I. The Affluent Society

• Converting the economy
• Economy begins shifting from wartime to peacetime production
• following war, many concerned with possibility of postwar depression
• fears prove groundless as the reconversion years begin a quarter century of expanding prosperity
• Government spending under G.I. "bill of rights" stimulates the economy
• veterans bill helps G.I.'s get college education
• pays for continued medical care
• loans money for home purchases
• U.S. also enjoys favorable position in world trade
• Bretton Woods agreement (1944)--dollar becomes major currency of world, creates several insitutions to oversee international trade and finance (IMF and General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade)
• weak position of other industrial nations of world
• Wartime savings and a pent-up consumer demand fuel postwar sales and prosperity
• During 1950s, the United States enjoys a broad-based, unprecedented level of prosperity
• By the end of the decade, 60% of American families own a home, 75% own a car
• The New Industrial Society
• Government spending continues to stimulate the economy during the 1950s
• Over half the spending goes to defense--military-industrial complex becomes key part of American economy
• Government, along with large corporations, underwrites much research and development
• resulting new technology fuels growth of industry--especially in areas of physics, electronics, and chemistry
• makes possible increased automation
• supplies a host of new consumer goods
• chemistry--synthetic fabrics for clothes, teflon for cooking wear, formica for counters and floor tiles
• electronics
• new toasters, radios, televisions, and air conditioners
• electric consumption triples during 1950s as Americans begin to see a "better life through electricity"
• Cheap oil also spurs development with low-cost energy for factories and gas for automobiles
• Birth of computer age
• Development of computers is the most important postwar technological revolution
• 1946, Army develops ENIAC (first general use electronic computer)
• 1948, Bell Labs invents solid-state transistors, allowing for faster, smaller computers
• 1950s, International Business Machines switch from producing adding machines to computers, spurring use of computers in industry--quickly making IBM one of largest U.S. corporations
• by the 1960s, computers create a billion-dollar industry, making machines used by government, business, hospitals, and universities
• Concentration and consolidation of industry and agriculture
• technological advances hasten growth and dominance of big business
• by 1960, .5% of U.S. companies earn more than half of total corporate income
• most industries controlled by oligopolies (automobile, electronics, chemicals, oil, tobacco, soft drinks, beer)
• conglomerates and multinationals rise sharply in number
• Corporate America run by conformist executives, not individualistic capitalists
• safety and continued steady profits key goals of corporate executives
• William H. Whyte describes mentality of these executives in The Organization Man (1956)
• Whyte saw self-reliance as losing ground
• ability of person to "get along" and "work as a team" become key areas of emphasis
• in The Lonely Crowd (1950), David Riesman argued that the traditional "inner-directed" person (who judged himself on basis of his own values and esteem of his family) was giving way to a new "other-directed" person (who was more concerned with winning approval of larger organization or community
• Image of "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit"
• Family farms give way to agribusiness--heavy use of machinery, chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides
• Most Americans remain unaware of dangerous chemicals being spewed into water and air until Rachel Carson's Silent Spring published in 1962
• Carson details the deadly nature of poisons, especially DDT
• States and federal government slowly move to ban use of the pesticide (now some governments arguing for it to be used again)
• Labor movement
• 1955, AFL and CIO merge into one organization
• militancy of union movement lost, weakened by its successes in winning middle-class advantages for workers
• proportion of unionize workers declines--partly because automation reduces number of blue-collar laborers
• percentage of Americans working in public sector (government), white-collar, and service industries grows

• The distinguishing feature of the post-WWII era was its remarkable affluence
• after 1950, rising income meant that the mass of Americans, including blue-collar workers, could for the first time enjoy substantial amounts of discretionary income
• this fact decisively determined the character of the era
• American consumerism stimulated in the 1950s by rising purchasing power, consumer credit (first credit cards issued in 1950), and rapid growth of advertising
• 1950s, Americans buy 58 million new cars, leading to increased highway fatalities, air pollution, traffic jams, and movement to suburbs
• Levittowns
• Government subsidization of suburbia
• the automobile recived vast amounts of public funding and led to the undoing of inner city
• the building of highways accelerated the process of metropolitan fragmentation by luring factories, warehouses, and eventually corporate headquarters into the suburbs
• Government policy toward housing had serious implications for the evolution of the cities (though these implications often went unrecognized at the time)
• the issuance of federally-insured long-term, low-interest loans spurred the abandonment by middle-class whites of older residential neighborhoods in the city
• at same time, rules regulating the distribution of federal subsidies for low-income housing had the effect of keeping poor blacks in the cities
• Federal housing policy, at least to the mid-1960s, hastened the abandonment of older neighborhoods, undermined the urban tax base, and contributed to the racial chasm between the cities and the suburbs
• In place of the nighborhood, Americans now have a drive-in culture consisting of fast-food resteraunts, drive-in theaters, shopping centers, service stations, motels, and mobile homes
• Demographic trends
• population shifts, as people begin to move from Northeast to South and West--much of this move hastened by widespread availability of air-conditioning
• "Baby Boom"--1945 to 1960
• 21 million children born between 1945-1950 alone
• during 1950s, Americans marry younger, produce more offspring than their parents
• medical advances reduce childhood mortality
• population grows rapidly-- youngsters under fourteen make up 1/3d of Americans by 1960
• parents looking desperately for help in raising children in this new world turn to Dr. Benjamin Spock's best-selling Baby and Child Care (1946)
• in 1960, 1 of 5 Americans live below poverty line--poor include:
• about half the elderly
• 1/3d of rural population, especially migratory workers
• residents of inner-city slums (displaced rural whites, blacks, Native Americans, hispanics

• Consensus
• The psyche of the American fifties was one of domestic optimism and international power, underlaid with suspicion
• Americans of 1950s sought consensus--everyone should fit into an "American" mold, those who didn't were seen as dangerous
• Americans increasingly turn to religion as way of coping with the stresses of the 1950s
• Church attendance increases
• Religious figures such as Billy Graham and Norman Vincent Peale attain star status, mass followings
• movies with religious themes become big box-office draws (Ten Commandants, Greatest Story Ever Told, Ben Hur)
• "under God" added to Pledge of Allegiance and "in God We Trust" added to currency
• School and college enrollments peak during the 1950s
• education stresses social and psychological adjustment, conformity
• students of the period become known as "the silent generation"
• Culture of the fifties--mainstream cinema and TV
• Hollywood portrays Americans as middle-class whites
• many works glorify material success and the notion of romantic love (Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, Grace Kelly, Hepburn-Tracy movies)
• those outside the norm are viewed with suspicion and fear
• movie attendance declines as television begins to grab the attention of Americans
• by early 1960s, 90% of households own at least one TV--TV Guide becomes best-selling magazine
• TV programs designed to cater to mass audience--creativity and innovation squelched by networks' drive for profits and fears of McCarthy era
• TV nurtures consumerism, complacency, racial, gender, and regional stereotypes
• television becomes important political tool--televised image of political candidates becomes more important than what they stand for--Nixon-Kennedy debates in 1960
• Elements of disquiet in American culture
• Despite efforts to create an American consensus, elements of disquiet and dissatisfaction surfaced during the late 1950s
• Sputnik
• Oct. 4, 1957, Soviet Union launches Sputnik, first satellite
• fact that Soviet satellite orbiting world (and U.S.) shakes American confidence and complacency
• Pres. Eisenhower accused of allowing a "technoligical Pearl Harbor"
• Senator Lyndon B. Johnson (Texas) "I for one will not go to sleep under the light of a communits moon." sums up attitude of many Americans
• Youthful rebellion--1950s style
• young Americans begin mild cultural rebellion, which parents disapprove
• boys begin to wear pegged pants, "ducktail" hairstyles; girls begin to wear shorter skirts and bobby sox
• rock-and-roll becomes new music rage, despite strong parental censure (black music, loosens morals)
• Elvis Presley and James Dean become cultural icons of youth
• Beat writers echo growing dissatisfaction of youth
• Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" (1956), Jack Kerouac's On the Road (1957)
• writers mock the "square," materialistic middle class; romanticize society's outcasts; champion nonconformity, open sexuality, and deeper spirituality (non-Christian)
• Small group of college students (mostly on West coast) break with the "silent generation"--read and admire Beat writers; protest HUAC, nuclear arms race, and segregation