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Chapter 28
Affluence and Its Discontents,
1954-1963
© 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved.
Foreign Policy, 1953-1960
• Anticommunist rhetoric subsided
• Bipolar confrontations between United
States and the Soviet Union over European
issues
– Nuclear deterrence
– Subtle, complex power plays in the Third World
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Eisenhower Takes Command
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Korean War prisoner exchange issue
Communist Control Act (1954)
Army-McCarthy hearings (1954)
U-2 planes
“Hidden-hand” Presidency
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The New Look and Summitry
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Nikita Khrushchev and “peaceful coexistence”
"New Look" and “massive retaliation”
Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO)
Central Treaty Organization (CENTO)
United States Information Agency (USIA)
“Summit” meetings
Challenges to the Soviets in Eastern Europe
– John Foster Dulles and liberation from Communism
– Poland and Wladyslaw Gomulka
– Hungary and Imre Nagy
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Covert Action and Economic
Leverage
• Battle to contain Communism shifts to 3rd World
• CIA Covert Action
– Philippines
– Iran
– Guatemala
• Trade and Aid
– Mutual Security Program
– Military Assistance Program
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America and the Third World
• Economic elites and dictators abroad won
U.S. support against political opponents by
pointing fingers at supposed “communists”
• U.S. supported measures that were
supposedly “anticommunist”
– These measures often meant suppression of
political and social change
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Latin America
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“Yankeephobia”
Fulgencio Batista
Fidel Castro
Review of policies toward Latin America
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Nasserism and the Suez Crisis of
1956
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Gamal Abdel Nasser
Suez Crisis
"Nasserism"
"Eisenhower Doctrine“
Sukarno
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Vietnam
• Ho Chi Minh and the Vietminh
– Dien Bien Phu (1954)
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Geneva Peace Accords (1954)
Domino Theory
Ngo Dinh Diem
National Liberation Front (NLF)
Eisenhower’s farewell address
– Greatest danger not Communism, but U.S.
military-industrial complex
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Affluence – A “People of Plenty”
• Postwar period overall tremendous economic
boom for U.S.
• David Potter “A people of plenty”
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Economic Growth
• 1950s: midpoint of steady economic growth from
WWII through early 1970s
• National Security policy keeps energy and raw
materials flowing to U.S. from abroad
• Emergence of new industries
– Chemicals
– Electronics
• Suburban life and the automobile
• John Kenneth Galbraith
– The Affluent Society
Highways and Waterways
• Highway Act (1956)
– National security justification
– Private sector economic benefits
– Victory of automobile
• Government aided development in the West
– Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of
Reclamation
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Steady Growth of Gross
National Product, 1940-1970
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Auto Sales, 1940-1970
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Labor-Management Accord
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Labor militancy subsides
AFL-CIO (1955)
Expansion of benefits packages to workers
Job security high, fringe benefits high, real
wages rise
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Political Pluralism
• C. Wright Mills, sociologist
– Critique of corporate leaders as members of
small “power elite”
• Pluralism: public policymaking stemmed
from wide participation in public debate by
a broad range of different interest groups
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A Religious People
• Cold War against Atheistic Communism increased
public symbolism of American religion
– “Under God” added to Pledge of Allegiance
– “In God we Trust” made the national motto
• Pluralism in religion
– Will Herberg Protestant-Catholic-Jew (1955)
– “Judeo-Christian tradition”
• Religious leaders as celebrities
– Norman Vincent Peale The Power of Positive Thinking
(1952)
– Evangelists Oral Roberts and Billy Graham
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Discontents of Affluence
• Body of social criticism evolved in the
1950s, especially with regard to:
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Conformity
Youth
Mass culture
Discrimination
Inequality
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Conformity in an Affluent
Society
• William H. Whyte, Jr.
– The Organization Man (1956)
• David Riesman
– The Lonely Crowd (1950)
• Vance Packard
– The Hidden Persuaders (1957)
• Betty Friedan
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Restive Youth
• Frederick Wertham The Seduction of the
Innocent
• Elvis Presley
• Chuck Berry
• The Blackboard Jungle (1955)
• Rock and Roll becomes mass consumption
product
– Beach Boys
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The Mass Culture Debate
• Criticism of conformity and of youth culture
merged into debate over “mass culture”
• “Good” vs. “bad” art in the marketplace
• Television
– 3 dominant players: NBC, CBS, ABC
– FCC’s Newton Minlow: TV as a “vast
wasteland”
– Television transformed the American home
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The Limits of the Mass Culture
Debate
• Many critics of mass culture refused to
question the distribution of political and
economic power
• Regulation vs. censorship
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The New Suburbs and Gender
Ideals
• New consumer technology reallocated (but
not reduced) women’s household chores
• “Separate spheres”: public and private
• Benjamin Spock
– Baby and Child Care (1946)
• “Juvenile delinquency”
• Father Knows Best and Leave it Beaver
• Hugh Hefner and Playboy
Women’s Changing Roles
• Increase in women entering the workforce
• Percentage of married mothers with jobs outside
the home:
– 1948: 25%
– 1959: 40%
• Birth Control pill (1960)
• Jobs for women: nurses, school teachers,
telephone operators, secretaries
– Paid less, few opportunities for advancement, no active
labor unions
– Limited opportunities in professional schools or
societies
The Fight Against
Discrimination, 1953-1960
• Thurgood Marshall
• Earl Warren
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The Brown Cases
• Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas
(1954)
• South becoming more like the rest of the country
• Racial composition of other parts of U.S.
becoming more like the South
• “Massive resistance“ and the "Southern
Manifesto"
• White Citizens Councils
• Emmitt Till
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The Montgomery Bus Boycott
and Martin Luther King Jr.
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Direct Action campaigns
Rosa Parks
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
(SCLC)
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The Domestic and International
Politics of Civil Rights
• Civil Rights Act of 1957
– Commission on Civil Rights
• Little Rock Central High School
– Orval Faubus, segregationist governor of Arkansas
• Racial conflict in the U.S. “not helpful to the
influence of the U.S. abroad”
• 1956 and 1958 elections: Divided government
– Republican Eisenhower popular and reelected
– Democrats extend control over Congress
American Indian Policy
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“Termination”
“Relocation”
Cut back Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA)
Termination and Relocation fail
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Total Urban and Rural Indian Population in the United States, 1940-1970
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Growth of Spanish Speaking
Populations
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Immigration from Puerto Rico
Bracero program
"Operation Wetback“
Salt of the Earth (1954)
League of United Latin American Citizens
(LULAC)
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Urban-Suburban Issues
• “Redlining”
• Federal Housing Authority
• “Urban renewal” programs
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Debating the Role of
Government
• Eisenhower and moderate Republicanism
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Expanded Social Security system
Raised minimum wage
Improved unemployment benefits
New Department of Health, Education and
Welfare
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The New Conservatives
• Barry Goldwater
– Conscience of a Conservative (1960)
• William F. Buckley, Jr.
– God and man at Yale
– National Review
• Young Americans for Freedom (YAF)
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Advocates of a More Active
Government
• Gaither Report (1957)
• Henry Kissinger
• Rudolf Flesch
– Why Johnny Can’t Read (1955)
• Sputnik (1957)
• National Defense Education Act (1958)
• National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(1958)
• John Kenneth Galbraith and Michael Harrington
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The Kennedy Years: Foreign
Policy
• John Fitzgerald Kennedy
– Groomed for political leadership
– Service in Congress
• House of Representatives
• Senate
– Jackie Kennedy
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The Election of 1960
• John F. Kennedy vs. Richard M. Nixon
• Televised debates
• Kennedy campaign
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"New Frontier“
Civil Rights
Flexible Response
Lyndon Johnson
• Media-driven Kennedy White House
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Kennedy’s Foreign Policy Goals
• Peace Corps
• "Alliance for Progress"
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Cuba and Berlin
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Fidel Castro
Bahia de Cochinas (Bay of Pigs, 1961)
Operation Mongoose
Berlin Wall (1961)
Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)
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Southeast Asia and “Flexible
Response”
• Kennedy followed Eisenhower’s lead in
supporting Diem regime
– U.S. must put down communist-led “wars of
national liberation” before they succeeded
– Green Berets
– CIA overthrow of Diem regime
– Military regime installed
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The Kennedy Years: Domestic
Policy
• Kennedy was slow to depart from
Eisenhower’s cautious fiscal policies
– Fearful of running federal budget deficits
greater than those of previous administration
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Policymaking Under Kennedy
• Kennedy endorsed tax breaks as means of
promoting economic growth
• Area Redevelopment Bill (1961)
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The Civil Rights Movement,
1960-1963
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Kennedy cautious on Civil Rights at first
“Sit-in” movement
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC)
• “Freedom rides”
• Birmingham, Alabama (1963)
• “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom”
(1963)
– “I Have a Dream” speech
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Women’s Issues
• Phyllis Schlafly
– A Choice, Not an Echo (1964)
• Fannie Lou Hamer
• Betty Friedan
– The Feminine Mystique (1963)
• Presidential Commission on the Status of
Women
• Equal Pay Act (1963)
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The Assassination of John F.
Kennedy
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Lee Harvey Oswald
Jack Ruby
Warren Commission
Kennedy’s death source of conspiracy
theories
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Conclusion
• Post-1953: cold war fears abated
– Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy eased tensions
with the Soviet Union
• 1953-1963 in the U.S. saw steady economic
growth
• Kennedy’s “New Frontier” grew out of 1950s
criticisms
• Issues of Vietnam, Civil Rights, and government
aid to poor left for Kennedy’s successors
(c) 2003 Wadsworth Group All rights reserved