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Chapter 29 |
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In postwar America, new affluence replaced the poverty and hunger of the Great Depression, and people flocked to suburbs like Levittown to escape the city and to raise their growing families. International events and the possibility of nuclear war contributed to increasing feelings of anxiety among the populace. The 1950s also saw the beginning of African Americans’ push for equality in the face of the nation’s growing affluence.
THE POSTWAR BOOM
An intensified demand for consumer goods and heavy government spending stimulated economic growth from the late 1940s through the 1950s. Although the rate of economic growth slowed in the second half of the 1950s, most Americans had far more real income during this era than ever before.
Postwar Prosperity
By 1950 production caught up with demand and the gross national product reached a point 50 percent higher than in 1940. The baby boom and expanding suburbia stimulated consumerism as fear of another depression dissipated. In the American workplace, higher pay and shorter hours remained as permanent standards. Slowdowns in economic growth occurred in the second half of the decade and older manufacturing regions like New England suffered a degree of decline, but the expansion of the Cold War and the growth of the military-industrial complex in the South and West provided sufficient economic stimuli to make the American standard of living the highest in the world.
Life in the Suburbs
The newly affluent postwar generation shed their identities to live in look-alike homes and embrace the new culture of the suburbs. Life in these communities depended on the automobile as people commuted to work and school and shopped in shopping centers and malls that popped up across the country. The home and nuclear family became the focus of American activity and aspiration as homemaking and child rearing became primary vocations for suburban women. Nonetheless, the number of wives working outside of the home doubled between 1940 and 1960 as women strove to contribute necessary funds to the maintenance of the suburban household.
The Good Life?
Despite an abundance of material goods and increased leisure time, many Americans questioned the quality of their lives.
Areas of Greatest Growth
One of the institutions that flourished in the postwar years was organized religion as Americans became divided into three segments—Catholics, Protestants, and Jews. The tremendous increase in the number of school-aged children created enormous growth and an overwhelming strain on local school districts. The number of young adults attending college increased precipitously. The greatest growth came in the medium of television, which became the most popular entertainment source. Though at first it was a source of artistic innovation, it quickly became a safe conveyor of the consumer culture.
Critics of the Consumer Society
With affluence and prosperity came an abundance of introspection and self-criticism. Critics like David Riesman, C. Wright Mills, and Jack Kerouac found fault with the blandness, conformity, corporate dehumanization, and loss of individuality of the 1950s. The disenchantment with consumer culture was epitomized by the emergence of the beats in literary circles and abstract expressionism in art.
The Reaction to Sputnik
The Soviet launching of an orbiting satellite caused panic among Americans in 1957 and heightened concern and self-assessment that the nation had lost its unquestioned supremacy in the world. The nation reacted by renewing its commitment to national greatness, as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was established and the National Defense Education Act was instituted.
Farewell to Reform
Growing affluence removed the urgency for social and economic change.
Truman and the Fair Deal
In the wake of his 1948 electoral victory, President Truman tried to push for too many reforms too soon. Although he failed to get congressional and public support for the “Fair Deal,” Truman’s spirited efforts did prevent Republicans from repealing New Deal social legislation.
Eisenhower’s Modern Republicanism
When Dwight Eisenhower was elected in 1952, moderation based upon fiscal conservatism, encouragement of private initiative, and reduction of federal programs became the theme. His administration’s legislative record (which consisted of extending Social Security benefits and creating the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare) was relatively modest. One significant accomplishment, the Highway Act of 1956, created the modern interstate system.
Continued prosperity allowed Americans to accept increasing governmental spending and larger federal deficits.
The Struggle Over Civil Rights
The Cold War helped to arouse the national conscience in favor of civil rights for African Americans. Although benefiting economically from World War II, Blacks continued to live in blighted neighborhoods and to be segregated from White society. The denunciation of Soviet human rights abuses while African Americans were kept in a state of second-class citizenship sparked calls for change.
Civil Rights as a Political Issue
Although President Truman had failed to push his civil rights package through Congress over southern opposition, he did succeed in adding civil rights to the liberal agenda. Additionally, he strengthened the civil rights division of the Justice Department, making legal attempts to challenge Jim Crow laws more likely to succeed. Most importantly, Truman desegregated the armed forces.
Desegregating the Schools
The Supreme Court took the lead in reversing the late nineteenth century’s “separate but equal” decisions. In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, the Court ordered the nation’s public schools to admit African-American students for the first time. Though President Eisenhower sent troops into Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce the ruling, on the whole the lack of presidential support weakened the desegregation process. A permanent Commission for Civil Rights was established to protect voting rights, however. Though southern “massive resistance” made these efforts largely ineffective, the actions of the Supreme Court and Congress marked a turning point in national policy toward racial justice.
The Beginnings of Black Activism
More dynamic than the Supreme Court and Congress were the actions of African Americans themselves. In Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led a successful boycott against the city’s segregated bus system. Drawing from sources such as Gandhi, King developed the concept of passive resistance. In 1960 “sit-ins” and other direct but peaceful demonstrations led by SCLC and SNCC succeeded in desegregating many public facilities.
Conclusion: Restoring National Confidence
Though the 1950s ended with a national mood that was less troubled than when the decade began, the United States was neither as tranquil or confident as it could have been. Though Americans no longer feared a reoccurrence of the Great Depression, new fears emerged about the hollowness of the new abundance and the contradiction that American race relations posed for national promises of equality, democracy, and freedom.
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