Period 8: Apush

GI Bill

1. $ for college
2. $ for home, business, farm loans with low interest

Helped stimulate the economy, BUT, Black soldiers often excluded (redlining, Jim Crow)

Why does US have a strong economy after WW2?

1. Military $/jobs during WWII → $/jobs for Cold War 
2. Pent-up consumer demand after wartime rationing
* Cars
* Houses
* Technology

3\.   Optimism

4\.   __**GI Bill**__ (1944) 

Baby Boom

Increase in babies after WW2, why?


1. Vets home! 
2. Confidence in economy
3. Cult of Domesticity still a thing

Suburban Growth (AP calls it Suburbanization)

* Mass-produced, cheaper houses = Affordable American Dream


* New roads, stores  = conveniency
* __**Conformity**__ = encouraged a **homogenized** mass culture

Sun Belt

In the southern third of the U.S., warmer, lower taxes

JOBS! Defense (Cold War), NASA, oil

Dixiecrats

**(Southern conservative Dems.) align with Repubs. (party of small gov’t)**

* “Right to Work Laws” v. Labor Unions

Block Truman’s **Fair Deal**

Truman summary

Civil Rights and New Deal style Gov’t

Truman's Fair Deal - why it failed

conformity culture (homogenization)

Suburbs, buying culture, nuclear family

Beatniks (1950s)

Beat Generation, Artists, writers, musicians - rebel against consensus culture; celebrate spontaneous creativity 

Cold War **(1945-1991)**

A state of political hostility short of open warfare characterized by threats, propaganda, espionage, conflicting alliances, and __proxy (indirect) wars__

Satellite States

USSR protects border w/ buffer in E. Europe

German Occupation Zones

4 zones: France, US, GB, USSR

Iron Curtain

__**Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” Speech**__ **(1946)**

symbol of border between **East and West**

Containment

communism needed to be contained and isolated, or else it would spread to neighboring countries

Marshall Plan purpose

Give struggling Euro. countries $$$, so don’t turn to communism 

Marshall Plan effects

VERY successful! (for W. Europe & U.S.), build economies and stay w/democracy

Berlin Airlift (1948-1949)

* __Soviet blockade__ - hold W. Berlin hostage 


* __U.S. Response__ →  Airlift food/supplies to Berlin for 11 months!
* Stalin gives up, reopens Berlin 
* 1961 - East builds __**Berlin Wall**__ 

NATO

North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 1949

arms race

a competition between nations for superiority in the development and accumulation of weapons, especially between the US and the former Soviet Union during the Cold War

Decolonization (add from slide notes on “Third World”) 

Why "Containment" was less successful in Asia than Europe (Japan = exception)

Truman Administration's Policy on Two Chinas

Truman only recognizes Taiwan as the true Republic of China

Korean War

Armistice, Return to Pre-War 38th Parallel Divide, DMZ

Korean War political consequences

Truman/containment seen as too “soft on communism”

38th Parallel

divide between N. Korea and S. Korea

First Red Scare (1919-1920)

When workers began to strike, many people blamed communism. The government even deported people under the Sedition Act of 1918.

Second Red Scare (1947–1957)

With the spread of communism in Eastern Europe and China as well as the Korean War, people were scared that communism could infiltrate the United States

HUAC (1938)

House Un-American Activities Committee

created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyalty and rebel activities on the part of private citizens, public employees and organizations suspected of having Communist tie

Alger Hiss

American government official accused in 1948 of having spied for the Soviet Union in the 1930s

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

sold nuclear bomb plans to the Russians

Joseph McCarthy

Claims communist infiltration of state department

decolonization

__**“Third World”**__ = developing, newly indp. (__**decolonization)**__, non-aligned 

modern Republicanism (Eisenhower years)

fiscal conservative (balance budget), but moderate

* keep most New Deal programs


* tougher on communism

Brinkmanship

if push U.S.S.R. to “brink” of war, they will back down b/c we have more nuclear weapons → **Arms Race**

Massive retaliation (1952)

focus $ on Nuclear weapons → Hydrogen Bomb

Covert action in "3rd World" countries

Korean War, Vietnam War

Sputnik/Space Race (1957)

U.S.S.R. beat U.S. into space (first satellite to orbit earth)

U-2 Incident (1960)

USSR shot down a U.S. U-2 Spy plane - heightens tensions

Military-Industrial Complex

Military and industry feed off of Cold War,  Eisenhower’s warning - too powerful, too much $!

Desegregation of Federal Gov't and Armed Forces

1948, President Harry Truman signed Executive Order

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954)

Supreme Court ruled against segregation in public schools

Southern Resistance to Integration (especially ex. at Little Rock High School)

Little Rock 9

Montgomery Bus Boycott

1955-1956, protest against segregation of public transportation

SCLC (1957)

Southern Christian Leadership Conference, was led by Martin Luther King Jr.

Sit-in movement

1960s, protests segregated lunch counters

SNCC

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, 1960s, young Black college students conducted sit-ins around America to protest the segregation of restaurants

"Richmond 34" 

The Richmond 34 refers to a group of Virginia Union University students who participated in a nonviolent sit-in at the lunch counter of Thalhimers department store in downtown Richmond, Virginia. 

Bay of Pigs invasion

Cuba, 1961

The Bay of Pigs Invasion was a failed military landing operation on the southwestern coast of Cuba in 1961 by Cuban exiles, covertly financed and directed by the United States. It was aimed at overthrowing Fidel Castro's communist government

Cuban Missile Crisis

1962, Russia moves nuclear weapons to Cuba, closest we’ve ever been to nuclear war

JFK's New Frontier programs

minimum wage and expand social securtity


1. anti-communism abroad
2. Gov’t activism to fix social problems at home

JFK Assassination

(Dallas, 1963) by Lee Harvey Oswald

LBJ Great Society

**14th and 15th amendment, Higher Education Act of 1965, “War on Poverty”, medicare, food stamps, medicaid**

Immigration Act of 1965

part of Great Society, opening entry to the U.S. to immigrants other than Northwestern Europeans

Rachel Carson's *Silent Spring*

1962, the book documented the environmental harm caused by the indiscriminate use of pesticides, __**DDT**__

15th Amendment

**Voting Rights Act of 1965 (end literacy tests)**

**→ 24th Amendment (abolish fed. poll tax - 1964)**

Civil Rights Act of 1964

end segregation + EEOC end job discrimination by race, religion, sex, nat’l origin

freedom riders

Martin Luther King's Leadership in Civil Rights Movement

Letter from Birmingham Jail

March on Washington

March to Montgomery

Role of TV coverage in passing of Civil Rights legislation

Voting Rights Act of 1965

Malcom X

Black Power Movement

Stokely Carmichael

Black Panthers

1968 Riots and White Backlash (post-MLK Assassination)

Warren Court - (you don't need to know specific case names, but you should be able to __briefly__ summarize major achievements)

Loving v. Virginia (add from class notes - not in textbook!)

SDS & Free Speech Movement

Counterculture (Ex. Woodstock)

Sexual Revolution

The Women's Movement, (why did happen, what did it achieve)

Betty Friedan's *The Feminine Mystique*

NOW (National Organization for Women)

Title IX

ERA

Why ERA wasn’t ratified

Vietnam War (causes and effects)

Tonkin Gulf Resolution

Anti-Vietnam War movement

Tet Offensive (focus on impact at home in U.S.)

1968 Election and Richard Nixon’s

"law and order" campaign

Vietnamization

Kent State massacre

Pentagon Papers

Fall of Saigon

Détente

Nixon's Visit to China

SALT I

New Federalism

Stagflation

cultural pluralism

Southern strategy and "the silent majority"

Watergate Scandal

Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan

"Taxpayers' revolt"