Chapter 28: The Affluent Society

Chapter 28: The Affluent Society

Chapter 28 Objectives

• We will study the economic

prosperity experienced by

Americans in the 1950s.

• We will study the explosive

innovation in the 1950s in both

science and technology.

3Jn_1:2 Beloved, I wish above all

things that thou mayest prosper

and be in health, even as thy soul

prospereth.

Introduction:

o During the 1950s, the general economic conditions included low employment ,hovering around 5 percent or lower.

o Government continued to spend to stimulate growth through funding of public schools, housing, benefits, welfare, and the $100 billion interstate highway program.

o Military spending also helped the economy.

Introduction:

o When military spending declined after the Korean War, growth declined somewhat.

o The national birth rate reversed a long pattern of decline with the so-called baby boom.

o The boom had begun during the war and peaked in 1957, the nation’s population rose almost 20 percent in the decade from 150 million in 1950 to 170 million in 1960.

Introduction:

o The baby boom contributed to

increased consumer demand and

expanded economic growth.

o Following World War II the American

economy grew between 1945 and

1975, nearly ten times faster than

the population.

The Rise of the Modern West:

o No region of the country profited

more from the economic growth

than the American West.

o Its population expanded drastically,

its cities boomed, its industrial

economy flourished.


o The growth of the West was a result

of federal spending and investment.

o Spending included dams, power

stations, highways, and other

infrastructure projects that made

economic development possible on

the military contracts that

continued to flow disproportionately

to factories in California and Texas.


o Also the enormous increase of automobile use, the suburbanization and improved highway systems, gave a large stimulus to the petroleum industry and contributed to the rapid growth of oil fields in Texas and Colorado.

o Texas and CA invested heavily in Universities and became the nation’s largest and best at centers of research and attracted technology-intensive industries.


o Climate contributed to the

Southwest because of the warm dry

climate.

o Los Angeles population rose by over

50 percent between 1940 and

1960 with ten percent of all new

businesses in the U.S. coming from

the city.

The New Economics:

o There was great confidence in the

American economic system.

o First was the belief that Keynesian

economics made it possible for

government to regulate and stabilize

the economy without intruding directly

into the private sector.

The New Economics:

o The British economist John

Maynard Keynes argued that

varying the flow of government

spending and taxation and

managing the supply of currency;

o the government could stimulate the

economy to cure recession and

dampen growth to prevent inflation.

The New Economics:

o This was widely accepted with the

experience of the last years of the

depression and the first years of the war

and seemed to confirm this argument.

o During the 1950s, the American

Federation of Labor merged with the

Congress of Industrial Organizations

ending a rivalry and with the Unions

receiving larger acceptance.

The New Economics:

o Although subject to government

corruption probes, the labor movement

enjoyed significant success in winning

better wages and benefits for workers

already organized in strong unions.

o The majority of laborers who were as yet

unorganized made fewer advances.

EXPLOSION OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY:

o Medical Breakthroughs:

Particularly important advance in

medical science was the

development of new antibacterial

drugs capable of fighting infections

that in the past had been all but

untreatable.


o The development of antibiotics had

its origins in the discoveries of Louis

Pasteur in the 1870s.

o In 1928, Alexander Fleming an

English medical researcher

accidently discovered the

antibacterial properties of an

organism that he named penicillin.


o English physician John Lister revealed the value of antiseptic solution in preventing infection during surgery.

o Later Oxford University directed by Howard Florey and Ernest Chain learned how to produce stable, potent penicillin in sizable enough quantities to make it a practical weapon against bacterial disease.


o American laboratories took the next

crucial steps in developing methods

for mass production and

commercial distribution of penicillin,

which became widely available to

doctors and hospitals around the

world by 1948.

o Since then a wide range of

antibiotics were developed.


o In the early Twentieth Century, the

Vaccine that raised the most safety

concerns in the United States was for

the prevention of tuberculosis.


o A particularly postwar triumph was the development of a vaccine against polio.

o In 1954, the American scientist Jonas Salk, introduced an effective vaccine against the virus that had killed and crippled thousands of children and adults.

o It was provided free to the public by the federal government beginning in 1955.


o After 1960, an oral vaccine

developed by Albert Sabin usually

administered in a sugar cube made

widespread vaccination easier.

o By the early 1960s, these vaccines

had virtually eliminated polio from

American life and much of the rest

of the world.


o Pesticides such as DDT was thought

to kill only insects and were

harmless to humans.

o It likely saved the lives of thousands

of troops in WWII from insect-borne

tropical diseases.

o It was used first on a large scale in

Italy in 1943-1944 during a typhus

outbreak.


o DDT was recognized to be extremely

toxic to insects.

o It quickly gained a positive

reputation for its effectiveness.

o But later was discovered to have

long term harm to humans and

animals.

Postwar Electronic Research:

o The 1940s and 1950s saw dramatic new development in electronic technology.

o The vacuum tube that powered most equipment in the past gave way to transistors that made possible for the miniaturization of many devices (Radios, television, audio equipment, hearing aids) were also important in aviation, weaponry, and satellites.

Postwar Electronic Research:

o They also contributed to another

major breakthrough in electronics,

the development of integrated

circuitry in the late 1950s.

Postwar Computer Technology:

o Prior to the 1950s, computers had

been constructed mainly to perform

complicated mathematical tasks,

such as those required to break

military codes.

o In the 1950s, they began to

perform commercial functions.

Postwar Computer Technology:

o The first significant computer of the 1950s was the Universal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC) which was developed initially for the U.S. Bureau of the Census by the Remington Rand Company.

o UNIVAC predicted the results of the 1952 election in CBS television news giving the first significant public awareness of the computer.

Bombs, Rockets, and Missiles:

o In 1952, the United States

successfully detonated the first

hydrogen bomb which was of

significantly more power than the

plutonium and uranium bombs of

WWII.


o The development of the hydrogen bomb

gave considerable impetus to a stalled

scientific project in the U.S. to develop

unmanned rockets and missiles capable

of carrying new weapons, which were not

suitable for delivery by airplanes to their

targets.


o This led to the development of

(Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles) or

ICBMs a capable of travelling space

to distant targets.

o By 1960, the United States

successfully launched a missile from

a submarine with the Polaris.

The Space Program:

o The Origins of the American space program can be traced most directly to the dramatic event in 1957, when the Soviet Union announced that it launched an earth-orbiting satellite Sputnik into outer space.

o This led to the Federal Government pouring money into research and in improving in scientific education in the schools to speed the development of America’s own exploration of outer space.

The Space Program:

o This led to the development of the

National Aeronautical and Space

Administration (NASA) and through

the selection of the first American

space pilots or astronauts.

o Under the Mercury program, the

first American to be launched into

space in 1961 was Alan Shepherd

who was on a short suborbital flight.

The Space Program:

o John Glenn would become the first

American to orbit the globe.

o This led to the American Apollo program

whose primary goal was to land men on

the moon which was accomplished on

July 20, 1969.

Chapter 28: The Affluent Society

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