Introduction to U.S. Government• Constitution (supreme law of the land) established 3 branches of

government:– legislative, judicial, executive

• System of Checks and Balances– No branch can become too powerful

• the legislative branch is in charge of making laws. – The executive branch can veto the law, thus making it harder for the

legislative branch to pass the law. – The judicial branch may also say that the law is unconstitutional and

thus make sure it is not a law. • The judicial branch reviews laws passed by Congress and

decides if they are anti-Constitutional or not– The legislative branch can also remove a president or judge that is not

doing his/her job properly. – Supreme Court decisions are expressed as one party vs. another (e.g.

Brown vs. Board of Education)• The executive branch implements/enforces laws & appoints

judges – the legislative branch approves the choice of the executive branch

Presidential Elections• Electoral College system vs. Direct universal

suffrage

• Bi-party system (not always)– Republicans vs. Democrats– BUT ALSO progressives, Dixiecrats, States’

Rights, Socialist, American Independence, Libertarian, etc….)

• 4-year Term, maximum 10 years• 1/3 of Senators renewed every 2 years (6 yr

term) (direct election)• House of Representatives serve 2 year terms

US Domestic Policy since 1945

The Economic MiracleAnd Post-war Anxiety

1945 - 1953The Presidency of Harry Truman

Background on Truman

• FDR’s VP during his 4th term• Becomes president upon FDR’s death

on April 12, 1945• Truman was mostly left out of FDR’s

inner circle• Viewed as weak & inexperienced• Faced high inflation rates early on in

his term

The “Fair Deal”• Wanted to expand the New Deal

– Called for higher minimum wage, increase civil rights for African Americans, national health insurance, and increased funding of education

• Many of Truman’s goals were not met– Congress was dominated by Republican Party & defeated

Truman’s bills– Biggest successes were desegregating the military &

increasing the minimum wage– Essentially, New Deal programs were continued, nothing

else was added (relief, recovery, reform – alphabet soup)

Introduction

Inherent Contradictions of the AgeCoexistence of Anxiety & Affluence

Victory… Now What?• Post-War Anxieties• Would the Great Depression return?• GNP fell• Prices rose 33%• 4.6 million workers went on strike• Taft-Hawley Act made unions weaker • Increased executive power to prevent

striking• Reduced power of labor unions (end of

closed shops)• vetoed by Truman then passed by

Republican Congress

Veterans returning from war• Readjustment Act of 1944 or GI Bill• Sought to reintegrate 15 million veterans

back into society• 1 year of unemployment benefits• Financial Aid to go to college• Veterans Administration provides $15

billion in cheap Loans to build houses• Tensions creating with returning black

soldiers•Women and minorities kicked out of

industrial jobs to make room

Economic Boom: 1950-1970

• America’s Golden Age• Income shot up• 6% of world’s

population and 40% of world’s wealth

• 40 million new jobs in the 1950’s• Women entered the

work force

• Cheap oil fed the boom• Europeans controlled

the oil of the Middle East

• 90% of American children are in school• Farm productivity

skyrockets• Only 2% of the

nation are farmers

I. 1950’s Demographics

A. National Affluence• GDP almost doubled

1945-1960• Inflation remained

under 2% most of 1950’s• Defense spending

most important stimulant• Baby boom contributed

+30% population (1945-1960)

B. Consumption Patterns

1. Home Ownership up by 50%2. Consumer Credit up by 800%3. Savings down by 5%4. Shopping Centers5. Teen consumption drove the economy

Materialism in US cultureI drive my car to supermarket,

The way I take is superhigh,A superlot is where I park it,

And Super Suds are what I buy.Supersalesmen sell me tonic –

Super-Tone-O, for relief.The planes I ride are supersonic.

In trains I like the Super Chief.Supercilious men and women

Call me superficial – me.Who so superbly learned to swim in

Supercolossality.Superphosphate-fed foods feed me;

Superservice keeps me new.Who would dare to supersede me,

Super-super-superwho?John Updike echoes complaints about American materialism, 1954

• 1950’s: Pop grew to 28 M(97% urban/suburban)• Life expectancy 66 in 195571 in 1970• Dr. Benjamin Spock’s The Commonsense Book of Baby and Child Care

Suburbia generated most growth

• Baby Boom: 1946-1964• Millions of men had been gone for almost 4 years!!!• Make up for lost time

• 78,000,000 Americans today are Baby Boomers• 26% of the population!!!!

• Huge boost to the economy• “Just imagine how much these extra people… will

absorb- in food, in clothing, in gadgets, in housing, in services….”

• Drag on Social Security…

C. Population Growth

D. Suburbs• Grew 6x faster than citiesWilliam Levitt• Mass-produced housing development(built 10,600 houses on Long

Island, 1947 Levittown)• Auto production 2 M 1946 8 M 1955• White flight as black population in cities

Impact of the Automobile

• By 1960 there are 60 million cars in America• Families are starting to have two cars per family

Car Culture

# of Cars in 1945

26,000,000# of Cars in 1960

60,000,000

Rise of Suburbia

• Cars mean you can enjoy the city just not have to live there…• Don’t have to deal with crime, congestion, noise, and

other not nice things

E. The Middle Classo 1947 5.7 million families classified as Middle

Classo 1960 ‘s 12 million American families classified

as Middle Class

F. JobsFarm Workers

9 million 19405.2 million 1960increase in farm productivity

1960 more Americans white collar than blue collar

II. Post-war AnxietyA. Conformity and security1. Homogeneity Expansion of middle class

I am beginning to think, whether it be for money, for notoriety, reputation, increase of pride, whether it leads us to thievery, slaughter, sacrifice, the quest is one and the same. All the striving is for one end. I do not entirely understand this impulse. But it seems to me that its final end is the desire for pure freedom. We are all drawn toward the same craters of the spirit – to know what we are and what we are for, to know our purpose, to seek grace. And, if the quest is the same, the differences in our personal histories, which hitherto meant so much to us, become of minor importance.

Saul Bellow’s character Joseph in Dangling Man (1946) expresses a feeling later echoed by many of the most memorable characters in post war American fiction.

Security in Sameness

Americans becoming “outer-directed” people rather than “inner-directed”

Society molded by peer-group pressures andCorporate culture indoctrination

Credits from TV Series, WeedsLittle Boxes, they all look the same

2. LeisureStandard work week

shrank (40 hours)TVBooks (mass market)

TV• In 1946 there were 7,000 TV’s built… by 1953 Americans bought 7,000,000

TV’s!!!!• By the end of the 50’s 90% of American

families owned a TV

B. Roles of WomenWomen

Cult of feminine domesticity after WWII

The Nuclear Family

• A husband and a wife and lovely little children• Gender Roles• Man went out and worked and earned the money• Women were the housewives and kept the home and raised the

children• Children were obedient and well behaved

C. RebellionIntellectualism Critical of American life

suburban life & mass production American education questioned

Traditional education began to be reexamined. Content: values of patriotism, obeying authority

Viewed as perpetuating ignorance, even contempt for people of other nations, races, Native Americans, women.

Style:-the formality, the bureaucracy, the insistence on subordination to authority

Small movement of new generation of teachers influenced by literary critiques

Betty Frieden The Feminine Mystique

“Each suburban wife struggles with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night- she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question-- 'Is this all?” ― Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique

“What Friedan gave to the world was, "the problem that has no name." She not only named it but dissected it. The advances of science, the development of labor-saving appliances, the development of the suburbs: all had come together to offer women in the 1950s a life their mothers had scarcely dreamed of, free from rampant disease, onerous drudgery, noxious city streets. But the green lawns and big corner lots were isolating, the housework seemed to expand to fill the time available, and polio and smallpox were replaced by depression and alcoholism. All that was covered up in a kitchen conspiracy of denial...Instead the problem was with the mystique of waxed floors and perfectly applied lipstick.”

― Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique

III. Rebellion in the MindsA. LiteratureB. Theater and Fiction Death of a Salesman 1949 and The

Crucible 1953 by Arthur Miller

Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger 1951Conflict of individual and society

Scene from Arthur Miller’s play, Death of a Salesman, starring Dustin Hoffman

C. Rebellious ArtEdward Hopper – isolated individuals Night Hawks

Abstract Expressionism (spontaneous expression)

Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning

Jackson Pollock

• Mark Rothko

Willem de Kooning

D. Counterculture and the Beat Generation

Began in Greenwich Village, NYAllen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs,

Neal Cassady, Saul BellowsFree-form poetry and mémoire-style writing

On the Road, film released in 2012 based on novel by Jack Kerouac

III. Rebellion in the Minds

• William Burroughs“I am forced to the appalling conclusion that I would never have become a writer but for Joan's death, and to a realization of the extent to which this event has motivated and formulated my writing. I live with the constant threat of possession, and a constant need to escape from possession, from control. So the death of Joan brought me in contact with the invader, the Ugly Spirit, and maneuvered me into a life long struggle, in which I have had no choice except to write my way out.”

III. Rebellion in the MindsFilm Trailer, Beat 2000 based on William Burroughs’ life

HomeworkThe Unfinished Nation, Chapter 30The Affluent Society

• Introduction – Economic Miracle & Timeline, p. 779• Science and Technology, p. 783• Bombs, Rockets & Missiles, p. 787• Space Program, p. 788• Consumer Culture, p. 789• Suburban nation, suburban family, p. 789• Birth of Television, p. 791• Travel, Outdoor Recreation, Environmentalism, p. 792• Organized society and its detractors, p. 793• Beats and Culture of Youth, p. 794• Rock n roll, p. 795

• U.S. History in Context – 1950’s 17 pages (see blog)