Test 8

Test 8 - 

CHAPTER 27

Containing Japan:

• After Pearl Harbor, Japanese attacked American airfields in Manila, the US in Guam, Hong Kong, Singapore (British), Dutch East Indies, Burma

• May 6, 1942 → Philippines fell to Japan (US troops there)

• Offensive under General Douglas MacArthur - move north from Australia to New Guinea to Philippines (retake)

• Offensive under Admiral Chester Nimitz - move west from Hawaii towards Japanese outposts

• Two offensives would meet to invade Japan

• May 7-8, 1942 → Battle of Coral Sea - US forces turned back Japanese fleet north of Australia

• June 3-6, 1942 → Battle of Midway - US took control of central Pacific despite great losses

• August, 1942 → US assaulted islands in New Guinea and Japanese forces had to leave (huge, savage struggle in Guadalcanal)

Holding Off the Germans:

• US had less control over operations in west

• Army chief of staff General George Marshall, wanted Allies to invade France in Spring of 1943

• Soviet Union wanted to invade at earliest moment because they were facing the most German force

• British wanted to launch a series of offensives on edges of Nazi empire in northern Africa/Southern Europe before invading

• FDR supported British plan because invasion would take a long time to prepare

• October, 1942 → British, under General Bernard Montgomery, opened counter offensive against Nazis in North Africa

• Threatened Suez canal - Germans retreated to Egypt

• British/American forces attacked Algeria, Morocco

• May 1943 → US offensive drove Germans out of Africa

• General Bernard Montgomery (the hero of El Alamein) led British air/naval attacks in Africa

• Africa campaign used a lot of resources and delayed planned May 1943 invasion

• Angered Soviet Union

• Winter 1942-43 → Red Army held off major German attack of Stalingrad in southern Russia

• Hitler put too many resources into offensive so loss meant he couldn’t continue eastern offensive

• Siege of Stalingrad resulted in decimation of civilian population

• USSR had most losses overall in war

• Soviet victory persuaded FDR to meet with Churchill at Casablanca in January, 1943 - agreed to invade Sicily

• Hoped to eliminate Italy from war to make invasion of France easier

• July 9, 1943 → US/British forces invaded Sicily, took Sicily, and moved to Italian mainland

• Mussolini’s government collapsed - fled to Germany

• Successor, Pietro Badglio, committed Italy to the Allies

• Germany defended Italy in northern region

• June 4, 1944 → Allies captured Rome

• Postponed invasion of France by a year

• Soviet Union thought that Allies were postponing invasion on purpose to allow Russions to do most fighting

• Gave USSR time to move towards eastern European nations

America and the Holocaust:

• 1942 → officials in Washington had evidence of Holocaust

• Public pressures for Allied effort

• Government said no - said it was militarily unfeasible

• Wouldn’t let in Jewish refugees into the country

• 1939 → German passenger liner, St. Louis, arrived off Miami with escaped Jews - refused entry and forced back to Europe

• 40% of quota remained untouched during the war

• State Department didn’t want more Jews in the US (Assistant Secretary Breckinridge Long - antisemite)

• Britain also did little to help Jews

• Policymakers argued that most actions would have little effect - better to put energy into defeating Germany

Prosperity:

• 1941 → no more depression

• Federal spending increased more than New Deal after 1939 gross - gross national product soared

• Demand for wartime production created shortage of consumer goods - savings- kept economic boom alive later

The War and the West:

• Helped western economy

• West coast became launching point for naval attacks in Pacific

• Large manufacturing facilities in California

• Government invested most in the west, especially the Pacific Coast

• By end of the war, west coast became center of aircraft industry and shipbuilding industry

• LA became major industrial center

Labor and the War:

• Labor shortage since the armed forces took workers and demand for labor was also already rising

• Civilian workforce increased because those who had been unemployed during depression entered workforce

• Very young, elderly, women employed

• Boost to union membership

• Government wanted to prevent inflation and keep production moving - unions couldn't fight for many demands

• Little steel formula - 15% limit on wartime wage increases

• No strike pledge - unions agreed not to stop production in wartime

• Maintenance of membership in return, new workers would be automatically enrolled in unions

• Many union workers resented restrictions - stoppages despite no strike pledge

• Mostly wildcat strikes - authorized by union leadership

• May, 1943 → United Mine Workers went on strike

• Congress passed Smith-Connally Act (War Labor Disputes Act) - required unions to wait 30 days before striking and empowered the president to seize a struck work plant (FDR tried to veto but failed)

• Public animosity towards labor rose

Stabilizing the Boom:

• Fear of inflation

• October, 1942 → Anti-Inflation Act - gave administration authority to freeze agricultural prices, wages, salaries, and rents

• Enforced by Office of Price Administration led by Leon Henderson and then Chester Bowles

• Successful but not popular - too controlling (rations)

• Caused growth of black market and overcharging

• Federal government spent huge sums of money

• National debt skyrocketed

• Government borrows half of needed revenues by selling bonds to citizens but mostly to financial institutions

• Revenue Act of 1942 - needed revenue through income tax by establishing a 94% rate for highest bracket and some taxes on lowest income families as well

• 1943 → Congress enacted a withholding system of payroll deductions to simplify collection

Mobilizing Production:

• January, 1942 → FDR created War Production Board after failure of other mobilization efforts - directed by Donald Nelson, “superangency” with broad powers over economy (never had as much authority as War Industry Board)

• Often circumvented by military when making contracts with producers

• Couldn’t control that most deals small businesses wanted went to corporations

• FDR transferred most power to office of War Mobilization in White House - directed by James Byrnes, former Supreme Court justice and South Carolina senator

• War economy met most war needs despite struggles

• Defensive Plants Corporation - federal government funded factory construction 

• Loss of access to rubber in Pacific - new industry to create synthetic rubber

Wartime Science and Technology:

• Government poured a lot of money into research/development

• 1940 → established National Defense Research Committee headed by Vannevar Bush (helped create computers)

• Most technological advances were in Germany/Japan beginning of war

• Submarine technology - u boats (German)

• Japan - fighter planes

• US - mass production (used assembly line)

• Improved submarines and tanks

• 1942 → Allies’ tech caught up to Axis’ tech

• Allies improved radar/sonar to stop u boats (effective)

• Centimetric radar - helped to detect u boats

• Germany made advancements in rockets (launched at London)

• US/Britain developed four engine bombers

• Used GEE navigation system - plot exact location

• Britain’s Ultra project - decoded Germany’s Enigma machine codes

• British built Colossus II - computer to decode German messages

• American Magic - (same as Ultra)

African Americans and the War:

• Thought they could make demands for social reform if they enlisted

• 1941 → A Philip Randolph (head of Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters) asked for government to require companies receiving defense contracts to integrate their workforces

• March on Washington - FDR persuaded Randolph to cancel if he established fair employment practices commission

• Fair Employment Practices Commission - investigate discrimination in war industries

• No very effective but symbolic victory

• Blacks continued to move to industrial cities

• Better economic conditions

• Racial tensions

• Summer 1943 → fight in Detroit park between whites and blacks led to two days of killing

• 1942 → Congress of Racial Equality - challenged discrimination

• By end of war, more black enrollment because of political pressure and lack of manpower

• Partially integrated

• Some racial riots

Native Americans and the War:

• Many served in combat

• Code talkers - spoke their own languages over the radio/telephone in military communications (no one else spoke it)

• Many left reservations for work

• Close contact with white society - taste for capitalism gained

• Many couldn’t get a job - went back to reservations

• New pressures to assimilate/end reservation system

• Undermined Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, which restored tribal land essentially reversing the Dawes Act of 1887

Mexican American War Workers:

• Entered US in response to labor shortage on the West Coast

• 1942 → braceros (contract laborers) would be admitted to the US for a limited time to work at specific jobs

• American employers in the southwest recruited Mexican workers

• Mexican workers found significant factory jobs for first time ever

• Migrated to cities (racial conflicts)

• Mexican teens in pachucos (street gangs) in LA, wore zoot suits (suits with padded shoulders, baggy pants, ducktail hairstyles)

• 1943 → zoot suit riots - 4 days of riots in LA where white sailors at a base in Long Beach invaded Mexican communities and attacked zoot suiters

• Tore off clothes and cut ducktails, police only intervened after Mexicans fought back

• LA banned zoot suits

Women and Children at War:

• Women in workforce increased

• Wage-earning women more likely to be married and older than earlier

• Factory owners still categorized jobs by gender and race

• Invested in assembly line so they wouldn’t need labor

• Women began to take “men’s jobs”

• Rosie the Riveter

• Most women employed in service-sector jobs or worked for the government

• Latchkey children - left home alone because father was at war and mother had to work

• Juvenile crime rose, many children worked, high school enrollments decreased

• Divorce rate and birth rate rose 

Wartime Life and Culture:

• Increase in money for consumers

• Went to movies, read magazines (Life), radio, dance halls

• Men at war often fought for comforts at home

• USO - brought women and American pop culture to soldiers abroad

The Internment of Japanese Americans:

• Little effort to censor dissident publications

• Little hostility towards German/Italian Americans -  governments’ fault, not people’s

• Blurry ethnic lines

• Believed Japanese were cruel and acted hostile towards them; Japanese were considered alien and lived in secluded communities

• Government thought Japanese Americans were conspiring against them

• February 1942 → FDR authorized military to intern Japanese Americans and created the War Relocation AUthority to oversee the project

• Taken to relocation centers

• 1943 → conditions improved so some Japanese could leave to go to college or to get jobs (in east because not allowed on the west coast)

• 1944 → Korematsu v. US - military necessity made forced relocation okay

• 1944 → most internees were released

• 1945 → could return to west coast

• 1988 → Civil Liberties Act-Congress voted to give reparations but compensation was limited

Chinese Americans and the War:

• Alliance with China enhanced status of Chinese Americans

• 1943 → Chinese Exclusion Act repealed

• Permanent residents in US could finally become citizens

• Racial animosity declined due to propaganda and because Chinese started taking factory jobs - no longer isolated

The Retreat from Reform:

• Victory in war now more important than new deal reform

• Liberals could not enact new programs as conservatives gained power when war started

• Conservatives used war as an excuse to dismantle new deal - CCC and WPA abolished

• Midterms of 1942 - conservatives (Republicans) gained many seats

• Election of 1944 - Republican Thomas Dewey v. Democrat FDR, FDR was very ill (made speeches proving vigor), won election

The Liberation of France:

• Allies’ bombing of Germany - stopped industrial production/transportation, also killed many civilians

• June 6, 1944 → D-Day: Allies invade France through Normandy

• August 25, 1944 → Paris liberated

• Battle of the Bulge - Germany’s final attempt to regain ground (failed)

• Spring, 1945 → Allies invaded Germany

• April 30, 1945 → Hitler killed himself

• May 8, 1945 → VE Day - Germany surrendered

The Pacific Offensive:

• Summer 1944 → Japan was losing

• Admiral Joseph Stilwell sent supplies to China through India and across Himalayas - Burma Road

• Japan threatened wartime capital of China - Chungking

• Chinese premier, Chiang, would only fight Chinese communists, not Japanese

• Feud between Stilwell and Chiang - Stilwell left China

• Battle of Leyte Gulf - largest naval engagement in history, most of Japan’s navy destroyed

• Battle for Okinawa - Japanese would not give up - atomic bomb

• Japan used kamikaze, suicide flighter pilots

• European Hirohito appointed new moderate premier to sue for peace but military leaders wanted war

The Manhattan Project:

• 1939 → news that Germans were making an atomic bomb

• Allies raced to make it before Germans could

• Einstein warned US about Germany

• Atomic bomb possible because Enrico Fermi discovered that uranium was radioactive in Italy during the 1930s - also achieved first fission chain reaction in 1942

• July 16, 1945 → first atomic explosion (Trinity Bomb)

Atomic Warfare:

• President Truman heard of bomb in Potsdam - issued ultimatum to Japan:

  • Surrender by August 5 or get bombed

  • Japan refused (although moderates tried to negotiate)

• August 6, 1945 → US bombed Hiroshima

• Japanese government could not agree on a response

• August 8, 1945 → Soviet Union declared war on Japan

• August 9, 1945 → US bombed Nagasaki

• August 14, 1945 → emperor intervened and Japan surrendered

• September 2, 1945 → Japan signed articles of surrender on the American battleship Missouri

 CHAPTER 28

Sources of Soviet-American Tension:

• US wanted nations to abandon military alliances and spheres of influence and govern relationships through democratic process with international organization as arbiter (self-determination in Atlantic Charter)

• USSR and Britain wanted powers to control areas of interest

Wartime Diplomacy:

• Tehran Conference - FDR and Stalin established a cordial personal relationship, Stalin agreed to enter Pacific war after Europe war ended and FDR agreed to create a second Anglo-American front within 6 months

• US/Britain supported exiled Polish government

• Stalin supported a communist Polish regime

• Issue left unresolved at Tehran Conference

Yalta:

• February, 1945 → peace conference in Yalta with big 3

• If USSR joined Pacific war, they would get back some territory they lost in the Russo-Japanese war

• Created UN charter - general assembly and security council (5 powers)

• Stalin imposed communist “Lublin” regime in Poland but US/Britain, still wanted London regime

• Stalin allowed some London-Poles to hold office and later democratic elections (50 years later)

• FDR wanted to reunite Germany

• Stalin wanted reparations and to keep Germany dismembered

• US, Britain, France, USSR would each control their own zones of occupation in Germany

• Vague and unstable

• April 12, 1945 → FDR had stroke and died

The Failure of Potsdam:

• Truman was more tough on the Soviet Union - chastised USSR for violating Yalta

• Didn’t get much of what he wanted

• Recognized Warsaw government after only a few small changes

• July, 1946 → met at Potsdam

• Refused Stalin’s demand for reparations form western Germany - confirmed that Germany would stay divided

The China Problem:

• Chaing Kaishek government was friendly to US but corrupt and unpopular

• Nationalist government v. communists led by Mao Zedong (popular)

• Truman continued to support Chiang

• Sent General George Marshall to study Chinese and recommend foreign policy

• China Lobby (American friends in China) pressured Marshall to expand American military presence to combat communists

• Marshall believed war was needed to stop communists - didn’t want US to go to war

• Shifted focus to reviving Japan

• Lifted strict occupation policies

• Encouraged industrialization/economic growth

The Containment Doctrine:

• Containment - stop spread of USSR

• USSR trying to take Turkey and Greece (Mediterranean sea trade)

• Truman Doctrine - provide assistance to nations threatened by USSR

• Inspired by George Kennan

The Marshall Plan:

• Secretary of State George Marshall

• Plan to provide economic assistance to all European nations if they would help to draft a recovery program

• Russia satellites rejected plan but 16 western European countries participated

• February, 1948 → coup in Czechoslovakia for Soviet regime

• Eliminated opposition to plan in US

• April, 1948 → Congress established the Economic Cooperation Administration - administer Marshall Plan

• Channeled funds into Europe - caused economic revival by 1950

Mobilizing at Home:

• 1948 → new military draft and revival of Selective Service System

• More atomic research

• 1946 → Atomic Energy Commission established - oversees nuclear research

• 1950 → development of hydrogen bomb approved

• 1947 → National Security Act - created Department of Defense to oversee all branches of armed services and National Security Council to oversee foreign and military policy and Central Intelligence Agency to collect information

The Road to NATO:

• Truman wanted to reconstruct Germany

• Convinced Britain and France to merge 3 western zones of occupation into West German Republic

• June 24, 1948 → Stalin responded by imposing tight blockade around western Berlin (in East German Zone)

• Truman ordered airlift to Berlin

• 1949 → Stalin lifted blockade because it was ineffective

• October, 1949 → official division of Germany into Federal Republic (west) and Democratic Republic (east)

• April 4, 1949 → 12 nations established North Atlantic Treaty Organization

• Armed attack against one NATO member was an attack against all

• NATO countries maintained a standing military force in Europe

• 1955 → USSR responded with Warsaw Pact (their version of NATO)

Reevaluating Cold War Policy:

• September, 1949 → USSR announced that they successfully exploded their first atomic weapon

• Chiang Kai-Shek’s nationalist government fell just after

• Fled to Taiwan (island of Formosa)

• 1952 → US ended occupation in Japan to try and revitalize it as a buffer against Asian communism

• 1950 → National Security Council report NSC-68 issued to review foreign policy - US must establish firm leadership in noncommunist world (Truman Doctrine gave nations too much decision making power) and stop communist expansion no matter strategic/economic value of lands (expand US defense/military budget)

The Conservative Opposition to Containment:

• Many on the left wanted to make peace with USSR instead of practicing containment

• Conservatives saw containment as appeasement

• John Birch Society - led by Robert Welch - wrote The Blue Book of the John Birch Society where he argued that many US politicians committed treason (work with Soviets)

• Republican platform 1952 - anti containment

• Called for rollback of communism but Eisenhower was pro-containment and continued it anyways

• Rollback was proposed mainly by John Foster Dulles, the Secretary of State for the Eisenhower Administration

The Divided Peninsula:

• US and USSR sent troops into Korea to weaken Japanese occupation after WWII

• Expelled Japanese

• USSR supported communist northern government while US supported pro-western southern government

• Divided along 38th parallel

• US and USSR left in 1949

• North had a strong military, south was led by Syngman Rhee (only nominally democratic) and had a small military

• Nationalists in north wanted to unite country because of south’s weak military, invaded south in 1950

• June 27, 1950 → Truman appealed to UN to intervene (Soviet Union was boycotting the security council at the time)

• Won agreement to resolve calling for international assistance to Rhee

• June 30, 1950 → US sent forces into Korea under General Douglas MacArthur

• Not just containment but also liberation - followed communists into north

From Invasion to Stalemate:

• China intervened because US invaded north

• US offensive collapsed

• UN forces pushed back and war fell into a stalemate

• Truman didn’t want direct conflict with China, wanted to negotiate because he feared a WWIII

• General MacArthur wanted to attack China (more popular support)

• Martin Letter - ca

CHAPTER 29

The Problems of Reconversion

• After WWII was over, the United States and its citizens faced challenges adjusting back to a peacetime economy.

• Increased consumer demand, as people were spending the money they had saved during the war, prevented an economic collapse after the abrupt ending to the war.

• Servicemen's Readjustment Act/GI Bill of Rights provided economic and educational assistance to veterans.

• Major strikes after the war, the biggest was the United Mine Workers strike led by John L. Lewis

  • Truman used force to break up strikes-threatened to seize control of the mines and the railroads following strikes

• Many minorities and women left the workplace after WWII to make room for returning veterans

  • Women moved to the service sector

The Fair Deal Rejected

• Truman’s domestic program was known as the Fair Deal: called for expanding Social Security, raising the minimum wage, increasing government spending, clearing slums, conservation, scientific research, and a permanent version of the Fair Employment Practices Act

• Later on, he added proposals for national health insurance and atomic energy

• Fair Deal programs fell under criticism by conservatives, refused to appropriate funds for the programs and won control of the House in 1946.

• Taft-Hartley Act-Made the closed shop (required union participation for employment) illegal and allowed states to pass “right-to-work” laws which weakened unions.

  • Particularly weakened unions in the South and in less developed industries.

The Election of 1948

• Truman believed that the public wasn’t ready to abandon the New Deal, everyone else thought Truman had no chance of winning

• Truman was also extremely unpopular with the public

• Two factions emerged within the Democratic Party after Truman was nominated: Dixiecrats (Southerners who opposed Truman’s support for civil rights) nominated Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and the Progressive Party nominated Henry A. Wallace.

• Americans for Democratic Action (ADA)-a liberal coalition that tried to entice Eisenhower

• Republicans nominated Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York again.

• Polls showed Dewey had a massive lead, but Truman’s campaign targeting the “do-nothing, good-for-nothing” Republican Congress allowed him to win

  • Recreated FDR’s coalition

The Fair Deal Revived

• Congress raised the minimum wage, expanded Social Security, and passed the National Housing Act of 1949 but otherwise rejected the Fair Deal.

• Congress failed to approve of Truman’s proposed civil rights legislation-would have made lynching a federal rime, protected black voting rights, established the poll tax, and created a Fair Employment Practices Commission.

• Shelley v. Kramer-Courts can’t prevent African Americans from settling in certain residential areas.

The Nuclear Age

• ⅔ of Americans believed that atomic energy would ultimately be a net positive.

• Film noir- a style of film with dark lighting that captured the American people’s fears over nuclear weapons.

• Fallout shelters and nuclear drills emerged across the country

Sources of Economic Growth

• From 1945 to 1960, GNP increased from 200 billion to 500 billion, unemployment and inflation remained low.

• Government spending continued to stimulate growth, which was at its peak during the first half of the 1950s due to the Korean War.

• The Baby Boom occurred during the 1950s, and the population grew 20% in the decade.

• Creation of a national highway system and the growing popularity of cars led to the rise of suburbs.

• Americans had the highest standard of living of any society in history

The Rise of the Modern West

• West benefited the most from government spending

• Before WWII had primarily been a producer of raw materials, but now industrial and cultural centers were emerging in the West as well.

• Factory contracts flowed disproportionately to California and Texas, led to the rise of metropolitan centers in Houston, Dallas, and Los Angeles

• California and Texas college systems received plenty of funding and became some of the biggest and best in the country.

• More than 10 percent of all new businesses in the US between 1945 and 1950 were founded in LA.

The New Economics

• During the depression many regular and academic people in America questioned the viability of capitalism, but that disappeared after WWII.

• John Maynard Keynes argued that the flow of government spending and taxation (fiscal policy) and managing the supply of currency (monetary policy) could be regulated by the government to stimulate growth or limit inflation.

• Belief that poverty could be ended by economic growth, thus increasing the quality of life for the poor without redistributing wealth.

Capital and Labor

• Over 4,000 corporate mergers and acquisitions took place

• Government awarded military contracts to a couple of large corporations in an industry

• Mechanization of industry made the single family farm unviable for most individuals.

• Corporations didn’t want strikes to interfere with their operations, so they made concessions to laborers in exchange for a refusal to strike

  • For example, Walter Reuther, president of the United Automobile Workers secured an escalator clause which automatically raised the wages of his employees based on the Consumer Price Index

• The relationship between workers and management became known as the “Postwar Contract”, which decreased the frequency of strikes.

• After being at odds with each other for 20 years the AFL and CIO merged to create the AFL-CIO under the leadership of George Meany.

• Union success led to corruption especially in the case of the Teamsters Union with David Beck and Jimmy Hoffa

• Laborers with existing unions made progress during this period, but there was very little progress for unorganized workers.

Medical Breakthroughs

• Antibiotics were first devised by Louis Pasteur and Jules-Francois Joubert in the 1870s and Joseph Lister used the concept to create antiseptics for surgeries.

• Sulfonamide and penicillin were created, both of which made bacterial infections extremely treatable.

• Edward Jenner created the smallpox vaccine, 

• Tuberculosis vaccine created in the 1920s

• Eventually progress was made in creating attenuated (weakened) strains of viruses leading to the creation of a Polio vaccine by Jonas Salk and an oral vaccine by Abert Sabin

• These medical developments dramatically increased life expectancy in the West.

Pesticides

• Scientists wanted to devise a way to protect crops from insects and stop the spread of diseases like malaria.

• Most famous pesticide was DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane), which was invented by a Swiss chemist named Paul Muller, and was found to be very harmful to insects and harmless in humans.

• DDT was used to limit the incidence of malaria in the Pacific theater during WWII

• Only later was it discovered that DDT had harmful impacts on humans and animals.

Postwar Electronic Research

• During the 40s and 50s the first commercially viable TVs were created

• In 1948 Bell Labs, run by AT&T, created the first transistor, which can amplify electrical signals, and allowed for the miniaturization of many devices and the integrated circuit.

• The transistor also helped to advance the development of the computer

Postwar Computer Technology

• The 1950s were the first time that computers were being used for commercial purposes and data-processing.

• The Universal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC) was developed for the US Census by the Remington Rand Company and it was the first computer that was able to easily handle both numerical and alphabetical information.

  • During the 1952 election the UNIVAC was used to predict the results of the election by a CBS broadcast, which exposed many Americans to the computer for the first time.

• Remington Rand had limited success, but the International Business Machines Company (IBM) was able to find a wide market for them.

Bombs, Rockets, and Missiles

• In 1952 the US detonated the first hydrogen bomb, which was much larger than the earlier atomic bombs and relied on fusion instead of fission.

• The development of the H-bomb fueled a competition between Soviet and American scientists to develop more powerful missiles with longer ranges.

• US benefited from the emigration of top scientists from Germany to the US

• Led to the creation of Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles.

  • Scientists were able to replace the volatile liquid fuel with solid fuel

  • Minutemen were land based missiles and became the main component of the US nuclear arsenal

  • Polaris was the model of ICBMs that could be launched from submarines.

The Space Program

• In 1957 the Soviet Union launched the first Earth orbiting satellite, Sputnik, into outer space.

• The US hadn’t achieved anything similar, and as a result, the public and government reacted to the development with panic.

  • In response federal funding was directed to efforts to improve scientific research and education in the United States (National Defense Education Act)

• America’s first satellite, Explorer 1, was launched in January of 1958

• In 1958 the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was created, with its first initiative, the Mercury Project, designed to launch an astronaut into orbit,

• The Soviet Union was the first to achieve this goal however with Yuri Gagarin’s orbit, and John Glenn ultimately matched the feat on 2/2/1962.

• On July 20, 1969 Micheal Collins, Neil Armstrong, and Buzz Aldrin were part of the mission to land on the surface of the moon.

• The space shuttle was created to make this process easier and was mostly successful, outside of the 1986 Challenger explosion.

The Consumer Culture

• Consumers bought new products such as dishwashers, garbage disposals, stereos, and TVs, all of which boosted the economy and individual industries.

• There were many consumer crazes, for example the exploding popularity of the hula hoop and Mickey Mouse branded merchandise

The Landscape and the Automobile

• Success of many companies depended on the ability of the American consumer to drive wherever they wanted to go

• The Federal Highway Act of 1956 appropriated $25 billion for highway construction, leading to the construction of 40,000 miles of roads.

• Highways dramatically decreased travel times and caused the decline of the railroads.

• Highways also encouraged the movement of industry and residences out of the cities into the suburbs, resulting in the growth of “edge cities”.

• Motels emerged along the new highways, starting with the Holiday Inn

The Suburban Nation

• During the 1950s the cost of living in the suburbs decreased significantly with the creation of Levittowns, the first of which was in Long Island, which featured several thousand identical two-bedroom Cape Cod style houses.

  • These houses commonly could be purchased for less than $10,000, so young couples most of them newly married veterans moved into the suburbs

• People moved to the suburbs because of the emphasis that was placed on family life after the disruptive war and because they wanted to live in a community with similar families.

• Women valued the presence of other mothers.

• People also moved to the suburbs to get away from African Americans in the cities, as very few African Americans could afford to live in the suburbs.

The Suburban Family

• For men, suburban life was accompanied by a rigid divide between work and home life

• For married women, suburban life brought increased isolation from the workplace and the rise of suburbs was accompanied by increased resistance to women working.

• Dr. Benjamin Spock published his book Baby and Child Care in 1946, which stated that the correct approach to raising a child was child-centered. He believed the purpose of motherhood was to help children learn and grow, and that those goals should be prioritized before the mother’s own requirements.

• However, many middle class families needed a second source of income to maintain their standard of living, so the amount of women working post WWII increased.

The Birth of Television

• In 1946 there were 17,000 TV sets, but by 1957 there were 40 million in use.

• Three major broadcasting channels (were radio companies before): the National Broadcasting Company, the Columbia Broadcasting System, and the American Broadcasting Company.   

• By the late 1950s TV had replaced newspapers, magazines, and radios as the preeminent source of media and information.

• Most of the TV shows reflected the white, middle-class, and suburban lifestyle

  • Some of these shows included Ozzie and Harriet and Leave It to Beaver

  • Reinforced the existing gender roles in society

• Some shows like The Honeymooners and I Love Lucy showed the lives of the working class

• TV contributed to the homogeneity of society, but it also heightened the sense of alienation and powerlessness that minorities felt.

Travel, Outdoor Recreation, and Environmentalism

• Not until after WWII was the idea of a vacation and time off commonplace in middle-class America

  • Made possible by the increased wages and popularity of the car

• National parks underwent a surge in attendance.

• Echo Park was a national park in the Dinosaur National Monument, between Utah and Colorado, but the federal government wanted to build a dam across the Green River in the park.

• Similar to the Hetch Hetchy Controversy, many conservationists petitioned against the dam and caused Congress to block the construction of the dam.

• During the Echo Park debate the Sierra Club was reborn, with a new leader in David Brower.

• Echo Park served as the impetus for the burgeoning conservation movement

Organized Society and Its Detractors

• In the 1950s white-collar workers came to outnumber blue-collar workers for the 1st time

• Most Americans became convinced the key to success lied in acquiring specialized training and the skills necessary to work in large organizations

• Educational system changed after the launch of Sputnik to prioritize science, mathematics, and foreign language, skills considered requisite for the development of specialized professionals.

• Idea of the “multiversity”, with a multitude of different specialists, emerged first at the UC Berkeley.

• William H. Whyte Jr. published his book The Organization Man in 1956, which claimed that self-reliance was losing importance to the ability to “get along” as the most valued trait in the modern individual.

• Novels such as the Catcher in the Rye portrayed the inability of people to fit in in society

The Beats and the Restless Culture of Youth 

• Beats-a group of young poets, writers, and artists who were critics of middle-class society.

• Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl!” captured this sentiment

• Jack Kerouac’s story On the Road, an account of a cross-country road trip, depicted the rootless, iconoclastic lifestyle of the beats.

• The beats emerged as a result of the declining influence of the traditional American values of thrift, discipline, and self restraint.

• Scholarly studies, presidential commissions, and journalists convinced Americans that youth crime was increasing substantially, but in reality there was little change.

• The leading figure of the beats was James Dean, a popular actor, but he died in a car crash at age 24

Rock ’N’ Roll

• Elvis Pressley was the most popular musician in the 1950s and he was a symbol for the youthful determination to push the conventions of society.

• Early rock and roll music drew from black rhythm and blues traditions.

  • Sam Phillips, a record promoter, said that “If I could find a white man with a Negro sound, I could make a billion dollars” before finding Elvis.

• Rock also drew from western country music, gospel music, and jazz

• Some black musicians emerged, such as Chuck Berry and Little Richard, but for the most part white society refused to accept black musicians.

• The rise of rock and roll was made possible by the radio and TV, with radio stations switching away from live shows to recorded music with new “Disc Jockeys” like Dick Clark

• As the importance of the radio increased “Payola Scandals” emerged, where record promoters would bribe Disk Jockeys to play their artists songs on the radio

The “Other America”

• Many middle-class people lived in their own bubble, but there were vastly different experiences for other groups in the 1950s

• Michael Harrington exposed this in 1962 with his book The Other America, where he described the long standing existence of poverty in America

• Economic boom after the war decreased poverty but it didn’t eliminate it

• Most, around 80%, of the people classified as being in poverty were there temporarily.

• Most of the people in permanent poverty were the elderly, African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans.

• “Hard-core” poverty rebuked the assumption that economic growth would lead everyone out of poverty

Rural Poverty

• Farmers, in part because of the decreasing amount of farmers, represented a much smaller amount of the national wealth by the mid 1950s then they had immediately after the war (from 8.9% to 4.1%).

• Farm prices also fell while many rural communities were incorporated into cities or suburbs

• Southern farming decreased in prosperity with the development of synthetic fibers and most migrant workers moved to the West and Southwest.

The Inner Cities

• As white families moved out of cities, ghettos emerged in which many poor were located

• From 1940 to 1960 more than 3 million African Americans moved from the South to cities in the North

• Similar migrations from Mexico and Puerto Rico expanded the Hispanic population in Northern and Southern cities

• Many inner-city communities remained poor in the face of economic growth

• Some argue that a decrease in blue-collar jobs and inadequate support for minority-dominated schools kept these people in poverty.

• For many years, the response to this phenomenon was “urban renewal”, where buildings in the poorest and most degraded neighborhoods were torn down, but the success levels varied substantially.

HUAC and Alger Hiss

• The development of Soviet atomic bombs, the “loss” of China, and the Korean War heightened people’s fear of Communism.

• Republicans searched for an issue to campaign on and that ended up being the threat of Communism in America.

• In 1947, Congress created the House Un-American Activities Committee, which held widely publicized investigations to prove that under Democratic Rule the government had tolerated communist subversion.

• The first place HUAC turned to was Hollywood, where ten writers and producers known as the Hollywood Ten refused to testify about their political beliefs, causing some writers to be blacklisted in Hollywood.

• More alarming was the investigation into former high-ranking member of the State Department Alger Hiss. 

  • In 1948 Whittaker Chambers, a former Communist, accused Alger Hiss of passing classified State Department documents through him to the Soviet Union in 1937 and 1938

  • Hiss sued him for slander, but Chambers produced microfilms of the documents, known as the Pumpkin Papers.

  • Hiss couldn’t be tried because of the statute of limitations had expired, but the trial showed Americans fear of Communism and led to the rise of Nixon

The Federal Loyalty Program and the Rosenberg Case

• In order to protect itself from Republican attacks the Truman administration launched a highly publicized program to review the loyalty of federal employees.

• Truman authorized the program administrators to fire “bad security risks” and by 1951 more than 2,000 government employees had resigned under pressure and 212 were fired

• In 1950, the McCarran Internal Security Act was passed requiring Communist organizations to register with the US government.

• Many people were convinced that spies must have delivered nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union for them to have developed an atomic bomb so quickly.

• Klaus Fuchs, a young British scientist, confirmed those rumors when he testified that he had delivered secrets to the Russians with the aid of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, members of the Communist Party.

• The Rosenbergs were executed on June 19, 1953.

• Anti-Communist hysteria was rampant all across the country

McCarthyism

• Joseph McCarthy was a Republican senator from Wisconsin

• During a speech in Wheeling, West Virgina McCarhty claimed that he was holding a list of 205 people in the State Department that were Communists

• In 1952 with Republicans controlling the Senate, McCarthy headed a special subcommittee to investigate subversion in the government

• McCarthy never produced substantial evidence but the fear of being labelled a Communist by him stopped anyone from speaking out against him.

• Even Eisenhower was afraid to go after McCarthy despite being frustrated by his attacks on General George Marshall

The Republican Revival

• Frustration over the stalemate in Korea and fears over Communist subversion made the Democratic Party extremely weak in 1952

• Both parties tried to win over Eisenhower, but he ultimately ran as a Republican against Democrat Adelai Stevenson.

• Republicans said that Stevenson was too soft to adequately deal with the Communist threat

• Eisenhower was the commander of NATO, a military hero from WWII, and the President of Columbia University

• Eisenhower won in a landslide in the popular vote and electoral college 

“What Was Good General Motors”

• Eisenhower’s administration was populated by many individuals from the business community

• Many business leaders had come to believe that Keynesian economics would benefit them by increasing purchasing power, maintaining social order, and stabilizing labor relations

• Charles Wilson, president of General Motors, who Eisenhower nominated for Secretary of Defense, defended his nomination by stating that “what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa”

• Eisenhower tried to limit federal activities and encourage private enterprise

• Eisenhower lowered federal support for farm prices and removed the last limited wage and price controls maintained by the Truman administration.

The Survival of the Welfare State 

• Eisenhower agreed to extend the Social Security system to an additional 10 million people and unemployment compensation to an additional 4 million, and he agreed to increase the minimum wage to $1.

• The Federal Highway Act of 1956 authorized $25 billion for a ten-year project that built 40,000 miles of interstate highways.

• In 1956 Eisenhower beat Stevenson again by an even wider margin.

The Decline of McCarthyism

• By 1954 the Anti Communist movement was beginning to be opposed

• In January 1954 McCarthy attacked Secretary of the Army Robert Stevens and the armed services in general, causing many members of Congress to create a special investigation known as the Army-McCarthy hearings. 

• Seeing his violent rhetoric live turned many people away from McCarthy and he became a villain of sorts.

• In December 1954 the Senate voted 67 to 22 to condemn McCarthy, and three years later McCarthy died

NUTS AND BOLTS

• Midway: 1942, turning point in the Pacific Theater - US sank 4 Japanese aircraft carriers at the cost of only 1 (the USS Yorktown.. nooo).

• Erwin Rommel: Renowned German field marshal, lead the Nazi campaign in North Africa, known as “Desert Fox” 

• Stalingrad: 1942-43; Germans tried to siege the city of Stalingrad but failed miserably because of the early Winter (which was very brutal). Significant Soviet victory turned the tide on the Eastern front in the European Theater. 

• Breckinridge Long: Assistant Secretary in the US state department - famously denied entry to the refugees aboard the St. Louis (refugees from the Holocaust) in 1939. Was an antisemite, which is why he refused entry despite the immigration quotas not even close to full.

• War Production Board (WPB): federal agency managing industrial production for WWII - convert factories to wartime needs. Allocated scarce resources and rationed essential goods. Donald Nelson was the head of the War Production Board, but he was too passive causing the agency to struggle, so much so that FDR created the Office of War Mobilization in the White House under James Byrnes.

• Radar, Sonar: two techniques that were introduced / greatly improved during WW2 and the cold war to make it easier to detect enemy entities (planes, missiles, submarines, etc). Both are also useful for navigation.

• Magic: “Magic” was a system developed by the US to efficiently break into Japanese communications. Was finalized and functional before pearl harbor, leading some to believe that Roosevelt had intentionally manipulated Japan into firing the first shot.

• "code talkers": navajo native americans who helped encrypt US communications by communicating in their native tongues (there would be a speaker and a receiver, both capable of converting between english and their native language). Used in the Pacific Theater, credited for the victory at Iwo Jima. Many natives enjoyed their taste of capitalism outside of the reservation and decided to stay (idk how)

• Rosie the Riveter: Cultural icon incentivizing women during ww2 to take up positions deserted by men, in industrial settings. Factories, etc. 

• USO: United Service Organizations. Provided moral-boosting entertainment to US troops (ex. Bob Hope, live performances, dances / social events, women - speaking of which the women were famously barred from sex, like they could dance and be social and even flirt but nothing else. Kind of objectifying but good for troops so yay ig)

• Japanese Internment: 1942-45. Japanese people (120,000) were moved away from the West Coast into internment camps in order to facilitate national security and for the betterment of the communities (at least according to officials… obviously extreme paranoia involved). They were not treated as badly as the jews were but it was still not very good. Their former possessions were, most of the time, looted by their former neighbors. 

• Executive Order 9066: Called for Japanese internment. Made by FDR. Was overseen by the War Relocation Authority.😬

• 1988: A year. In it, Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act which granted reparations ($2k) to the survivors of the internment. Other stuff probably happened in the year.

• Election of 1944, 48, 52, 56: 

  • ‘44: FDR won his FOURTH TERM, Truman VP. Defeated Dewey

  • ‘48: Truman (D)  defeated Dewey (huge upset). Dixiecrats (Thurmond) and Progressives (Wallace). Dixiecrats just didn’t like Truman’s civil rights pushes. Progressives were progressive.

  • ‘52: Eisenhower (R) defeated Stevenson . End of 20 years of democratic power. Very interesting election slogans.

  • ‘56: Eisenhower re-elected, again over Stevenson.

• D-Day: Allied invasion of Normandy, France, June 6th 1944. Turning point in European Theater, Western Front. (meanwhile the eastern front is getting crushed too). 

• Okinawa: 1945. Bloody Pacific battle at an island close to Japan. Showed that the Japanese were fighting with their hearts, souls, and newborns. Previewed high casualties in the previously-suggested path of invading Japan itself. 

• Alamogordo: July 16th 1945 site of the Trinity Test. J. Robert Oppenheimer was not relevant. FIRST ATOMIC BOMB DETONATION EVER.

• Leslie Groves: army engineer - directed the Manhattan Project (which led to a.bomb)

• Enola Gay: b-29 superfortress bomber carrying Little Boy (uranium bomb). Dropped on Hiroshima August 6th 1945. The plane’s name was NOT funny, because it was the name of the mother of the pilot (pilot was Paul W. Tibbets Jr, mother was Enola Gay Tibbets. This WILL be on the test). 

• Nagasaki: Location of the second atomic bomb (“fat man” - plutonium bomb), dropped by Bockscar

• Yalta: 1945. Conference during WWII where the big three agreed to divide West Germany into 4 seperate zones, create the United Nations, and the Soviet Union agreed to join the war in the Pacific 3 months after VE day. There were tensions regarding POLAND (introduction of a democratic or communist government) - generally foreshadowed the onset of the cold war.

• Containment policy: Outlined under the Truman Doctrine, the United States wouldn’t try to fight Communism where it already existed (rollback), but rather attempt to prevent it from spreading to any other location.

• George Kennan - Mr. X document: Creator of the containment policy (see above), which would be expanded upon further in the Truman Doctrine

• Selective Service Act - 1948: Second Peacetime draft in American history, was in place until 1973 and supplied the soldiers for the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Required all men ages 18 to 26 to register

• National Security Act - 1947: Law that reorganized the American defense system in light of World War II. Led to the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, and National Security Council

• Berlin Blockade: June 24, 1948. In response to the creation of a unified Western Germany by the US, France, and the UK (in order to create a major democratic force in Europe to oppose the Communists), Stalin blockaded Berlin. The blockade was ultimately defeated by the Berlin Airlift. 

• Point IV Program: The fourth point of Truman’s inaugural address in 1949. Introduced a policy of technical assistance and economic aid to underdeveloped nations, in order to stabilize economies, preventing the emergence of Communism, and causing alliances to form

• NSC 68 document: In light of the failure of China to Communism the US decided they needed to take a more active role in containing communism. NSC 68 stated that regardless of potential aid from allies, the US should attempt to contain communism through economic and military means.

• Korean War: Following WWII Korea was divided at the 38th parallel with a Soviet controlled North and an American controlled South. In 1949 both countries withdrew their troops. South Korea possessed a much weaker military and the leader Syngman Rhee used it primarily to suppress dissent amongst his population, so Kim Il-Sung (North Korean dictator) attacked. Douglas MacArthur led a UN peacekeeping force, and pushed NK forces back to the Yalu River causing CHina to get involved. MacArthur wanted to use nuclear weapons, Truman opposed and recalled him after the Martin letter. Under Matthew Ridgeway Korea became a stalemate and the forces settled at the 38th parallel.

• Fair Deal: Name for Truman’s domestic agenda, which was fairly liberal and included things like universal healthcare, education assistance, urban renewal, expanding Social Security, increasing the minimum wage, and increasing government spending

• Taft Hartley Act: Conservative attempt to cut back on the gains union leadership made during the war by outlawing the closed shop. Clause 15b allowed for states to pass “right-to-work” laws, which further weakened unions

• Thomas Dewey: Former Republican Governor of New York who was the Republican nominee for President in 1944 and 1948, lost both times, but was expected to win in 1948

• Dixiecrats- Strom Thurmond: After Truman decided to run on a Civil Rights Plank many Southern Democrats objected to his campaign, nominating Strom Thurmond the Governor of South Carolina. Essentially a pro-segregation party.

• Henry Wallace: In the election of 1948 the Progressive Party reamerged and Henry Wallace was the candidate for the part.

• Security Act: 1947 act in response to the emerging Cold War - created the Department of Defense (DoD, consolidated the previously-separate War Department and Navy Department), the National Security Council (NSC), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

• Rosenberg Case: Soviets developed an atomic bomb way sooner than anyone thought was possible, so people suspected that spies must have shared information. Klaus Fuchs, a British physicist confessed to doing so and implicated Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in the crime. The Rosenbergs were convicted and executed in Sing Sing.

• Suburban growth: Development of a system of highways, widespread access to the automobile, and desire to get away from the minorities in cities lead to a surge in the population of the suburbs

• Guadalcanal: 1942-43. First major US offensive in the Pacific Theater - blocked Japanese supply lines. Marked the switch of US tactics from defensive to offensive.

• George C Marshall: Army Chief of Staff during WW2. Later, created the Marshall Plan!!!

• St Louis: The ship carrying Jewish refugees that was turned away from Florida in 1939 due to Breckenridge Long’s antisemitism (see Breckenridge Long for more details).

• Office of Price Admin: (OPA). Controlled inflation during WW2 via rationing and price controls. Indirectly did away with a potential recession at the end of the war (which took place after WW1) by giving the American people a lot of saved-up money that they were then willing to spend during the 1950s. 

• Vannever Bush: Organized US scientific research for WW2 (including the Manhattan project). Credited for a precursor to the modern computer, the 1931 “differential analyzer”. Also known for his 1945 essay “As We May Think”, which prefigured the development of the internet and hypertext.

• Ultra: Allied intelligence program for breaking German codes (esp. Enigma). Alan Turing was a crucial part of this program and was (himself) largely credited with the development of a very efficient method for breaking the codes (other methods already existed though they were very slow and impractical). 

• CORE: Congress of Racial Equality, founded in 1942. It used nonviolence to protest against segregation. PRECIPICE of the later civil rights movement.

• zoot suit riots: Mexican children were scaring their white lady neighbors and causing a ruckus. “You need to leave”, the white ladies shouted. The Mexicans were then pissed af.

• Baby Boom: soldiers coming home from the war, Boom children. Dr. Benjamin Spock wrote a book about how to raise children because of how many children people were producing.

• Betty Grable: iconic WW2 pin-up girl, symbol of morale for soldiers.

• Korematsu v US 1944: Supreme Court Case which stated that the actions of Executive Order 9066 were permissible under the 14th amendment as a wartime action. 

• Civil Liberties Act of 1988: Gave $20,000 to surviving members of Japanese internment, but Congress never appropriated the money.

• Anschluss: German idea of reuniting the German speaking of Germany and Austria, used by Hitler to justify his annexation of Austria.

• VE Day: May 8th, 1945, the day Germany surrendered and the European theatre was open 

• Trinity Bomb: First successful testing of an atomic bomb on 6/16/45 at Alamogordo in New Mexico. Didn’t announce the test and many Americans suffered long term effects of radiation exposure.

• Manhattan Project: American project to develop an atomic bomb in coordination with German scientists who had defected to the United States. Military side was headed by General Leslie Groves, who built the facilities at Los Alamos. Research side was directed by Dr. Robert J. Oppenheimer

• Dr Robert Oppenheimer: Scientist who led the efforts to build an atomic bomb (worked in Los Alamos to try and create the bomb system itself); allowed the US to end the war in the Pacific early.

• Hiroshima: THE FIRST CITY A US ATOMIC BOMB (little boy) WAS DROPPED ON

• Enrico Fermi: Italian scientist who immigrated to the United States in 1938 to work on the Manhattan project.

• United Nations: An international organization that was created at the Conference in Washington DC. The UN would have a General Assembly, in which every member was represented, and a Security Council, with permanent representatives of the US, Britain, France, USSR, and China - they were given veto powers.

• "Get Tough": Truman’s idea which stated that the US should be much stricter with the Soviet Union and act as a true superpower. Stated that the US should be able to get 85% of their demands

• Truman Doctrine: Send 400 million dollars in aid to Greece and Turkey in order to prevent communism from spreading, because communism only seemed to afflict poor countries.

• Marshall Plan: Similar to the Truman Doctrine, except it called for 12.5 billion dollars on the entirety of Europe(Including the Soviet Union). Administered by the Economic Cooperation Administration.

• NATO: North Atlantic Treaty Organization - peacetime alliance formed during the Cold War. Featured the democratic nations in Western Europe, originally founded with 12 nations in 1949. The Soviet Union responded in 1955 with the Warsaw Pact.

• Warsaw Pact; Stalin’s response to NATO- involved the USSR and its eastern europe satellite states behind the “iron curtain”.

• GI Bill: Official name was the Servicemen's Readjustment Act, which provided funding for veterans to get low interest loans and mortgages, as well as reduced tuition rates at colleges. Allowed veterans to move to the suburbs and to the Sunbelt, shifting American demographics.

• The Twilight Zone: Anthology series (tv show) - cold war allegory and social commentary by Rod Sterling. Explored Cold War anxieties, McCarthyism, racism, nuclear fear, and the dangers of conformity.

• 38th parallel: Line of latitude where the border between South and North Korea was drawn, both before and after the Korean War. In the end, a mile wide demilitarized zone was created along the 38th parallel in Korea.

• Douglass MacArthur: American general who was the son of WWI General Arthur MacArthur. Lead the ground based operations in the Pacific Theater during WWII, as well as being the commander of a UN peacekeeping force during the Korean War. When China got involved MacArthur favored using atomic bombs and fighting China, while Truman didn’t lead to a fracture between the two. After being warned MacArthur wrote the Martin Letter, denouncing Truman’s policy, which caused him to be recalled. In the end, MacArthur was welcomed home with ticker tape parades and applause.

• Mathew Ridgeway: General who took over for Douglas MacArthur in Korea, his efforts resulted in a stalemate at the 38th parallel (same as it was before the war).

• HUAC: House Un-American Activities Committee was formed during the Red Scare to investigate suspected communists in America. First target was Hollywood where the so-called “Hollywood Ten” refused to testify about their political beliefs or the political beliefs of others, blacklisted until 1973.

• Alger Hiss: Former high-ranking member of the State Department who was accused of passing confidential information to the Soviet Union and being a Communist by Whittaker Chambers. Chambers produced his Pumpkin Papers, which caused Hiss to be charged with perjury, but the statute of limitations had been exceeded.

• McCarran Internal Security Act: Act which required all Communist organizations in the United States to register with the government

• McCarthyism: Unwarranted accusations of being a Communist with minimal to no evidence to back up the accusations. Created a widespread phenomenon and wave of fear after Joseph McCarthy claimed to have a list of 205 communists in the state department during his Wheeling, West Virginia speech.

• Keynesian Economics: Stated that deficit spending could be used to stimulate the economy and by controlling government spending (fiscal policy) and the supply of currency (monetary policy) governments could avoid recessions.

• AFL-CIO: After feuding for roughly 20 years the AFL and CIO merged to form the largest union in the United States under the leadership of George Meany.

• Jonas Salk: Created the first vaccine for polio in 1955 and Albert Sabin later created an oral vaccine for polio.

• Television: Referred to as the idiot box by Federal Communications Commision head Newton Minnow. In 1940 there were around 20,000 TVs in America, but by 1957 there were 40,000,000 TV sets. American TV shows in the 1950s typically represented the lives of middle class, white suburban families with a strong father and two children.

• Hydrogen Bomb: more powerful atomic bomb (10m Mega tons instead of 10k).

• NASA: Created through the National Defense Education Act in response to Soviet advancements in space exploration (sputnik). Government-subsidized entity to handle all things space. 

• National Defense Education Act 1958: Following the launch of the Sputnik I satellite, Americans feared that they were falling behind in terms of technology and education. This act placed a large emphasis on math, science, and foreign language as those were seen as the skills that would allow students to advance in STEM fields.

• Dr. Benjamin Spock: Doctor who wrote a book on how to better raise children. He came up with a scientific method about raising children and how to show affection to them. 1946, “Baby and Child Care”

• Echo Park: battleground for early environmentalism - Sierra Club successfully opposed a dam project in the 1950s (echo park dam) to preserve the natural integrity of the environment.

• I Love Lucy: landmark TV sitcom featuring Lucille Ball and her real-life husband Desi Arnaz - revolutionized television with life audieinces, multi-camera setups, and syndication, and was radical due to it displaying a non-conformist relationship (an interracial marriage - Arnaz was Cuban). The producers were worried but Ball wouldn’t do it otherwise so they relented and it turned out that Arnaz was actually a natural comedian.

• Elvis: Presley. The “King of Rock’n’roll”. Symbolized youth rebellion and took inspiration from Black jazz and blues, as well as white country music → cultural change. Also pushed the boundaries for what was socially acceptable (e.x. Sex drugs etc etc)

• Brown v Board of Ed: Supreme court case in 1954 overturning the 1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson “separate but equal” concept. Class action lawsuit against the board of education of Topeka, Kansas (Brown was simply at the top of the list). Attorney was the NAACP-backed Thurgood Marshall. Declared separate but equal was unconstitutional and that schools should be desegregated at ALL DELIBERATE SPEED (a.k.a. whenever u want). 

• "Separate but Equal": concept made into law by the SCOTUS ruling in the 1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson case, which directly concerned (and, thus, supported) railroad car discrimination. 

• Kenneth Clark: His doll study, which showed that segregation of schools had severe psychological impacts on children, was used by Thurgood Marshall to win the Brown v. Board of Education case.

• Little Rock Nine: Central High School in Little Rock was the location of the first forced school integration, in which the Little Rock 9 attempted to integrate the school despite resistance from the national guard, the general public, and Governor Orval Faubus.

• MLK: Martin Luther King Jr. Leader of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the broader Civil Rights Movement. Advocated nonviolent resistance and delivered the I Have a Dream speech in 1963. Was assassinated in the balcony of his room in the Lorraine Motel in Memphis Tennessee in 1968 at 6:01 pm CST, after which he was pronounced dead at 7:05pm at the St. Joseph’s Hospital, having lived only 39 years.

• "Massive retaliation": Policy created by John Foster Dulles, similar to brinkmanship, in which the US shouldn’t focus on conventional weapons and instead should use atomic weapons as bargaining tools.

• Suez Crisis: 1956. Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal. In retaliation, Britain, France and Israel invaded. Eisenhower forced a withdrawal, asserted US dominance and maintained relative stability 

• Nikita Khrushchev: Soviet leader during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Known for de-stalinization and exposure of Stalin’s crimes, and the “We will bury you!” speech. Also known for the “khrushchev thaw” as he and Eisenhower started to ease the nation's tensions (DETENTE). Peaceful coexistence theory. But it all broke down again by the U2 crisis.

• Penicillin: First mass-produced antibiotic, saving countless soldiers’ lives in WW2 and revolutionizing medicine. Discovered by Alexander Fleming.

• DDT: Pesticide that was originally thought to only be harmful to humans, but it was later revealed to be extremely damaging and harmful to all species. Topic of Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring

• UNIVAC: 1951. First commercially-produced computer. Launched into the public view when it predicted the 1952 election outcome (dawn of the digital age). 

• Sputnik: First artificial satellite in space (artificial must be stated because the Moon was the first satellite period in space, at least for the Earth). Made by the Soviets, launched in 1957. Triggered the space race, led to the National Defense Education Act and the like.

• Interstate Highway Act: Eisenhower’s 25 billion dollar project for national defense and suburban growth in 1956. Reshaped American travel and economy (travelling vacations, motels, drive-in movie theaters, suburbanization and the “white flight”, TV shows endorsed the free feeling of always driving around like Route 66 and the like, etc etc etc etc)

• "Levittown": post-war  suburban design; the first of its kind that could be mass-produced. Started in Long Island by William Levitt but quickly spread across the country. Symbolized white middle-class growth; excluded Black families and also drove the very-wealthy to create their own, much more fabulous suburb areas: more stratification!!!

• homogenous America: people complained that everyone across the country was experiencing the same life experiences - dull and boring. Push towards conformity was very bleh. Rise to juvenile delinquency. Also, this masked the underlying racial and social tensions that still existed, especially for blacks and other marginalized groups (asians, mexicans).

• Sierra Club: founded in 1892, was a key environmental group that fought projects like the Echo Park Dam, laying the groundwork for modern environmentalism.

• "beatniks": People who were part of the anti-consumer culture. They rejected conformity and a materialistic lifestyle. 

• Michael Harrington: socialist writer and activist whose work exposed the persistence of poverty in the affluent US, challenging the myth of universal prosperity in the 1950s and early 1960s. WROTE “The Other America” VERY IMPORTANT.

• Plessy v Ferguson: Case that ruled in the constitutionality of “sepa rate but equal.” Was overturned by Brown v. Board of Ed. 

• Earl Warren: CHIEF JUSTICE of the supreme court during the 1950s and beyond (1953-1969), influenced a lot of civil rights decisions. He earlier ran against Truman as vice president to Dewey in the 1948 election (lost in the upset). 

• Thurgood Marshall: African American lawyer who argued the Brown v. Board of Education case using the doll study by Kenneth Clark. First black Supreme Court Justice.

• Montgomery Bus Boycott: 1955, After Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus and was arrested, a young MLK led a citywide protest. Their demands were a first come first serve policy and black drivers on predominantly black routes. These protests lead to Browder v. Gayle, which ordered the desegregation of the Alabama bus system 

• Jackie Robinson: First black MLB player who made his debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 (unfortunately his milestone has been deferred until 2068)

• Dien Bien Phu: 1954 Battle in which Vietnamese forces defeated the French

• Fidel Castro: Leader of Cuba who emerged in a revolt over Fulgencio Batista. At first, people weren’t sure of his political leanings and affiliations. Nationalized Cuban businesses, severely hurting American interests, and became affiliated with the Soviet Union leading to conflict with the US. Resolved by President Kennedy through a quarantine

U-2 Crisis: Colonel Gary Powers was shot down over the USSR right when Krushchev was going to invite Reagan over for tea. Krushchev got pissy and canceled the tea party.