- Trends in postwar economy
- "Golden age" of American capitalism
- Economic expansion, growth
- Wide-ranging improvements in living standards
- Breadth of access to a better life
- Low unemployment
- Decline in poverty rate
- Industrial supremacy around world
- Emergence of West and South as centers of military production, mobilization
- Twilight of industrial age
- Gathering decline in manufacturing
- Shift toward white-collar occupations
- Transformations in agricultural America
- Acceleration of trend toward fewer and larger farms
- Mechanization of southern farming
- Expansion of corporate farming out West
- Fruits and vegetables
- Migrant labor
- "Golden age" of American capitalism
- Suburbia
- Rise
- Pace and magnitude
- Central role in economic expansion
- Symbols and manifestations
- Levittown
- Malls
- California
- Los Angeles; "centerless city"
- Freeways, cars
- Shopping centers
- Lawns
- Consumer culture
- Growth and spread
- Ideology of American consumerism
- As core of freedom
- As measure of American superiority
- Key elements
- Television
- Spreading presence
- Growing prominence as leisure activity
- Themes of programming, advertising
- Automobile
- Place in "standard consumer package"
- Role in economic boom
- Impact on American landscape, travel habits
- Emergence as symbol of freedom
- Television
- Female sphere
- Place in labor force
- Rising numbers
- Limited aims
- Ideal of male as breadwinner, woman as homemaker
- Affirmation of family ideal
- Younger marriage age
- Fewer divorces
- Baby boom
- Separate spheres as Cold War weapon
- Receding of feminism
- Place in labor force
- Exclusion of blacks; racial wall between city and suburbs
- Pervasiveness
- Sources and mechanisms
- Federal government
- Banks and developers
- Residents
- Resulting patterns
- Suburbs for whites
- Fading of ethnic divisions
- Fear of black encroachment
- Urban ghettoes for blacks, Puerto Ricans
- Bleakness of conditions and opportunities
- Barriers to escape
- Self-reinforcing dynamic of racial exclusion
- Suburbs for whites
- Rise
- Celebratory perspectives on postwar America
- "End of ideology"; liberal consensus
- "Judeo-Christian" heritage
- Themes
- Group pluralism
- Freedom of religion
- Underlying trends
- Fading of religious bigotry
- Secularization of American life
- Themes
- "Free enterprise" as essential part of freedom
- Marketing of "free enterprise"
- Varieties of "free enterprise" outlooks
- Conservative wing
- Liberal wing
- "People's capitalism"
- Receptiveness to big business
- Heralding of classless society
- Two strains of conservative renewal
- Libertarians
- Ideas
- Individual autonomy
- Limited government
- Unregulated capitalism
- Special appeal among businessmen of South and West
- Leading voice: Milton Friedman
- Ideas
- New conservatives
- Ideas
- Free World vs. communism
- Absolute truth vs. toleration of difference
- Christian values vs. moral decay
- Community and tradition vs. excessive individualism
- Government as agent of moral regulation
- Leading voices: Russell Kirk, Richard Weaver
- Ideas
- Central points of divergence: "free man" vs. "good man"
- Common targets during the Fifties
- Soviet Union
- "Big government"
- Libertarians
- Eisenhower era
- Election of 1952
- Republican ticket
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
- Political appeal
- Decision to run as Republican
- Nomination
- Richard M. Nixon
- Political rise
- Anticommunist style
- Reputation for opportunism, dishonesty
- Populist brand of free-market conservatism
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
- Nixon scandal
- "Checkers speech"
- Demonstration of television's significance
- Eisenhower victory over Adlai Stevenson (first of two)
- Republican ticket
- Eisenhower's domestic policy: Modern Republicanism
- Pro-business administration
- Fiscal and budgetary conservatism
- Retention, expansion of New Deal programs
- Avoidance of European-style nationalization
- Use of government to spur productivity, employment
- Key examples
- Interstate highway system
- National Defense Education Act
- Motivations
- Cold War
- Economic prosperity
- Key examples
- Labor-management "social contract"
- Preconditions
- Taming of organized labor; Taft-Hartley Act
- Consolidation of organized labor; merger of AFL-CIO
- Terms
- Outcome for working-class America
- Prosperity for union workers
- Mixed outcome for nonunion workers
- Indirect benefits
- Marginalization
- Fraying of social contract; 1959 steel strike
- Preconditions
- Ebb and flow of U.S.-Soviet tensions
- Acquisition by each side of hydrogen bomb; subsequent nuclear arms race
- Doctrine of "massive retaliation"; "mutually assured destruction (MAD)"
- Announcement by John Foster Dulles
- Themes
- Characterization by critics as "brinksmanship"
- Legacy
- Sobering effects on superpowers
- Climate of fear
- Eisenhower-Khrushchev thaw
- First steps
- Korean armistice
- Death of Stalin; succession by Nikita Khrushchev
- Geneva summit
- Khrushchev denunciation of Stalin, call for "coexistence"
- Setback: Hungary crisis
- Soviet repression of uprising
- Eisenhower refusal to intervene
- Resumption of thaw
- Weapons testing halt
- Khrushchev visit
- Setback: U-2 spy plane
- First steps
- Cold War in Third World
- Emergence of Third World
- Origins of term
- Impulse toward nonalignment with Cold War superpowers
- Bandung Conference
- Decolonization
- Pace
- India, Pakistan
- British Gold Coast (Ghana)
- Subsequent spread of independence
- Cold War context
- U.S. fear of communist influence
- Participation of communists, socialists in independence struggles
- Third World aversion to Cold War alignment
- Pace
- Cold War as determinant of U.S. alliances, interventions
- Covert subversion of sovereign governments
- Guatemala
- Iran
- Extension of containment to Middle East
- Suez crisis
- Eisenhower Doctrine
- Lebanon intervention
- Vietnam
- Postwar support for French colonialism
- Defeat of French by Ho Chi Minh's nationalists
- Geneva agreement for 1956 elections
- U.S.-backed scuttling of elections
- Support for unpopular Ngo Dinh Diem regime
- Long-term legacies of interventions
- Guatemala
- Iran
- Vietnam
- Covert subversion of sovereign governments
- Emergence of Third World
- Mass society and its critics
- Leading voices
- Hans J. Morgenthau, "new accumulations" of corporate power
- C. Wright Mills, "power elite"
- David Riesman's The Lonely Crowd
- John Kenneth Galbraith's The Affluent Society
- William Whyte's The Organization Man
- Vance Packard's The Hidden Persuaders
- Limited impact on popular consciousness
- Leading voices
- Cultural rebels
- Youth
- Themes
- Alienation from middle-class norms
- Sexual provocativeness; rock and roll
- Leading examples
- J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye
- Blackboard Jungle, Rebel Without a Cause
- Elvis Presley
- Mainstream reaction
- "Juvenile delinquency" panic
- Codes of conduct
- Themes
- Playboy sensibility
- Gay and lesbian subcultures
- The Beats
- Themes
- Rejection of materialism, conformity, Cold War militarization
- Embrace of spontaneity, immediate pleasure, sexual experimentation
- Key works
- Jack Kerouac's On the Road
- Allen Ginsberg's Howl
- Themes
- Youth
- Election of 1952
- Emergence of civil rights movement
- Preconditions
- World War II challenge to racial system
- Black migration North
- Postwar global developments
- Cold War
- Decolonization
- Segregation and inequality in 1950s America
- Breadth of black poverty, barriers to opportunity
- Breadth of segregation
- In South
- In North, West
- Legal assault on segregation
- Main actors
- League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)
- National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
- Leadership of Thurgood Marshall
- Step-by-step strategy
- Key steps (pre-Brown case)
- LULAC: Méndez v. Westminster in California
- NAACP
- 1938 University of Missouri Law School case
- 1950 University of Texas Law School case
- Brown v. Board of Education
- Background
- NAACP legal argument
- Direct challenge to separate but equal doctrine
- Emphasis on stigmatization, subversion of black selfesteem
- Earl Warren's desegregation decision
- Import of decision
- Limitations
- Broader significance and impact
- Main actors
- Montgomery bus boycott
- Rosa Parks
- Activist past
- Arrest on bus
- Year-long black boycott of segregated buses
- Supreme Court ruling against segregation in public transportation
- Victory
- Significance
- Launching of nonviolent southern crusade for racial justice
- Achievement of attention and support around country, world
- Emergence of Martin Luther King Jr.
- Rosa Parks
- Language of freedom
- Pervasiveness in movement
- Range of meanings
- Leadership of King
- Themes
- Fusing of meanings of freedom
- Merging of black cause and experience with those of nation
- Capacity to reach both blacks and whites
- Philosophies of nonviolence, civil disobedience, Christian love, forgiveness
- Connections between struggles of African-Americans and non-whites overseas
- Formation of Southern Christian Leadership Conference
- Themes
- Southern white intransigence; "massive resistance"
- Contributing factor: lack of federal backing
- Supreme Court's "all deliberate speed" ruling
- Eisenhower's ambivalence, reluctance to act
- Forms
- Southern Manifesto
- Anti-desegregation laws
- Banning of NAACP
- Revival of Confederate flag
- Contributing factor: lack of federal backing
- Little Rock crisis
- Governor Orville Faubus's obstruction of court-ordered integration
- Eisenhower's deployment of federal troops
- Preconditions
- Toward the Sixties
- Election of 1960
- Republican nominee: Nixon
- Democratic nominee: John F. Kennedy
- Background
- Choice of Lyndon B. Johnson as running mate
- Catholic issue
- Cold War outlook
- "Missile gap" claim
- Glamorous style
- Nixon-Kennedy debate
- Kennedy victory
- Eisenhower's farewell address; "military-industrial complex"
- Social problems on horizon
- Election of 1960