Affluent Society Terms

Question 1

Levittown

Answer 1

Low-cost, mass-produced developments of suburban tract housing built by William Levitt after World War II on Long Island and elsewhere.

Question 2

Baby Boom

Answer 2

Markedly higher birthrate in the years following World War II; led to the biggest
demographic “bubble” in American history.

Question 3

Urban renewal

Answer 3

○ A series of policies supported by all levels of government that allowed local governments and housing authorities to demolish so-called blighted areas in urban centers to replace them with more valuable real estate usually reserved for white people.

Question 4

In God we Trust

Answer 4

Placed on currency in 1954

Question 5

Interstate Highway System

Answer 5

National network of interstate superhighways; its construction began in the late
1950s for the purpose of commerce and defense. The interstate highways would enable the rapid movement of military convoys and the evacuation of cities after a nuclear attack.

Question 6

Sputnik

Answer 6

First artificial satellite to orbit the earth; launched October 4, 1957, by the Soviet
Union.

Question 7

National Defense Education Act

Answer 7

1958 law passed in reaction to America’s perceived inferiority in the space race; encouraged education in science and modern languages through student loans, university research grants, and aid to public schools.

Question 8

Social Contract

Answer 8

Agreement hammered out between labor and management in leading industries;
called a new “social contract.” Unions signed long-term agreements that left decisions regarding capital investment, plant location, and output in management’s hands, and they agreed to try to prevent unauthorized “wildcat” strikes.

Question 9

Massive Retaliation

Answer 9

Strategy that used the threat of nuclear warfare as a means of combating the
global spread of communism.

Question 10

Geneva Accords

Answer 10

○ A 1954 document that had promised elections to unify Vietnam and established the Seventeenth Parallel demarcation line which divided North and South Vietnam.

Question 11

The Beats

Answer 11

A term coined by Jack Kerouac for a small group of poets and writers who railed
against 1950s mainstream culture.

Question 12

League of United Latin American Citizens

Answer 12

Often called LULAC, an organization that challenged restrictive housing, employment discrimination, and other inequalities faced by Latino Americans.

Question 13

Brown vs. BOE

Answer 13

1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down racial segregation in public
education and declared “separate but equal” unconstitutional.

Question 14

Montgomery Bus Boycott

Answer 14

○ Sparked by Rosa Parks’s arrest on December 1, 1955, for refusing to surrender her seat to a white passenger, a successful year-long boycott protesting segregation on city buses; led by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

Question 15

Southern Christian Living Conference

Answer 15

Civil rights organization founded in 1957 by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.
and other civil rights leaders.

Question 16

Southern Manifesto

Answer 16

A document written in 1956 that repudiated the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education and supported the campaign against racial integration in public places.

Question 17

Missile Gap

Answer 17

The claim, raised by John F. Kennedy during his campaign for president in 1960,
that the Soviet Union had developed a technological and military advantage during Eisenhower’s presidency.

Question 18

Military-Industrial Complex

Answer 18

The concept of “an immense military establishment” combined with a “permanent
arms industry,” which President Eisenhower warned against in his 1961 Farewell Address.