America topic 1

Why was there an increase in conformity post WW2? (3)

-those who experienced the depression craved economic success

-advertisements/common culture promoted similarity

-international tensions called for national unity

What percentage of American homes had a television by 1960?

90% (TV reached a greater audience)

Which TV shows promoted conformity?

I love Lucy

Father knows best

Which movies promoted challenge?

West side story

Rebel without a cause

Which movie was banned in all US military establishments?

Paths of glory

How did advertising grow between the 50s-60s?

1000%

How were teenagers more free?

-more financial power

-cars and fast food

What did a study reveal about teenagers’ sex lives?

95% had been active before 15

What did people think “corrupted” the youth? Why?

Comic books

Countered traditional family life

What did states do to comic books after thinking they were the cause for teenage delinquency?

13 states passed laws regulating their sale

Examples of teenage gangs? How big would they range from?

NY/Chicago slums

10-250

What’s an example of gang violence?

1955

40 gatecrashed a Chicago Uni dance

Stabbed one, threw bricks and beat up 10

Why did rock’n’roll skyrocket in popularity?

-own money=own records (instead of listening to parent’s music

-youth popularity added to group identity

Why did Elvis Presley appeal to the youth?

-rock’n’roll revolutionary

-suggestive dancing (Elvis the pelvis)

Why was rock’n’roll so controversial amongst parents?

-full of sexual longing

-feared black culture contaminating their children

Which record company was established during this period? (Showing music as a new mode of self-expression)

1959, black-owned Motown records

What characteristics would the beat generation embody?

-spontaneous

-took drugs

-free love

-defiant to authority and popular culture

What major ideological differences did the beat generation believe in?

-took interest in Asian religions

-opposed developments in the arms race against the Soviet union

To what did Kennedy increase the minimum wage to?

0.25- 1.25

Why did Kennedy’s government need to make social change?

-high unemployment (6.5%) and inflation

-elderly Americans lacked healthcare provision

-recession

What act did Kennedy do to kickstart urban renewal? When?

1961 omnibus housing act ($5 billion given)

Why did Kennedy’s bid to increase minimum wage fall short?

He was blocked from fully putting this into place affecting groups such as 150,000 African American laundry workers

How did JFK support those in poverty? (2)

-his food stamp programme fed 240,000

-supported Eisenhower’s school lunch programme

How did JFK create more jobs? How many?

1961 area redevelopment act

26,000

Why did JFK not completely live up to his promises of social change?

-low amount of meaningful legislation passed (maj. Rep. party in congress blocked proposals

How do we know JFK wasn’t successful in social change?

-unemployment conditions still bad

-health insurance/education aid acts weren’t passed

JFK’s 1963 equal pay act shortcomings?

Didn’t cover all women in work

Had no enforcement powers

+First president since Hoover who didn’t have a woman in his cabinet

Who introduced environmentalism?

Rachel Carson, silent spring 1962

What did JFK do in response to Carson’s ‘silent spring’?

Invited her for a press conference

Enacted the clean air act, 1963

What did the clean air act, 1963 aim to do despite heavy pushback from petrochemical industries?

Limit pollution emissions From cars/factories

First federal legislation regarding air pollution control

When was the peace corps created? What did it aim to do?

1961

Send Americans abroad to developing countries to teach and help

How do we know that the peace corps were successful amongst the Americans?

5000 signed up in the first 2 years

Went to 46 countries

How much did JFK request to be spent on the space race?

$7-9 billion

How much would it cost in total and to the average American to send a man to the moon?

$40 billion

$225/American

When did the USSR launch Sputnik? When did Eisenhower create NASA in response?

1957

1958

What space successes happened under JFK?

1961, 2 American astronauts travelled to space

1962, Glenn matched the USSR astronaut’s achievement in orbiting the Earth.

How much did taxpayers spend to educate a white student compared to a black student in 1950 South Carolina?

$179- white student

$43- black student

How many times (roughly) more were white schools in a South Carolina district worth compared to black ones?

3x more (even though there were 5x more black schools)

What year was brown vs board? Who won the case?

1954

NAACP

What did brown vs board achieve?

School integration beginning in 1953

However, was difficult to implement it and some schools (eg virginia) closed their schools rather than integrate them.

What happened to 14 year old Emmett Till?

Abducted, tortured and lynched in Mississippi in 1955

What did Emmett Till’s funeral do?

Open casket- exposed brutal reality of lynching (especially on a young, innocent boy)

Caused outrage

What year was Emmett Till murdered?

1955

What year was the Montgomery bus boycotts?

1955-6

Why did the bus boycotts launch?

Montgomery’s segregated buses and white driver behaviour.

In 1955 a black mother put her babies on the ‘white’ seats to pay and the driver accelerated and the babies fell to the floor.

When were Montgomery buses legally desegregated? Who won this victory?

1956

NAACP

What year did the Little Rock 9 start school?

1957

What was the name of the Arkansas governor that sent the armed soldiers at the Little Rock 9?

Faubus

How were the Little Rock 9 protected?

Eisenhower sent military protection for them and would escort them around school

What was the impact of the ‘Little Rock 9’ (being broadcasted and other impacts’?

-upsetting sights of cruel treatment towards children allowed people to see the emotional cost of racism

-proof that black students could learn with white children

When were the lunch counter sit ins?

1960-161

Why did the lunch counter sit ins happen?

The ‘greensboro 4’ began a sit in when they would not be served in Woolworth’s

How many students participated in the lunch counter sit in? How was it successful?

70,000

Since Woolworths was losing money, they desegregated their lunch counters in the south.

What did the lunch counter sit ins inspire?

The SNCC- a nonviolent student movement, giving the youth a voice in the struggle for equality

How did the 1960 sit ins change the civil rights movement?

Changed it from slow legal battles to widespread direct action that challenged racist laws

Why did the lunch counter sit ins work? (3)

-national media attention

-disrupted local economies

-disciplined nonviolence

What year was the Birmingham campaign?

1963

What method was used in the Birmingham campaign?

Nonviolent direct action led by MLK

Who participated in the Birmingham campaign 1963?

MLK

SNCC

SCLC (Christian)

Was the Birmingham campaign successful?

-did little to improve situation in Birmingham (no agreement made)

However

-publicity exposed southern bigotry, inspired black protests, helped persuade JFK to promote a bill that would end segregation int he south.

-showed power of mass demonstrations

What year was the march on Washington?

1963

Who joined in on the March on Washington? 1963

-NAACP

-SNCC

-MLK

250,000 well behaved marchers

Impacts of the march on Washington?

-contributed to the passage of the civil rights act 1964

-10% of schools, transport and cafeterias were integrated

Broadly, what did the KKK do?

Used violence to intimidate black protesters, voters and paraded through towns

What did the KKK do in response to the Montgomery bus boycotts?

-sent death treats and mob attacks to organisers

-sent 40 carloads of members

What did the KKK do in response to the Montgomery bus boycotts? When?

1956

Sent 40 carloads of hooded members to terrorise boycotters

When did the KKK bomb MLK’s house/hotel room?

1956/1963

When did the KKK bomb Birmingham church? What happened?

1963

Killed 4 girls

What did the KKK do in 1964 that led the president to send the FBI after them?

Murdered 3 civil rights workers

How many members did white citizens’ councils have at their peak? Who was their demographic?

-250,000

-doctors/lawyers/politicians

What did white citizens’ councils do? (3)

-issued racist propaganda

-sponsored white children’s’ schools

-economically threatened civil rights activists

Example of white citizens’ councils economically intimidating civil rights activists?

In Yahoo city, 53 black Americans signed a petition demanding desegregation of schools; 51/53 withdrew their names, 2/53 moved towns; all lost their jobs

When was the Albany campaign?

1962

What was the Albany campaign’s goal?

End segregation in public facilities

Push for voting rights

What was the response to the Albany campaign? (Arrests)

Laurie Pritchett (police chief) made 1000-1500 arrests and avoided aggressive police brutality (which would have caused media exposure)