Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Political Background
Harry S. Truman (Democrat, 1945 1953)
o atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: August 6 and 9, 1945
o the Korean War (part of the Cold War: mid-1940s to the early 1990s): 1950 -1953
o McCarthyism (Republican senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy, 1908-1957):
activities associated with the period in the United States known as the Second Red
Scare (First Red Scare: shortly after the end of World War I and the Bolshevik
Revolution in Russia, fear of anarchism: 1917 1920)
roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s
characterized by heightened fears of Communist influence on American
institutions and espionage by Soviet agents
term coined by Washington Post cartoonist Herbert Block, he and others used the
word as a synonym for demagoguery, baseless defamation, and mudslinging
later, embraced by McCarthy and some of his supporters. "McCarthyism is
Americanism with its sleeves rolled, (McCarthy, a 1952 speech; later that
year he published a book titled McCarthyism: The Fight For America)
Dwight D. Eisenhower (Republican, 1953 1961)
o commanding general of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II
o truce in Korea
o moderate policies
o continued most of the New Deal and Fair Deal programs; balanced budget
New Deal was the name that United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave to a
sequence of central economic planning and economic stimulus programs he initiated
between 1933 and 1938 with the goal of giving aid to the unemployed, reform of
business and financial practices, and recovery of the economy during The Great
Depression. The enactment of New Deal policies lasted from 1933 through 1939. The
Fair Deal was U.S. President Harry S. Truman's catchphrase for a series of social and
economic reforms, outlined in his 1949 State of the Union Address to Congress on
January 5, 1949. Truman stated that "Every segment of our population, and every
individual, has a right to expect from his government a fair deal." Despite a mixed
record of contemporary legislative success, the Fair Deal remains significant in
establishing a call for universal health care as a rallying cry for the Democratic Party
o reinforced desegregation of schools
o "atoms for peace" program - the loan of American uranium to "have not" nations for
peaceful purposes
o tried to ease Cold War tensions
o ordered the complete desegregation of the Armed Forces.
This led to the growth of the American middle class and its values.
o See The Adventures of Augie March as rebelling attitude towards the imposition of
social clichs of the decade, rejection of patterns / roles other characters offer to Augie
as trimmers of his individualism (perceived in Whitmanesque, pre-industrial manner).
o Read Allen Ginsbergs A Supermarket in California (1956) for poetical perception
of American 1950s materiality and consumerism vs. 19th century spiritual values
In the area of durable goods, Americans went on a buying spree in the 1950s, bringing
about the birth of huge, warehouse-like stores to cater to their wants.
The small-town face of America had begun to be supplanted by an urbanized and
corporate one.
Most people were enmeshed in a consumer frenzy to buy and accumulate.
Despite rising inflation spurred by rising government expenditures, Americans as a whole
directed increasing amounts of their money to whatever they wished, enjoying a level of
goods and services never dreamed of earlier.
Median family income almost doubled: between 1950 and 1960, it went from $3,083 per
year to $5,976 per year.
Even factoring in inflation, real wages increased 30 percent, so that food, clothing, and
shelter no longer took away so much of each paycheck.
New cars (instead of used models), televisions, high-fidelity units, improved telephones,
alcoholic beverages, and endless entertainment saw sharply rising sales.
Pockets of poverty persisted in postwar America. Many black Americans still toiled in
underpaid, low-status jobs and lived in substandard housing.
Neither did a majority of farmers and factory workers immediately share the fruits of
rising prosperity.
Single women, already laboring in low-paying positions, continued to lag behind their
male counterparts.
differences. Baby boom evolved as the term used to describe the skyrocketing numbers
of new additions to familiesThis astonishing rise proved an economic bonanza for
retailers, but schools and recreational facilities found themselves stretched to their very
limits.
Having children was touted as the highest form of happiness; a woman fulfilled herself
by bearing children. And, despite a swelling population, the baby boom continued
unabated.
Popular television situation comedy, I Love Lucy, (1951 1957):
o Desi and Lucy Ricardo, husband and wife, find that Lucy is expecting. In those
more innocent days of TV, network censors considered the word pregnant taboo,
although they embraced the concept of approaching motherhood.
o In reality, Lucille Ball, the star of the show, had become pregnant, and so her
condition got written into the series. It proved a wise move; audiences followed her
progress in one episode after another, culminating in the birth of little Ricky in early
1953 (filming took place in November of 1952).
o It became one of the most watched events in the history of American television.
In a similar way, shows like Father Knows Best, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet,
Leave It to Beaver, Make Room for Daddy, and The Donna Reed Show espoused strong
family values.
The picture painted of the decade might be unrealistic and rose-colored, but it has
persisted as a nostalgic perception of the 1950s.
Technological Change
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Bright yellow-and-black triangular signs were attached to the entrances of stout public
buildings, with the instructions to take shelter in the event of an attack.
Even the public schools had their Duck and Cover drills. At the news of approaching
planes, students were to duck (under whatever is close by) and cover (arms over the
head for additional protection).
A generation of 1950s students practiced the exercise an exercise in futility had there
been an actual attack.
The government also printed many pamphlets and posters that purported to show how to
survive a nuclear explosion.
They encouraged building backyard bomb shelters, but suggested a reinforced basement
room, suitably stocked with emergency items, might suffice.
For those unfortunate to be caught outdoors when disaster struck, the instructions were
succinct: because most men wore hats when outdoors in those days, they urged tilting the
head so the brim will shield the eyes from heat flash; for women, they advised wearing
hosiery and long sleeves at all times for a similar level of protection.
Lacking a hat or hose, jumping face first into nearby ditches and gutters might also
provide a modicum of security.
In a series of movies that ranged from the trite Invasion, U.S.A. (1952), to the modest
Magnetic Monster (1953), to the terrifying Them! (1954), Hollywood played on fears of
mutations, atomic war, domestic spying, and Communist infiltration.
government.
In February 1950, Joseph McCarthy, the junior senator from Wisconsin, loudly
proclaimed that he had evidence that 205 active Communist agents had been employed at
the State Department.
Leading the Senate Investigations Subcommittee, McCarthy launched a campaign based
on fears, innuendo, and smears to track down Communists in government.
An outright witch-hunt, the subcommittee often used guilt by accusation to besmirch its
victims.
By 1957, some six million individuals had been investigated by various related agencies
and committees because of alleged sympathies to the Communist cause.
Out of those six million, only a small handful ever got convicted.
McCarthy likewise offered no hard evidence for his ceaseless claims, but many people
nevertheless took them at their face value.
Reelected in 1952, McCarthy began a full-scale assault on anyone and everyone he
deemed subversive.
In March of 1954, the esteemed Columbia Broadcasting System newsman Edward R.
Murrow aired a special program on his series, See It Now. He titled the special A Report
on Senator Joseph P. McCarthy.
The senators crude, intimidating attacks on individuals and institutions smacked of a
tyrant, a browbeater, a thug. In 1956, the Senate took away his chairmanship of the
investigative committee. The Senate eventually censured him and any remaining
influence ended.
Eisenhower retained Nixon in his campaign, and the two savored a strong victory.
The Cultural Ferment of the 1950s
For many American intellectuals, the specter of an undifferentiated mass culture that
could lead public opinion seemed far more frightening than any Russian warheads.
They saw the nation falling into a kind of mindless conformity, accepting, without
question, the nightly offerings of network television, along with Top 40 radio
programming and big box-office movies.
Those elements, coupled with the paternalistic philosophy of the Eisenhower
administration, created undercurrents of dissent and revolt that simmered throughout the
decade.
Read Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962) / watch the eponymous movie
directed by Milos Forman.
The Cultural Ferment of the 1950s
Jack Kerouac set out to rewrite the American novel
Jackson Pollock challenged his fellow artists with abstract drip paintings
the suspect insolence of Elvis Presley and James Dean bothered many.
Marlon Brando sweated and grunted to the delight of adolescents everywhere, and
Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie took jazz places it had never been before.
For a literary representation of this outlook on the everyday life in the 1950s also read:
Jack Kerouac, On the Road (1957); William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch (1959)
Still, Ernest Hemingway's heroes still adhered to a manly code of behavior, Norman
Rockwell's Saturday Evening Post covers continued to captivate millions, Gary Cooper
represented all that was good in the Western myth, Perry Como crooned in a reassuring
baritone, and good, old traditional Dixieland Jazz enjoyed something of a revival.
Depending on one's focus during the fifties, the decade could seem complacent and
conformist, or it could be filled with threatening change and shrill individuals who turned
their backs on anything held dear by generations of Americans.
For the average American, however, the intellectual debates of the era occurred offstage,
unseen and unheard.
With the reality of the Cold War intruding into daily lives, the thought of a cultural
consensus sounded reassuring, not threatening.
Rock 'n' roll seemed far more challenging to worried parents than discussions of cultural
hegemony.
Added to that were the changes brought about by civil rights legislation, by school
integration, and by a sense of rebellion on the part of youth across the nation. Nothing
was as it used to be.
In the popular mind, people conformed during the 1950s. T
The sprawling suburbs of ranch and split-level homes (on different levels: describes a
house or room built on two levels with steps between them) exemplified this social
conformity.
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The typical suburbanite earned slightly more than his city-dwelling counterpart and
differing lifestyles reflected this inequality.
The suburbs also quietly exploited other, more unfortunate, kinds of conformity: racial,
ethnic, and social. Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Jews, and a host of others were kept out
of most developments.
The men in the gray flannel suits were white and Christian, heads of nuclear families,
and proudly middle class.
Their clothing, their architecture, their jobs, and their leisure all supported this kind of
sameness.
Hollywood, ever observant of social trends, exploited the move to suburbia in No Down
Payment (1957), a melodramatic tale of several families and their problems living in what
had been promised to be paradise.
1950s in Brief
Social critics identified conformity as the main characteristics of the 1950s and a
dedication to the active pursuit of economic and financial success accompanied by an
increasing concern with material comfort
Increasing number of people attending higher education due to the GI Bill: 50% of
population was college educated
Graduates targeted and worked for more sophisticated companies (e.g. IBM)
College education ensured higher incomes which gradually triggered the creation of the
suburbs - satellite towns at the outskirts of the cities in which middle-class and uppermiddle class families lived.
By the early 1960s, an American family moved to a new place of residence once every
five years.
The working class benefited from the economic boom, organized better into unions.
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