US Unit 7

Yalta Conference

Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin agreed to divide Germany into four zones. Great Britain, United States, the Soviet Union, and France would each control one's own.

Iron Curtain Speech

On March 5th, 1946, in a speech delivered in Fulton Missouri, Winston Churchill referred to an “iron curtain” falling across Eastern Europe.

Containment Policy

a key aspect of American foreign policy during the Cold War, aimed at preventing the spread of communism, especially as led by the Soviet Union.

Truman Doctrine

Truman declared that the U.S. would support free peoples who are resisting subjugation by armed minorities or outside pressures, which was a clear reference to communist movements and Soviet influence.

Marshall Plan

provide economic aid to help Western European countries recover and to prevent the spread of communism by stabilizing their economies.

Berlin Airlift and Blockade

the Western Allies' response to the blockade. From June 1948 to May 1949, they flew supplies into West Berlin using cargo planes. Blockade was the Soviet Union's attempt to cut off all land and rail access to West Berlin from the rest of Western Europe.

NATO

North Atlantic Treaty Organization; Members agreed to come to the aid of any member that was attacked

China falls to Communism

Chinese Communist Party, led by Mao Zedong, defeating the Nationalist government in a civil war, and establishing the People’s Republic of China. The Communists won and took control of mainland China. The Nationalists retreated to Taiwan, where they continued to claim they were China’s legitimate government.

Korean War and Containment

an intense military conflict between communist North Korea (supported by the Soviet Union and China) and non-communist South Korea (backed by the U.S. and UN), which ended in a stalemate and the division of Korea.

HUAC

The House Un-American Activities Committee held public hearings on communist subversion to expose not just communists but also “communist sympathizers” and “fellow travelers.”

Taft-Hartley Act

a U.S. federal law that restricts the activities and powers of labor unions. Officially known as the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947

McCarthyism

Investigations became witch-hunts - searches for disloyalty based on weak evidence and irrational fears. Tactic of damaging reputations with vague, unfounded charges

The Hydrogen Bomb

Americans were shocked when the Soviets again successfully tested the much more powerful h-bomb, in 1953.

Bomb Shelters

To protect themselves, some families built backyard fallout shelters and stocked them with canned food. Many of these messages led Americans to believe they could survive a nuclear attack.

Massive Retaliation

a policy of threatening a massive response, including the use of nuclear weapons, against a Communist state trying to seize a peaceful state by force

Covert Operations

not openly shown or engaged in; secret by the CIA

Developing Nations

a nation whose economy is primarily agricultural CIA operations took place in

Sputnik and the Space Race

Soviets demonstrated technology by launching the first artificial satellite to orbit Earth. US launched Explorer I. Also made NASA.

U-2 Incident

Soviet Union shot down an American spy plane. Eisenhower refused to apologize, Khrushchev broke up the summit as a response.

Military-Industrial Complex

an informal relationship that some people believe exists between the military and the defense industry to promote greater military spending and influence government policy

Peacetime economy

how a country’s economy functions after a war ends, especially when it shifts from producing military goods to consumer goods and services. Worried about unemployment and a recession because military production had stopped just as millions of former soldiers needed work.

Fair Deal

to set it apart from the New Deal. While Congress did not fully support Truman's blank they raised the minimum wage to $0.75 an hour, increased Social Security benefits by over 35% and extended them to an additional 10 million people.

Eisenhower’s Economic Goals

ended government price and rent controls. Many conservatives view these as unnecessary federal regulations of the economy. By 1956 (when Eisenhower runs for a second term) the economy had transitioned back to a peacetime economy. As a conservative Republican, he aimed to balance economic prosperity with fiscal responsibility.

Interstate Highway System

allows people to live in the suburbs, further away from where they work.

Rise in spending on Consumer Goods

All income brackets had a rise in income. New business techniques and technology enabled the production of abundant goods and services. They dramatically raised the U.S. standard of living.

The Growth of Suburbs

The GI Bill and the government’s decision to give income tax deductions for mortgage and property tax payment made it attractive to buy. Inexpensive homes.

Levittown

the earliest of the mass-produced suburbs with hundreds of simple, similar-looking homes springing up 10 miles east of NYC.

GI Bill

Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 also boosted the economy. The act provided funds to help veterans establish businesses, buy homes, and attend college.

Baby Boom

a marked rise in birthrate, such as occurred in the United States following World War II

Jonas Salk

Developed an injectable polio vaccine, became public in1955

Television and I Love Lucy

Lucille Ball and her husband, Desi Arnaz, starred in one of the medium’s most popular shows ever. One episode attracted 44 million viewers.

Generation Gap

a cultural separation between parents and their children

Beat Movement: Jack Kerouac

A group of mostly white writers and artists. Made the book “On the Road” that his adventures with a car thief and con artists

Termination Policy

a government policy to bring Native Americans into mainstream society by withdrawing recognition of Native American groups as legal entities

Hollywood 10

When the House Un-American Activities Committee began investigating Hollywood for communism. 10 screenwriters known as the Hollywood Ten used their Fifth Amendment right to protect themselves from self-incrimination and refused to testify.  The incident  lead producers to Blacklist, or agree not to hire, anyone who is believed to be a communist or if you refuse to cooperate with the committee.

In the 1950s, both America’s domestic and foreign policies focused on winning the Cold War.

Domestic Policy like the Hollywood blacklist and the GI Bill. Foreign Policy like the containment strategy of using the Truman Doctrine and the Eisenhower Doctrine, Economic aid like the Marshall Plan, and military alliances like forming NATO to help fight in the Korean War.

America’s fear of the spread of communism led to the policy of containment, gaining allies, and new technologies for the arms and space races.

Containment Policy prevents communism from spreading like the Truman Doctrine. Gaining allies like forming NATO. Arms and Space race by competing with the USSR in building nuclear weapons and advancing space technology like Sputnik and NASA.

After WWII the American economy became focused on the consumer, leading to new inventions, migration to the suburbs, and for many, a time of prosperity.

The GI Bill helps veterans and people were spending a lot of money due to higher wages. Levittown helped people get low interest houses and overall cheap houses. It showed that prosperity was spreading.