Chapter 19 The Post War Boom. Section 1 Post War America.

Chapter 19The Post War Boom

Section 1

• Post War America

Readjustment and Recovery

By the Summer of 1946 following WWII around 10 million people had been released from the military back into American civilian life.

In order to combat this the government had passed the GI Bill of Rights

which encouraged military veterans to go to school and get an education by paying part of their tuition

it also guaranteed them a years worth of unemployment pay while they looked to find jobs and get back into civilian life.

It also offered low interest federally guaranteed loans to buy houses and other big expenses


When they returned this created a housing shortage in America This caused the developments of the suburbs (or small communities

outside the cities) These were developed by William Levitt and Henry Kaiser and some

were known as LevittownTensions occurred when men returned from the war and women

were reluctant to give up their positions of income. More than a million war marriages ended in divorce by 1950 due to these factors


Following the war the government shifted from a war time to a peace time economy and nearly a million war time factory workers nationwide got laid off

Prices skyrocketed by as much as 25% from war time prices Many Americans earned less money than they did during war time

also causing inflation in the American economy In order to get it under control Congress had to put controls on

prices, wages, and rents.


The reason there was not a post war depression was because of the American peoples vast wants after years of holding back for the war effort

In the 1950-’s many American’s flourished as did the economy once things settled in

The Cold War and the threat of war also kept the American people employed and the economy flourishing.

The US also created a strong foreign market for exports which helped a lot as well.

Meeting Economic Challenges

As Harry S. Truman became President following the death of FDR he met 2 major challenges:

The Rising threat of Communism Restoring the American economy to a strong foot following the war.Strikes became a common place issue in America as Americans faced

higher prices and lower wages. Truman attacked the Unions and won before Congress Because of the hard times Republicans won control of both the House

and Senate and implemented wide changes to many New Deal policies and shot down Truman’s demands as well.

Social Unrest Persists

Other problems that arose in America following the war were social problems

Racial violence was common throughout America.Truman preached for Civil Rights and in 1946 created the Presidents

Commission on Civil Rights Congress refused many of Truman’s demands for equality so he went

over their heads and made an executive order to call for “equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed forces without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin.”


The Democrats nominated Truman for re-election in 1948 even though most of the country blamed him for the economic troubles and the Civil Rights controversies

Southern Democrats termed (Dixiecrats) named J. Strom Thurmond as their candidate the South Carolina Governor.

The Republicans nominated New York Governor Thomas Dewey as their candidate and most polls showed Dewey winning the election.

Truman pushed through with his “Give ‘em Hell Harry campaign slogan” and in a major upset won the election


Truman after being re-elected continued to push his “Fair Deal” program which was an extension of FDR New Deal

Some of his ideas were shot down and some of them pushed through including raising minimum wage from 40 cents to 75 cents an hour. Extending social security to cover more people, flood control and irrigation projects.

Republicans take the Middle Road

Truman’s approval rating sank to an all time low in 1951 and all the pressures around Truman decided to not run for re-election in 1952

The Democrats nominated Adlai Stevenson as their 1952 candidateThe Republicans nominated Dwight D. Eisenhower under his “I like

Ike” campaign slogan.Eisenhower’s Vice Presidential candidate was Richard Nixon who was

involved in a scandal on receiving funds in a secret slush fund which he squashed in his famous “checkers speech”

Eisenhower went on to win the election with 55% percent of the votes

Republicans take the Middle Road

Eisenhower used more of middle of the road type presidency.He wanted Government to be conservative with money and liberal with

human beings” as opposed to one way or the other as all previous administrations had been

Many Civil Rights issues were in the courts during Eisenhower’s Presidency (1954) Brown v Board of Education-Topeka Kansas stated that schools must

be racially integrated and not segregated Rosa Parks bus incident He did many good things for the economy and started the nations interstate

highway systems and was very popular winning re-election in 1956

Section 2

•The American Dream in the 1950’s

The Organization and the Organization Man

Businesses spread rapidly in the 1950’s and by 1956 most Americans no longer held blue collar, or industrial jobs but instead held white collar higher paid positions

White collar workers instead of working in factories and doing labor instead did more things like sales, advertising, insurance, and communications.

A lot of these corporations that white collar workers worked for grew into conglomerates (a larger corporation that included many smaller companies in unrelated industries)

A few larger corporations were: American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) , Xerox, General Electric


Franchising was another business model that became popular as well which is a company that offers similar services and goods at many different locations

Fast food restaurants developed some of the 1st and most successful franchises one of the first franchises was McDonalds which was started in California by the McDonald brothers with assembly line type service.

Ray Kroc then bought that restaurant from the brothers and opened another up in Illinois and trademarked the arches


Americans began to standardize much of their lives along with the type of food they ate and the jobs they performed.

Corporate leaders did not want individual thinkers they wanted people who would follow suit to the jobs they had and follow the company model

The Suburban Lifestyle

Most Americans worked in cities but fewer and fewer of them lived in those cities they would instead live in the suburbs and commute to their jobs

By the 1960’s every large city was surrounded by suburbs As soldiers returned home from World War II they contributed to an

unprecedented population growth known as the baby boom The “Baby Boom” lasted from the late 1940’s through the early 1960’s

so anyone born in this time period is known as a “baby boomer” 1957 was the height of the Baby Boom as 1 baby was born in America

every 7 seconds totaling 4,308,000 babies


Another reason that the population growth was the development of drugs to fight and prevent childhood diseases such as typhoid fever and polio

Jonas Salk came up with a drug to fight the disease Polio Dr. Benjamin Spock wrote a book on how to raise children and many

parents utilized this book on how to raise children.He was against corporal punishment, wanted family meetings for

children to express themselves, and wanted the government to pay for mothers to stay at home and raise children.


The baby boom era had a huge impact economically on American society especially in child care, schools, and toy sales

Women’s roles as the homemaker staying at home was glorified in the 1950’s especially in Hollywood in hit tv shows

By the 1960’s more women began to work outside the home as almost 40% of women with school aged children worked outside the home

Leisure activities picked up in the 1950’s as Americans spent over $30 billion on leisure activities both active and passive

Americans also became much more avid readers in the 1950’s

The Automobile Culture

The fact of most Americans living in the suburbs made it a necessity to own vehicles to transport themselves to work daily

Due to the vast influx of Americans purchasing cars meant there was a bigger need for more roads

The more roads that were built to connect suburbs to cities and schools led to more suburbs farther out as more people could commute farther

The interstates unified the country and allowed more people to travel to more places and more businesses to pop up around the country

This was a boom for society but it had negatives also as more people died in automobile crashes, pollution and noise rose, job moved to the suburb areas and left more people in the inner cities poor without jobs nor the ability to buy vehicles

This made the gap between the middle class in the suburbs and the poor in the inner city.

Consumerism Unbound

Because of the growing middle class with an ability and willingness to buy goods more and more products began to pop up on the market place

Americans began to buy electronic devices for the home like washing machines, dryers, blenders, freezers, and dishwashers in record numbers.

In order to encourage consumers to buy more goods businesses setup planned obsolescence (manufacturers would purposely design goods to become obsolete after an amount of time)

Consumerism Unbound

Credit became more popular in this time period as the 1st credit card was released in 1950 “The Diner’s Club card”

People would buy bigger items on installment plans as opposed to saving and purchasing the items in whole up front

Americans went from saving money to spending money and individual debt nationwide grew from $73 billion to $179 billion over this time period

Advertising also became a big business as businesses advertised their product to the masses

Section 3

•Popular Culture

New Era of the Mass Media

Television was one of the fastest growing methods of mass communication.

TV was 1st made available to everyone in 1948 by 1950 9% of American homes had them, 55% by 1954, 90% by 1960.

The 1st TV programs were small and had few programs on them and they were in black and white

When TV first started they only aired 2 hours of programs per week


The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulated and licensed all radio, telephone, telegram, and television broadcasts had allowed 500 new stations nation wide by 1956 in an era known as the “golden age” of television entertainment.

During this era programs such as “Milton Berle”, and “I Love Lucy” began hugely popular programs starting in 1951

Edward Murrow began doing television news with his program “see it now” and “Person to Person”

Westerns were very popular as were sporting events“The Mickey Mouse Club” and “Howdy Doody” was an extremely popular

children's programAmerican businesses took advantage of it by using it for mass advertising


While many were excited about television there were many critics stating it had a bad effect on children and it’s stereotypical portrayal of women and minorities

Television of the 1950’s portrayed white America in a male dominant society with shows like “Father Knows Best” and “Ozzie and Harriett”

It also glorified the historical conflicts of the west in westerns such as “Gunsmoke” and “Have Gun will Travel”

Radio and movies survived the popularity of television by adapting their programs The movie industry tried gimics that did not work like Smell-O-vision and Aroma-

Rama where they would pipe smells into theatres to match scenes on the screens They tried 3D movies where spectators would wear special glasses

A Subculture Emerges

The beat movement took place in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York where poets, artists, and writers expressed social nonconformity.

They used as little structure as possible and were free in form and looked for a higher consciousness utilizing methods like zen and sometimes even drugs

African Americans and Rock n’ Roll

Radio stations began producing and playing the new music of the times and this was started in 1951 by Alan Freed

Freed promoted a new style of music that was a mix of rhythm and blues and country and pop and called it rock n’ roll

Rock n’ Roll grew to be a national music and music that was created in America

In the 1950’s there were many Rock n’ roll pioneers like Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Bill Haley, Richard Penniman and others that made Rock n’ Roll extremely popular to the nation.

African Americans and Rock n’ RollElvis Presley was known as the unofficial “King of Rock n’ Roll” Sam Phillips was the 1st producer to produce Elvis’ music and he then

sold his contract to RCA for $35,000Presley took the nation by storm and forever changed the way music

would be seen in America. Adults fought rock n’ roll but by the end of the decade it became

more acceptable in society

African Americans and Rock n’ Roll

African-Americans were getting into the music industry and playing rock n’ roll and also jazz to all types of audiences.

They were however usually shown on different radio stations by 1954 there were 250 radio stations that were specifically for black listeners.

Section 4

•The Other America

The Urban Poor

Despite the portrayal of pop culture in America in 1962 nearly 1 out of every 4 Americans was living below the poverty line.

In the 1950’s many of the white middle class left the cities and moved to the rural suburbs taking precious economic resources and isolating themselves from other races and classes.

The rural poor on the other hand migrated into the inner cities.Due to this “white flight” cities lost businesses, revenues, property

taxes, and this caused cities to spiral down in quality of schools, public transportation, police and fire departments and other areas of society

The Urban Poor

The majority of African Americans, Native Americans, Latin Americans, and poor white Americans moved into the inner city.

The government wanted to improve these living conditions and setup an urban renewal to where they tore down old worn down houses and rebuilt newer affordable housing projects for the people in the cities.

Although they did this they never had enough housing for all the people and many people became homeless as times went on.

Poverty Leads to Activism

The poverty stricken lifestyles led to many activists from minorities During WWII many Mexican workers (Braceros) came into America to

help with the Agriculture shortage and work but were expected to go back to Mexico after the war except they did not want to they chose to stay illegally

On top of this hundreds of thousands of Mexicans illegally came into America due to bad economic situations in Mexico

The Longoria was an incident where Felix Longoria was killed in action in the Philippines in WWII and his hometown in Texas refused to setup a funeral for him and his family

Poverty Leads to Activism

From 1887 – 1934 the policy towards Native Americans was of “Americanization”

In 1934 the passed the Indian Reorganization Act which took the focus away from assimilation into society and more into autonomy in society.

In 1944 Congress had 2 main goals for Native Americans: 1.) Ensure them the same civil rights as other Americans2.) Enable them reservations so they could utilize their own customs

Chapter 19 The Post War Boom. Section 1 Post War America.

Documents

threat of war

cold war

war marriages

war effort

war time prices

post war america readjustment

post war depression

war time factory workers