Download bellringer (04/12/17) - Mr. Cain`s US History Classes

BELLRINGER (04/12/17)
Briefly explain the significance of each term
relative to the early Cold War period (1945 -53):
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Yalta Conference
Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech
Berlin Airlift
NATO & Warsaw Pact
Korean War
TODAY’S CLASS (04/12/17)
Outcome:
 Be able to explain the political, social, and economic
developments within the United States in the decade after
World War II.
Agenda:
1. Bellringer
2. Announcements:
 Unit 9 (WWII & the early Cold War) test Friday, 4/14 & unit assignments
due Monday 4/17
3. Lecture/Notes/Discussion - U.S. Domestic Developments in
the Early Cold War
4. Class review/discussion
 Organizing developments into political/social/economic categories
U.S. DOMESTIC
DEVELOPMENTS IN THE
EARLY COLD WAR
1946 1954
GI BILL (1944)
 Returning soldiers = rising
unemployment?
 G.I. Bill provided benefits to
returning soldiers
 College tuition, low-interest loans,
unemployment benefits


College enrollments
Home construction & purchases
 Ensured U.S. would not return to the
Depression - very successful.
READJUSTING ECONOMY
 After the war, GDP slumped from its wartime peak.
 Price controls & mandatory rationing eliminated
 Inflation increased
 1946-47 – widespread strikes across the country
 Organized labor (Congress of Industrial Organizations – CIO)
failed to gather support in the South (“Operation Dixie”)
 Racial mixing & forced cooperation provided little results
 Economic issues swing 1946 midterm elections
 Republicans gain control of Congress – first since 1932
ORGANIZED LABOR DECLINES
 Republican Congress sought to
limit labor’s power
 Passed Taft-Hartley Act (1947)
 Outlawed “closed shops” (mandatory
union membership) & allowed
president to intervene when strikes
threatened national security
 Truman vetoed bill —Congress
overrode & became law
 Impact:
 Veto increased Truman’s popularity
with labor
 Slowed growth of organized labor—
peaked in 1950, declining since
 Shift from labor-friendly climate of
New Deal
Labor rally at Madison Square Garden,
June 1947
Source: Congressional Research Service, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
U.S. ECONOMIC BOOM
 From 1950-1970, U.S. economy grew substantially
 National income doubled in 1950s & almost doubled again in the
1960s
 U.S. had the highest standard of living in the world
 Consumerism abounded — automobiles, **TVs**, homes, kitchen
appliances
 1950s—U.S. just 6% of world’s population – owned 40% of
world’s wealth
 Middle class expanded – 60% of Americans earned between
$3,000 - $10,000 per year by mid-1950s.
 ($27,000 - $88,000 in 2016; 45% today)
 Postwar middle class was TWICE the size of pre-Depression middle class
ECONOMIC PROSPERITY
ON THE MOVE
 Wide availability of money meant easier
credit:
 Federal Housing Administration (FHA) &
Veterans Administration (VA) mortgages
increased.
 Middle & upper class urbanites moved
to the suburbs – outskirts of town
 Ex. “Levittown” outside Philadelphia – all
similar floor plans
 Not a diverse movement – “white flight”
 Minorities populated inner cities
 “Sunbelt” region grows – CA to TX to FL
 Spurred by government defense spending
 Growing Aerospace industry in FL & TX
CULTURE SHIFTS IN 1950’S
 Automobile culture emerged
 New car sales increased 30% from 1950 to 1955
 Highway construction connected suburbs & cities
 Consumerism increased
 Similar to 1920s consumption rates
 Household electronics(*TVs!*) & appliance sales skyrocketed
 Credit cards introduced – “buy now, pay later” easier than ever
 Growth of Television & Mass Media
 TV overtook radio as dominant form of media in 1950s
 By 1960, 90% of homes have TVs
 Advertising industry soared – created high product demand
BABY BOOM
 Between 1945-1960, 50 million babies were born.
 Sign of economic prosperity
 90% of school-age children enrolled – increasing standard of living
1948 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
 Democratic Party - split:
 Truman
 Strom Thurmond – “Dixiecrats”
(Southern Democrats)
 Supported states’ rights &
segregation, opposed civil rights &
federal intervention into race
issues
Truman
Thurmond
Wallace
Dewey
 Progressive Party – Henry Wallace
 Supported easing tensions with the
Soviet Union
 Republican Party – Thomas Dewey
 With major Republican victories in
1946 midterm elections, Truman
victory seemed like longshot.
1948 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
WEAKENING OF THE “SOLID SOUTH?”
1948 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
SECOND RED SCARE
 Post-war fear of communism gripped the
U.S.
 Fear of communist infiltration & control in U.S.
gov’t
 Loyalty Review Board (1947) –
investigated federal employees suspected
of “subversive” actions.
 Established by President Truman
 *Can traditional freedoms (speech, thought,
disagreement) survive?*
 House Un - American Activities Committee
( HUAC) investigated alleged procommunist
agents sympathetic to Soviet Union
 Alger Hiss – convicted of perjury in 1950,
sentenced to 5 years
 Julius & Ethel Rosenberg – convicted of
leaking atomic secrets to Soviets, executed in
1953, first Americans executed for espionage
in peacetime
JOSEPH MCCARTHY
 Joseph McCarthy – Republican
Senator from Wisconsin
 1950 – Claimed to have a “list” of 205
communists working in the federal gov’t
 Stirred communist hysteria – McCarthy
untouchable
 ANY radical positions caught attention –
women’s equality, civil rights, aiding the
poor
 Army -McCarthy Hearings (1954)
 Senate launched full TELEVISED
investigation into McCarthy’s allegations
of subversion in the U.S. army.
 McCarthy failed to provide evidence –
humiliated & disgraced
 McCarthyism – practice of making pro Communist accusations without proof
or evidence
 Dominated U.S. society in early Cold War
ADDRESSING COMMUNIST THREAT
 National Security Act (1947)
 Created Department of Defense in the new
Pentagon
 Secretary of Army + Navy + Air Force = Joint
Chiefs of Staff
 Established the National Security Council –
advises the President on national security
matters.
 Responsible for NSC-68
 Established the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) to coordinate foreign intelligence
gathering.
 Major role in the Cold War
U.S. DEVELOPMENTS AFTER WWII
Political
Social
Economic