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Chapter Twenty-Seven America at Mid-Century 19521963 American Society at Mid-century The Eisenhower Presidency
President Dwight D. Eisenhower inspired confidence and adopted a middle-of-
the-road style He ran the government in a businesslike, cooperative manner, pursuing policies that helped private companies and allowing practices that harmed the environment He also rejected calls from conservatives to dismantle the welfare state Although his presidency included two brief recessions, he presided over an extensive increase in real wages
Subsidizing Prosperity
Federal government helped subsidize prosperity by providing loans for homes
and assisting the growth of suburbs One of the first planned communities was built by William Levitt and encompassed 17,000 homes, without a single African American resident The federal government: paid for veterans college education built an interstate highway system following the Russian launch of a satellite spent millions on education
Suburban Life
Suburban life: the domestic ideal a model of the efficient, patient suburban wife for television Suburban growth corresponded with an increase in church attendance Popular religious figures stressed the importance of fitting in California came to embody postwar suburban life, with cars connecting its components
strengthened provided
Organized Labor and the AFL-CIO
In the mid-1950s, trade unions reached a peak of membership and influence, especially in the Democratic Party The merger of the AFL and the CIO marked the zenith of the unions Total membership numbers declined after 1955 but new inroads were made in the public sector
Lonely Crowds and Organizational Men
Critics found the suburbs dull and conformistpoints that obscured the real class and ethnic differences found in many suburbs
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David Reisman said that Americans had become overly conforming, less individualistic, and more peer-oriented C. Wright Mills wrote how people sold not only their time and energy but their personalities
Expansion of Higher Education
Postwar baby boom paralleled by a tremendous expansion of higher education, assisted by extensive federal aid Colleges accepted the values of corporate culture with 20 percent of all graduates majoring in business Students tried to conform to the corporate values
Health and Medicine
Immunization begun during the war continued after New medicines, like antibiotics, and new vaccines against diseases like polio
allowed many Americans to live healthier lives Doctor shortages meant that poor and elderly Americans and those in rural areas lacked access to these improvements The AMA did nothing to increase the flow of new doctors and discouraged any national health insurance
Youth Culture The Youth Market
The word teenager became common in the American language after WWII Young peoples numbers grew and their purchasing power increased The marketplace, schools, mass media reinforced the notion of teenagers as a special community
Popular Music in Memphis
Memphis was a rapidly growing segregated city with whites and blacks of various classes Elvis Presley listened to both white and black music Sam Phillips, a white producer, recognized that Elvis could sing with the emotional intensity and power of black performers Elvis blended black styles of music with white styles to help create a new style of music
Hail! Hail! Rock n Roll
Structural changes in the media transformed radio into a music-dominated medium Small independent record labels promoted black rhythm-and-blues artists, many of whom crossed over to white audiences Established record companies offered toned-down white cover versions that frequently outsold the originals
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Alan Freed, a white Cleveland disc jockey promoted black artists and set the stage for the first major white performer who could play rock-n-roll, Elvis Presley Black singer-guitarist Chuck Berry was probably the most influential artist after Elvis
Almost Grown
united teenagers by giving them a feeling that it was their music and that it focused on the trials and tribulations of teenage life Teenagers were torn between their identification with youth culture and desire to become adults as quickly as possible Many adult observers saw rock-n-roll as unleashing youthful passions in a dangerous way Rock 'n' roll was closely linked to juvenile delinquency Popular films like The Wild One and Rebel Without a Cause showed the different reactions of youth and adults to the growing generation gap
Rock-n-roll
Mass Culture and its Discontents Television
Development as a mass medium was eased by the prior existence of radio High cost of TV changed advertising as sponsors left production to others Early TV replicated radio formats including situation comedies set among urban
ethnic families late By 1950s, situation comedies featured idealized, white suburban families As revenues declined, movie studios sold off old films and began to produce Westerns and cop shows for TV Television also created overnight fads and sensations
Television and Politics
Prime-time shows made no references to contemporary political issues and
avoided being tainted with Communist influence Television did bring important congressional hearings before mass audiences and by 1952, slick ads began to shape presidential campaigns
Culture Critics
New mass culture prompted a growing chorus of critics Intellectual critics bemoaned the great Middlebrow Culture that was driving
out high culture The Beats articulated some of the sharpest dissents from conformity, celebrating spontaneity, jazz, open sexuality, drug use, and American outcasts The "Beats" foreshadowed the mass youth rebellion of the 1960s
The Cold War Continued The New Look in Foreign Affairs
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Eisenhower favored a reliance on American nuclear superiority in favor of more
expensive conventional forces Secretary of State John Foster Dulles called for a policy of rollback to reverse communist gains This new look for American foreign policy was in conflict with Eisenhowers cautious approach
The Changing Cold War
Ike refused to intervene to aid anti-Communist uprisings in East Berlin and
Hungary After Stalin died, new Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev raised hopes for a warming of relations Following some steps toward a more peaceful coexistence, the thaw quickly froze when the Soviets shot down an American spy plane
Covert Action and Intervention
Eisenhower favored covert action The CIA sponsored paramilitary operations in the Third World when newly
emerging nations sought to recover resources from foreign investors American interventions in Iran overthrew the government and helped secure oil concessions Support for Israel was challenged when Ike rejected European appeals to help seize and return the Suez Canal to Britain
Intervention in the Caribbean
In just one of several actions, the CIA-sponsored coup overthrew the
government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzman in Guatemala
Vietnam
U.S. provided France with massive military aid in its struggle to hold on to
Vietnam Ike rejected the use of American ground troops, but believed that if Vietnam fell the rest of Southeast Asia would fall like dominoes known as domino theory Vietnam temporarily divided at the 17th parallel
Ikes Warning
A growing public anxiety over nuclear weapons led to small but well-publicized
protests Ike expressed his own doubts when he warned the nation of the growing military industrial complex
John F. Kennedy and the New Frontier The Election of 1960
JFK was a young man from a wealthy Irish-Catholic family who became a
Senator from Massachusetts
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After winning the Democratic nomination, Kennedy won a narrow victory over
Republican vice-president Richard Nixon His inauguration brought out a bevy of intellectuals who heard him inspire a sense of sacrifice among young Americans ask not what your country can do for you, instead ask what you can do for your country
New Frontier Liberalism
JFK proposed a liberal agenda but conservatives in Congress prevented much
of it from passing JFK supported efforts to improve employment equality for women He used fiscal policy to stimulate the economy JFK committed the country to expanding its manned space program JFKs greatest achievement may have been strengthening the executive branch of government
Kennedy and the Cold War
In his three years as president, JFKs foreign policy shifted from containment to
easing tensions He expanded both nuclear and conventional weapons and created the Green Berets who fought unsuccessfully to stop Communist movements in Laos and Vietnam JFK supported the Alliance for Progress, ostensibly a Marshall Plan for Latin America
The Cuban Revolution and the Bay of Pigs
Cuban Revolution brought Fidel Castro to power in 1959 Ike cut off aid when Castro began a land reform program and later the United
States severed diplomatic relations JFK implemented Ikes plan for a CIA-backed invasion by Cuban exiles The plan failed, leading Castro to ask Khrushchev for help
The Missile Crisis
Soviets began shipping missiles to Cuba JFK rejected calls for an immediate attack but ordered a blockade on Cuba Soviets backed down and withdrew the missiles and JFK pledged not to invade
Cuba and secretly agreed to pull missiles out of Turkey Kennedy tried to improve cooperation with the Soviets
Assassination
The November 22, 1963 assassination of Kennedy made him a martyr and
raised questions about what he would have achieved, had he lived America in 1963 still enjoyed the postwar economic boom, but Kennedys election had symbolized the changing of generations