POST WWII - POLITICAL

GI Bill• Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944

• Over 15 million given opportunities• Postwar boom in higher education

• How does that change the face of college students?• How does that change the Florida University system?

• Low-interest loans• Effects on home ownership, suburbs• Farms and businesses

• Helped stimulated the postwar economic expansion

1948 Election• Dem – Harry Truman• Rep – Thomas Dewey• Dixiecrats (States’ Rights Party) – Strom Thurmond

• Why did they leave the Democrats?

• What was wrong with the polls?

Truman’s Fair Deal Plan• First Introduced in 1946, and again after 1948 election• Fair Deal tried to expand upon the New Deal programs

• National Health Care system• Aid to education• Civil Rights • Public housing• Minimum wage hike

• Most measures defeated in Republican-controlled Congress• Minimum wage only major one passed• Foreign policy (Cold War) took priority

• 22nd Amendment• Passed in 1951• Limited President to Two

terms• Made Washington’s

precedent a rule• Why?

• Executive Order 9981• 1948 (after congress

would not pass law)• Truman desegregates

the military with executive order.

The Eisenhower Decade• “I Like IKE”• 1952 Election

• Rep – Dwight Eisenhower• Dem – Adlai Stevenson

• Checker’s Speech• Eisenhower’s VP Nixon

• 1956 Election• Rep – Dwight Eisenhower• Dem – Adlai Stevenson

Eisenhower Presidency• “Modern Republicanism”

• Fiscal Conservative who tried to balance the budget• Sometimes rated as the top economic President

• Was it his policies or a great economy?

• Did expand Social Security, raise minimum wage• Federal Highway Act – Interstates• Did not expand much on other domestic issues

• Looking in hindsight, was this a mistake?

McCarthyism• A Second Red Scare – McCarthyism

• Worrying about communism after a World War. Sound Familiar?

• Smith Act – passed in 1940, made it illegal to advocate the overthrow of the government.• Upheld in 1951 with Dennis et al v. United States

• HUAC – House Un-American Activities Committee• Started in WWII to find Nazis in gov’t, used then against communists• Leader in late 40s – Richard Nixon• ACLU argued this was against 1st Amendment Rights• Hollywood Ten – blacklisted for not testifying

McCarthyism – Spies like us• Alger Hiss -1950

• Work in State Dept.• “pumpkin papers”• Never convicted of

Espionage, but of perjury• Nixon lead investigation

• Rosenbergs• Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

were traced to spy ring that gave atomic secrets

• Found guilty of treason and executed in 1953

• Some thought it was just hysteria

McCarthyism – Rise and Fall • Joseph McCarthy – Rep. Senator from Wisconsin

• Use communism issue in reelection campaign in 1950• Said 205 Communists worked in State Department

• Popularity increased as he used a steady stream of unsupported accusations.• Loved by many as he attacked wealthy and privileged• Helped Republican candidates in early 50s

• During the televised Army-McCarthy Hearings he was exposed.• “McCarthyism” = “witchhunt”

1950s Civil Rights - I• WWII – Phillip Randolph – March on Washington threat• Jackie Robinson and baseball – 1947• 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

• Overturns Plessy v. Ferguson • Chief Justice – Earl Warren

• Thurgood Marshall - NAACP

• “separate facilities are inherently unequal”• Schools were to end segregation with “all deliberate speed”

Civil Rights II• Montgomery Bus Boycott – 1955

• Rosa Parks resisted segregation law• Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. organizes boycott

• Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)• Leader of non-violent protests (passive resistance)

• Greensboro (NC) sit-in movement - 1960• Woolworth lunch counter was segregated• Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) started

• Florida – “wade-ins” at segregated beaches

Civil Rights III• Little Rock Central High School - 1956

• Gov. Orval Faubus used National Guard to keep black students out• Eisenhower sends in troops to uphold federal authority• “Little Rock Nine”