Dwight D. Eisenhower THE POSTWAR BOOM

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Dwight D. EisenhowerTHE POSTWAR BOOM

• THE AMERICAN DREAM IN THE 1950S

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1950s Economy

• a. Post-war spending trends continued into the
  1950s
• b. Americans invested in items based around the
  home and family life
• c. The American consumer was praised as a
  patriotic citizen one who contributed to the
  overall success of the American way of life

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• Consumerism

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Westinghouse RefrigeratorExample of 1950s
Consumerism
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• d. Defense spending accounted for half of the
  federal budget
• e. Nations first nuclear power plant opened in
  1957 the chemical and electronics industry
  boomed
• f. Beneath this widespread prosperity, poverty
  was becoming more prevalent and the gap between
  rich and poor widened (more than 1/5 lived below
  the poverty line)

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THE SUBURBAN LIFESTYLE

• a. After WWII, returning vets faced a severe
  housing shortage
• b. In response to the crisis, developers used
  assembly-line methods to mass-produce houses
• c. Developer William Levitt bragged that his
  company could build a home in 16 minutes for
  7,000
• d. Suburbs were born

With the help of the GI Bill, many veterans moved
into suburbs
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THE SUBURBAN LIFESTYLE

• e. Most Americans worked in cities, but fewer and
  fewer of them lived there
• f. New highways and the affordability of cars and
  gasoline made commuting possible
• g. Of the 13 million homes built in the 1950s,
  85 were built in suburbs
• h. For many, the suburbs were the American Dream

The American Dream complete with a white picket
fence
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Big Business and Labor Unions

• a. Big business flourished in the 1950s less
  than .05 of American corporations controlled
  more than half of the nations corporate wealth
• b. Advances in science and technology decreased
  the amount of labor necessary for industry and
  agriculture to be financially successful which
  led to consolidation of industry and agriculture
  into large corporations

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• c. Unions consolidated as well AFL and CIO
  merged in 1955
• d. Prosperity meant high wages and few labor
  complaints depriving unions of the needed
  membership

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Affluent Society

• a. Term coined by John Kenneth Galbraith in The
  Affluent Society (1958)
• b. Ironic term that described the 1950s U.S. as
  rich in the private resources but poor in public
  ones because of misplaced priority on increasing
  production of trivial consumer goods

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John Kenneth Galbraith
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• c. Galbraith argued the U.S. should shift
  resources to improve schools, the infrastructure,
  and social services
• d. Galbraith will influence social reform efforts
  of the 1960s
• e. The term Affluent Society has lost its
  original ironic meaning today it is used to
  indicate widespread prosperity

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Baby Boom and the Overall Impact

• a. Prosperity led Americans to start families
  earlier and have more children
• b. Birth rate grew steadily from 1950 to its peak
  in 1957
• c. U.S. population grew from 150 million to about
  180 million during the 1950s
• d. Baby boomers represent the largest generation
  in the nations history

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What are the official years of the Baby Boom Generation?
1946 - 1964 saw a marked increase in the number of births in North America.
How did the birthrate rise and fall during the baby boom years in the US? How did the birthrate rise and fall during the baby boom years in the US?
1940 2,559,000 births per year
1946 3,311,000 births per year
1955 4,097,000 births per year
1957 4,300,000 births per year
1964 4,027,000 births per year
1974 3,160,000 births per year
1957 ? 1 baby born every 7 seconds
It seems to me that every other young housewife I
see is pregnant. -- British visitor to
America, 1958
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WHAT IT WILL MEAN TO YOU
Your generation will be supporting an
increasingly aging American population
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WHY SO MANY BABIES?

• Why did the baby boom occur when it did?
• a. Husbands returning from war
• b. Decreasing marriage age
• c. Desirability of large families
• d. Confidence in economy
• e. Advances in medicine

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ADVANCES IN MEDICINE AND CHILDCARE

• a. Advances in the treatment of childhood
  diseases included drugs to combat typhoid fever
  and polio (Jonas Salk)

Dr. Salk was instrumental in the eradication of
polio
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DR. SPOCK ADVISES PARENTS

• a. Many parents raised their children according
  to the guidelines of pediatrician Dr. Benjamin
  Spock
• b. He thought children should be allowed to
  express themselves and parents should never
  physically punish their kids

Dr. Spocks book sold 10 million copies in the
1950s
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• c. Dr. Benjamin Spock author of Baby and Child
  Care (1946) suggested mothers devote themselves
  to the fulltime care of their children

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• Baby Boom

Dr. Benjamin Spock and the Anderson Quintuplets
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• d. Popular culture depicted marriage and taking
  care of the family as the primary goal of the
  American woman
• e. Religious messages began to merge into popular
  culture during the 1950s Congress added under
  God to the Pledge of Allegiance
• (due to the fight against communism)

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Fads of the Baby Boomers
Hula Hoops
Frozen Foods
Poodle Skirts and Saddle Shoes
Panty Raids
Barbie and GI Joe Dolls
Bikinis
Frisbees
Yo-yos
Ouija Boards
Dune Buggies
What celebrity deaths have most affected the Baby Boomers?
John F. Kennedy
Marilyn Monroe
Martin Luther King
John Lennon
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Consumer Culture - Television

• a. TV dominated American culture during the 1950s
  only 6 TV stations broadcast in 1946 and by
  1956, 442 stations were operating
• b. 7 million TV sets were sold in 1951
• c. TV portrayed a cookie-cutter stereotyped image
  of happy, prosperous Americans

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POPULAR CULTURE

• d. A new era of mass media led by television
  emerged in the 1950s
• e. In 1948, only 9 of homes had T.V
• f. In 1950, 55 of homes had T.V.
• g. By 1960, 90 of American homes had T.V.

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• h. TV brought messages of conformity and
  consumerism
• i. TV produced fads for the hula hoop and Davy
  Crocketts coonskin cap

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Despite their success, some workers questioned
whether pursuing the American dream exacted too
high a price, as conformity replaced
individuality
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THE GOLDEN AGE OF TELEVISION

• J. The 1950s was known as the Golden Age of
  Television
• k. Comedies were the main attraction as Milton
  Berle, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were very
  popular

Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball starred in I Love Lucy
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TELEVISION EXPERIMENTS WITH VARIOUS FORMATS

• l. Television innovations like on-the-scene-news
  reporting, interviews, westerns and sporting
  events offered the viewer a variety of shows
• m. Kids shows like The Howdy Doody Show and The
  Mickey Mouse Club were extremely popular

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TV ADS, TV GUIDES AND TV DINNERS EXPAND

• n. TV advertising soared from 170 million in
  1950 to nearly 2 billion in 1960
• o. TV Guide magazine quickly became the best
  selling magazine
• p. Frozen TV dinners were introduced in 1954
  these complete ready-to-heat meals on disposable
  aluminum trays made it easy for people to eat
  without missing their favorite shows

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A SUBCULTURE EMERGES

• a. Although mass media and television were wildly
  popular in the 1950s, dissenting voices emerged
• b. The Beat Movement in literature and rock n
  roll clashed with tidy suburban views of life

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BEATNIKS FOLLOW OWN PATH

• c. Centered in San Francisco, L.A. and New Yorks
  Greenwich Village, the Beat Movement expressed
  social nonconformity
• d. Followers, called beatniks, tended to shun
  work and sought understanding through Zen
  Buddhism, music, and sometimes drugs

Beatniks often performed poetry or music in
coffeehouses or bars
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MUSIC IN THE 1950s

• a. Musicians in the 1950s added electronic
  instruments to traditional blues music, creating
  rhythm and blues
• b. Cleveland DJ Alan Freed was the first to play
  this music in 1951 he called it rock and roll

FREED
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ROCK N ROLL

• c. In the early and mid-fifties, Richard
  Penniman, Chuck Berry, Bill Haley and the Comets,
  and especially Elvis Presley brought rock and
  roll to the forefront
• d. The driving rhythm and lyrics featuring love,
  cars,
  and problems
  of being
  young ---
  captivated
  teenagers
  across the
  country

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THE KING OF ROCK AND ROLL

• e. Elvis Presleys rebellious style captured
  young audiences
• f. Girls screamed and fainted, and boys tried to
  imitate him

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Consumer Culture -Rock-n-Roll

• g. Elvis Presley epitomized rock-n-roll of the
  1950s
• h. Born in Tupelo, MS in 1935
• i. Presley produced 14 consecutive records
  between 1956 and 1958 each sold over a million
  copies

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THE AUTOMOBILE CULTURE

• a. After the rationing of WWII, inexpensive and
  plentiful fuel and easy credit led many to buy
  cars
• b. By 1960, over 60 million Americans owned autos

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INTERSTATE HIGHWAY ACT 1956

• a. In 1956 Ike authorized a nationwide highway
  network 41,000 miles of road linking America

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THE INTERSTATE HIGHWAY SYSTEM

• b. Automania spurred the construction of roads
  linking major cities while connecting schools,
  shopping centers and workplaces to residential
  suburbs

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IMPACT OF THE HIGHWAY

• c. The Interstate Highway system resulted in
• 1. More trucking
• 2. Less railroad
• 3. More suburbs, further away

Trucking is the 1 means of moving cargo in the
United States today
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HIGHWAYS HOMOGENIZE AMERICA

• d. Another effect of the highway system was that
  the scenery of America began to look the same
• e. Restaurants, motels, highway billboards, gas
  stations, etc. all began to look similar
• f. The nation had become homogenized

Anytown, USA
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Our new roads, with their ancillaries, the
motels, filling stations, and restaurants
advertising eats, have made it possible for you
to drive from Brooklyn to Los Angeles without a
change of diet, scenery, or culture. John
Keats, The Insolent Chariots 1958
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Duck and Cover

• a. Fears of nuclear attacks from the Soviets
  prompted a new social phenomenon
• b. Americans began building bomb shelters or
  fallout shelters

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• c. U.S. Government produced Duck and Cover (1951)
  as a public awareness campaign to illustrate that
  nuclear attacks could occur at anytime

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• d. School children helped in making the project
  the cartoon character Bert the Turtle was used
  as the subject of practicing duck and cover
  tactics