The American Dream of the Fifties

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The American Dream of the Fifties

• or the pop culture notes

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The GI Bill of Rights

• Formal name Servicemens Readjustment Act of
  1944
• Paid part of college tuition
• Provided a years worth of unemployment benefits
• Low interest loans made available

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Daily Life in the Fifties
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Levittown

• Mass-produced houses- build a house in sixteen
  minutes
• Less than 7,000 (about 62,000 today)
• Located on New Yorks Long Island
• Suburbs encouraged conformity

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Gender Roles

• Male work, financial decisions, authority
  figure
• Female house, children, support husband
• The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan (1963)

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Baby Boom

• Late 1940s through early 1960s
• Largest generation in nations history

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Leisure

• Labor saving devices, 40 hour work week leisure
  time
• Bowling, golf, boating, sporting events
• Books, Readers Digest, Sports Illustrated, Life,
  comic books
• Television
• Rock and roll
• Roots of rock and roll
• Elvis Presley

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Automobile Culture

• 40 million cars in 1950, 60 million in 1960
• Suburbs made them necessary
• Interstate Highway System
• Eisenhower authorizes 41,000 miles of expressway
  in 1956
• Towns die or prosper
• Impact on society
• Drive-in movies, restaurants, malls, cruising
• Noise and exhaust, stress of traffic
• Middle upper classes leave cities-cities
  decline- economic gap widens

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Consumerism

• Buying stuff success
• Appliances electronics
• Planned obsolescence
• Credit cards introduced- buy now pay later
• Advertising
• Newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, billboards
• Psychology

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Nationwide Business

• Major corporations like ATT, General Electric,
  etc.
• Holiday Inn
• McDonalds
• Things in different parts of country start to
  become more similar