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Chapter 24 - An Affluent Society, 1953–1960

  1. Trends in postwar economy
    1. "Golden age" of American capitalism
      1. Economic expansion, growth
      2. Wide-ranging improvements in living standards
      3. Breadth of access to a better life
        1. Low unemployment
        2. Decline in poverty rate
      4. Industrial supremacy around world
    2. Emergence of West and South as centers of military production, mobilization
    3. Twilight of industrial age
      1. Gathering decline in manufacturing
      2. Shift toward white-collar occupations
    4. Transformations in agricultural America
      1. Acceleration of trend toward fewer and larger farms
      2. Mechanization of southern farming
      3. Expansion of corporate farming out West
        1. Fruits and vegetables
        2. Migrant labor
  2. Suburbia
    1. Rise
      1. Pace and magnitude
      2. Central role in economic expansion
      3. Symbols and manifestations
        1. Levittown
        2. Malls
        3. California
          1. Los Angeles; "centerless city"
          2. Freeways, cars
          3. Shopping centers
          4. Lawns
    2. Consumer culture
      1. Growth and spread
      2. Ideology of American consumerism
        1. As core of freedom
        2. As measure of American superiority
      3. Key elements
        1. Television
          1. Spreading presence
          2. Growing prominence as leisure activity
          3. Themes of programming, advertising
        2. Automobile
          1. Place in "standard consumer package"
          2. Role in economic boom
          3. Impact on American landscape, travel habits
          4. Emergence as symbol of freedom
    3. Female sphere
      1. Place in labor force
        1. Rising numbers
        2. Limited aims
      2. Ideal of male as breadwinner, woman as homemaker
      3. Affirmation of family ideal
        1. Younger marriage age
        2. Fewer divorces
        3. Baby boom
      4. Separate spheres as Cold War weapon
      5. Receding of feminism
    4. Exclusion of blacks; racial wall between city and suburbs
      1. Pervasiveness
      2. Sources and mechanisms
        1. Federal government
        2. Banks and developers
        3. Residents
      3. Resulting patterns
        1. Suburbs for whites
          1. Fading of ethnic divisions
          2. Fear of black encroachment
        2. Urban ghettoes for blacks, Puerto Ricans
          1. Bleakness of conditions and opportunities
          2. Barriers to escape
        3. Self-reinforcing dynamic of racial exclusion
  3. Celebratory perspectives on postwar America
    1. "End of ideology"; liberal consensus
    2. "Judeo-Christian" heritage
      1. Themes
        1. Group pluralism
        2. Freedom of religion
      2. Underlying trends
        1. Fading of religious bigotry
        2. Secularization of American life
    3. "Free enterprise" as essential part of freedom
      1. Marketing of "free enterprise"
      2. Varieties of "free enterprise" outlooks
        1. Conservative wing
        2. Liberal wing
    4. "People's capitalism"
      1. Receptiveness to big business
      2. Heralding of classless society
    5. Two strains of conservative renewal
      1. Libertarians
        1. Ideas
          1. Individual autonomy
          2. Limited government
          3. Unregulated capitalism
        2. Special appeal among businessmen of South and West
        3. Leading voice: Milton Friedman
      2. New conservatives
        1. Ideas
          1. Free World vs. communism
          2. Absolute truth vs. toleration of difference
          3. Christian values vs. moral decay
          4. Community and tradition vs. excessive individualism
          5. Government as agent of moral regulation
        2. Leading voices: Russell Kirk, Richard Weaver
      3. Central points of divergence: "free man" vs. "good man"
      4. Common targets during the Fifties
        1. Soviet Union
        2. "Big government"
  4. Eisenhower era
    1. Election of 1952
      1. Republican ticket
        1. Dwight D. Eisenhower
          1. Political appeal
          2. Decision to run as Republican
          3. Nomination
        2. Richard M. Nixon
          1. Political rise
          2. Anticommunist style
          3. Reputation for opportunism, dishonesty
          4. Populist brand of free-market conservatism
      2. Nixon scandal
        1. "Checkers speech"
        2. Demonstration of television's significance
      3. Eisenhower victory over Adlai Stevenson (first of two)
    2. Eisenhower's domestic policy: Modern Republicanism
      1. Pro-business administration
      2. Fiscal and budgetary conservatism
      3. Retention, expansion of New Deal programs
      4. Avoidance of European-style nationalization
      5. Use of government to spur productivity, employment
        1. Key examples
          1. Interstate highway system
          2. National Defense Education Act
        2. Motivations
          1. Cold War
          2. Economic prosperity
    3. Labor-management "social contract"
      1. Preconditions
        1. Taming of organized labor; Taft-Hartley Act
        2. Consolidation of organized labor; merger of AFL-CIO
      2. Terms
      3. Outcome for working-class America
        1. Prosperity for union workers
        2. Mixed outcome for nonunion workers
          1. Indirect benefits
          2. Marginalization
      4. Fraying of social contract; 1959 steel strike
    4. Ebb and flow of U.S.-Soviet tensions
      1. Acquisition by each side of hydrogen bomb; subsequent nuclear arms race
      2. Doctrine of "massive retaliation"; "mutually assured destruction (MAD)"
        1. Announcement by John Foster Dulles
        2. Themes
        3. Characterization by critics as "brinksmanship"
        4. Legacy
          1. Sobering effects on superpowers
          2. Climate of fear
      3. Eisenhower-Khrushchev thaw
        1. First steps
          1. Korean armistice
          2. Death of Stalin; succession by Nikita Khrushchev
          3. Geneva summit
          4. Khrushchev denunciation of Stalin, call for "coexistence"
        2. Setback: Hungary crisis
          1. Soviet repression of uprising
          2. Eisenhower refusal to intervene
        3. Resumption of thaw
          1. Weapons testing halt
          2. Khrushchev visit
        4. Setback: U-2 spy plane
    5. Cold War in Third World
      1. Emergence of Third World
        1. Origins of term
        2. Impulse toward nonalignment with Cold War superpowers
        3. Bandung Conference
      2. Decolonization
        1. Pace
          1. India, Pakistan
          2. British Gold Coast (Ghana)
          3. Subsequent spread of independence
        2. Cold War context
          1. U.S. fear of communist influence
          2. Participation of communists, socialists in independence struggles
          3. Third World aversion to Cold War alignment
      3. Cold War as determinant of U.S. alliances, interventions
        1. Covert subversion of sovereign governments
          1. Guatemala
          2. Iran
        2. Extension of containment to Middle East
          1. Suez crisis
          2. Eisenhower Doctrine
          3. Lebanon intervention
        3. Vietnam
          1. Postwar support for French colonialism
          2. Defeat of French by Ho Chi Minh's nationalists
          3. Geneva agreement for 1956 elections
          4. U.S.-backed scuttling of elections
          5. Support for unpopular Ngo Dinh Diem regime
        4. Long-term legacies of interventions
          1. Guatemala
          2. Iran
          3. Vietnam
    6. Mass society and its critics
      1. Leading voices
        1. Hans J. Morgenthau, "new accumulations" of corporate power
        2. C. Wright Mills, "power elite"
        3. David Riesman's The Lonely Crowd
        4. John Kenneth Galbraith's The Affluent Society
        5. William Whyte's The Organization Man
        6. Vance Packard's The Hidden Persuaders
      2. Limited impact on popular consciousness
    7. Cultural rebels
      1. Youth
        1. Themes
          1. Alienation from middle-class norms
          2. Sexual provocativeness; rock and roll
        2. Leading examples
          1. J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye
          2. Blackboard Jungle, Rebel Without a Cause
          3. Elvis Presley
        3. Mainstream reaction
          1. "Juvenile delinquency" panic
          2. Codes of conduct
      2. Playboy sensibility
      3. Gay and lesbian subcultures
      4. The Beats
        1. Themes
          1. Rejection of materialism, conformity, Cold War militarization
          2. Embrace of spontaneity, immediate pleasure, sexual experimentation
        2. Key works
          1. Jack Kerouac's On the Road
          2. Allen Ginsberg's Howl
  5. Emergence of civil rights movement
    1. Preconditions
      1. World War II challenge to racial system
      2. Black migration North
      3. Postwar global developments
        1. Cold War
        2. Decolonization
    2. Segregation and inequality in 1950s America
      1. Breadth of black poverty, barriers to opportunity
      2. Breadth of segregation
        1. In South
        2. In North, West
    3. Legal assault on segregation
      1. Main actors
        1. League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)
        2. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
          1. Leadership of Thurgood Marshall
          2. Step-by-step strategy
      2. Key steps (pre-Brown case)
        1. LULAC: Méndez v. Westminster in California
        2. NAACP
          1. 1938 University of Missouri Law School case
          2. 1950 University of Texas Law School case
      3. Brown v. Board of Education
        1. Background
        2. NAACP legal argument
          1. Direct challenge to separate but equal doctrine
          2. Emphasis on stigmatization, subversion of black selfesteem
        3. Earl Warren's desegregation decision
        4. Import of decision
          1. Limitations
          2. Broader significance and impact
    4. Montgomery bus boycott
      1. Rosa Parks
        1. Activist past
        2. Arrest on bus
      2. Year-long black boycott of segregated buses
      3. Supreme Court ruling against segregation in public transportation
      4. Victory
      5. Significance
        1. Launching of nonviolent southern crusade for racial justice
        2. Achievement of attention and support around country, world
        3. Emergence of Martin Luther King Jr.
    5. Language of freedom
      1. Pervasiveness in movement
      2. Range of meanings
    6. Leadership of King
      1. Themes
        1. Fusing of meanings of freedom
        2. Merging of black cause and experience with those of nation
        3. Capacity to reach both blacks and whites
        4. Philosophies of nonviolence, civil disobedience, Christian love, forgiveness
        5. Connections between struggles of African-Americans and non-whites overseas
      2. Formation of Southern Christian Leadership Conference
    7. Southern white intransigence; "massive resistance"
      1. Contributing factor: lack of federal backing
        1. Supreme Court's "all deliberate speed" ruling
        2. Eisenhower's ambivalence, reluctance to act
      2. Forms
        1. Southern Manifesto
        2. Anti-desegregation laws
        3. Banning of NAACP
        4. Revival of Confederate flag
    8. Little Rock crisis
      1. Governor Orville Faubus's obstruction of court-ordered integration
      2. Eisenhower's deployment of federal troops
  6. Toward the Sixties
    1. Election of 1960
      1. Republican nominee: Nixon
      2. Democratic nominee: John F. Kennedy
        1. Background
        2. Choice of Lyndon B. Johnson as running mate
        3. Catholic issue
        4. Cold War outlook
        5. "Missile gap" claim
        6. Glamorous style
      3. Nixon-Kennedy debate
      4. Kennedy victory
    2. Eisenhower's farewell address; "military-industrial complex"
    3. Social problems on horizon

 

Subject: 
US History
Subject X2: 
US History

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