The Affluent Society

The Affluent Society (1950s)

Overview

• Based on John Kenneth Galbraith's 1958 book, the lecture examines the duality of the 1950s in America.
• On one hand, it was seen as a prosperous era, marked by a growing middle class, traditional families, and increased access to middle-class amenities.
• On the other hand, there were underlying anxieties and inequalities.

The Myth of the Golden Era

• The image of the 1950s as a universally prosperous time is a myth.
• Significant social strife existed, including:
  • Jim Crow laws
  • Contradictions in women's lives
  • A rebellious youth culture (teenagers)
  • Changing sexual behaviors
• Suburban growth led to urban decay and racial segregation.
• The suburban lifestyle was unattainable for many, including the working poor, elderly, immigrants, Mexican Americans, and most African Americans.

Focus Questions

• How did Dwight Eisenhower's presidency continue or depart from the New Deal policies of Truman and FDR?
• What factors drove the postwar economic boom?
• How did traditional gender roles influence the growing consumer society?
• How did popular culture contribute to a culture of conformity, and how did this reinforce Cold War anxieties?

The Kitchen Debate (1959)

• Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev debated the merits of American consumer goods at an American exhibition in Moscow.
• Nixon emphasized the accessibility of modern homes and appliances to the average American worker.
• The debate highlighted how Americans viewed themselves as homeowners and consumers, with the middle-class dream centered on commercial aspirations.

The Postwar Middle Class

• The middle class grew significantly in the two decades after World War II.
• Fortune magazine defined the middle class as families earning over 5,000 annually after taxes (approximately 40,000 today).
• The postwar middle class enjoyed the highest standard of living in the world due to rising incomes, American dominance in the global economy, and Cold War federal spending.
• However, the success of the middle class obscured deeper issues, such as the exclusion of African Americans, women, and other minorities.

Harry Truman and Cold War Liberalism

• Truman aimed to expand the New Deal but was sidetracked by postwar crises and the rise of anticommunism.
• He is remembered as a Cold Warrior rather than a New Dealer.
• Cold War liberalism involved:
  • Preserving core New Deal programs
  • Developing the containment policy
  • Fighting domestic subversives
• There was no significant expansion of the New Deal during this period.
• The Democratic Party adopted moderate liberal policies and anticommunism, influenced by espionage scandals and communist victories abroad.
• This approach dissatisfied both the progressive left and the conservative right.

Organized Labor and the Taft-Hartley Act

• Organized labor was a key force in the Democratic Party.
• Union membership peaked in 1945 at 14 million.
• Union workers demanded improvements and mounted strikes in vital industries.
• The Taft-Hartley Act (passed over Truman's veto) weakened the power of unions.
• It allowed states to pass right-to-work laws, prohibiting closed union shops.
• It forced unions to purge communists.
• The labor movement was contained and did not expand significantly into the South or other unorganized industries.

The 1948 Election

• The Democratic Party was divided, with left-wing (Progressive Party) and right-wing (Dixiecrats) challenges.
• Strom Thurmond, a segregationist, ran as a Dixiecrat.
• Truman's victory was surprising and foreshadowed coming political turmoil.
• He retained support from Jewish and Catholic voters, black voters in the North, and organized labor, but the revolt of Southern Democrats indicated a fragile coalition.

The Fair Deal

• Truman proposed a Fair Deal to expand the New Deal, including:
  • National health insurance
  • Aid to public education
  • Public housing
  • Expansion of Social Security
  • Higher minimum wage
  • Civil rights initiatives
• Congress blocked many of these proposals.
• Cold War anxieties hampered support for expansions of the welfare state.
• The American Medical Association and insurance industry opposed national health insurance, denouncing it as socialized medicine.
• The National Housing Act was the only major breakthrough, authorizing the construction of 810,000 low-income units.
• Truman desegregated the armed forces in 1948, gaining further support from African Americans.

The 1952 Election and Dwight Eisenhower

• The Democratic brand was unpopular in 1952 due to foreign policy problems and anticommunist hysteria.
• Eisenhower represented moderate Republicanism, seeking to moderate rather than dismantle New Deal policies.
• He navigated a polarized Republican Party, balancing conservatives like Robert Taft with liberal Republicans like Nelson Rockefeller.
• Eisenhower expanded the New Deal by increasing veterans' benefits, housing, and constructing the interstate highway system.
• He also built on Social Security and increased the minimum wage.
• He accepted government responsibility for economic security to a degree.
• Eisenhower was not a major supporter of civil rights.

Eisenhower's Foreign Policy and the Cold War

• Containment guided Eisenhower's foreign policy.
• Stalin's death in 1953 led to a power struggle in the Soviet Union, with Nikita Khrushchev emerging as his successor.
• Khrushchev denounced Stalin and called for peaceful coexistence with the West.
• However, he suppressed a democratic uprising in Hungary in 1956.
• Eisenhower focused on limiting the cost of containment by relying more on a growing nuclear arsenal (the "New Look" defense policy) and developing long-range bombing capabilities (ICBMs).
• The Soviet Union matched US weapon development, leading to a growing arms race.
• The policy of deterrence emerged, based on the threat of all-out nuclear retaliation.

Sputnik and STEM Education

• The Soviet launch of Sputnik in 1957 heightened concerns about American education and technological capabilities.
• Sputnik symbolized Soviet technological superiority and the potential for nuclear attacks on the US.
• The Eisenhower administration expanded federal involvement in STEM education.
• The National Defense Education Act of 1958 created NASA and spurred investments in technological schools.

The Military-Industrial Complex

• Defense spending dramatically increased in the 1950s.
• In his farewell address in 1961, Eisenhower warned against the power of the military-industrial complex, which employed 3.5 million Americans.
• This complex had roots in business-government partnerships from World War II.
• The defense department became a massive bureaucracy, and defense-related industries entered long-term relationships with the Pentagon.
• Economic growth became increasingly tied to the defense sector.
• Permanent mobilization intertwined science, industry, and government.

American Economic Advantages

• The US enjoyed enormous economic advantages after World War II, including:
  • An expanding internal market
  • Heavy investment in research and development
  • Employer acceptance of collective bargaining
  • Extensive federal spending
• US corporations dominated the global economy, leading to the term "Pax Americana."
• Life magazine publisher Henry Luce predicted the "American Century."

Key Elements of Postwar Economic Domination

• Growth of the military-industrial complex
• The Bretton Woods system (World Bank, IMF, US dollar as reserve currency)
• Growth of corporations
• Corporate consolidation accelerated, with top firms dominating various industries.
• Expansion into foreign markets
• The Marshall Plan helped.
• US exports doubled, creating a trade surplus.

Corporate Culture and Criticisms

• Corporations required a large white-collar workforce.
• Companies turned to universities for educated workers.
• Criticisms of corporate culture included stifled creativity and boring lives.
• William Whyte's "The Organization Man" critiqued the obedience demanded by corporations.

Mechanization and Automation

• Worker productivity doubled due to mechanization.
• American factories replaced manpower with machines, using cheap fossil fuels.
• Mechanized industries increased efficiency and lowered costs for consumers.
• However, millions of manufacturing jobs were lost, affecting entire regions.
• Reliance on fossil fuels led to environmental problems.

Organized Labor's Strongest Moment

• Trade unions and collective bargaining became major factors in the nation's economic life.
• Labor unions overwhelmingly represented the industrial workforce.
• After the war, there was an uneasy truce between labor and management.
• Workers' real income rose (18% increase).
• Unions delivered leisure opportunities and a social safety net.
• Collective bargaining became the American alternative to the European welfare state.
• However, this accord overlooked unorganized workers and casual labor.
• Anti-unionism among employers remained a significant vulnerability. The accord was temporary.

Expansion of Consumerism

• Middle-class status became more accessible due to the GI Bill.
• The GI Bill subsidized higher education and provided low-interest mortgages.
• Over half of all US college students were veterans attending on the government's dime.
• Government financing made the US workforce the best educated in the world.
• More Americans than ever had access to wealth through private land ownership.
• The GI Bill stimulated the economy and expanded the middle class by increasing homeownership.
  *Between the end of World War II in 1966, 1 out of every 5 single-family homes built in The US was financed through a GI Bill mortgage.
• 2,500,000 new homes were made. This meant that worker in the construction industry were in growing demand.
• Consumer spending on home appliances and automobiles increased dramatically.
• The GI Bill gave Americans concrete financial assets.
• By 1960, the US became a majority middle-class nation.

Disparities in the GI Bill

• The GI Bill was administered at the state and local level, leading to discrimination against African Americans and Latinos.
• They faced discrimination in local and state institutions, particularly in the South.
• Segregated universities and limited resources at HBCUs restricted educational opportunities for black GIs.
• The GI Bill exacerbated wealth and homeownership disparities between whites and blacks.
• Historian Ira Katznelson argued that the GI Bill was a major instrument for widening the racial gap.

Suburbanization and Levittown

• The availability of cheap federal loans, rising wages, and union membership facilitated suburban growth.
• William Levitt applied mass production techniques to housing, creating planned suburban communities (Levittowns).
• Levittowns offered affordable housing, with prices dropping to $8,000 by 1960.
• These houses were standardized, raising questions about conformity.

Criticisms of Suburbia

• Critics argued that suburban living led to mindless conformity.
• Abraham Levitt defended Levittowns, stating that they were for people, not critics.
• There were concerns about whether suburbia and corporate culture were stifling individuality.

Racial Exclusion in Suburbia

• Suburban communities fostered homogeneity through practices designed to exclude African Americans and other minorities.
• Racial covenants prohibited certain people from buying homes.
• Redlining: The FHA and the VA color-coded maps to showcase the city areas that were more favorable for loans. Minority neighborhoods were redlined, meaning there was a refusal to give government-backed loans.
• These discriminatory practices meant that African Americans were largely excluded from government-backed home loans and mortgages.
• In Mississippi in 1947, only 2 of more than 3,200 VA-guaranteed home loans were given to black borrowers.
• A major critic of suburbanization was John Keats. He said that you lived in a neighborhood where people's age, income, number of children, and problems were identical to yours.
• The FHA color-coded maps prohibited African Americans from improving their housing.
• The blue color loans were the safest areas to lend, which was to white families in North Atlanta.

Television

• Television became a dominant medium for news, entertainment, and shaping tastes.
• By 1960, almost 90% of American homes had a TV.
• Television became the principal mediator between the consumer and the marketplace.
• Consolidation of media conglomerates created a narrow range of middle-class tastes and values.
• Shows like "Father Knows Best" and "Leave It to Beaver" reflected a white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant world of nuclear families and suburban homes.
• Television lost its ethnic, racial, and class diversity.

Youth Culture and Rebellion

• A new demographic emerged: teenagers.
• Teenagers were drawn to films advocating rebelliousness and new forms of music like rock and roll.
• Hollywood studios recognized teenagers as a lucrative market.
• Films like "The Wild One" and "Rebel Without a Cause" spoke to teen fears of stifling parents and the suffocation of suburban life.
• Cultural icons like James Dean and Elvis Presley thrilled teenagers but horrified parents.

Rock and Roll

• Rock and roll originated in African American rhythm and blues.
• Alan Freed introduced white America to this music.
• Elvis Presley skyrocketed to fame with songs like "Hound Dog" and "Heartbreak Hotel."
• Many adults saw rock and roll as an invitation to interracial dating, rebellion, and sexuality.

Counter-Cultures

• Some groups rejected consumer society entirely.
• Black musicians developed bebop, a cerebral and individualistic jazz style.
• Beatniks, mostly white youths in New York and San Francisco, rejected materialism and consumerism.
• Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" was a manifesto of the Beat generation, glorifying spontaneity, sexual adventurism, drug use, and spirituality.
• The Beats were apolitical but inspired a new generation of young rebels.

Women's Roles and Expectations

• Women's traditional role as homemaker and mother was emphasized.
• Female domesticity was valorized.
• Deviation from gender norms was viewed with scorn.
• Women were thought to be on the front lines of domestic containment, raising children to resist communism.
• Working-class women remained in jobs but faced a dual burden of paid work and family responsibilities.
• Appliances were marketed to women to make domestic chores easier.
• Doctor Benjamin Spock advocated for women to be constantly available for their children.
• There was a mental health crisis among women, with rising rates of alcoholism and prescription drug use.

Marriage and Family Life

• Marriage was intensely patriarchal.
• Men provided economic support, while women cared for children.
• The nuclear family was celebrated as the ideal form of social organization.
• The family was politicized by the Cold War.

The Kinsey Report

• Alfred Kinsey documented the full range of sexual experiences of thousands of Americans.
• He broke taboos by discussing topics like homosexuality and marital infidelity.
• His studies confirmed that a sexual revolution had begun.
• Kinsey's findings were controversial but opened up a national conversation about sex.

Homosexuality

• Kinsey claimed that homosexuality was more prevalent than most Americans believed.
• The American Psychiatric Association defined homosexuality as a mental illness in 1952.
• Homophile societies, like the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis, sought equal rights for gays and lesbians.
• They tried to cultivate a respectable middle-class image.

Contradictions and Inequality

• As middle-class whites moved to the suburbs, working-class migrants, many of them African Americans, moved into the cities.
• Cities saw declining economies and dwindling federal investment.
• The Kerner Commission warned of two separate and unequal societies.
• Postwar cities experienced poverty, slums, and cultural dislocations.
• Mechanization eliminated unskilled and semi-skilled jobs.
• Housing restrictions, segregated schools, and urban infrastructure exacerbated the urban crisis.
• Urban Renewal Projects: Politicians and real estate developers razed blighted neighborhoods to make way for modern construction. Around 400,000 buildings were demolished and 1,400,000 people were displaced. Federal Housing Projects were created where those displaced were able to move into.
• Public housing increased racial segregation and concentrated the poor.

Conclusion

• The US entered an era of unparalleled prosperity, but not everyone shared in it.
• The Cold War was an engine of prosperity.
• Postwar cities became places of last resort for the nation's poor.
• These contradictions drove the social and protest movements of the 1960s.