American Society in Post WWII - Mr. Armentrout's...
Transcript of American Society in Post WWII - Mr. Armentrout's...
American
Society in Post
WWII
1950’s – 1960’s
The 1950’s
A Time for
Innocence
The perfect life, the
consumer life???
Conformity
Polio Vaccine
• deadly children’s
disease
• destruction of
nervous system
(paralysis)
• FDR – wheel chair
bound
• virus nearly ended in
1950’s because of
vaccine
• now, very rare in U.S.
The Red Scare
• fear of
communism
due to Cold War
(competition
with the Soviet
Union)
Arizona
• growth in the “Sunbelt”
– states in the SW
• population increasing - why?
– AIR CONDITIONER
– COPPER = king of Arizona economy
•jobs
– Army = largest source of revenue for AZ
•industrial development
– inland protection from aerial attacks
(the nukes)
• movement to the suburbs
• AZ’s economy post WWII GOOD
the Automobile
• changed America’s living patterns
never be without your car
– Drive in movies
– Suburbs – could travel back & forth
– Motor hotels – stay the night before
hitting the road
• Route 66
The Suburbs
• Highways made it possible to live outside
the city & commute quickly to work
• Housing developments increase
– offer larger homes, new appliances,
lower prices
– consumer culture (cars, TVS,
washer/dryer, etc.)
• Because of the move, BABY BOOM
– increase in babies born
after WWII
• Suburban mothers stayed
home
– full time mother
Leave it to Beaver Culture
“Beatniks”
• young generation of
writers who criticized
American life through
their unusual writing
and their rebellious
behavior
• Jack Kerouac (author)
– encouraged people to
reject American
traditional society &
find your own path
• Beat writings inspired
young people to question
the rules of mainstream
America
• Not a huge movement
(suburban children were
mainstream)
Rock ‘N Roll
• mainstream teenagers
challenging society
• drew heavily from African
American rhythm & blues
• Elvis Presley – most defined
singer for the new white
teenage culture
• Rock & Roll juvenile
delinquency???
• concern over musical
integration (black &
white kids mingling)
mirrored civil rights
struggle
Jackie Robinson
• 1st black baseball
player in the
majors; began a
new era in sports
& society (blacks
are just as good as
whites)
• ended 80 years of
baseball
segregation
• civil rights
activist
1960’s
For a times, they
are a changing
Counterculture = Hippies
(a way of life that differed
from mainstream America)
Pop Art
Music
• British Pop Music
– the Beatles, the Rolling Stones
• Folk Music
– Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel
• Soul Music
– Motown: Stevie Wonder, Aretha
Franklin, the Jackson 5
• Rock Music
– Woodstock: Jimmy Hendrix,
Janis Joplin
Civil Rights
• Segregated but equal???
• struggle for minorities to get
same rights as white male
Americans
– work at same place, go to same
movie theater, sit in same area in
church, bus, etc.
– women, Hispanics, Natives, &
African Americans
Civil Rights
• The NAACP opened a Washington Bureau in 1942 – to serve as a legislative arm and national
policy office. Walter White was the bureau’s first director.
– The NAACP Washington Bureau assumed responsibility for tracking and influencing federal legislation, monitoring government agencies administering federal regulations and programs, testifying before Congress, and working with other organizations with similar objectives.
Civil Rights
• National Organization for Women
• The purpose of NOW is to take action to bring
women into full participation in the mainstream of American society now, exercising all the privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership with men.
• NOW is dedicated to the proposition that… – women, first and foremost, are human beings that must have the chance to
develop their fullest human potential
– belief that women can achieve such equality only by accepting to the full the challenges and responsibilities they share with all other people in our society, as part of the decision-making mainstream of American political, economic and social life.
Civil Rights
• American Indian Movement - AIM • founded in July 1968 in Minneapolis, Minnesota
• initially formed to address American Indian sovereignty, treaty issues, spirituality, and leadership
• AIM works to address specific issues concerning Native American urban communities including
– unusually high unemployment levels
– overt and covert racism, police harassment and neglect
– epidemic drug abuse (mainly alcoholism),
– reduce poverty, domestic violence and substandard housing.
– AIM's paramount objective is to create real economic independence for the Indians
Reforms
•Kennedy’s New Frontier
•Johnson’s Great Society
– Medicare, Medicaid, Peace Corps
Peace Corps
• Kennedy takes office in 1960
– New Frontier – a set of proposals asking
Americans to look beyond themselves
and to work for freedom & justice
throughout the world
– Peace Corps (part of New Frontier
plan)
•a program to send American
volunteers to developing countries to
work on a wide variety of
improvement projects
•basic purpose: aid people in
underdeveloped areas
The Great Society
• President Lyndon Johnson’s reform
& aid for Americans living in
poverty
• WAR ON POVERTY!
– aimed to provide the poor with
education & job training
• Medicare – helps people over 65
meet medical expenses by including
them in a govt. health plan
• Medicaid – provides health
insurance for people with low
incomes