Chapter 28 Flashcards
baby boom
national birth rate reversed a long pattern of decline with the so-called baby boom, which had begun during the war and peaked in 1957. The nation’s population rose almost 20 percent in the decade, from 150 million in 1950 to 179 million in 1960. The baby boom contributed to increased consumer demand and expanding economic growth.
“sunbelt” (modern West)
no region profited more than the American West. population expanded, cities boomed, industrial economy flourished. By the 1960s, some parts of the West had become among the most important industrial and cultural centers of the nation. Result of government spending and military contracts that flowed disproportionately to factories in California and Texas. Other factors played a role like automobile use gave stimulus to the petroleum industry and the metropolitan centers serving them. State governments invested heavily in their universities. The University of Texas and University of California systems, in particular, became among the nation’s largest and best.
Climate also contributed to economic growth. Attracted many migrants because of their warm, dry climates. The growth of LA was a particularly remarkable phenomenon. More than 10 percent of all new businesses in the United States between 1945 and 1950 began in Los Angeles.
Keynesian economics
belief that Keynesian economics made it possible for government to regulate and stabilize the economy without intruding directly was a factor that made the postwar economy a source of national confidence.
British economist John Maynard Keynes had argued as early as the 1920s that by varying the flow of government spending and taxation and managing the supply of currency, the government could stimulate the economy to cure recession and dampen growth to prevent inflation. By the 50s, Keynesian theory was rapidly becoming a fundamental article of faith among economists and the general public as well.
“escalator clause”
Corporations enjoying booming growth were reluctant to allow strikes to interfere with their operations. As a result, business leaders made important concessions to unions. As early as 1948, Walter Reuther, president of the United Automobile wWorkers, obtained a contract from General Motors that included a built inn “escalator clause” – an automatic cost of living increase pegged to the consumer price index.
“postwar contract”
By the early 1950s, labor unions developed a new kind of relationship with employers, known as the “postwar contract.” Workers in steel, automobiles, and other large unionized industries were receiving generous increases in wages and benefits.; in return, the unions tacitly agreed to refrain from raising other issues, issues involving control of the workplace and a voice for the workers in the planning of production. Strikes became far less frequent.
AFL-CIO
The economic successes of the 50s helped pave the way for a reunification of the labor movement. In december 55, the AFL and the CIO ended their twenty year rivalry and merged to create the AFL-CIO, under the leadership of Georg Meany. Relations between the leaders of the former AFL and the former CIO were not always comfortable. CIO leaders correctly believed that the AFL hierarchy was dominating the relationship. AFL leaders were suspicious of what they considered the radical part of the CIO leadership. Even so, the union survived and gradually tension subsided.
hydrogen bomb and missiles
In 1952, the United States successfully detonated the first hydrogen bomb. Unlike the plutonium and uranium bombs developed during World War II, the hydrogen bomb derives it s power not from fission (the splitting of atoms) but from fusion (the joining of lighter atomic elements with heavier ones). It is capable of producing explosions of vastly greater power than the earlier, fission bombs.
development of the hydrogen bomb gave considerable drive to a stalled scientific project in both the united states and u.s.s.r. the effort to develop un manned rockets and missiles capable of carrying new weapons, which were not suitable for delivery by airplanes, to their targets. Both nations put tremendous resources into their development. The US, in particular, benefited from the emigration to America of some of the German scientists who had helped develp rocketry for Germany during WWII.
Sputnik
In 1957, the Soviet Union announced that it had launched an earth orbiting satellite—Sputnik—into outer Space. The US had yet to perform any similar feats, and the American government reacted to the announcement with alarm. Seen as an American failure so the race to space began and a ton of money was poured into research. US launched its first satellite Explorer I, in january 1958
National Aeronautics and Space Admin. (NASA)
Centerpiece of space exploration, soon became the manned space program, established in 1958 through the creation of a new agency., the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and through the selection of the first American space pilots, or “astronauts.” THey quickly became among the nation’s most revered heroes. NASA’s initial effort, the Mercury Project, was designed to launch manned vehicles into space to orbit the earth. On May 5 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American launched into space.
Federal Highway Act of 1956
1956-appropriated $25 billion for highway construction. was one of the most important alterations of the national landscape in modern history. Great ribbons of concrete spread across the nation, spanning rivers and valleys, traversing every state, and providing links to every major city. These highways dramatcially reduced the time necessary to travel from one place to another. They also made trucking a more economical way than railroads to transport goods to markets. They made travel by automobile, truck, and bus as fast or faster than travel by trains, resulting in the long steady decline of railroads.
Levittown and suburbs
The most famous of the postwar suburban developers, William Levitt, used new mass production techniques to construct a large housing development on Long Island, near New York City. This first “Levittown” consisted of several thousand two bedroom Cape Cod style houses, with identical interiors and only slightly varied facades, each perched on it own concrete slab, facing curving, treeless streets. Levittown houses, and other similarly priced homes, sold for under $10,000 and they helped meet an enormous growing demand for housing. Young couples rushed to purchase the inexpensive homes.
The enormous importance postwar Americans placed on the family life was a reason they wanted to move to suburbs. Also attracted to the idea of living in a community with people of similar backgrounds. Most suburbs were restricted to whites.
Dr. Benjamin Spock
One of the most influential books in postwar American life was a famous guide to child rearing: Dr. Benjamin Spock’s Baby and Child Care, first published in 1946 and reissued and revised repeatedly for decades thereafter. Spock’s approach to raiding babies was child centered, as opposed to parent centered. The purpose of motherhood, he taught, was to help children learn and grow and realize their potential. All other considerations, including the mother’s own physical and emotional requirements, should be subordinate to the needs of the child.
television
television, the most powerful medium of mass communication in the second half of the twentieth century, was central to the culture of the postwar era. Experiements in broadcasting pictures had begun as early as the 20s, but commercial television began only shortly after WWII. Its growth was phenomenally rapid. In 1946, there were only 17000 sets in the country; by 57 there were 40 million-almost as many sets as there were families. More people had television sets, according to one report, than refrigerators.
TV industry emerged from the radio industry, and all three of the major networks, NBC, CBS, and ABC, had started as radio companies. Like radio, the tv business was driven by advertising. The need to attract advertisers determined most programming decisions; and in the early days of television, sponsors often played a direct, powerful, and continuing role in determining the content of the programs they chose to sponsor.
Impact of TV on American life was rapid, pervasive, and profound. TV news had replaced newspapers. TV helped create a vast market for new fashions with advertising. Televised athletic events gradually made professional and college sports one of the most important sources of entertainment in America. TV entertainment programming replaced movies and radio as the principle source of diversion for American families. TV created a homogenizing message of the typical white American life. Also reinforced gender rolesAlso conveyed working class families.
recreational environmentalism
people traveled to national parks to hike and camp, fish and hunt. These activities grew dramatically in the 50s and helped create a number of clubs. Came more for the wilderness than for recreation, and the importance of that search became clear in the first of many battles over develpment of wilderness areas: the fight to preserve Echo Park
The Organiazation Man
The debilitating impact of bureaucratic life on the individual slowly became a central theme of popular and scholarly debate. William H. Whyte Jr. produced one of the most widely discussed books of the decade: The Organization Man (1956), which attempted to describe the special mentality of the worker in a large, bureaucratic setting. Self reliance, Whyte claimed, was losing place to the ability to “get along” and “work as a team” as the most valued trait in the modern character.
