Postwar America

• Armed forces 12 mil 3 mil• Birthrate up (baby boom)• Consumer spending up

– High inflation

• Growth of big business– Lots of strikes

• More women in labor force• Growth of cities and suburbs

GI Bill 1944(Servicemen’s Readjustment Act)

• Education payments• Medical care• Job training• Unemployment pensions• Mortgage loans for veterans

Fair Deal(extension of New Deal)

• Expand Social Security benefits• Increase min. wage .40 .65/hr.• Full employment bill • End racial discrimination in housing• Public housing and slum clearance• Federal aid to education• National health insurance• Stronger Fair Employment Practices

Commission

Taft-Hartley Act 1947passed by Republican-controlled Congressover Truman’s veto

• No “closed shop”• 80-day “cooling off” period• President – power to stop strikes if harmful to

nation• Union officials required to sign noncommunist

oath• Unions not allowed to contribute to political

campaigns

National Housing Act 1949

• 6-year plan to build low-income housing

• Rent subsidies

Issues in the 1952 Election

• IKE: “clean up the mess in Washington” • IKE: “I shall go to Korea”• Rep: Democrats the party of

“Communism, Corruption, and Korea”• Dem: Nixon’s $18,000 slush fund

(Checkers speech)• Senator McCarthy• TV

HUAC 1947-1954

• Committee to investigate communist infiltration• Richard Nixon - Alger Hiss

- Whitaker

Chambers

1948/12/15 - Hiss indicted for perjury - 1st trial ends 1949/07 with hung jury, but 2nd trial convicts Hiss 1950/01/21 - sentenced to 5 years in prison, but serves 44 months in Lewisburg prison

1948/12/02 - Nixon finds pumpkin papers hidden in Chambers's Maryland garden - 5 rolls of microfilm (2 rolls contained photos of confidential government dispatches)

The Second Red Scare

• Julius and Ethel Rosenberg– charged with conspiracy to commit

espionage– tried under the Espionage Act of 1917– passing secrets of atomic bomb to

the Soviets– guilty verdict 1951– executed 1953

Army-McCarthy Hearings1954

• witch hunt for communists in U.S. government– defense department

• list of 205 “commies”• censured by Senate• “I have carried on my

part in the fight against communism as best I know how”

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_uTbVfDtgI&feature=related

What do we do now???

Blast from the Past

Sputnik

Explorer I

Laika

FranchisesA. Harland SandersB. Burger KingC. McDonald’s(Where is the First Mac’s?)

Interstate Highway Act of 1956

William J. Leavitt

The ‘Burbs

“The Dream”

America hits the Road!!!

(How many cars can you name?)

I [name][rank] in the Captain Video Space Academy do solemnly pledge to obey my mommy and daddy, be kind to dumb animals and old ladies in and out of space, not to tease my little brothers and sisters, and to brush my teeth twice a day and drink milk after every meal

. Captain Video Ranger Pledge

Sell, sell, sell!!!

The Twist

Chuck Berry

Jerry Lee Lewis

1943

To

1954

Golden Age ofBaseball

An American Institution

“What are little girls made of?”

Happy Family Dolls

dolls will allow girls to play out three generations of family

Midge

Alan Ryan

toddler son

September 19 2003

AVON's Spring Blossom Barbie

AVON's Spring Blossom Barbie

AVON's Spring Blossom Barbie

Pog Barbie

Sam's Club: Winter Fantasy

Sear's:Ribbons and Roses

Toys'r'Us: Got Milk? Barbie

Hills: Teddy Fun Barbie

Disney's Aladdin

Disney's Aladdin

Disney's The Seven Dwarves

Disney's Davy Crockett

Ike’s Modern Republicanism

• People first!• limited government interference in the affairs of states

and in private business• retained all of the social and economic legislation

developed during the New Deal and Fair Deal eras• expanded federal programs such as . . .

– Social Security– aid to education (NDEA, 1958)– public housing and slum clearance (Housing Act of 1955)– public health

• $1.00 minimum wage• expanded civil rights for blacks

– Brown v. Board of Education (1954, 1955)– Rosa Parks (1955-56)– Little Rock 9 (1957)– Civil Rights Act (1957) no literacy tests