Studied by 0 people☆NIXON-KHRUSHCHEV KITCHEN DEBATES:
This was the first time Khrushchev visited the U.S. and discussed communism vs. capitalism
☆1950s MOOD:
This could be defined by national prosperity and the struggle against communism
AFTER THE WAR:
American economy* enjoyed remarkable growth and numerous inventions came into widespread use transforming Americans' daily lives.
COLD WAR ON ECONOMY:
Fueled industrial production and promoted a redistribution of the nation's population and economic resources.
1950s ECONOMY:
American economy shifted away from manufacturing and the number of farms declined, but production increased with farming shifting to the south west.
MAIN ENGINES OF 1950s ECONOMIC GROWTH:
Residential construction and spending time on consumer goods
☆ LEVITTOWN:
William Levitt, using prefabrication and other mass production techniques, could quickly and cheaply build houses.
SHOPPING MALL:
Suburbanization and the automobile sparked construction of new malls for people to spend their money.
CALIFORNIA, 1950s:
Became the most prominent symbol of the postwar suburban boom
WESTERN CITIES, 1950s:
Decentralized clusters of single family homes and businesses united by a web of highways
NEVER-ENDING DEBT:
Americans became comfortable with this never-ending debt, once seen as a loss of economic freedom
CREDIT CARDS:
The new way to pay for goods that you cannot pay immediately
CONSUMER CULTURE:
Demonstrated the superiority of the American way of life over communism with increased advertisement/marketing and a variety of products for the consumer.
☆TELEVISION:
Replaced newspapers as the most common source of information about public events and provided Americans of all regions and backgrounds with a common cultural experience. T.V. tended to avoid controversy and projected a bland image of middle class life, Television also became the most effective advertising medium in the world.
CARS IN 1950s:
Became part of what sociologists called the "standard consumer package". the automobile transformed the nation's daily life.
☆1945 WOMEN
Lost most of the industrial jobs* they had performed during the war
1950s WOMEN: Working again, but the nature and aims of their work had changed → 1) To maintain their standard of living 2) Husbands didn't want wives to work 3) Family is key, they focused on domestic duties 4) Women became isolated form the workplace.
WOMEN's EXPECTATIONS:
Expected to get married, have kids, and stay home.
BABY BOOM:
Largest generation in U.S. history.
FEMINISM, 1950s:
Seemed to have disappeared from American life
☆ SUBURBS:
Remained segregated communities
POSTWAR SUBURBAN BOOMS:
Federal agencies continued to insure mortgages that barred resale of houses to nonwhites, thereby funding segregation.
HOUSING ACT OF 1949:
Construction of 800,00 units of public housing in order to provide a "decent home for every American family".
SUBURBANIZATION:
Hardened the racial lines of division in American life.* Whites (And their taxes + money) left the cities for suburbs while blacks moved into the cities.*
RACIAL EXCLUSION:
Whites viewed urban ghettoes as places of crime, poverty, and welfare. Suburban home ownership long remained a white entitlement.
JUDEO-CHRISTIAN HERITAGE:
Became central to the cultural and political dialogue. It reflected the decline of anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism after WWII.
PRIVATE OWNERSHIP:
United the Nations of the free world in the 1950s.
SELLING OF FREE ENTERPRISE:
Became a major industry in the 1950s
LARGE SCALE PRODUCTION:
This was necessary to fight the cold war and enhanced freedom by multiplying consumer goods.
☆ NEW CONSERVATISM:
Insisted that toleration of difference offered no substitute for the search for absolute truth. They understood freedom as first and foremost a moral condition, speaking the language of tradition, community, and moral commitment
CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT:
Divided between libertarians and new conservatives.
☆ LIBERTARIAN CONSERVATIVES:
Freedom meant individual autonomy, limited government, and unregulated capitalism. These ideas had a great appeal in the rapidly growing South and West.
MILTON FRIEDMAN:
Believed that the free market was a necessary foundation for individual liberty. The federal government should not regulate the economy, meaning he believed in anarchy.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, 1952:
Ran for president in 1952
RICHARD NIXON, 1952:
Ran as Eisenhower's vice president. Nixon had a reputation of opportunism and dishonesty
☆ CHECKERS SPEECH:
Rescued Nixon's political career, illustrating the importance of TV in politics.
☆ VICTORY IN 1952:
Eisenhower's popularity and promises to end the Korean conflict won him the election.
1950s VOTERS:
To find the reassurance in selecting familiar, elderly leaders to govern them.
MODERN REPUBLICANISM:
Aimed to sever the Republican Party's identification in the minds of many Americans with Herbert Hoover, the Great Depression, and the indifference to the economic conditions of ordinary citizens.
CORE NEW DEAL PROGRAMS:
These expanded. Eisenhower believed that removing social security, unemployment insurance, labor laws, and farm programs (An ideal of Republicans) would lead to an end of any political party.
GOVERNMENT SPENDING:
This was used to promote productivity and boost employment
☆ INTERSTATE HIGHWAY ACT:
41,000 miles of highways to connect the U.S., providing rapid exit routes in event of a nuclear war.
☆NATIONAL DEFENCE EDUCATION ACT:
After Sputnik launched, federal funding was offered to fund higher education, promoting STEM programs.
☆ AFL AND CIO:
Merged in 1955, the roots of uneasiness between the two was from AFL's dominance and the radical history of the CIO.
SOCIAL CONTRACT:
Contracts between laborers and employees. Management dealt with capital investment, unions agreed to prevent wildcat strikes, and employers stopped trying to eliminate unions.
FRINGE BENEFITS:
Wage increases, pensions, health insurance, and cost of living increases. Companies offered these to get workers to not join unions.
☆ MASSIVE RETALLIATION:
AKA Brinkmanship, declared that any Soviet attack on an American ally would be countered by nuclear assault on the U.S.S.R. itself. This was Eisenhower's foreign policy.
EISENHOWER'S BELIEFS:
He believed that the Soviets were reasonable and could be dealt with in conventional diplomatic terms.
KRUSHCHEV'S CALL:
He called for peaceful coexistence with the U.S., creating the possibility of easing the Cold War. The two superpowers agreed to a voluntary halt on the testing of nuclear weapons.
BANDUNG CONFERENCE:
Attended by 29 Asian and African nations. Leaders of developing countries banded together to avoid being forced to take sides in the Cold War contest.
DECOLINIZATION:
Presented the U.S. with a complex set of choices. to either help democracy or let them fall to communism.
GUATAMALA:
CIA organized a rebellion against the Arbenz government who took American owned plantations and gave it to the peasants.
IRAN:
Poured money into anti-Mossadegh protest, and propped up the Shah of Iran, he wasn't very popular with the people.
SUEZ CRISIS:
Egyptian Government seized control of the Suez Canal from the British and French owned company that managed it. This led to the Eisenhower doctrine
☆ EISENHOWER DOCTRINE:
Truman doctrine for the middle east to stop the spread of communism.
☆Origin of the Vietnam War:
Vietnam War:* French defeat at Diebienphu, U.S. then replaced the French.
HANS J. MORGENTHAU:
Noted that free enterprise created "new accumulations of power" dangerous to the freedom of the individual.
C. WRIGHT MILLS:
Wrote about the "power elite" whose domination in government and society had made democracy obsolete.
DAVIC RIESMAN'S "THE LONELY CROWD":
Americans were "other directed" conformists who lacked the ability to lead truly independent lives, unable to have an independent thought.
JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH'S "AN AFFLUENT SOCIETY":
Challenged American thinking about sacrificing for common public goals. Why did they neglect social investment, but produced more goods.
WILLIAM WHYTE'S "THE ORGANIZATION MAN":
Criticized the monotony of modern work, the emptiness of suburban life, and pervasive influence of modern advertising.
POPULAR CULTURE:
Geared to the emerging youth, it suggested that significant generational tensions.
ROCK AND ROLL:
It was popular amongst teenagers, it was also a site for mass marketing.
☆BEATS:
A small group of poets and writers who rallied against mainstream culture. They rejected the work ethic and celebrated impulsive action, immediate pleasure, and sexual experimentation.
UNITED STATES IN THE 1950s:
It was still an unequal society. Few white Americans felt any urgency about confronting racial inequality.
THE LEAGUE OF UNITED LATIN AMERICAN CITIZENS (LULAC):
Their mission was to advance the economic condition, educational attainment, political influence, housing, health and civil rights of the Hispanic population of the United States.
EARL WARREN:
Chief justice of the Supreme Court under Eisenhower. His court became an active agent for social change.
He created unanimity in a divided court in which some disliked segregation, but feared a decision to outlaw it would spark widespread violence.
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE (NAACP):
The leadership of Thurgood Marshall pressed legal challenges to Plessy vs. Ferguson. Marshall argued that segregation did lifelong damage to black children.
☆ BROWN DECISION:
Linda Brown had to travel 20 miles a day to go to a black school instead of the white one nearby. This led the court to decide to end segregation.
☆SOUTHERN MANIFESTO:
The response of the southern states to the Brown Decision. They grouped together and did not enforce the Brown Decision.
☆ROSA PARKS:
She was an NAACP worker who would not give up her seat to a white man in Alabama.
☆BUS BOYCOTT:
Led by MLK and the Montgomery Improvement Society, they boycotted the Montgomery Bus System, it worked since most of the bus riders were Black. This got the Supreme Court to declare segregation on public transport as illegal.
Marked a turning point in postwar American history. King's *nonviolent movements were inspired by Ghandi'*s. This incident vaulted MLK Jr as the movement's national symbol.
KING'S SOARING ORATORY:
MLK was a master at appealing to the deep sense of injustice. He echoed Christian themes that resonated deeply with both Black communities and in the broader culture.
☆SOUTHERN CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE (SCLC):
King formed this organization to fight for civil rights.
☆GOVERNOR ORVAL FAUBUS OF ARKANSAS:
Used the National Guard to prevent the court-ordered integration of Little Rock Central High. Eisenhower used the national guard to insure and integrate the school. Faubus will shut down the school in protest.
*THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1960:
The closest election in American history. It was between JFK and Nixon.
JOHN F. KENNEDY, 1960:
He was a Catholic, and also the youngest presidential candidate in history.
MISSILE GAP:
JFK blamed the Republicans for the Soviets achieving tech and military superiority over the U.S. (Sputnik and testing ICDM)
TELEVISION DEBATE:
Viewers saw JFK as charismatic and saw Nixon as a career politician. The power of television helped JFK win.
EISENHOWER'S FAREWELL ADDRESS:
Warned against the calls for a new military buildup.
MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX:
Eisenhower told Americans to be wary of the alliance between military and private arms.
NEW ECONOMICS:
Called for tax cuts to stimulate growth. This was known as Trickle Down Economics/Reagonomics/Supply Side Economics
TIMELINE OF THE COLD WAR:
Sputnik 1957, U-2 Incident of 1960, and the Berlin Wall of 1961.
GREENSBORO SIT-IN:
1960, students at north Carolina University sat at a lunch counter to take up spaces. This sparked the nation's interest.
☆THE CONGRESS OF RACIAL EQUALITY (CORE):
hey organized the Freedom Rides in which they rode interstate buses to test the Deep South's compliance to federal law.
☆ STUDENT NON-VIOLENT COORDINATING COMMITTEE (SNCC):*
Used non-violent protest to fill up jails with SNCC members, it didn't have much success.
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR, BIRMINGHAM:
Led a demonstration in Birmingham, he got arrested. In jail he wrote "Letter From Birmingham" which made people *believe he was wrongfully arrested. *
BULL CONNER:
When King sent the black children to school, he unleashed his forces against the children. This event forced whites to decide whether they had more in common with citizens demanding basic rights or violent segregationists.
MEDGAR EVERS:
A NAACP secretary who was sniped.
FIRE BOMB:
A church which was fire bombed, killing four young girls.
MARCH ON WASHINGTON:
Organized by a coalition of civil rights, labor, and church organizations led by A. Phillip Randolph. This reflected an unprecedented degree of black-white cooperation in support of racial and economic justice.
KENNEDY'S AGENDA:
Wanted to prove that the Democrats weren't being soft on communism
PEACE CORPS:
Kennedy sent young Americans abroad to aid in the economic and educational progress in developing nations.
☆ ALLIANCE FOR PROGRESS:
The Marshall Plan for Latin America, it failed because many who controlled the funds were corrupt.
☆BAY OF PIGS:
Castro took U.S. companies in Cuba, so the CIA backed rebels to overthrow Castro, however they failed, becoming a public relations disaster for JFK.
☆CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS:
Cuba allowed the Soviets to build missile sites in Cuba. These missiles were able to reach the U.S. in a couple of minutes. Soviets agreed to take missiles out of Cuba, if Kennedy promised to not take out Castro.
LIMTIED TEST-BAN TREATY:
Banned the testing of nuclear weapons.
KENNEDY AND CIVIL RIGHTS:
Failed to protect workers from violence, insisting that law enforcement was a local matter.
☆ WARREN COMISSION REPORT:
Kennedy was killed in Texas. They investigated the assassination and concluded Oswald as the lone shooter.
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