What is one thing you learned about last class?

BELL RINGER: INTERPRETING GRAPHS

AVERAGE CHILDREN PER WOMAN 1927- 2007

BABY BOOM

Complete reversal of really long term trends

Birth rate peaks in 1957

Had been dropping for a century when it began to

increase in 1946

Mid- 50s – 4 kids on average per family

Age of 1st Marriage

In 1950 2/3 of women over 15 were married

Spacing of Children

Doorsteps instead of 3 years apart

Have early in marriage

Nuclear family was ideal

WELCOME TO THE FIFTIES A Decade Set Apart

LIFE MOVES OUTSIDE THE CITY

Suburbs – small residential communities surrounding

cities

assembly-line methods to mass produce houses.

Levittown – first standardized neighborhood; New York’s

Long Island

Americans loved the openness and small-town feel to the

planned suburbs

INTERSTATE HIGHWAY SYSTEM

Interstate Highway Act (1956) – 41,000

miles of expressway

Created in order to be able to efficiently

transport troops across the nation.

Suburbs made owning a car a necessity

High-speed, long-haul trucking made

possible

Connected the nation – families start

vacationing everywhere

LITTLE BOXES

THE AUTOMOBILE

CULTURE

Drive-Ins

Drive-Thrus

Cars Ads – cars as status

symbols

Cruising Teens

Consequences??

THINK, PAIR, SHARE:

WHY DID RADICAL CHANGES HAPPEN?

Start:

War had put people behind; pent up need

to get married and have kids

Sustained by:

Cold War – idealized nuclear family in

order to prove that America was different

and better than Russia

COLD WAR STATE OF MIND 1. Attempt to be better than Russia: Stay-At Home

Moms, Kitchen Wars, Consumerism

2. Scary Time – Duck and cover drills, bomb shelters

3. Strong families = Strong communities

CIVIL DEFENSE AND EXPERTS

Federal Agencies are working to reassure that a nuclear

attack won’t be a catastrophe

Duck and Cover Drills

Fed. Mandated drills in major cities

Sputnik – Russian Satellite – Fall 1957

Means Russians have rockets that reach outer space

People decide our scientist just lost

Push to create more EXPERTS

National Defense Education Act of ’58 – 1st time Fed. Govt. gives

money to K-12 education

TEENAGERS

Identified as a consumer group

Pimple creams, comic books, soft drinks

Rock-n-Roll Debate

CULTURE

Era known for conformity

Identical houses, musical tastes, cars, television shows

Fear of people who were different from middle class

lifestyle

Draws boundaries of what is and isn’t “normal”

High rates of joining

Bowling leagues

Clubs

Church – way to be different and BETTER than Russia

Joining = Togetherness

FIFTIES FAMILIES

Fathers - Work in the cities, live in the suburbs

Mothers - ideal was the stay-at-home mother

New emphasis placed on family togetherness

Building soapbox car

Throwing party for neighborhood

Home-centered recreation

“THE KEY FIGURE IN ALL SUBURBIA, THE THREAD

THAT WEAVES BETWEEN FAMILY AND

COMMUNITY, THE KEEPER OF THE SUBURBAN

DREAM.”

– TIME MAGAZINE

MASS MEDIA

Television

Movies

Comic Books

Music

THE KENNEDY/NIXON DEBATE

This was the first televised debate in American history.

The first debate for the 1960 election drew over 66 million viewers out of a population of 179 million, making it one of the most-watched broadcasts in U.S. television history.

Kennedy is generally considered to have won the debate. Nixon appeared worse than Kennedy on television, with poor makeup, a haggard appearance.

The televised debates were thought to be the difference in what was an extremely close election.

THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Television brought the

violence of Southern

police against peaceful

African American

protesters into the living

rooms of America.

These visuals helped

motivate White America

to stop segregation and

work towards racial

equality.

CONSUMERISM

“buying material

goods”

= success

Also, makes us better

than Russia

EDWARD

SCISSORHANDS

WAS LIFE JUST ALL ABOUT

SUCCESS AND SUBURBS?

THE OTHER AMERICA

By 1962 – ¼ of Americans lived below the poverty

line

Who were the poor?

Elderly

Single women and their children

Members of minority groups

White flight

Someone born in 1948 would be considered a

A. GI

B. Baby Boomer

C. Sputnik

D. Member of the space race

The 1956 National Interstate and Defense

Highway Act reads in part, “It hereby

declared to be essential to the national

interest…” What was an important concern

of this legislation?

A. To enhance rural life

B. To add to the economy of the cities

C. To provide good roads for suburban living

D. To create a system of roads for the efficient

transport of military troops

What was the significance of Levittown?

A. It showed the need for a working GI Bill.

B. It sparked the growth of American suburbs.

C. It was the center of American industry.

D. It was the site of the Kennedy-Nixon debates.

What had a major impact on the outcome of the

1960 Kennedy-Nixon debates?

A. Political platforms

B. Radio

C. Computers

D. Television

What effect did news coverage of the civil rights

movement have?

A. It resulted in new Jim Crow legislation in the South.

B. It forced the federal government to place restrictions on

the media.

C. It increased pressure on the federal government to pass

civil rights legislation.

D. It reduced the momentum of the civil rights movement.

It signaled the beginning of a new era in US

politics. For the first time, candidates for

president had to pay attention to how they looked

on television in addition to the words they spoke

and the programs they supported. What was it?

A. Franklin Roosevelt’s campaign in 1932

B. The first televised campaign between Harry

Truman and Thomas Dewey

C. The presidential debate between Jimmy

Carter and Gerald Ford

D. The Kennedy-Nixon debate of 1960

The launch of Sputnik

A. Thrilled people in the US because it finally

put a satellite in space.

B. Boosted NASA’s morale because it meant that

the US had answered President Kennedy’s

challenge.

C. Concerned US leaders who feared falling

behind the Soviets in nuclear technology.

D. Concerned the Soviets because it revealed

that the US had been spying on them.

Sputnik concerned leaders in the US because

A. It was an agreement between the USSR and Cuba

that placed nuclear missiles within ninety miles of

the US.

B. It was a Soviet satellite that signaled that the US

was far behind the Soviets in the space race.

C. It was a submarine that US ships were

defenseless against.

D. It was a bomb ten times more powerful than the

atomic bomb dropped on Japan.