Chapter 29

Question 1

What were the main social events of the postwar era from 1945 to 1960?

Answer 1

Baby boom, suburban living, and employment expansion

Question 2

Levittown

Answer 2

A suburb that relieve the postwar housing shortage

Question 3

Baby boom

Answer 3

The rise in births following World War 2

Question 4

Montogommery Bus Boycott

Answer 4

African Americans led by Martin Luther King Jr boycotted the buses in Montgomery, AL

Question 5

Southern Christian Leadership Conferences

Answer 5

An organization founded by MLK Jr to fight segregation through passive resistance, nonviolence, and peaceful confrontation

Question 6

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

Answer 6

A group organized by students to work for equal rights for African Americans

Question 7

How did the American economy evolve after World War 2?

Answer 7

The GNP doubled between 1940 and 1960, people spent a lot of housing and consumer goods, and new committees emerged in the suburbs

Question 8

How did American Culture change after the war?

Answer 8

More people went to church than ever, more young people went to college, TV provided endless entertainment

Question 9

What were the results of launching Sputnik?

Answer 9

Sputnik was though of as a threat to national security and the US launched the Explorer

Question 10

What were Eisenhower’s legislative accomplishments?

Answer 10

Launched the Interstate Highway System, NASA, and the DARPA, sent federal troops to Little Rock. Arkansas for the first time since Reconstruction, signed Civil Rights legislation in 1957 and 1960 to protect black votes, and he opposed Wisconsin Senator McCarthy and contributed to the end of McCarthyism

Question 11

What were the main actions of the civil rights movements in the 1950s?

Answer 11

Rosa parks refusing to move to the back of a bus and the Montgomery bus boycott

Question 12

What was the role of the Supreme Court and the President in desegregating the schools?

Answer 12

The Supreme Court and the president said that segregating schools had a bad effect on children

Question 13

What concrete things did Eisenhower do to further Civil Rights>\?

Answer 13

He proposed the first general civil rights legislation since reconstruction and the last act provided for federal efforts aimed at “securing and protecting the rights to vote”

Question 14

How did Truman contribute to civil rights?

Answer 14

He appointed a presidential commission that recommended the reinstatement of the wartime Fair Employment Practices Committee and he added civil rights to the liberal agenda

Question 15

What was Truman’s Fair Deal?

Answer 15

1. Called for medical insurance for all Americans
2. Proposed establishing a compulsory Fair Employment Practices Commission to open up employment opportunities for African Americans
3. Federal aid to education in order to help the states and local school districts to meet the demands created by the postwar baby boom

Question 16

What was the culture in the 1950s and charges of critics?

Answer 16

Consumerism became the dominant social theme

Question 17

Who were the critics?

Answer 17

David Reisman, C. Wright Mills, Richard Gordon, Katherine Gordon and Max Gunther