Eisenhower (Domestic)

Question 1

1952 Election

Answer 1

Swept into victory by largest number of votes recorded in presidential election.
Reasons:
-Many southern democrats swung to republicans for first tine in 35 years
-Appointed Nixon as running mate who appealed to the old guard (conservative republicans) and he was young and energetic. Moderate liberal in domestic policies but militant anti-communist.
-Eisenhower was chief of staff and NATO commander but also a war hero so many felt he could be trusted with national interests.
-Ike said Truman had lost china and was soft on communism, he criticised containment.
-He wanted to end the Korean war if elected.

Question 2

Eisenhower’s Background

Answer 2

Born in Texas
Raised in a small town where there were little taxes to pay federal government
-Chief of Staff
-NATO commander
-WW2 war hero

Question 3

Nixon’s Background

Answer 3

-Cane from a struggling family
-Exceptionally smart and hardworking
-Accepted into Yale university but couldn’t afford to go.
-Got a scholarship for Duke law school
-Accused opponent in senate election of being ‘pink down to her underwear’
-Nicknamed ‘Tricky Dick’
-Gained prominence in HUAC and pursuit of the Hiss case which established his reputation as anti-communist

Question 4

Nixon’s work as Vice president

Answer 4

-He often disagreed with the president but was loyal
-He wanted a more aggressive pursuit of communism and to continue fighting in Korea.
-He worked to smooth out differences between white house and the old guard.
-Eisenhower used Nixon to criticise the Democrats
-Civil Rights: Nixon was exceptionally liberal and some wondered if he simply sought black votes.
-When Eisenhower had a stroke Nixon didn’t make any attempts at a power grab but was described by him as better than the other republican candidates.

Question 5

Dynamic Conservatism

Answer 5

Conservative when it comes to money:
-Defence cuts to balance the budget as defence expenditure had rocketed 300% in Truman’s final months

Liberal when it comes to people:
-Increased social security benefits
-Increased minimum wage from 75 cents to $1 per hour
-Increased federal aid to education
-Established the interstate highway system

Question 6

Education

Answer 6

-Ike proposed a legislation for financing construction of schools in poorer areas -congress rejected as it would benefit segregated south

-Congress approved of National Defence of Education Act 1558 which gave low cost loans to college students and federal aid to states for the development of courses such as science, maths and foreign languages key to the cold war. Significant as it established direct federal aid to education

-Ike kept Truman’s free lunch program for poor schoolchildren

Question 7

Employment

Answer 7

-Inflation and unemployment were low dues to Ike’s policy of refusing to overspend.
-There were several recessions
-The construction of the interstate highway saw the biggest social project in American history which gave employment to millions and saw economic growth
- Ike saw that poor American roads endangered military transport so good roads were important for national security

Department for Health, Education and Welfare (HEW)
-Oversaw distribution of new polio vaccine

Question 8

Republican divisions

Answer 8

-Ike was more moderate and left vs the old guard led by Taft who was more conservative.
-Eisenhower was more popular than his party.
Republicans suffered worst defeat in 1958 election since the depression due to:
- They disagreed on domestic and foreign policy
- The republican candidate was unimpressive
- Democrats aggressively campaigned
- Ike seemed old and tired
- Economic recession

Ike:
-Supported NATO
-Supported soviet-American relations
-Believed peace in Korea to be his greatest achievement
- Supported foreign aid

Old guard:
-Opposed NATO
-Critical of soviet-American relations
-Opposed Korean peace terms
-Opposed foreign aid

Question 9

End of McCarthyism

Answer 9

-Ike disapproved of McCarthy and thought him to be an embarrassment for the administration.
-Ike believed the McCarthy would destroy himself which he did
-McCarthy conducted an investigation into the army bases but Ike denied him access to the administrations records and without a subpoena the hearings seemed pointless.
-McCarthy appeared drunk and alienated television viewers. After this his polls plummeted and the senate censured him.

Question 10

Significance of McCarthyism

Answer 10

-Made it difficult for Ike to reduce Cold War tensions
-Caused misery for thousands of innocent Americans
-Endangered the principle of Freedom of speech
-Damaged the Republican party

Question 11

Economy

Answer 11

• GNP rose
• Median family income $5250 gave families 30% more disposable income
• Inflation and unemployment were low
• Factory wages rose up to 8.6%

Question 12

Construction Boom

Answer 12

Of the 13 million new homes built 11 million were in the suburbs, this provided employment and fulfilled the American dream for those who want to experience the suburban life.
Levittown houses were very popular and sold at $8000 (2.5x the average family income)
Hempstead houses were well constructed and twice the normal size
-Restrictions in Levittown homes meant African American’s couldn’t buy homes there

Question 13

Cars

Answer 13

-Provided employment for thousands
-The big 3 automobile companies: General motors, Ford and Chrysler their products represented American self-confidence
-7.9million cars were manufactured and an average 4.5 million scrapped each year.
-As Americans became increasingly more mobile the landscape changed: Rural areas were now filled with motels, restaurants, shops and huge parking lots

Question 14

Service industry

Answer 14

-Use of cars increased motels, restaurants and shopping malls contributing to the increase number of service workers such as waitresses.
-Industry jobs were poorly paid
-Growing automation reduced need for manual workers in factories and mines so numbers of industrial worker decreased from 39% to 36% of the workforce

Question 15

TV & Advertising

Answer 15

By 1960: 90% of American homes had a Television
Television was frequently criticised for promoting:
-Conformity
-Consumerism: non-stop advertisements and suggested must have products
-The advertisement industry spent more on advertising than the federal govt spent on education.

Question 16

Easy credit

Answer 16

-American consumers were lured by cheap credit from the federal housing administration which gave out loans to allow families to buy their first homes.
-Cheap credit was helped by the first credit card as a result private debt more than doubled as consumers borrowed to buy cars and televisions etc
-The growth in debt stimulated the economy and created jobs in manufacturing.

Question 17

Baby boom

Answer 17

Rise in demand created by a baby boom increasing the population of Americans. -Explosion of baby food and stuffs, when the first baby boomers entered their teenage years they became a new demographic and a powerful economic force.
-Teenagers had part-time jobs allowing them to have considerable disposable income to spend on food, clothes, cosmetics and entertainment.

Question 18

The consumer society

Answer 18

-Eisenhower’s years saw 2 recessions a major one in 1958 which saw 5 million Americans unemployed and production fell by 14%.
-Ike sold power plants and allowed the money to go to the states rather than the federal govt
-Govt spending rose by 11% due to pressures to compete with the soviets in the space race.
-Real prices of food dropped, requiring the govt to provide subsidies to farmers $5.1 billion per year in order to avoid a dangerous crash in prices.

Question 19

Impact on of the consumer society on different groups

Answer 19

Prosperity didn’t reach everyone:
-1/4 of American’s still lived in poverty with an annual income of under $3000 for a family of four
-The consumer merely highlighted for others, the inaccessibility of the American dream
-Women had lost their war time jobs to accommodate for returning men and were now trapped in suffocating suburban world
-Elderly became increasingly isolated as families moved out of town nuclear family units
-Ethnic minorities: industrialisation made manual jobs redundant so many lost that employment status at the very time money began to bring in enormous consumer opportunities. Employment practices were still often racist and ethnic minority workers would be the 1st to be fired in event of a downtown.

However:
-Middle-class grew with an increase in employment and a more comfortable life in the suburbs.
-The rich grew richer with wealthiest families such as the Rockefeller

Question 20

Brown v Board of Education

Answer 20

Brown took the case to the court as his daughter couldn’t go to the white school close to their home but had to travel across a railway to reach the black school.
The NAACP supported this case
-The supreme court ruled segregation to be unconstitutional.
Significance:
- Set a legal precedence for segregation being unconstitutional
- Rosa parks said it inspired African Americans for further activism
- Although the supreme court had ruled for desegregation of schools it had no enforcement power so implementation varied across sates with some desegregating quickly and others not.

• White citizens councils were created to defend segregation

Question 21

Response of state authority to Brown

Answer 21

• States did all they could to resist desegregation
  -Some states would rather close schools than desegregate.
• 4 southern states had passed legislation saying Brown had no effect in their states
• Governor of Texas out rightly said he was refusing to listen to the federal govt.
• Eisenhower had said that states had to listen to the supreme court ruling but didn’t use federal power to intervene to implement desegregation.

Question 22

Situation in the North

Answer 22

Problems remained the same :
-white flight to suburbs
-rents were increased by landlords aware real estate agents could prevent wealthier African Americans from moving out.
-low paid jobs

-in this environment came Malcolm X the civil rights movement in the north with a
TV show ‘the hate that hate produced’ which covered the nation of Islam

Question 23

Situation in the south

Answer 23

-Not until the Eisenhower administration that civil rights movement in the south began together momentum to tackle these injustice
-The combination court victories for the NAACP against Jim Crow laws and the emergence of popular figureheads like Martin Luther King.
-Over half of US household owned a television and could therefore see firsthand of realities of segregation particularly in brown v board of education

Question 24

Montgomery bus boycott

Answer 24

Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to stand to give a white man his seat on the bus.
NAACP organised a boycott of the buses
-It lasted for a year and most of Montgomery’s 50,000 black population participated
-The boycott demonstrated the potential power of new mode of activism (mass direct action)
-It was through NAACP litigation that insured the desegregation of Montgomery‘s buses.

Question 25

Racism

Answer 25

The kkk were an armed white racist group which gained members all across America.
Brown revitalised the klan but the Montgomery bus boycott suggested it had lost most of its impact when buses were segregated, the klan sent hooded members through Montgomery‘s black community and instead of the usual retreat behind closed doors emerged to wave at them.

Question 26

Little Rock

Answer 26

Little rock had been the first to segregate as a result 9 African American students tried to enter the school
-The governor of Arkansas ordered the national guard to stop them from entering
-They were met by a white mob shouting abuses and faced abuse in the school being pushed down the stairs.

-Little Rock demonstrated the amount of resistance to the supreme court’s ruling
-The use of the national guard demonstrated how whites dominated law enforcement and gave no protection to African Americans.

-Eisenhower reluctantly ordered federal forces to intervene and The governor of Arkansas closed all little rock highschool’s instead of desegregating.

-Eisenhower showed no clear leadership on civil rights and was forced to intervene to maintain law and order nit in support of desegregation
-Power of television was demonstrated by the images of black children being spat at by aggressive white adults which shocked many Americans.

Question 27

Attitudes of Democrats on civil rights

Answer 27

Most southern Democrats opposed civil rights
Others in the Democratic party had become increasingly liberal on race because of :
-Basic Human decency
-Awareness of increasing importance of the black vote
-Increase black consciousness and unwillingness to accept any equality

Question 28

Attitude of Republicans on civil rights

Answer 28

-Disliked large scale federal intervention and respected states rights and hesitated to impose change on the south nevertheless the party platform claimed commitments to racial equality.
-Republicans were increasingly aware of the black votes in the north but because most black northerners voted Democrats the Republicans hope to benefit from white votes so Republicans support for civil rights was muted

Question 29

Eisenhower and inaction

Answer 29

Emmett Till was murdered and his body was mutilated and dragged out of the Mississippi river soon after. His murderer is posted about what they had done but went and punished.
Eisenhower said nothing about the murder of till.

Autherine Lucy successfully took through university of Alabama to a federal court to obtain admission as the first black student but was quickly expelled in 1956
Eisenhower did nothing.

Question 30

Response of the executive to civil rights

Answer 30

-Eisenhower was born in all White town in the south and spent most of his life in southern states and in segregated arm forces
-He was uneasy in the presence of African-Americans
-Eisenhower said it was a local issue under the law. The federal government cannot move into a state until the state is not able to handle the matter.
-The Republican party had done unusually well in the southern states and could only lose by adopting a firm civil rights policy
-Eisenhower highlighted the great emotional strains that would arise in the south from school is desegregation. He said it was difficult to change a man’s heart by legislation of force.

Question 31

Civil rights bill 1957

Answer 31

Inspired by his desire to win black votes
-Eisenhower administration drew up as civil rights bill that aim to ensure black voting rights
-80% of southern Americans were not yet registered
- Democrats worked to weaken the bill and eyes and Eisenhower did not fight to keep it intact
-The bill passed and did little to help African-Americans many considered it a sham but some black leaders were pleased as it was the first of such act since 1875.

Question 32

Greensboro sit in

Answer 32

70,000 students participated in sit ins across the south
Significance:
-Helped erode Jim Crow laws, 150 cities began to desegregate public places
-Black students had been mobilised
-The sit ins shifted the focus of black activism from litigation to mass direct action

Question 33

Civil rights Act 1960

Answer 33

He introduced a moderate civil rights bill but southern Democrats diluted its provisions again.
-Finally it passed because both parties sought the black vote.
-Made the obstruction of court ordered school desegregation of federal crime
-Established penalties for obstruction of black voting.

-This act encouraged civil rights act activist to work for more legislation