USA: Social and political change, 1973-80 Flashcards
Why was the US’ economy in a weaker position in 1973?
After the Second World War, the United States was the world’s wealthiest nation. However, by the 1960s there were worrying economic trends. First, while the United States still led the world in manufacturing industries that employed many Americans, those industries were in decline. Second, the expense of the Vietnam War and to a lesser extent of the Great Society raised the federal government deficit from $1.6 billion in 1965 to $25.3 billion in 1968, leading to inflation and a weakened dollar.
By 1973 other countries seemed poised to overtake the USA as the world’s leading economic power. The American economy suffered from inflation (mostly due to rising oil prices and federal government overspending), a balance of trade deficit and a weakened currency. All of this impacted upon the lives of Americans, many of whom had an insatiable appetite for the consumer goods and oil (for cars and heating) that they now struggled to afford.
How far did inflation rise between 1973 and 1980 and how far was this a concern for Americans?
During 1973-80, Americans experienced unprecedented inflation. Inflation was in or near double figures for much of the decade. It made everything more expensive: mortgages, loans, food and energy. During July 1974 alone, prices rose by 3.7 per cent. A 1978 poll showed that 63 per cent of Americans considered inflation their greatest concern.
1955-Inflation is 0%
1973-13.8%
Why was the rust belt hit especially hard by inflation?
As the cost of living rose at a yearly average of 8.2 per cent between 1973 and 1983, inflation greatly affected family incomes. The hardest hit were those in the areas of declining manufacturing output known as the Rust Belt. Increasing numbers previously accustomed to well-paid manufacturing work found themselves unemployed
Why was there an increase in service jobs, and why was this not a stable solution for many families?
It was difficult to find alternative employment, apart from within the service industries. Service jobs constituted 60 per cent of employment opportunities in 1970 but 70 per cent by 1980.
However, many were low paid. Although the federal minimum wage rose from $2.10 an hour in 1975 to $3.35 per hour in 1981, it failed to keep pace with rising prices. Many mothers had to work in order to maintain the usual family income; 38 per cent of women worked in 1960, 43 per cent in 1970 and 52 per cent in 1980.
What evidence do we have that poverty increased in the 1970s? Write down at least 3 pieces of evidence.
Poverty increased as the 1970s wore on. The proportion of US citizens living below the poverty line grew from 11.2 per cent in 1974 to 12.5 per cent in 1976 and included 50 per cent of all black female heads of household.
The numbers eligible for the food-stamp programme grew from 18.5 million in 1976 to 20 million in 1980.
Homelessness became an increasing problem. By the early 1980s politicians and the press recognised that the USA was experiencing a homelessness crisis. Estimates of the total number of homeless people in 1980 vary from 200,000 to 1 million.
What evidence do we have that poverty increased in the 1970s? Write down at least 3 pieces of evidence.
Poverty increased as the 1970s wore on. The proportion of US citizens living below the poverty line grew from 11.2 per cent in 1974 to 12.5 per cent in 1976 and included 50 per cent of all black female heads of household.
The numbers eligible for the food-stamp programme grew from 18.5 million in 1976 to 20 million in 1980.
Homelessness became an increasing problem. By the early 1980s politicians and the press recognised that the USA was experiencing a homelessness crisis. Estimates of the total number of homeless people in 1980 vary from 200,000 to 1 million.
What is foreclosure?
Foreclosure – if a resident fails to pay their mortgage (loan for their home), the lender, usually a bank, can ‘foreclose’, meaning they take possession of the house and the residents have to move out.
What was the crack cocaine crisis?
• According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the price of illegal cocaine dropped by as much as 80 percent during the late 1970s as the white powder flooded the U.S. market.
• Crack cocaine was noted for its instantaneous and intense high, which kept users craving more, thus causing an upsurge in crack cocaine addictions. Between 1982 and 1985, the number of cocaine users increased by 1.6 million people.
What was the problem with poverty in Philadelphia in the 1970s?
• Pre-WW2: Great Migration. Factory jobs.
• 1951 = 46% of jobs were manufacturing (specifically steel). By 1977 this had fallen to 24%.
• This meant more people relied on welfare – 200,000 in 1970 to 340,000 in 1980 (more than 20% of people!)
• Philadelphia lost 5% of its population in the 1950s (suburbanization), 3% in the 1960s and more than 13% in the 1970s (factories closing or moving).
By 1970, a City Planning Commission survey found that crime was the number 1 problem – this continued through the 70s – 80s. Often linked to drugs – by the 80s, crack cocaine.
How did Vietnam War veteran end up homeless?
• Many Vietnam War veterans faced inadequate care when they returned.
• Link to the closing of mental hospitals in the 1970s. The number of patients living in state hospitals dropped from 535,000 in 1960 to 137,000 in 1980.
• Link to PTSD and trauma, family breakdown
• Escalated in the 1980s but began in the 1970s. In 1987, the number of homeless veterans was as high as 300,000.
Why did many people formerly regarded as mentally ill end up on the streets?
During the mid-1970s, the number of institutions for the mentally ill decreased. There were two reasons.
First, the American Association for the Abolition of Involuntary Mental Hospitalization campaigned to give these people greater personal freedom and independence.
Second, these institutions increasingly struggled for financial survival. A 1973 federal district court ruled that patients in mental health institutions had to be paid for their labour, but that unpaid labour had helped keep the institutions running.
Conservatives wanted to decrease expenditure on such institutions and were reluctant to make up for the shortfall, so some were forced to close. Many former residents ended up on the streets and homeless.
What other factors influenced the rise of homelessness in the 1970s?
As a result of continuing urban renewal policies , many inner-city ‘skid row’ hotels that had housed the exceptionally poor were demolished. Those who had formerly obtained shelter in such hotels struggled to find alternative accommodation.
• Rising unemployment led some people into depression, despair and life on the streets. Budget cuts and lower welfare benefits contributed to the sense of hopelessness.
• The number of homeless women increased because of declining marriage rates and the increased number of single mothers. The lack of support from a partner and feeling that the authorities were unsympathetic led many to simply give up and live on the streets.
• The increased use of crack cocaine in the inner cities resulted in addicts spending all their money on the drug and unable to afford regular living accommodation.
How dependent was the US on foreign oil in the 1970s?
In the three decades after the Second World War, the United States went from energy self-sufficiency to an energy deficit situation.
With 6 per cent of the world’s population, Americans consumed one-third of the world’s oil production. Roughly 30 per cent of the oil Americans used had to be imported, mostly from the Middle East.
By becoming dependent on the resources of other countries, especially such an important resource like oil, it puts the USA if tense relations and conflict were to break out, like it did in 1973.
What happened in 1973 and how did this affect the price of oil in the USA?
The resulting American economic vulnerability was exposed when Nixon’s support of Israel in the Yom Kippur War (1973) led to an Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) oil embargo on the United States.
The end of the embargo was followed by a 387% hike in the price of oil that greatly damaged the American economy (except for the US oil companies). Americans now paid around 30 per cent more for heating oil and petrol.
What were the strikes due to the oil crisis?
In 1974, a strike by 100,000 independent truckers demanding lower fuel prices brought the nation’s roads to a standstill for 11 days and left stores with empty shelves.
• In late 1977, 165,000 United Mine Workers began a three-month strike. The consequent coal shortage led to school closures and shortened working weeks in the Eastern USA.
What happened in Levittown, Pennsylvania in 1979, and why might this be regarded as symbolic of American decline?
In the exceptionally harsh winter of 1976-77, a natural gas shortage forced the closure of schools and factories, especially in the Eastern USA.
Fuel stations closed on Sundays or cut their hours in order to conserve supplies, and long queues developed at the petrol pumps.
The first American energy riot occurred in Levittown, Pennsylvania, in 1979, post second oil shock, when truckers barricaded expressways; 100 were injured and 170 arrested in two nights of violence.
What was the ‘second oil shock’?
• 7 January 1978 – 11 February 1979 – the Iranian Revolution. The US-backed Shah was overthrown, leading to Iran becoming an Islamic republic.
• Strikes on Iran’s oil fields meant that world oil production declined by only 7% or less, (not as dramatic as an event in the long-term) but the short-term supply disruption led to a spike in prices, panic buying, and long lines at gas stations.
• Oil prices rose from $13 per barrel in mid-1979 to $34 per barrel in mid-1980.
• This led to several states passing state-mandated gasoline rationing, including California, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, and New Jersey. In these populous states, consumers could only purchase gas every other day, based on whether the last digit of their license plate numbers was even or odd.
Why was the changing price of oil so significant for the American economy?
In 1979, half the nation’s petrol stations were without fuel. Those that had it were charging 50 per cent more than the year before. Drivers queued for petrol on specified days, often for several hours.
The end of the era of cheap energy hit Americans’ standard of living. Probably one-third of the alarming rise in prices was due to the increased cost of oil.
Cheap oil had been vital to post-Second World War prosperity and economic growth, helping industry and accelerating socially transformative suburbanisation and consumerism.
How did the energy crisis lead to a growing sense of politician disillusionment?
The energy crisis provided politicians with an apparently insoluble problem, but voters wanted them to ‘do something about it’. One obvious way to decrease energy consumption was to raise taxes on oil, but voters disliked increased energy prices. The inability of politicians to solve this conundrum contributed to the growing political disillusionment.
From 1973, many private citizens tried to save fuel, turning down the thermostat and joining carpools. In 1977, President Carter suggested that thermostats be adjusted so that heating was at a maximum 18°C in winter, and air conditioning would only kick in at 26°C in summer. Government buildings led the way in implementing these suggestions and some factories cut hours. However, Americans still consumed frightening quantities of fuel
What was the US trade deficit by 1979?
In combination with the energy crisis, foreign economic competition contributed to a sense of national decline from the mid-1970s.
Although the United States still produced 25 per cent of the world’s manufactured goods in the 1970s, American companies struggled against technologically superior rivals in Germany and Japan. Such foreign competition led to increased unemployment and a trade deficit. By 1978-79 the annual US trade deficit was around $40 billion.
Why did Japanese cars start to take over the American market?
The impact of foreign competition was demonstrated in the automobile industry. Inexpensive and well-made Japanese car imports were extremely attractive to American consumers. Japanese companies had 23 per cent of the US automobile market by 1981. American car companies were slow to adapt. Even as sales of American cars fell, manufacturers continued to produce ‘gas guzzlers’ that used a great deal of fuel, while Japanese cars were smaller and more economic.
How did the car industry cope with the growth in foreign competition?
Chrysler lost billions and needed a controversial $1.5 billion government bailout in 1980, the largest package ever granted by the U.S government to an American corporation.
The number of permanent jobs in the automobile industry fell from 940,000 in 1978 to 500,000 in 1982. In the car manufacturing city of Detroit, unemployment reached 24 per cent by 1980.
How did President Ford try to address the crisis, and with what results?
Voters were unimpressed by the federal government response to the economic problems of 1973-80. Ford had various ideas for improving the economy. He asked Americans to voluntarily cut their mileage by 5 per cent and stop throwing out food, and he distributed red-and- white WIN (‘Whip Inflation Now’) buttons. America liked his buttons but rejected his suggestions.
He cut federal expenditure and asked Congress to approve a tax rise. When that made him unpopular, he proposed a tax cut, which the Democrat-controlled Congress made larger than he thought wise. In the long run, the tax cut and 1975 Omnibus Energy Act (domestic oil prices were allowed to rise slowly so consumption decreased) helped bring the economy out of recession.
Why were Carter’s policy responses to the economic crisis and inflation so unpopular?
Carter’s responses to rocketing inflation, increasing unemployment and rising energy prices pleased no one. He adopted standard methods for handling inflation such as decreasing government expenditure (for example, he froze federal workers’ wages) and urging voluntary wage and price controls in the private sector.
Blue-collar workers who traditionally voted Democrat disliked Carter’s focus upon inflation rather than unemployment, his voluntary wage guidelines and his criticism of striking miners in 1977, and considered him unsupportive over the minimum wage. This is particularly important, as blue-collar workers are supposed to be hard-core democrats, historically.
The business community distrusted Carter; they feared his energy proposals would damage industry and worried about the impact of mounting trade deficits on the dollar, which had slumped on the world currency markets.
All of this added to the growing sense of crisis and of failure of presidential leadership. In many ways, Carter was unfairly judged; his support for his Federal Reserve Board chairman’s tough stance on inflation (he curbed the money supply) led to revival under Reagan.
How did Carter try to tackle American dependency on Middle Eastern oil, and why didn’t it pass in the Senate?
Carter tried harder than any other president to solve the energy crisis. He wanted to end dependence on the unstable Middle East, and in April 1977 his energy programme suggested:
-oil conservation for example, through cutting down on travel, the development and use of alternative sources of power, especially nuclear power, coal and solar energy
-higher taxes on large automobiles to encourage Americans to buy smaller models
- greater insulation in homes and workplaces.
Although Carter’s proposed energy legislation got through the House of Representatives, it met insuperable opposition in the Senate. This was because:
• Carter had drawn it up with insufficient consultation and lobbying.
• States where automobiles and natural gas and oil were produced opposed the programme.
• Voters did not want to pay higher taxes in a period of high inflation or change their lifestyles.
Congress responded to some of Carter’s suggestions. The Energy Security Act (1980) offered loans and incentives to promote the search for and use of alternative energy, including synthetic fuels, alcohol fuels and biomass energy.
However, Carter’s suggestion that nuclear power was one route to US energy independence became particularly unpopular after a nuclear meltdown at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island reactor in 1979 mobilised environmentalists. They staged nationwide protest marches demanding that all nuclear facilities be shut down.
What’s was carter’s crisis of confidence speech?
• On July 15, 1979, Carter delivered a nationally televised address in which he identified what he believed to be a “crisis of confidence” among the American people.
• The speech’s negative reception came from a view that Carter did not state efforts on his own part to address the energy crisis and was too reliant on Americans
What happened in the 1980 presidential election?
• Ronald Reagan – former actor, easygoing manner.
• Carter, after defeating Ted Kennedy for the Democratic nomination which begins to split the democratic party, attacked Reagan as a dangerous right-wing radical.
• Weeks before the election it seemed close; polls showed a tie or Carter ahead.
Landslide victory: Reagan won a large majority of the Electoral College vote (489 to 49 – 270 to win). But turnout was only 52.6%.
How did Ford and Carter reject formality as President.
Gerald Ford was a respected and popular Congressman from 1948 to 1973. He accepted the vice-presidency after Spiro Agnew’s resignation, with the self-deprecatory joke that he was ‘a Ford not a Lincoln’. When Nixon resigned, Americans were desperate for a ‘regular guy’ in the White House. They thought they had one when pyjama-clad president-elect Ford picked up his own newspaper off his front porch and waved to the press. Some Americans related to his family (his lively and outspoken wife was photographed pushing him fully clothed into the Camp David pool).
Carter, too, rejected excessive formality. After he was sworn in as president, he and his family walked down Pennsylvania Avenue - an unprecedented and highly informal gesture. Carter sold the presidential yacht and wore casual clothes for a televised broadcast.
The decreased formality failed to stop near-constant criticism of Ford’s and then Carter’s leadership. After a brief honeymoon period with the press and public, Ford’s popularity with Congress, the media and the American people plummeted because he pardoned Richard Nixon. The pardon ensured there were no further proceedings against the disgraced president for his involvement in Watergate, but many Americans believed that Nixon should be put on trial as the other Watergate conspirators were
What was Ford V. Congress and the Media, post-pardon?
Ford sought to demonstrate to the Democrat-controlled Congress that this was a new style of leadership in that he wanted to work in partnership with them. He volunteered to be the first president since Lincoln to testify before Congress (about the pardon). However, the pardon irreparably damaged relations.
It was probably the general loss of respect for the presidency after Watergate, Ford’s informality and the fact that he had not been elected president that combined to make the media decide that Ford was fair game for disrespectful coverage. The media enjoyed making fun of him. Lyndon Johnson’s joke that he had played football once too often without a helmet was frequently cited. Ford was shown falling over on ski slopes and stumbling down a plane ramp; one network showed the latter 11 times in one newscast. A New Yorker magazine cover showed him as Bozo the Clown. A right-wing New Hampshire newspaper christened him ‘Jerry the Jerk’.
Ford’s frequently indecisive leadership did not help. For example, when he changed his position on taxation, the New York Times said, ‘President Ford has not turned the economy around id, President the has turned himself around.
How was Ford defeated by Carter in 1976?
In the 1976 presidential election, Ford was defeated by the Democrat Jimmy Carter. The election seemed to confirm that there was a crisis of political leadership. First, Carter’s emphasis upon being an outsider who had never been part of the corrupt Washington scene contributed to his victory. Second, a poll revealed that 76 per cent of people believed Ford lacked ‘presidential quality’, and 80 per cent said the same of Carter.
What was Carter’s leadership like?
There was much criticism of Carter’s leadership style. There were criticisms of his micromanagement, his inability to establish a productive relationship with Congress, what some considered to be a joint presidency with his wife and his apparent inability to cope with crises:
• News of Carter’s micromanagement leaked out in 1979 with the story of how in his first six months as president he reviewed all requests to use the White House tennis courts.
• Although a Democrat, Carter’s relations with the Democrat Congress were poor. The House Speaker said Carter ‘didn’t seem to understand’ the need to master the legislative process.
The media made much of the influence of his wife, referring to her as ‘Mrs President’.
• By December 1977 polls revealed that only 18 per cent of Americans had ‘a lot’ of confidence in Carter and it was commonly asked, ‘Can Carter cope?’ By 1980 he had the lowest-ever approval rating of any president. He seemed incapable of dealing with the most pressing contemporary issues, the economy, the energy crisis and the Iranian hostage crisis.
What was the Iranian hostage crisis?
In January 1973 President Nixon signed the Paris Peace Accords, which ended the Vietnam War. Although the public welcomed this American exit from Vietnam, there was a growing fear that the USA was losing its international primacy. Problems with Iran seemed to confirm this.
In 1978 Islamic fundamentalists led a successful revolution against the repressive, pro-American shah of Iran. In 1979, Iranian militants stormed the US embassy in Tehran and took 60 Americans hostage in protest against Carter allowing the Shah to receive cancer treatment in the USA.
American humiliation increased when Carter tried but failed to negotiate the hostages’ release then sent helicopters on an unsuccessful rescue mission in 1980. One helicopter broke down upon entering Iranian airspace, another got lost in a sandstorm and a third developed hydraulic problems. The commanders and President Carter agreed to abort the mission, but then one of the helicopters crashed into a US transport aircraft. Both burst into flames, eight American airmen died and four were badly burned. Eventually, Carter’s painstaking diplomacy won the release of the hostages, but only after the United States had a new president.
What was the impact of the Iranian hostage crisis?
By the November 1980 presidential election, the general feeling was that Carter was a poor leader who messed up everything. By 1980, a poll revealed that only 18 per cent of Americans rated him ‘a very strong leader’.
The Iranian hostage crisis impacted upon the 1980 presidential election and upon the future direction of American society and politics; in combination with Carter’s apparent inability to solve the nation’s economic problems, it contributed to Carter’s defeat by the conservative Republican Ronald Reagan.
The ‘great communicator’ Reagan came across as warm, genial and optimistic about American international and domestic capacities, in contrast to the earnest, moralistic Carter who told Americans that they were suffering crises of confidence and spirit.
In 1980, 47 per cent of registered voters simply stayed at home; many were poor and/or unemployed and would normally have been expected to vote Democrat but were disillusioned with politics and with the leadership of Jimmy Carter
How did polls indicated the growth of political disillusionment?
Percentage of Americans who felt that government will ‘do what is right most of the time’: 1969-56 per cent; 1979-29 per cent.
• Percentage of Americans believing government officials were ‘smart people who know what they are doing’: 1969-69 per cent; 1979-29 per cent.
• Percentage of Americans who felt that US affairs were run for the benefit of a few big interests rather than all the people: 1969-28 per cent; 1979-65 per cent.
• Percentage of Americans who agreed that the ‘people running the country do not really care about what happens to you’: 1966-26 per cent; 1977-60 per cent
How has political disillusionment grown?
Disillusionment with presidents was nothing new. For example, liberals had mocked Eisenhower and his fellow Americans (‘the bland leading the bland’).
However, the Vietnam War caused the ‘credibility gap’ that damaged faith in Johnson and the presidency ; then Watergate and the pardon exacerbated the situation.
Media coverage of Ford’s falls demonstrated growing disrespect.
Disillusionment with politics increased under Carter, when roughly half of the electorate felt alienated from the political process and never bothered to vote. ‘Why don’t people vote? Because it doesn’t make a difference’, said a welfare worker.
The turnout in presidential elections (54 per cent in 1976, 53 per cent in 1980) confirmed the alienation of a significant proportion of the electorate, some of whom were turning to single-issue politics, such as environmentalism.
What was the political impact of environmentalism?
There had always been Americans concerned to preserve wilderness areas and conserve resources. However, by the 1970s the environment became an important political issue due to publicity, increased awareness that the Earth’s resources were finite and the desire to experience wilderness and parks.
In 1969, 1 per cent felt the environment was the greatest domestic problem, but 25 per cent did by 1971. Membership of environmental organisations grew with middle-class liberals joining old organisations such as the Sierra Club or new ones such as the National Resource Defense Council.
Edward Abbey’s novel The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975) attracted a great deal of attention. The New York Times said his story of protesters using sabotage in opposition to those who were damaging the environment made Abbey ‘an underground cult hero’.
Environmentalism was strengthened by the revelation that Love Canal, near Niagara Falls, was so full of industrial waste that it caused disproportionate numbers of miscarriages and birth defects in the local population, which was relocated en masse in 1978
What was the environmental legislation passed?
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), established by the Nixon administration in 1970, asked American car manufacturers to cut down on exhaust emissions. In compliance with the EPA regulations, the manufacturers introduced catalytic converters and unleaded gasoline in 1975, cutting car pollution by 75 per cent.
Carter was the first successful presidential candidate to campaign on environmentalism. He obtained legislation to prevent chemicals from polluting the environment, expand National Park and wilderness land (the 1980 Alaska Lands Act set aside one-third of the state as wilderness), renew the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts and seek alternative sources of energy. However, Carter’s ambitious energy programme failed to get through Congress intact because Americans hated paying more for petrol.
Carter’s impressive achievements were insufficient for environmentalists and upset the traditionally Democratic labour unions. Workers in industries that generated a great deal of pollution believed that environmentalists threatened their jobs. Many sported bumper stickers saying ‘If you’re hungry and out of work, eat an environmentalist.’
Why had environmentalism become a major political minefield?
It caused:
- intra-party conflict (the Democratic Party contained middle-class liberals who favoured environmental legislation and blue-collar workers who did not)
- inter-party conflict (as the party of big business, Republicans were often less concerned about the environment than Democrats)
- a conservative backlash, evident during Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential election campaign when Reagan claimed that air pollution in Los Angeles was ‘substantially controlled’ (he then found that his plane could not land there because of smog)
- surprising unanimity in states whose dependence upon manufacturing made them feel threatened by environmentalism (for example, Michigan politicians of all parties opposed legislation that would damage Detroit’s car industry)
- tension between the federal government and several states (for example, the 1979-81 ‘Sagebrush Rebelliott’).
