Affluence and Its Anxieties

• Invention of transistor helped electronics field thrive

• Aerospace industries thrived with Boeing company making its first passenger, jet airplane, the 707

• “White collar” workers outnumbered “blue collars” in 1956, meaning that the industrial era was settling in

• Betty Friedman was the godfather of the godfather of the feminist movement

Consumer Culture in the Fifties

• The 1950s saw the first Diners club cards, opening of McDonald’s, the debut of Disneyland, and the explosion of TV stations

  • Advertisers used TV to sell products and sports shifted west

• Elvis Presley redefined popular music with him dying from drugs in 1977

• Traditionalists were shocked by Elvis’s open sexuality

• Marilyn Monroe continued with the redefinition of new sensuous sexuality

The Advent of Eisenhower

• Democrats nominated Stevenson while the Republicans nominated Eisenhower in the election of 1952

  • Eisenhower was a war hero and well-liked and Nixon, his running mate almost got caught with a secretly financed “slush fund” and gave “checkers speech” to save his political career

• “Checkers speech” showed power of TV as Eisenhower had pleaded on national TV

  • Eisenhower (“Ike”) won the presidential election 442-89 electoral votes which kept promise of settling armistice with Korea

The Rise and Fall of Joseph McCarthy

• McCarthy charged that there were scores of unknown communists in State Department in February of 1950

• Eisenhower secretly hated McCarthy

  • McCarthy attacked the army and exposed himself as a liar and drunk in 1954

Desegregating the South

• Blacks in South were boundy by Jim Crow laws that segregated all aspects of society

• Only 20% of eligible blacks could vote due to intimidation, discrimination, poll taxes, and other schemes

• Gunnar Myrdal, through his book, exposed hypocrisy of American life in 1944

• Sweatt v. Painter: supreme court ruled that separate professionals schools for blacks failed to meet the test of equality

Seeds of the Civil Rights Revolution

• Truman sought to improve black rights after hearing about the 1946 lynching of black soldiers

• 1945 case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas reversed ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson when Brown case said “separate but equal” facilities were inherently unequal

Eisenhower Republicanism at Home

• Eisenhower came into White House, promising a policy of “dynamic conservatism” which decreased government spending by decreasing military spending

• Eisenhower “cracked down” on illegal Mexican immigration and kept several New Deal programs

  • Eisenhower faced biggest peacetime deficit in U.S. history in 1959

A “New Look” at Foregin Policy

• Dulles said U.S. was going to push back communism and liberate people under “rollback”

• Ike tried to “thaw” Cold War by appealing to USSR for peace but his proposals were rejected

The Vietnam Nightmare

• US began to oppose Ho as he became communist

• French trapped at Dien Bien Phu in March 1954

• Ike’s aides wanted to bomb Viet Minh guerilla forces, but Ike held back

• After Vietnamese won at Dienbienphu, Vietnam was split at the 17th parallel

Cold War Crises in Europe and the Middle East

• USSR formed Warsaw Pact to counteract NATO in 1955

• CIA engineered a coup in Iran to protect oil supplies in Middle East in 1953

  • Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Iraq, and Venezuela came together to form cartel, Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)

Round Two for Ike

• Eisenhower ran and won against Stevenson in 1956

• GOP turned to the “party of peace”

• Sherman Adams was forced to leave under cloud of scandal due to bribery charges

• 1959 Landrum-Griffin Act was designed to bring labor leaders to book for financial shenanigans and prevent bullying tactics

• “Space race” began in 1957

The Continuing Cold War

• Humanity-minded/focused scientists called for an end to atmosphere nuclear testing

• Washington halted “dirty” testing in October of 1958

• Khrushchev was invited to America by Ike, for talk

  • Khrushchev came in angry at Paris conference due to U.S. flying spy planes over USSR

Cuba's Castroism Spells Communism

• Latin America hated that the U.S. gave billions to Europe and only millions to them and hated America’s constant intervention

• Fidel Castro overthrew U.S. supported Fulgencio in cuba in 1959

• Khrushchev threatened to launch missiles at the U.S. if it attacked Cuba

• Ike proposed a “Marshall Plan”

Kennedy Challenges Nixon for the Presidency

• Republicans nominated Nixon and the Democrats nominated Kennedy

  • Kennedy was attacked due to him being Catholic with him encouraging Catholics to vote for him

An Old General Fades Away

• Eisenhower was appreciated for ending a war and keeping the U.S. out of other wars

• The 22nd Amendment (1951) limited presidents to two terms

• Alaska and Hawaii became the 49th and 50th states to join the Union in 1959

The Life of the Mind in Postwar America

• New writers, who focused in realism were successful

  • Authors and books now explored problems created mobility and affluence of American life

• Books by black authors were Black Boy, Invisible Man, etc.

• Famous books by Jewish authors included J.D. Salinger’s, Catcher in the Rye