USA: Affluence and conformity. 1955-63 Flashcards
What were the most commons concerns of the general public 1955-63.
- The most common concerns of the time period were those regarding what was believed to be a threat to this newly formed ‘land of prosperity and affluence’, namely:
- a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union, due to the frayed relations between the two superpowers
- American youth (who were viewed by the older generations as less-conformist and less well-behaved)
- race relations (Which had become a pressing issue due to the inferior treatment of black Americans, specifically in the south)
- the unbalanced economic inequality ( as despite the ‘new opportunities’, one third of Americans were living in destitution and poverty, the most prevalent among black Americans, Hispanic Americans and Native Americans.
- The most likely of these to spark protest would be the many issues minorities in America faced, such as the continued mistreatment and prejudice seen.
Why was the period 1955-63 a time of unprecedented prosperity?
During this time period the idea of the ‘American Dream’ was introduced, this was due to the fact that Americans now had larger homes, more Labour-saving devices, more cars and higher salaries than any other people in the world, consequently the people began to believe that they lived in a ‘land of opportunity’.
This was a major change from previous times of constraint and destitution that was seen during the Great Depression and war years.
How much were cars a part of the growth of prosperity in 1950s America?
With the post-war economic boom, people had more job security and more money to spend, with many of those who remembered the constraints and destitution of the Depression and war years, liked to spend this new income on cars, one of the most obvious signs of post-war American affluence.
-In 1955, alone, 7.9 million cars alone were manufactured, which were spacious with automatic transmission (instead of gearboxes) and power steering. And from 1950 to 1960 from 39.3 to 73.8 million.
-After returning to the US after WW2, Dwight Eisenhower describes American roads as in ‘shocking condition’ compared to the German autobahns.
- As a result of the increased traffic due to elevated car ownership, Eisenhower told congress in 1955, an interstate highway system was necessary to handle it.
- Most Americans agreed with Eisenhower when he said that more cars meant ‘greater convenience … greater happiness and greater standards of living’.
What were the effects of cars on American society?
Automobiles, such as cars were used as a way to reflect and define one’s social status.
For example, wealthy white men favoured the most expensive models such as Lincoln’s and Cadillacs.
While, as cars were not cheap in 1955, working and middle class families bought cars from brands such as Chevrolets or Fords, which started at $1,300, which was around 2/5 of the average family income.
Cars could also display ethnic status. For example, poorer Hispanic American drivers often bought second-hand Chevys, while Cadillacs became a desirable status symbol for the black middles class in the 1960s.
Why were cars particularly attractive for young people and women?
Cars became more appealing towards American youth as they began to change in appearance.
For example, cars were now long, multi-coloured and decorated with large quantities of chrome and ostentatious tail fins, going from respectable, safe family cars to ‘grease machines’ or ‘hot rods’ and as men could now customize their cars young men could express their individuality.
In some ways, cars helped to liberate young women, such as when they’d go to the shopping mall.
Despite this. Automobiles still represented traditional values for women. For example, the 1955 Dodge La femme came with matching lipstick and a shoulder bag, while women could buy clothes of the same fabric of the upholstery of the Ford Victoria, reinforcing femininity for women.
How did ‘on-the-road’ culture affect the growth on industries and jobs?
As many americans now had cars, they could get to places faster and more comfortable. For example, they could obtain fast food, watch movies and even attend church from the comfort of their car.
Due to this new on-the-road culture required cheap accommodation and fast food. In 1952, the modern American motel chain was born when the first Holiday Inn opened near Memphis and by 1960 there were 228 McDonald’s.
These roadside motels and restaurants created thousands of jobs in addition to changing the landscape, as large once-rural areas of America were now covered in roads, adjacent motels, restaurants, stores, parking lots and neon signs and advertisements.
How does McDonald’s reflect the conformism of businesses to the new ‘on-the-road’ culture?
Despite their initial unpopularity, by conforming to America’s new on-the-road culture they became international successes. They grew anxious that their labour-intensive sandwiches were slow, so they replaced and focused on speedily-produced hamburgers, easily their most popular product. They substituted plates and silverware, which were needed to be washed, were stolen and broke with paper bags, wrappers and cups. In addition Customers took time choosing condiments, so the brothers put ketchup, mustard, onions and two pickles on every burger, Dick McDonald saying that ‘The whole concept was based on speed, lower prices and volume’, aligning with the new roadside culture and catering to those who wanted speed, efficiency and quality.
In 1954, they appointed Ray Kroc as McDonald’s franchise manager, who opened his first McDonald’s franchise in Des Plaines in 1955, by which time McDonalds made $100,000 per annum, a huge sum based upon a $0.15 hamburger. Later, in 1961, Kroc would go on to buy out the brothers, seeing them as unambitious small-timers, who took the profit from his hard work.
Why did i the expansion of automobiles lead tot he decline of urban centres?
As a result of the growth of car ownership in America, people were enabled to move from cities into more spacious homes in the suburbs, an easy drive from work. As cities were now left with those who could not afford to leave, they lost their tax base and deteriorated.
As a result of the increased demand and migration of Americans from the city to the suburbs, from 1920 to 1960 the percentage of Americans that were suburbanites rose from 17% to 33% and during 1948-58, 11 million out of 13 million houses built were in the suburbs.
What explains the rapid growth of suburbia?
-There had been little house building during the 1930s to the Second World War, leading to post-war housing shortage so severe that 250 old streetcars were sold for use as homes in Chicago. This shortage, along with easily available mortgage, encouraged builders to construct more homes.
-The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Veterans Administration (VA), offered house buyers mortgages of up to 90% of the home’s value and up to 30 years to pay them off at a low interest rate (4-4.5%). This was so impactful that between 1944 and 1952, the VA allowed approx 2.4 million WW2 veterans to purchase a home with virtually no down payment. By 1955, the FHA and the VA provided 41% of all new mortgages, contributing to the rising percentage of owner occupied homes (from 1940-60 rises to 61.9%b from 43%). GI bill 1944
-Land and new homes were cheaper in suburban areas than in cities.
-Increased car ownership and the construction of Eisenhower’s federal interstate highway made it easer for suburbanites to commute to work.
-Faced with inner-city populations becoming more ethnically-diverse and poorer, higher tax rates, noise and congestion, more affluent white people preferred the spacious and comfortable suburban homes in racially and economically homogenous places. This middle-class white migration from cities, ‘white flight’, meant retail services followed them to the suburbs.
Why were Levittowns so attractive to white American families?
The Levittowns were the developments of famous builders the Levitt brothers, in the suburbs, the first being in Hempstead, Long Island in 1947.
-Hempstead had 17,000 homes, 80,000 residents, seven village greens and shopping centres, nine swimming pools and two bowling alleys. The resident of the Levittowns were expected to conform to rules, such as weekly lawn-mowing, no fences and no washing hung out on the weekends. The structure of the Levittown society in addition to the facilities made this suburbia very appealing.
-Levittown homes were so popular that, when they went on sale, people formed queues to buy them. This was due to the fact that the homes were relatively well-priced, at $8,000 dollars (only 2.5x the average family income), in addition to being well-constructed, with central heating and built-in closets on 60 x 100 foot land (twice the normal size).
As a result of this, suburban Americans adored their new spacious homes, fitted with modern technology.
-One of the main appealing factors about these suburban towns to white families, was the fact that Levittowns were racially exclusive. These neighbourhoods were so against the growth of diversity, that when a black American family bought a Pennsylvania Levittown house in 1957, rocks were pelted at them by other residents, to the point of state authorities having to intervene.
This meant that it was not until 1960 before a Levittown house was sold to a black family in New Jersey. William Levitt defended the exclusion of black Americans from Levittowns saying that ‘ if we sell one house to a Negro family then 90 or 95% of white customers will not buy into the community’.
-Stated in the lease agreement in capital letters and bold type that the house could not be ‘used or occupied by any other person than members of the caucuasian race’.
William Levitt, was a jew, and was regretful of the racial segregation, but knew that if minorities were allowed into Levittowns, White Americans, his biggest customers, would flee.
How did white Americans contribute to the growth and segregation of ghettoes in black-dominated inner city ghettos?
The ‘Great Migraton’ of 6 million African Americans north- push from the Jim Crow laws of the south and the pull of the factory jobs in the north, leading to the development of urban ghettos.
- Restrictive covenants were used to exclude black Americans from white neighbourhoods, even though the Supreme Court declared these covenants legally unenforceable in 1948.
- Lending institutions, developers and city officials made it difficult for Black Americans to buy decent housing. As a result of this, black tenants paid high rents for poor accommodation in overcrowded ghettos.
- Sometimes white Americans staged ‘housing rights’ - a notable one in Cicero, Chicago, where several thousand working class whites used looting and burning to drive out the sole family.
- In the North, Midwest and West, whites who could afford it fled the nearby overcrowded. For example, white Americans fled Oakland, California to suburbs like Hayward. However, despite their migration, once in the suburbs, they were unwilling to pay increased taxes to assist inner city areas.
Redlining was how lenders identified and referenced neighborhoods with an greater share of people deemed more likely to default on a mortgage. Using red ink, lenders outlined on paper maps the parts of a city that were considered at high risk of default, as well as more desirable neighborhoods for loan. ‘Riskier’ neighborhoods were predominantly black and Latino, with redlining existing until 1968.
What is purchasing power and how much had this increased?
-Purchasing power is the amount of products and services available with a certain currency.
-in 1960 average family income gave Americans 30% more purchasing power than a 1950 and suburban Americans in particular rushed to buy cars labor, saving devices and anything else considered essential and/or fashionable. This meant things like must have domestic technology products, such as washing machines, freezers, and dishwashers, making housewives’ lives easier.
What was the influence of teenagers on the American economy?
-teenagers owned many appliances, such as in 1959, life magazine recorded that teenagers owned 10 million record players, 1 million TVs and 13 million cameras.
-Teenager spend a lot of money, Spending $20 million on lipstick , $9 million on home perming their hair and over $1.5 billion on entertainment in 1958.
-Teenagers ate more than adults, eating 20% more than adults and propped up the ice cream industry, eating 145,000,000 gallons of ice cream per year.
-the growing number of teenage marriages (1/3 of 18 and 19-year-old girls were married) meant that young teenage wives were big spenders on major items such as furniture.
Why did the period after WW2 experience greater social conformity?
-Those who experienced the economic depression of the 1930s and the uncertainties of the second world war, when American men were sent thousands of miles away to fight for their lives, craved economic stability, and success.
-Pressure to conform to identical ideas and practices came from big business, which valued the cooperation and agreement of ‘company men’, and from advertisements, which encouraged everyone to consume the same goods.
-a common culture was promoted by the mass media, and this also encouraged conformity.
-the period after the Second World War was one of continued international tension with the USSR. Americans believe this dangerous necessitated, national unity and conformity.
Why could the 1950s be called an ‘age of conformity’?
Age of Conformity“, created by Cold War politics and a mass society in which standardisation, cooperation and conformity replaced traditional, American values of self reliance, competition and rugged individualism, and in which Americans worked an increasingly faceless and standardised, corporate organisations.
What is an ‘organisation man’?
in the mid-20th century, the nature of the American workforce changed. Between 1947 and 1957 the number of salaried middle-class workers rose by 61%. This rise was fuelled by the explosive growth of large corporations, needing specialised personnel to market and manage corporate products, for example, and a company such as General Motors, which employed thousands of white collar workers, scientists would oversee the development of new inventions and designed, marketing analyst would investigate the sales potential of the product, and management science expert with coordinate the personnel involved in the production.
-During the 1950s, critics of American life and Society wrote best selling books about the men who worked in the offices, a big corporations and lived in suburbia. One of these was William Whyte’s critically acclaimed ‘the organisation man’, written in 1956, which sold 2 million copies.
-the organisation man summed up the contemporary criticisms of suburban incorporate America. This included White arguing that suburban life promoted getting along and belonging.
-In addition to this, White also argued that huge corporate enterprises had created a new managerial personality, the organisation man who had to get along with thousands of coworkers. While this idea was revered by the Americans, suburban population, white argued that Americans had increasingly subordinated themselves to the interest of those big organisations that promised security and prosperity, with the social ethic of suburbia reflecting the corporate organisation man.
-This was because White believed that the nature of suburban life and the growth of large bureaucratic organizations threatened the individualism and entrepreneurialism that had made America great.
-it was clear from a young age that those who failed to conform to dominant white middle-class values, were likely to be ostracized and disadvantage later in life.
How popular was the television by the early 1960s, and why did it become more popular to go the movies?
By 1960, 90% of American homes had a television.
Polls in the 1960s reveal television as the favorite leisure activity for 50% of Americans and it was a more popular form of entertainment than movie-going.
Although movies in particular sometimes challenge the status quo, both television and film frequently served to reinforce contemporary values and to promote conformity, causing criticism of television.
Why was television criticised as a dangerous influence?
Promoted conformity- 1950s family sitcom such as “Father knows best” and “the adventures of Ozzy and Harriet”, portrayed the domestic bliss of white, middle-class suburban. Families where mothers invariably stayed at home as the ideal.
-Promoted consumerism through both nonstop, advertisement, and programme content. For example, in “I remember Mama”, young family members told their immigrant parents that consumerism was a good thing.
-a decline in educational test scores and reading — newspapers and magazines certainly lost sales because of it and life magazine, and the Saturday evening post eventually ceased publication.
-Made viewers, physically, inactive, and mentally passive.
-the main reason why television programs promoted conformity was because they were designed for maximum mass appeal.
Programs sponsored by advertisers and a program that display too many people was a waste of the advertisers money. For example, white racism, made it difficult to retain sponsorship for NBC’s the Nat King Cole show, because Cole was a black American; the sponsor suggested white make up, but it made the singer look strange. ‘ Madison Avenue is afraid of the dark’ said Cole, his show was dropped. This need to keep sponsors Happy resulted and predictability and sameness in programming.
How did some supporters of television respond to criticisms?
- Some people disagreed with the criticism of television, arguing that it was cheap entertainment with programs that could be watched by the whole family, and they rejected attacks on televisions promotion of conformity, insisting that viewers were not passive recipients.
- They claimed television help to develop and define a more national culture, decreasing provincialism and social divisions, and giving people access to whole New World and perspectives, which contributed to a greater understanding of other cultures. They insisted that not all television programs were mindless.
- For example, in his first televised interview in 1957, on “The open mind”, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. presented his ideas about the “new Negro “. Similarly, news programs so challenges to the status quo, such as the black children who tried to enter central high school and Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957. Footage of the white victimization of the black students in Little Rock helped promote positive positive social change.
What is some evidence that Hollywood challenged the social status quo?
- Despite Hollywood’s many examples of conformity, It also demonstrated the capacity to change and challenge. For example, Hollywood began to change its treatment of sex. This was because it needed to attract audience at a time when box office receipts were failing due to television — and sex sold. More sexually explicit films, such Baby Doll drew big crowds. Hollywood was able to ignore the motion picture code and make such films because public attitudes were liberalising and a 1952 Supreme Court ruling had granted freedom of expression to films.
- Until 1956, the code for bid showing interracial marriages in film, but in 1957 the first interracial movie embrace was shown in island in the sun.
-movies are beginning to challenge, racial, stereotypes, and attitudes, and the Critically acclaimed ‘the defiant ones’, black and white need to cooperate to survive. In Director Douglas Sirk’s imitation of life, the final scene of the movie demonstrates that the real heroine is not the white actress who is achieved fame, but the black mother who has devoted her life to the actresses, neglected daughter, and her own ungrateful offspring, who rejects her and tries to pass as white.
-Hollywood also sometimes challenged traditional female rules, and middle-class conformity. For example, in Sirk’s All that heaven allows, The upper middle class, widow Jane Wyman shocks, the country club set when she becomes involved with rock Hudson, a somewhat bohemian gardener who is younger than her. In crime of passion, Barbara Stanwyck plays successful journalist suffocated by suburban life. Desperate for her husband to be “somebody“, she has an affair with his superior. When he refused to promote her husband, she shoots him dead dead.
What is some evidence that hollywood did not challenge the social status quo?
a recurring theme in 1950 sitcoms was the undesirably women going to work. For example, in a 1955 episode of “the honeymooners”, the husband is unemployed. When the wife decides to get a job, the husband responds, “no wife of mine is going to work. I got my pride… Men are the workers of the family.’
Similarly, the 1958 “Betty: girl engineer” episode of “Father knows Best” is an excellent example of how young American women in the post war to believe the best vocation to wish they could aspire was that of a wife and mother. When the families eldest daughter Betty, hears a vocational lecture at her high school, she decides she wants to be an engineer and plans to spend her spring occasion working with a surveying crew. The college graduate supervisor of the crew tells Betty’s father, that she would surely be a good engineer. But, he asks, what man would wanna come home to see a nice pretty girl who’s been working in that dust in heat? Betty decides that he’s right and switches her attention to her date for Saturday night.
-like television, Hollywood often reflected 1950s conservatism and values. Popular western movies and TV shows invariably portrayed Men, submissive, women, and evil ‘Indians’.
-despite such advances, Hollywood was definitely more conservative on sex than Broadway. For example, the movie blue denim was based on a play. But while 15-year-old girl had an abortion in the play. She kept the baby in the movie and the word abortion was never mentioned.
-However, moviemaking was a business, and Hollywood have to be careful not to alienate customers. The musical South Pacific is about two interracial romances. It was a big box office hit in most of the United States, it was not well received in the south and nearly caused a race riot on Long Island and New York State. The war path of glory helps Hollywood reluctance to engage with challenges to conformity; the movie was acclaimed, but did not do all the box office, the challenging consensus could be financial gamble.
-Hollywood ambivalence about challenging suburban conformity is demonstrated in many movies. In the movie, rebel without a cause, the charismatic James Dean plays the archetypal teenager, struggling with the adult world in mutual incomprehension. The dean character eventually recognize his fathers authority and valuable support. Similarly, The blackboard jungle tells of disruptive behavior in the classroom and some localities want it banned. Yet again, Hollywood sympathy for disaffected youth proved limited; the classroom teacher reestablishes control.
How influential was advertising in the 1950s?
Critics argued that conformity was promoted by advertisements. Although not a new phenomenon, Advertising rose greatly increased in the 1950s; $5.7 billion was spent on advertising in 1950 but $11.9 billion in 1960. This was mostly due to the rise of television. The consumer society encouraged and was encouraged by the advertising industry, which during the 1950s spent more money than was spent on education.
-in 1954, Yale historian David Potter argued that advertising rose was socially influential as education and religion, because it dominated the media, shaped, popular standards, and exercised Social control. The advertising industry had such power that it inevitably Elicited criticism.
advertisement, psychologically manipulated customers he warned readers about candy targeted children at the check out and about movie theater owners who screen flashed images of Coca-Cola too fast to be seen at consciously gets sufficient to mine movie goes to buy in the interval. He counted research shown that Marlboro Filter cigarettes were considered a feminine until ads associate the brand with wild west cowboy masculinity, and Sales rocketed.
-Some like it hot:
The film was produced without approval from the motion picture code because it features cross-dressing. The code has been gradually weakenening in its scope since the early 1950s, owing to greater social tolerance for taboo topics in film, but it was enforced until the mid-1950s. The overwhelming success of the film was one of the reasons of the retirement of the Hayes code.
What is a ‘square’ and a ‘beat’?
The most publicised dissenters from the mainstream culture of ‘squares’, people who submitted to the growing consciousness of conformity sweeping 1950s America, were the mostly middle-class young ‘beats’, who rejected materialism, the consumer culture and conformity for a lifestyle characterised by spontaneity, drugs, free love and a general defiance of authority and convention.
The first members of the ‘beat generation were a group of Columbia University students that included Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac.
Effects of ‘Howl’ and ‘On the Road’ on the beat generation.
Thirty-year-old Ginsberg gained fame and critical acclaim in 1956 after public readings of ‘Howl’, a poem written under the influence of drugs, which dealt with as drugs, issues such homosexuality and nonconformity. The independent thinkers faced with suffocation in a conformist and materialistic society are introduced in the lines of ‘Howl’.
- 1957 Kerouac’s on the road, observed the empty life of contemporary America, it was published after the removal of much of the description of drug use and homosexual practices. It immediately received a critical acclaim.
