

successfully to treat TB. This treatment was pioneered primarily in

America after 1946. Streptomycin was also found to be capable of

treating many other diseases that penicillin could not. 

ULTRASOUND AND MRI’S The use of ultrasound and magnetic

resonance since 1945 has also made it easier to diagnose disease.

Ian Donald, Professor of Midwifery at Glasgow developed ultrasound in the 1950’s for looking at unborn babies.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging can be used to detect diseases without the use of radiation making it less harmful to the patient. 

HEART SURGERY

Surgery in general has witnessed major developments since 1945.

Far more operations can be carried out now on areas of the body that were rarely touched before 1945.

Christian Barnard’s heart transplant was on an organ that few surgeons would have operated on.

His pioneering surgery inspired others to do likewise and now heart operations are very common, as is surgery on organs such as the liver and kidneys etc. 

SEGREGATION IN POST WAR AMERICA

After the war segregation in America intensified.

Jim Crow Laws in the south mandated a policy of “separate but equal”. Plessy v Ferguson (1896) upheld that “separate but equal” was Constitutional.

However, separate was not equal. Blacks did not enjoy the same living standards, education, careers, public access, or facilities as whites did.

CHANGING GENDER ROLES After years of working jobs left by men in the war women

were expected to leave the workforce and focus on domestic life.

In the 1950’s the average marrying age for women was 20.

Women who went to college often dropped out after marrying or went to work to support her husband who went to further his education.

However, their jobs were regulated to women’s jobs such as nurse or secretary. Furthermore, they did not earn as much as men.

SPACE RACE

In 1957 the Russians launched Sputnik I. It was the first artificial satellite to be launched in orbit around the earth.

America seemed to be less advanced in technology and science, and thus less of a super power.

In response to Sputnik I, America launched Explorer I in 1958, and created the National Aeronautics and Space Act which established NASA.

Americans all over watched the Apollo 11 mission as Neil Armstrong became the first man to step on the moon in 1969.

The race was on between the US and the Soviet Union

EDUCATION COMES UNDER ATTACK During the fifties, American education underwent dramatic and, for some, world

shattering changes. Until 1954, an official policy of "separate but equal educational  opportunities for

blacks had been determined to be the correct method to insure that all children in America received an adequate and equal education in the public schools of the nation.

 In 1954, Chief Justice Earl Warren and other members of the Supreme Court wrote in Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas that separate facilities for blacks did not make those facilities equal according to the Constitution. 

Integration was begun across the nation. Another crisis in education was   uncovered by critics like Rudolph Flesch in his

book Why Johnny Can't Read , who claimed that the American educational system was not doing its job. 

Other voices in the movement to revamp American schools were Arthur Bestor- Educational Wastelands, Albert Lynd- Quackery in the Public Schools,   Robert Hutchins - The Conflict in Education, and Admiral Hyman Rickover- Education and Freedom.

CHANGES IN EDUCATION Education reforms in America pushed for

better curriculum in reading skills, improvement in schools sense of community.

As a result of the space race leaders pushed for improvements in math and science education.

Often school curriculum was geared for the most gifted students in order to groom them for public or private research and service.