1. Chapter 28: The Affluent Society
By Matthew Woodley
Jasmine Martinez
and Victoria Rey

2. “The Economic Miracle”

3. Sources of Economic Growth
 The gross national product grew by 250 percent
after the war.
 government spending continued to stimulate
growth through public funding of schools, housing,
and welfare.
 The national birth rates reversed a long pattern of
decline with the so-called baby boom.
 The economy grew nearly ten times as fast as the
population in the thirty years after the war and the
American people achieved the highest standard of
living of any society in the history of the world.

4. The Rise of the Modern West
 The West experienced dramatic changes as a
result of the new economic growth.
 Population expanded dramatically; cities boomed;
industrial economy flourished.
 By the 1960s, some parts of the West were
among the most important industrial and cultural
centers of the nation in their own right.
 What contributed to this growth were federal
spending, military contacts, an increase in
automobile use giving a large boost to the
petroleum industry, and the climate.

5. The New Economies
 The postwar economy became a source of national
confidence for two reasons.
 First was the belief in Keynesian economics made it
possible for government to regulate and stabilize the
economy without intruding directly into the private
sector.
 The “new economics” finally won official acceptance in
1963 and caused an increase in private demand,
which stimulated economic growth and reduced
unemployment.
 By the mid 1950s, reformers concerned about poverty
were arguing that the solution lay not in redistribution
but in economic growth.

6. Capital and Labor
 Over 4,000 corporate mergers took place in the 1950sl and a
relatively small number of large scale organizations controlled
the nation‟s economic activity.
 Business leaders made concessions to unions in order to
prevent strikes from interfering with growth.
 Bay the 1950s, large labor unions had developed a new kind
of relationship with employers known as the “post-war
contract”
 Workers in large unionized industries received increases in
wages and in return the union agreed to refrain from raising
other issues.
 The success led to the reunification of the labor movement
with the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of
Industrial Organizations merging to create the AFL-CIO.

7. The Explosion of Science and
Technology

8. Medical Breakthroughs
 The development of antibiotics proved that
virulent bacterial infections could be defeated by
other more ordinary bacteria.
 Alexander Fleming, an English medical
researcher, accidentally discovered the
antibacterial properties of a organism he named
Penicillin.
 In 1954, the American scientist Jonas Salk
introduced an effective vaccine against Polio.
 As a result of medical advances, infant mortality
and death rate declined significantly after the war.

9. Pesticides
 Scientists were developing new kinds of
chemical pesticides in order to protect crops
from destruction by insects and protect from
the diseases they carry.
 The most famous of the new pesticides was
dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, generally
known as DDT, discovered by Paul Muller.

10. Postwar Electronic Research
 Researchers in the 1940s produced the first
commercially viable televisions and created
technology that made it possible to broadcast
programming over large areas.
 In 1948, Bell Labs, the research arm of AT&T
produced the first transistor capable of amplifying
electric signals.
 Integrated circuits combined a number of once-
separate electronic elements and embedded them
into a single microscopically small device.

11. Postwar Computer Technology
 The first significant computer of the 1950s was the
Universal Automatic Computer (UNITVAC) by the
Remington Rand Company.
 It was the first computer able to handle both
alphabetical and numerical information easily.
 It used tape storage and could perform
calculations and other functions much faster than
its predecessor the ENIAC.
 In the mid-1950s, the International Business
Machines Company (IBM) introduced its first
major data-processing computers and began to
find a wide market for them among businesses.

12. Bombs, Rockets, and Missiles
 In 1952, the United States successfully detonated the first
hydrogen bomb which derives its power from fusion (the
joining of lighter atomic elements with heavier ones).
 The development of the hydrogen bomb put back on track
efforts by the U.S. and Soviet Union to develop unmanned
rockets and missiles.
 Both the American and Soviet leaders were struggling to build
longer range missiles that could cross oceans and continents.
 By 1958, scientists had created solid fuel to replace the
volatile liquid fuels of early missiles; and also produced
miniaturized guidance systems.
 Within a few years, a new generation of missile, known as the
Minuteman, with a range of several thousand miles, became
the basis of the American atomic weapons arsenal.

13. The Space Program
 The origins of the American space program can be traced to
when the Soviet Union in 1957 announced it had launched an
earth-orbiting satellite –sputnik –into outer space.
 Federal policy began encouraging and funding strenuous
efforts to improve scientific education in schools and speed
the development of America‟s own space exploration.
 The centerpiece of space exploration became the manned
space program established in 1958 through the creation of
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
 NASA‟s initial efforts, the Mercury and Gemini program, gave
way to the Apollo program that allowed astronauts such as
Neil Armstrong to on July 20, 1969 land on the moon.
 The enthusiasm for the program waned afterwards, with
focus instead begin given to the development of the “space
shuttle”.

14. People of Plenty

15. The Consumer Culture
 At the center of middle-class culture in the 1950s was a
growing absorption with consumer goods.
 It came as a result of increased prosperity, increasing variety,
availability of products, and advertisers‟ adeptness in creating
a demand for products.
 It was also the result of the growth of consumer credit with
increased between 1945 and 1857 with the development of
credit cards.
 The 1950s were notable for the rapid spread of great national
consumer crazes such as the Hula Hoop.
 The popularity of the Walt Disney-produced children‟s
television show The Mickey Mouse Club created a demand
for related products and led to the creation of Disneyland.

16. The Landscape and Automobile
 Between 1950 and 1980, the nation‟s population increased by 50
percent, but the numbers of automobiles owned by Americans
increased by 400 percent.
 The Federal Highway Act of 1956, which appropriated $25 billion for
highway construction, was one of the most important alterations of the
national landscape in modern history. The great ribbons of concrete-
40,000 miles- spread across the nation.
 The effects of the highways
 Reduced the time to travel
 Trucking was more convenient
 Long, steady decline in railroads
 Travel by automobile a lot faster
 Encouraged economic activities
 Creation of fast food restaurants

17. The Suburban Nation
 By 1960, a third of the nation‟s population was living in suburbs.
Suburbanization was partly a result of important innovations in
home-building, which made single-family houses affordable to
millions of people.
 “Levittown”
 William Levitt
 Made use of mass-production techniques to construct a large housing
development on Long Island
 Inexpensive
 Reasons
 Young couples- often newly married- war veterans
 GI Bill
 Enormous importance postwar Americans placed on family life
 Similar age and background
 Race

18. The Suburban Family
 For professional men, suburban life generally meant a
rigid division between their working and personal
worlds. For many, middle-class, married women, it
meant increased isolation from the workplace.
 The enormous cultural emphasis on family life in the
1950s straightened the popular prejudice of women
entering the workplace..
 Dr. Benjamin Spock‟s Baby and Child Care
 Approach to raising babies was child-centered opposed to
parent centered
 Purpose of mothers: help children to learn and realize full
potential

19. The Birth of Television
 In 1946, there were only 17,000 sets in the
country; by 1957, there were 40 million
television sets in use.
 Three networking company: The National
Broadcasting Company, the Columbia
Broadcasting Company, and the American
Broadcasting Company
 Early shows:The GE Television Theater, the
Chrysler Playhouse, the Camel News
Caravan, and others.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Rvxxa66Co4&feature=related

20. Impact of Television and Shows
 Impact
 Rapid, pervasive, and profound
 Replaced newspapers, magazines, and radios as the
nation‟s most important vehicle
 helped create a vast market for new fashion and products
 Athletic events
 Television‟s Homogenizing Message
 An image or predominantly white, middle-class, and
suburban: Ozzie and Harriet and Leave it to Beaver
 Gritty, urban, working families
 I Love Lucy
 The Honeymooners

21. Travel, Outdoor Recreation, and
Environmentalism
 The construction of the interstate highway
system contributed dramatically to the growth
of travel. So did the increasing affluence of
workers, which made it possible for them to
buy cars.
 People who traveled to national parks did so
for many reasons- some to hike and camp;
some to fish and hunt; some simply to look in
awe at the landscape.

22. Echo Park
 The federal
government‟s Bureau of
Reclamation proposed
building a dam.
 In 1950, Bernard
DeVoto published an
essay titled “Shall We
Let Them Ruin Our
National Parks.” It
created arousing
opposition other Echo
Valley dam.
 The Sierra Club revived
with David Brower.

23. Organized Society and Its
Detractors
 Industrial workers also confronted large
bureaucracies, both in the workplace and in their
own unions.
 Consumers discovered the frustration of
bureaucracy in dealing with the large national
companies from whom they brought goods and
services.
 The American educational system responded:
 by experimenting with changes in curriculum and
philosophy. science, mathematics, and foreign
languages
 The Organization Man (1956) by William H. Whyte
Jr.

24. The Beats and the Restless
Culture of Youth
 The most caustic critics of bureaucracy and of
middle-class society in general, were a group of
young poets, writers, and artist generally known
as the “beats.”
 They wrote harsh critiques of what they
considered the sterility and conformity of
American life, the meaninglessness of American
politics, and the banality of popular culture. (On
The Road by Jack Kerouac)
 Blackboard Jungle
 “Juvenile delinquency”
 James Dean

26. Rock „n‟ Roll
 Black rhythm and blues tradition
 Appealed to some white youths
 Sam Phillips
 American Bandstand
 African American singers and bands: Chuck
Berry, Little Richard, B.B. King, Chubby
Checker, and The Temptations
 “Disk Jockeys”
 Jukeboxes and 45 rpm format
 “Payola” Scandal

27. Elvis Presley
 One of the most powerful
signs of the restiveness of
American youth was the
enormous popularity of rock
„n‟ roll- and of the greatest
early rock star, Elvis Presley;
Presley became a symbol of
a youthful determination to
push at the borders of the
conventional and acceptable.
Most all, the open sexuality of
his music and his public
performances made him
widely popular among you
Americans.

28. Poverty in America
 Despite the economic expansion, many
Americans still lived in poverty. In 1960 more than
a fifth of American families were living in poverty.
 About eighty percent were in “temporary” poverty,
which would typically stop once they got a job.
Twenty percent lived in permanent poverty, which
was debilitating and often offered no hope.
 Michael Harrington depicted this in his 1962 book,
The Other America.

29. Poverty in Rural and City Life
 Poverty was rampant in rural life. Farm prices dropped thirty
three percent despite the fifty percent increase in national
income. About ten percent of the farm population had moved
into or been absorbed by cities. Rural poverty was especially
hard for migrant farm workers.
 Inner cities became ghettos. These cities grew mostly
because of the huge migration of African Americans to
industrial cities. Between 1940 and 1960 more than three
million African Americans moved into northern cities from the
south. Similar migrations happened from Mexico and Puerto
Rico. These cities remained poor, though there is some
debate as to why. The response to this was “Urban Renewal”
which tore down buildings than gave families new homes and
built new public structures.

30. Brown v. Board of Education of
Topeka and Desegregation
 Civil rights became stronger. This is shown in the case of Brown v.
Board of Education of Topeka in which the Supreme Court
overruled its decision on the Plessy v. Ferguson case.
 The case also involved school segregation. The court ruled that it
was wrong to have segregation in schools, and overturned
“separate but equal”.
 There was strong opposition to this and many people tried to
overturn it or evade the ruling. This became known as “Massive
Resistance”.
 In 1958 the Supreme Court did not rule new student placement
rules, which were used to enforce segregation, unconstitutional.
 Central High School in Little Rock displayed this extreme
opposition. When they received orders to desegregate, an angry
white mob formed outside the school. Eisenhower was forced to
send troops in to restore order.

31. The Growing Movement
 On December 1, 1955 Rosa Parks refused to give her
seat up to a white passenger on a Montgomery bus.
She was arrested it. She became the symbol of a bus
strike. The bus strike forced the Supreme Court to rule
that segregation on public transportation is illegal, in
1956.
 Martin Luther King became the new leader of the
movement with a message of love and calmness. He
told people to remain calm when they were arrested
as well.
 Eisenhower had integrated the military and in 1957 he
signed a civil rights act offering protection for African
Americans who wanted to vote.

32. Causes
 The legacy of African American fighters in
World War II, radio and media, and higher
education led to the growth of the Civil Rights
movements.

33. Eisenhower‟s Presidency
 Eisenhower had a strong tie to business, and
modified his practices and cabinet around it.
 Though he was strongly tied to business, he
wanted to ensure federal welfare. He most
notably created the Federal Highway Act,
which was the largest public works project in
American history.

34. The Decline of McCarthy
 Senator Joseph McCarthy initially had a lot of
power because of his anticommunist stance.
 His decline came when he attacked the
secretary of army, Robert Stevens. The
questionings were televised, and because
McCarthy was so cruel he lost all public
support.
 The senate voted to remove him. He died
three years later.

35. Massive Retaliation
 Eisenhower‟s Secretary of State John Foster
Dulles was incredibly anticommunist and
wanted to stop communist expansion through
the process of “massive retaliation”, which was
the use of nuclear weaponry.
 The motivation was partially economic
because many people thought nuclear warfare
would be cheaper than traditional weaponry.

36. International Crises
 Frances fall in Dien Bien Phu further pushed France
out of Vietnam, and pulled America towards it.
 America‟s alliance with Israel caused strife with the
Middle East. The CIA and Iranian military leaders
worked to elevate the Shah, Muhammad Reza
Pahlevi to a high position. He ruled closely to the
United States.
 America had less luck with Egypt. Dulles withdrew
American aid when Egypt formed a trade alliance with
the Soviet Union. When Israel attacked Egypt
Eisenhower encouraged a truce for fear of another
world war.

37. International Crises (cont.)
 In1954 Eisenhower tried to stop Jacobo Arbenz Guzman‟s
government in Guatemala because he considered it Communist.
 America also stopped relations with Cuba, under its new leader
Fidel Castro. Cuba then aligned itself with the Soviet Union.
 The Hungarian Revolution further embittered relations with the
Soviet Union.
 In 1958 the new Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev demanded that
NATO released West Berlin, when they refused he suggested that
Eisenhower and himself have three meetings one in each country
and one in Paris. After Khrushchev‟s American visit, the Soviet
Union shot down an American U-2 (high altitude spy plane).
Khrushchev lashed out and ended the Paris conference in addition
to resending his invitation to Eisenhower.