Chapter 24: An Affluent Society

The Golden Age

  • capitalism, economic expansion, stable prices, low unemployment, rising standard of living

  • numerous innovations came into widespread use in these years

    • services that were considered a high-class’s (sometimes middle-class) luxury were now a feature of common life

  • 1950-1973: average real wages of manufacturing workers doubled

  • made possible by government policies, a strong union movement, and the country's global economic dominance in the wake of WWII

A Changing Economy

  • cold war fueled industrial production and promoted a redistribution of the nation’s population and economic resources

  • the west benefited enormously from govt contracts for aircrafts, missiles, and radar systems

  • the south became a home of numerous military bases and govt-funded shipyards

  • since 1950s, the American economy has shifted rapidly toward services, education, information, finance, and entertainment, while employment in manufacturing has declined

  • unions raised wages to attract workers, so employers started using more machines to cut labor costs

  • long-term trend of fewer farms

    • agriculture production was increasing, though, bc of efficient machinery → didn’t see a need for farm workers

  • center of american farming shifted to TX, AZ, and esp CA

    • large corporate farms of CA, ran by latino and filipino migrants, poured fruits and vegetables for the domestic and world markets

A Suburban Nation

  • residential constructions and spending on consumer goods were the prime economic growth factors

  • postwar baby boom and shift of population from cities to suburbs created aa huge demand for housing, tv sets; home appliances, and car

  • after WWII, William and Alfred Levitt building the first Levittown on 1,200 acres of potato fields on Long Island near NYC shortly after WWII

  • suburbans required malls for shopping centers

  • malls existed soley for shopping had virtually no public space

The Growth of the West

  • all parts of the counry now contributed to the region’s growth

  • federal spendings of infrastructure and military installements & air conditions helped to fuel the flow of people

  • expansions of oil production -> explosive growth of urban centers connected to the oil industry (denver, dallas, houston)

  • CA’s population growth became prominent symbol of postwar suburban boom

  • Western cities were decentralized, with clusters of single-family homes and businesses connected by a network of highways

    • LA basin had once had an extensive system of trains, trolleys, and buses → dismantled after WWII → replaced w/ freeways for cars and trucks

  • life centered around the car

  • shopping shifted to suburbs → stagnation in old downtown businesses

  • spread of suburban homes → lawns

A Consumer Culture

  • widespread consumerism

  • measures of freedom became the ability to gratify market desires

  • the 1950s marked the peak of a long-run where consumerism became the main idea of American freedom, replacing economic independence and democratic participation

  • low interest rates and spread of credit cards encouraged Americand to borrown money to purchase consumer goods

  • consumer culture showcased the superiority of the american way of life over communism

  • american consumer goods were marketed to customers worldwide

The TV World

  • new source of information

  • leisure activity

  • avoiding controversy & projected a bland image of middle-class life

  • most effective advertising medium

    • large corporations sponsored popular programs to polish their image

  • TV ads aimed primarily at middle-class suburban viewers → conveying images of good life based on consumption

A New Ford

  • seemed essential to the enjoyment of freedom’s benefit

  • car became a part of the “standard consumer package”

  • auto-manufacturers and oil companies vaulted to the top ranks of corporate america

  • military needed high-technology goods → great lakes lagged w/ defense contracts

    • federal funds shifted to the Sunbelt, hurting the industrial North/Midwest

    • but the auto industry kept the Great Lakes region prosperous

  • the automobile made it possible to drive and commute to work from the long-distances

    • led to the creation of drive-movie theaters, roadside eating establishments, and construction of motels

  • the car symbolized the identification of freedom with individual mobility and private choice

    • on the road, americans were constantly reminded of ads, tvs, and popular songs

Women at Work and at Home

  • pressure on the family— esp women— to live up to freedom’s promise

  • after a sharp postwar drop in female employment, the number of women at work began to rise

  • nature & aims of women’s work had changed

    • modern women worked part time to help their family’s middle-class lifestyle, not for personal pursuit, pull themselves out of poverty, or an independent career

  • films potrayed marriage as the most important goal for american women

  • men and women reaffirmed the virtues of family life

    • early age marriage

    • less divorces

    • more children

  • baby boom— increase in population (30 million) due to more births

    • also reflected how americans were able to live longer bc of wide availability of drugs, like penicillin, made during WWII

  • ability of women to remain at home seperated US from the communist world, where high percentages of women worked

  • family life was more so a modernized relationship, in which both partners achieved personal fulfillment through shared consumption, lesiure activities, and sexual pleasure

  • feminism seemed to disappear from American life or was widy dismissed as evidence for a mental disorder

The Freedom Movement

Origins of the Movement

  • in retrospect, the causes seem clear, but at the time, the civil rights revolution came as a great surprise

    • WWII’s destabilization of the racial system

    • mass migration out of the South that made black voters a larger part of the Democratic coalition

    • the Cold War and the rise of the Independent Third World, both of which exposed the gap between US rhetorics and realities

  • the southern black church became the organizational power for an assault on segregation

    • church leaders like MLK jr emerged as leaders of the movement

  • persistence of Jim Crow laws

  • racial segregation in schools

Legal Assault on Segregation

  • Brown v. Board of Education

    • Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP’s assault on segregation

    • Oliver Brown’s case was brought to court because his daughter was forced to walk across railroad tracks rather than attend their neighborhood white schools

    • marshall argued that segregation was inherently unequal

    • Chief Justice Earl Warren’s court struck down segregation in public education

    • this produced a wave of optimism even though it was a limited decision

Montgomery Bus Boycott

  • Mass action against Jim Crow soon occurred

  • Rosa Parks sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955

    • for 381 days, african americans stayed off the buses and instead walked or rode in an informal network of taxis

      • boycott hurt the city’s finances

  • in 1956, the supreme court ruled that segregation in public transportation was unconstitutional

The Daybreak of Freedom

  • the bus boycott launched a movement for racial justice as a nonviolent crusade based in southern black churches

  • emergence of MLK jr

  • the language of freedom pervaded the movement

    • political rights

    • economic opportunities

    • eradicating historic wrongs and violence

    • human dignity

  • the leadership of king

    • used protestors’ understandings of freedom

    • “I Have a Dream” speech of 1963 established the philosophy of color blindness towards racial justice → established foundation of civil rights

    • use of peaceful civil disobedience

    • evocation of the Bible to preach justice and forgiveness

Massive Resistance

  • Southern Christian Leadership Conference

    • organization of black churches

    • organized by King to fight segregation

  • without national backing, local actions was not enough to overturn Jim Crow

  • a racist campaign paralyzed the progress of civil rights in much of the South

  • Southern Manifesto— southern congressional leaders declared Brown decision an abuse of judicial power and states’ rights

  • state after state passed laws to block desegregation

Eisenhower and Civil Rights

  • congress passed a national civil rights law in 1957, but the law had weak enforcement provisions

  • eisenhower failed to provide moral leadership

  • Little Rock Nine & Little Rock integration → gov. resisted integration so Eisenhower dispatched federal troops to insure the court-ordered integration of the Little Rock, Arkansas, Central High School

  • the pace of school desegregation slowed due to massive resistance

Election of 1960

  • the republican nominated Richard Nixon

  • anti-catholic sentiments challenged JFK, but he secured the Democratic Party’s nominated

  • Kennedy warned of a missile gap— the soviet union had more armed, nuclear weapons compared to the us

    • convinced many people that a new leadership was needed

  • Kennedy and his wife represented the hope for a youthful, vigorous presidency

  • this election race featured the first televised presidential debate

    • young, energetic candidate Kennedy stood in stark contrast to an older, less attractive, more nervous-appearing Nixon

    • Nixon got backlash for his debate performance, whereas Kennedy faced great praise for his poise and performance on the debate stage

  • Kennedy won by 120,000 votes out of 69 million cast

The End of the 1950s

  • Eisenhower’s Farewell Address warned of the dangers of the military-industrial complex

    • huge military establishment and permanent arms industry “endanger our liberties and democratic processes”

  • other underpinnings if 1950s life were in disarray

    • environmental problems from cars

    • chloroflourocarbons damaging the ozone layer

    • insecticides on corporate farms

    • housewives rebelling

    • blacks unsatisfied with the show progress of racial change