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
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dgZKp6l5m0&feature=related
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.com/site/bunker-gallery/
The Greenbriar• Construction began in 1958 on the 112,544-square-foot bunker, which was built 720 feet
into the hillside under The Greenbrier's West Virginia Wing.• Once complete in 1961, the facility was maintained in a constant state of readiness by a
small group of government employees working undercover as Forsythe Associates, a company hired by the resort for audio/visual support services.
• During its Eisenhower-Era use, the bunker provided the following:• Four entrances; three to The Greenbrier's grounds and one to the main building • 25-ton blast door that opens with only 50 lbs. of pressure • Decontamination chambers • 18 dormitories, designed to accommodate over 1,100 people • Power plant with purification equipment and three 25,000-gallon water storage tanks • Three 14,000-gallon diesel fuel storage tanks • Communications area, including television production area and audio recording booths • Clinic with 12 hospital beds, medical and dental operating rooms • Laboratory • Pharmacy • Intensive care unit • Cafeteria • Meeting rooms for the House and Senate, the Governor's Hall and Mountaineer room• Over the 30 years that it was an active facility, communications and other equipment
were updated, keeping the bunker at full-operation status. The location of the facility, critical to its effectiveness, remained a secret for more than three decades.
• On May 31, 1992, The Washington Post published an article, "The Last Resort" which exposed the facility. In 1995, the US government ended the lease agreement with The Greenbrier, and later that year, the resort began offering tours of the historic facility.
• 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– Bugs
• Science– Jonas Salk– Polio vaccine
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