Post-War America

Post War Economy

• Economic Worries– Depression or Prosperity

• Large Savings– consumer goods unavailable– Inflation– Black Markets

GI Bill

• Servicemen’s Readjustment Act– Go to college (6 million)– Low-interest government

loans to • Home • Farm• Business

• Reintegrate veterans • Boost economy

Baby Boom

• Reflected economic confidence of the times

• Younger marriages • More children per family• 12 million new additions

1945 – 1950• Role of women as wives,

mothers, homemakers

Women at Work

• After WWII women left jobs • Female employment began

to rise again 1947 • Households increasingly had

two working parents• Women worked in semi-

skilled jobs, secretaries and salesclerks

• Women headed households poorest in nation

Serious Domestic Problem

• Post war housing shortage – Scarcities

homebuilding materials

– Real estate inflation • Public Housing • William Levitt – Mass producing

standardized housing “No man who owns his own house and lot can be a communist.”

Construction Boom

• New Suburb Communities– middle & working class

move• Federal support

– Fed. tax breaks– Highways– Sewer systems

• Suburb economic growth – Inner city economically

devastated

Automobile Culture

• Cars essential part of suburb – Auto registration grew – 26 million (1945) - 40 million (1950)

• New businesses – Fast food restaurants– Drive-in movie theaters – Shopping centers – Motels – Gas stations.

Migrating Americans

• Sunbelt: Southern states – nice weather– low taxes – job opportunities

• Shift in political power • Most desirable city to live in: Los Angeles – Doubled in size 1940-1960

Truman

• Popular 1945– Honesty– Modest – Blunt

• Seen as inept by 1946

• Foreign Policy Leadership

Employment Act 1946

• Truman: Government’s duty to prevent long term unemployment– National healthcare– Full employment

• Council of Economic Advisors

Inflation

• To check inflation Truman wanted:– Increase in minimum wage – Continue wartime price controls

• Southern Democrats/Republicans • Closed OPA • Inflation rate rose 25% 1st year and half after

war

Unions

• During the war– Unions accepted: no strikes, frozen

wages – In return: wages improved, overtime pay

available • After the war

– Reduced wages collided with inflation prices• Corporations earned massive profits• Late 1946

– Average weekly wages dropped to depression levels• Phillip Murray head of the steelworkers union pointed out that steel

company stockholders had received $700 million in dividends

Striking Workers

• 5 million workers strike in summer of 1945

• 4,600 stoppages occurred in industries – oil, automobiles, steel, coal

• Coast Of Living Adjustments (COLA)

• 15% wage increase for steelworkers led to a $45per ton hike in steel prices

Truman Crushes Strikers

• 1946: 4.5 million workers strike

• Railroad strike paralyzed nation

• Truman used Army to operate railroad

• Seized coal mines • Obtained injunction,

$3.5m judgment

Conservatives Attack Truman

• Republicans criticize– Promoting big government and his – Tolerance for communist influence

• Republicans claimed America had to choose Communism or Republicanism

• McCarthy and Nixon appealed to fear of communism

• Communist infiltration, disapproval of strikes, inflation, big bureaucracy drove criticism of Democrats

80th Congress

• 1946 Mid-term Elections: voters choose Republican majority for Congress

• Republicans: – ratify 22nd Amendment

limiting the president to two full terms

– Pass two tax cuts • President vetoed seventy-

five bills five of them being overridden

Taft-Hartley

• Government could seek injunctions • Closed Shop banned• Encouraged states to pass right to work laws• Required Union leaders to certify not communist • Banned secondary boycotts • Gave the President power to call 80 day cooling off period

Farms

• Truman proposed– Soil Conservation– School Lunch

Subsidies– Farm tenet loans– Crop insurance

• Bills passed by Congress gave benefits to corporate farming

• Producers recognized profitability of modern farming

• Small farmers couldn’t afford– Mechanization– Chemical fertilizers– Additives– Pesticides– Antibiotics– Hybrid crops

Election 1948

• Republican Thomas E. Dewey a sure win in 1948 election

• Southern Democrats opposed presidents civil rights policies formed Dixiecrats

• Liberal Democrats feared Truman’s aggressive foreign policy formed Progressive Citizens of America

Truman Reelected

• Truman’s Fair Deal – Aid to education– Civil rights legislation– Funds for public housing – New farm program– Increased minimum wage– National healthcare.

• Republican Congress blocked all but an 87.5% increase in minimum wage