POSTWAR PROSPERITY

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POSTWAR PROSPERITY
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• Americans were eager to produce and spend
• 6 of worlds population made and consumed 1/3
  of the worlds goods and services
• Americas GNP increased 51 during the 1950s,
  partially due to defense spending
• Baby boom 29 million Americans were born in the
  50s
• Increasing population meant increase in
  consumption
• Automation helped meet demand for more goods

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POPULATION PERCENTAGES
WEALTHY MIDDLE POOR
WEALTHY MIDDLE POOR
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• Growth of the middle class earned income of
  factory workers ?50
• Americans became obsessed with collecting stuff
• Teenagers became major consumers (jeans, rock
  roll)

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• Television
• Technology that had existed since the 1920s began
  to be mass produced after the war
• By 1953, ? of American homes owned a TV
• Political campaigns
• 1952 Eisenhower used televised ads for his
  campaign
• 1960 First televised presidential debate
  between Nixon and Kennedy
• Many observers blamed Nixon's loss to JFK on his
  poor appearance in the debates. JFK looked cool,
  collected, presidential. Nixon, according to
  one observer, resembled a "sinister chipmunk."

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Conformity

• Suburban life Levittowns and keeping up with
  the Joness
• Housewives husbands climbing the corporate
  ladder, 2.4 kids
• Television added stereotypical views of suburban
  life Leave it to Beaver

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COUNTERCULTURE

• Youth rebelled against the conformity of tract
  housing, Father Knows Best and the nuclear
  family

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• Abstract Expressionism painting and sculpture
  (but not limited to an artistic style)
• characterized by a spirit of revolt and a belief
  in freedom of expression
• Jackson Pollack, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko

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• Beat Generation group of influential writers
  interested in experimenting and challenging the
  status quo
• Jack Kerouak, Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady,
  William S. Burroughs
• Created slang and paved the way for the mind
  expansion and hippie generations that followed

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• Bebop innovative jazz style that that had an
  impact on the Beats
• Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Miles Davis