America in the 1950s

The Eisenhower Era

American Society

• The Baby Boom– Between 1946 and

1961, 63.5 million babies

– Effects • Short term• Long term

American Society

• Economic Boom– “The Affluent Society”

• Consumer Demand– Why? – For what?

American Society• Growth of the

Middle Class– Suburbs

• Levittown

– Reemergence of the Cult of Domesticity

• Reflected by TV• Dr. Benjamin

Spock

– Sunbelt vs. Frostbelt

• Why?• How?

American Society• Sunbelt vs.

Frostbelt– Why?– How?

American Society• Pop Culture

– 1950s – the decade of the greatest conformity in American history? Why or why not?

• Television

• Movies

American Society• Rock n’ Roll

– Elvis Presley– Generation

Gap

American Society• Art: Abstract Expressionism

– Jackson Pollock– Willem de Koonig

American Society• The Beat

Generation (beatniks)– Late 1950s– Jack Kerouac’ s On

the Road– Allen Ginsburg– Characteristics

American Society

• Conformity– Middle class values

and anti-communism– Examples– David Riesman’s The

Lonely Crowd (1950)

• Resistance to Conformity– Civil Rights– Rock n’ Roll– Beat Generation

Politics of the 1950s

• Election of 1952 – Review – “I Like Ike” Ad

• Eisenhower defeats Adlai Stevenson

Domestic Politics

• Dynamic Conservatism– Meant “being conservative when it comes to

money and liberal when it comes to human beings.”

– Social Security benefits extended– Minimum wage raised to $1 an hour– Pragmatic, less ideological – What does this

mean?

Domestic Politics• Dynamic Conservatism

– Interstate Highway System – Why? Effects?– St. Lawrence Seaway– Creates Department of HEW – Why?– Three balanced budgets in eight years

Domestic Politics• Ike Reelected in 1956

– Defeats Stevenson again

Electoral vote 457 - 73States carried 41 - 7Popular vote 35,579,180 -

26,028,028Percentage 57.4% - 42.0%

Domestic Politics

• Labor Unions

• Merger of AFL-CIO - 1955

• Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamsters

• Landrum-Griffin Act - 1959

1959

Domestic Politics

• Alaska and Hawaii become the 49th and 50th states– Alaska – 1958– Hawaii – 1959

Civil Rights

• Earl Warren (and Ike)• Brown v. Board of

Education, Topeka Kansas 1954– Overturned Plessy v.

Ferguson– “Separate educational

facilities are inherently unequal.”

Civil Rights

• Response to Brown– Massive resistance in

the South

Protesting the Little Rock Nine

Civil Rights• Montgomery Bus Boycott

– 1955-1956– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.– Rosa Parks

Civil Rights

• Little Rock, Arkansas– Little Rock Nine– Ike’s Response

Civil Rights• Dr. King and

non-violence

• Sit-ins– Greensboro

• Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

Civil Rights

• What is the point of the cartoon?

Civil Rights• Other minorities

– Mexican-Americans• Bracero program• “Operation Wetback”

– Native Americans• Reverses New Deal law

Cold War

• Key Advisors– John Foster Dulles

• (SoS)

– Allen Dulles (CIA)• Eisenhower’s foreign policy

– Korea (visits in December 1952)– Liberation of Eastern Europe– Massive retaliation – define– Brinksmanship– Rejected containment – Why?

Cold War• American Reactions

– Spending– Cheyenne Mountain– The Greenbriar– http://www.greenbrier.c

om/site/bunker-gallery/

• Cheyenne Mountain

Cold War• Mutual Assured Destruction

(MAD)– Define: deterrent

• “New Look Military”• Farewell Address

– Warning: growth of the military-industrial complex

Cold War• Stalin dies-1953

• Warsaw Pact– 1955

• New Soviet leader – Nikita Khrushchev– “Peaceful

coexistence” or– “We will bury you”

(economically)

Cold War Events

• Geneva Summit – 1955

• Hungarian Uprising-1956

• Suez Crisis – 1956– Nasser and Egypt– Britain, France & Israel attack Egypt – Why?

• Eisenhower Doctrine

Cold War Events

• Sputnik– 1957 (above, right)

• National Defense Education Act

• Explorer I launched– 1958 (below, right)– NASA founded

Cold War Events• Conflict with the

USSR– Kitchen Debates– U-2 Incident

The Cold War & the CIA

• Iran – 1953– Coup that installed the

Shah as dictator– Iranian revenge in

1979

• Guatemala – 1954

Vietnam

• Ho Chi Minh

• Dien Bien Phu – 1954– Vietnam divided – how?– Ngo Dinh Diem

• SEATO

• Domino Theory

Cuba• Fidel Castro

– Successful coup, January 1, 1959– American response

The Affluent Society

• New Industrial Society– R & D– Computers– Silicon Valley

The Affluent Society

• New Industrial Society– Effects– Rachel Carson

The Affluent Society• Was everyone wealthy?

– Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man– Michael Harrington

• The Other America: Poverty in the United States