Chapter 26- Triumph of the Middle Class Flashcards
A 1959 debate over the merits of their rival systems between US vice president Richard Nixon and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev at the opening of an American exhibition in Moscow.
kitchen debate
An international conference in New Hampshire in July 1944 that established the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Bretton Woods
An international bank created to provide loans for the reconstruction of war-torn Europe as well as for the development of former colonized nations in the developing world.
World Bank
A fund established to stabilize currencies and provide a predictable monetary environment for trade, with the US dollar serving as the benchmark.
International monetary fund
A term President Eisenhower used to refer to the military establishment and defense contractors who, he warned, exercised undue influence over the national government.
military industrial complex
The world’s first satellite, launched by the Soviet Union in 1957. After its launch, the United States funded research and education to catch up in the Cold War space competition.
Sputnik
A 1958 act, passed in response to the Soviet launching of the Sputnik satellite, that funneled millions of dollars into American universities, helping institutions such as the University of California at Berkeley and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, among others, become the leading research centers in the world.
National Defense Education Act
A 1958 book by John Kenneth Galbraith that analyzed the nation’s successful middle-class and argued that the poor were only an “afterthought” in the minds of economists and politicians.
the affluent society
A 1962 book by left-wing social critic Michael Harrington, chronicling “the economic underworld of American life.” His study made it clear that in economic terms the bottom class remained far behind.
the other America
A federal agency that assists former soldiers. Following World War II, the VA helped veterans purchase new homes with no down payment, sparking a building boom that created jobs in the construction industry and fueling consumer spending and home appliances and Automobiles.
Veterans Administration
A process of negotiation between labor unions and employers, which after World War II translated into rising wages, expanding benefits, and an increasing rate of home ownership.
collective bargaining
A term for a young adult. American youth culture, focused on the spending power of the teenager, emerged as a cultural phenomenon in the postwar decades.
teenager
A small group of literary figures based in New York City and San Francisco in the 1950s who rejected mainstream culture and instead celebrated personal freedom, which often included drug consumption and casual sex
Beats
The surge in the American birth rate between 1945 and 1965, which peaked in 1957 with 4.3 million births.
baby boom
A 1948 Supreme Court decision that outlawed restrictive covenants on the occupancy of housing developments by African Americans, Asian Americans, and other minorities. Because the court decision did not actually prohibit racial discrimination in housing, unfair practices against minority groups continued until passage of the Fair Housing act in 1968.
Shelley V Kraemer
