The Affluent Society to the Triumph of the Right

The Affluent Society: Postwar Growth and Critiques

• John Kenneth Galbraith published The Affluent Society in $1958$ to examine the postwar consumer economy.
• He argued the economy was based on "hedonistic consumption" of luxury goods, leading to economic inequality and public squalor.
• Galbraith noted that in an economy where "wants are increasingly created by the process by which they are satisfied," the system is unsound and immoral.
• Postwar standard of living rose; poverty and economic inequality plummeted during the two decades following $1945$.
• Despite prosperity, the "Affluent Society" had flaws: urban decay, persistent poverty, and racial discrimination in the Jim Crow South and northern cities.

The Rise of the Suburbs and Housing Policy

• Suburban growth was rooted in New Deal programs like the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC), created in $1933$.
• The HOLC introduced the amortized mortgage, allowing repayment over $15$ years rather than the standard $5$ year mortgage with balloon payments.
• The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Veterans Administration (VA) insured mortgages, extending terms to $20$ or $30$ years.
• William Levitt built the first Levittown in $1946$ on Long Island, NY, using mass-production techniques to create affordable housing for veterans.
• Suburban population share rose from $19.5\%$ in $1940$ to $30.7\%$ by $1960$.
• Homeownership rates reached $62\%$ by $1960$, up from $44\%$ in $1940$.
• Population growth in suburban areas accounted for $83\%$ of all U.S. growth between $1950$ and $1970$.

Segregation and Redlining in Housing

• HOLC used "Residential Security Maps" to grade neighborhoods from $A$ (best) to $D$ (hazardous).
• $D$ grade areas were colored red ("redlining"), signifying high-risk for lenders; these were almost always minority neighborhoods.
• Appraisers in Pasadena, California, in $1939$ rated an area lower because it had $10$ "owner occupant Negro families."
• Redlining denied black residents mortgages for home improvements or purchases, enforcing racial segregation.
• Levittown and other mass-produced suburbs initially restricted sales to white families only.
• Shelley v. Kraemer ($1948$) declared racially restrictive covenants legally unenforceable, though discrimination continued through informal practices.

The Battle for Educational Equality

• The NAACP, led by attorneys like Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall, challenged the "separate but equal" doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson ($1896$).
• Brown v. Board of Education ($1954$) consolidated five cases: Briggs v. Elliott (SC), Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County (VA), Beulah v. Belton (DE), Bolling v. Sharpe (DC), and Brown v. Board (KS).
• In Briggs v. Elliott, SC spent $179$ per white student but only $43$ per black student.
• Chief Justice Earl Warren announced a unanimous $9-0$ decision on $May\,17,\,1954$, stating that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."
• The doll experiments of Kenneth and Mamie Clark were used as evidence that segregation caused psychological damage to black children.
• Brown II ($1955$) ordered desegregation "with all deliberate speed," a phrase so vague it allowed southern resistance.
• By $1972$, only $25\%$ of black students in the South were in schools that were $90-100\%$ nonwhite.

Early Civil Rights Activism

• Sarah Keys, a member of the Women’s Army Corps, challenged bus segregation in Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company ($1955$) after her $1953$ arrest in North Carolina.
• Emmett Till, a $14$ year old from Chicago, was murdered in Mississippi in $August\,1955$ after allegedly whistling at Carolyn Bryant.
• Till's mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, held an open-casket funeral to show the world the brutality of Jim Crow.
• Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus on $December\,1,\,1955$, sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott led by Martin Luther King Jr.
• The boycott lasted from $December\,1955$ to $December\,20,\,1956$, ending when the Supreme Court ordered integration of the bus system.
• The Civil Rights Act of $1957$ created the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Commission.

Television and 1950s Culture

• By the end of the $1950s$, $90\%$ of American families owned a television.
• Networks like NBC, CBS, and ABC dominated the airwaves; the FCC refused new licenses between $1948$ and $1955$.
• Programs like Father Knows Best and Leave It to Beaver idealized the white nuclear family and middle-class domesticity.
• The Baby Boom ($1946-1964$) saw an unprecedented rise in fertility after years of depression and war.
• Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care ($1946$) became a definitive guide for the professionalization of homemaking.
• Youth culture emerged through rock ’n’ roll and figures like Little Richard, Buddy Holly, and Elvis Presley.
• The Beat Generation (e.g., Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac) rejected suburban conformity and consumerism.

Kennedy and the 1960 Election

• John F. Kennedy (Democrat) defeated Richard Nixon (Republican) in an extremely close election: $34,227,096$ to $34,107,646$ votes.
• The first televised presidential debate in $September\,1960$ favored Kennedy among TV viewers, while radio listeners thought Nixon won.
• Kennedy promised the "New Frontier" but lacked a strong mandate in Congress.
• Relations with Cuba soured after Fidel Castro took power in $1959$ and nationalized private enterprises.
• The Bay of Pigs invasion on $April\,16,\,1961$, using CI-trained Cuban exiles, was a total failure.
• The Cuban Missile Crisis ($October\,1962$) brought the world to the brink of nuclear war; it was resolved when the USSR removed missiles from Cuba in exchange for the US removing missiles from Turkey.

The Peak of the Civil Rights Movement

• Greensboro Sit-ins ($1960$) at Woolworth’s lunch counters sparked student-led direct action across the South.
• Freedom Rides ($1961$) tested the Supreme Court's ruling on integrated interstate travel but met extreme violence in Birmingham, AL.
• The Birmingham Campaign ($1963$) saw MLK Jr. jailed and police chief Bull Connor use fire hoses and dogs on young protesters.
• Alabama Governor George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door of the University of Alabama in $June\,1963$ to block integration.
• The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom occurred on $August\,28,\,1963$, where MLK delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech.
• Civil Rights Act of $1964$ barred segregation in public accommodations and outlawed job discrimination.
• Voting Rights Act of $1965$ abolished voting discrimination (e.g., literacy tests) following the "Bloody Sunday" march in Selma.

LBJ and the Great Society

• President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society aimed to end poverty and racial injustice.
• Programs included the Economic Opportunity Act ($1964$), Food Stamps, Medicare (for the elderly), and Medicaid (for the poor).
• The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of $1965$ provided over $1\,billion$ in federal aid to schools.
• "Maximum feasible participation" in Community Action Programs aimed to involve the poor in local administration.
• The movement shifted toward "Black Power" following the rise of Malcolm X and the formation of the Black Panther Party in $1966$ by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale.
• Chicano Movement: Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta founded the United Farm Workers (UFWA) and led a $300$-mile march in $1966$.
• Red Power: The National Indian Youth Council ($NIYC$) and later the American Indian Movement ($AIM$) occupied Alcatraz in $1969$.

The Vietnam War and the Unraveling

• The Domino Theory guided US support for the French against Ho Chi Minh's Viet Minh forces.
• After the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu ($1954$), Vietnam was split; the US backed the anti-communist Ngo Dinh Diem in the South.
• Gulf of Tonkin Resolution ($1964$) granted LBJ authority to escalate military involvement after the USS Maddox was allegedly fired upon.
• By $1968$, over half a million US troops were in Vietnam with nearly $20,000$ killed.
• The Tet Offensive ($January\,1968$) exposed a "credibility gap" between government claims and reality.
• My Lai Massacre ($1968$): US troops killed hundreds of civilians, revealed to the public in $1969$.
• Nixon's "Vietnamization" policy aimed to train South Vietnamese forces to take over, but he also expanded the war by bombing Cambodia and Laos.
• Peace was reached with the Paris Peace Accords in $January\,1973$, but Saigon fell to the North in $1975$.

The 1970s Crises and Watergate

• Altamont Motor Speedway concert ($December\,6,\,1969$) resulted in the death of Meredith Hunter at the hands of Hells Angels security.
• OPEC oil embargo ($1973$) quadrupled oil prices, causing severe energy shortages in the US.
• Deindustrialization hit cities like Detroit; between $1947$ and $1977$, the number of manufacturing firms in the city dropped from $3,000$ to under $2,000$.
• Watergate Scandal: Five men were arrested breaking into the DNC headquarters on $June\,17,\,1972$.
• Nixon resigned on $August\,8,\,1974$, to avoid impeachment for his role in the cover-up; Gerald Ford issued a full pardon a month later.
• Stagflation: The simultaneous occurrence of high inflation and high unemployment plagued the economy under Ford and Jimmy Carter.

Gender and Sex Wars of the 1970s

• Roe v. Wade ($1973$) established a constitutional right to privacy regarding abortion in a $7-2$ vote.
• The Gay Liberation movement grew after the Stonewall Inn uprising in Greenwich Village in $Juune\,1969$.
• The Equal Rights Amendment ($ERA$) passed Congress in $1972$ but was defeated by anti-ERA forces led by Phyllis Schlafly's "STOP ERA" group.
• Schlafly argued the ERA would undermine the "privileges" of homemakers and traditional family structures.
• In $1977$, Indiana became the $35^{th}$ and last state to ratify the ERA; it failed because it did not reach the required $38$ states.

The Carter Presidency and the New Right

• Jimmy Carter was elected in $1976$ as a "New South" Democrat focusing on human rights.
• Camp David Accords ($September\,1978$): Carter negotiated peace between Menachem Begin (Israel) and Anwar Sadat (Egypt).
• Iran Hostage Crisis: After the Shah was deposed, $52$ Americans were taken hostage in Tehran for $444$ days ($1979-1981$).
• The New Right coalition included the Moral Majority (founded by Jerry Falwell in $1979$), supply-side economists, and Cold War hawks.
• Ronald Reagan defeated Carter in $1980$, winning $489$ electoral votes to Carter’s $49$.

The Reagan Revolution ($1981-1989$)

• Reaganomics: Supply-side economics proposed that cutting personal and corporate taxes would stimulate production (the "Laffer Curve").
• The tax cut of $1981$ reduced federal taxes by over $25\%$ and lowered the top marginal rate from $70\%$ to $50\%$.
• Reagan fired $11,000$ striking air traffic controllers ($PATCO$) in $1981$, signaling a shift against organized labor.
• National debt ballooned to $53\%$ of GDP due to high defense spending (over $1.2\,trillion$ approved) and tax cuts.
• Recession in $1981-1982$ saw unemployment reach nearly $11\%$, but the economy rebounded by $1984$.
• "Morning in America": Reagan won the $1984$ election, carrying $49$ out of $50$ states against Walter Mondale.
• The AIDS crisis: Initially called GRID, it devastated the gay community; by $1987$ federal research spending reached $500\,million$.
• Iran-Contra Affair: Reagan officials sold missiles to Iran and funneled profits to the Nicaraguan "Contras," violating the Boland Amendment.
• End of the Cold War: Mikhail Gorbachev introduced perestroika and glasnost; INF Treaty ($1987$) reduced nuclear arsenals; Soviet-allied regimes in Eastern Europe fell in $1989$.