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.

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