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Levittown

Low-cost, mass-produced developments of suburban tract housing built by William Levitt after World War II on Long Island in New York and elsewhere.

interstate highway system

National network of interstate superhighways; its construction began in the late 1950s for the purpose of commerce and defense. The interstate highways would enable the rapid movement of military convoys and the evacuation of cities after a nuclear attack.

baby boom

Markedly higher birthrate in the years following World War II; led to the biggest demographic "bubble" in American history.

urban renewal

A series of policies supported by all levels of government that allowed local governments and housing authorities to demolish so-called blighted areas in urban centers to replace them with more valuable real estate usually reserved for white people.

Indian Urban Relocation Program

This federal program during the 1950s and 1960s encouraged Indians to move from reservation lands to cities for better economic opportunity. Although the program was ended after facing criticism for moving Indians from rural poverty to urban poverty, Indian urbanization continued.

"In God We Trust"

Phrase placed on all new U.S. currency as of 1954.

Sputnik

First artificial satellite to orbit the earth; launched October 4, 1957, by the Soviet Union.

National Defense Education Act

1958 law passed in reaction to America's perceived inferiority in the space race; encouraged education in science and modern languages through student loans, university research grants, and aid to public schools.

social contract

Agreement hammered out between labor and management in leading industries; called a new "social contract." Unions signed long-term agreements that left decisions regarding capital investment, plant location, and output in management's hands, and they agreed to try to prevent unauthorized "wildcat" strikes.

massive retaliation

Strategy that used the threat of nuclear warfare as a means of combating the global spread of communism.

Bandung Conference

A 1955 meeting of leaders from twenty-nine Asian and African nations that signaled the new visibility of the "third world," those nations allied with neither of the two Cold War superpowers, who desired to find their own model of economic development.

Geneva Accords

A 1954 document that had promised elections to unify Vietnam and established the Seventeenth Parallel demarcation line that divided North and South Vietnam.

the Beats

A term coined by Jack Kerouac for a small group of poets and writers who railed against 1950s' mainstream culture.

League of United Latin American Citizens

Often called LULAC, an organization that challenged restrictive housing, employment discrimination, and other inequalities faced by Latino Americans.

Brown v. Board of Education

1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down racial segregation in public education and declared "separate but equal" unconstitutional.

Montgomery bus boycott

Sparked by Rosa Parks's arrest on December 1, 1955, for refusing to surrender her seat to a white passenger, a successful yearlong boycott protesting segregation on city buses; led by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

Civil rights organization founded in 1957 by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders.

Southern Manifesto

A document written in 1956 that repudiated the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education and supported the campaign against racial integration in public places.

military-industrial complex

The concept of "an immense military establishment" combined with a "permanent arms industry," which President Eisenhower warned against in his 1961 Farewell Address.