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The United States from 1877 to 1977
The GI Bill, 1944-1955
• 4,300,000 home loans to
veterans (worth 33 billion
dollars)
• 8 million veterans went back to
school with a GI bill
scholarship
• 14.5 billion dollars in federal
money going to the nation’s
schools and colleges
• 50 billion in direct or indirect
subsidies to the American
people
• 1/3 of the population received
some sort of benefit from the
GI Bill
The United States from 1877 to 1977
FDR’s Four Freedoms
speech, via Norman
Rockwell, January 6, 1941
The United States from 1877 to 1977
The Yalta Conference, 1945
• The U.S.S.R. will get
three votes in the
United Nations
General Assembly
• In exchange the
U.S.S.R. will declare
war on Japan
• and hold free
elections in Poland.
The United States from 1877 to 1977
The Polish Corridor to Russia
• 15th century
Teutonic
invasion
• Napoleon’s
1812
invasion
• The
Kaiser’s
1914
invasion
• The Nazi
invasion of
1941
The United States from 1877 to 1977
The Truman trajectory:
Tom Pendergast and
Harry Truman of Missouri;
in Senate (far right); then
President (below right)
The United States from 1877 to 1977
Churchill, 1945
“An iron curtain has
descended across
the Continent. . . .
The United States from 1877 to 1977
Nuclear weapons plans (1946)
• Acheson-Lilienthal Plan:
UN would control atomic energy
 US would stockpile weapons until UN plan set up

• Baruch Plan:
International agency would inspect countries to
prevent production of nuclear weapons
 Countries that did not have nuclear weapons could
not develop them
 Agency’s decisions would be immune to veto power
from UN Security Council or General Assembly

The United States from 1877 to 1977
The Truman Doctrine (1947)
• Massive military aid
to all goverments
fighting communism
• 400 million dollars in
military aid for
Greece and Turkey
The United States from 1877 to 1977
George Kennan’s “containment”
thesis, 1946
• Stalin opposed west in
order to justify his
dictatorship
• Soviet Union had to be
“contained by the adroit
and vigilant application
of counterforce at a series
of constantly shifting
geographical points . . . ”
• U.S. had to show that it
had a better system for
prosperity
The United States from 1877 to 1977
Walter Lippman:
“The Cold War” (1947)
• “Containment” basically
put the strategic ball in
the Soviet Union’s court
• The amorphousness of
Kennan’s strategy will
force the U.S. to place all
its resources against
Russia
• U.S. should most focus
on Russia’s presence in
Eastern Europe, not the
whole world
The United States from 1877 to 1977
The Marshall Plan, 1947
• Massive aid to Europe to
reduce the influence of
communism
• And strengthen
European consumer
markets
• “ . . . the revival of a
working economy in the
world so as to permit the
emergence of political
and social conditions in
which free institutions
can exist.”
The United States from 1877 to 1977
The Berlin Airlift,
1948-49
U.S. stands
down Soviet
threats to
occupy West
Berlin
West
establishes
Germany and
Soviets establish
German
Democratic
Republic
The United States from 1877 to 1977
Communist revolution
in China, 1949
Mao Zedong
Chiang Kai Shek
The United States from 1877 to 1977
NSC-68 (National Security
Council document number 68),
1950
• U.S. and the Soviet Union were locked in a struggle for
world power
• The Soviets had as their ultimate priority world
domination
• Conflict between the two superpowers was “endemic” . .
. like a disease, inherent
• The Soviets could only be stopped by military power
• The Soviet people only supported the communists out of
fear; once the U.S. showed its strength, the Russian
people would overthrow communism
The United States from 1877 to 1977
Kim Il Sung
of North
Korea
Syngman Rhee
of South Korea
The United States from 1877 to 1977
The House Committee on UnAmerican Activities, (HUAC),
1937-1969
Starring:
The United States from 1877 to 1977
Leonard Bernstein
Lee J. Cobb
Aaron Copland
Dashiell Hammett
Lena Horne
Langston Hughes
Burl Ives
Gypsy Rose Lee
Burgess Meredith
Arthur Miller
Zero Mostel
Edward G. Robinson
Pete Seeger
William L. Shirer
Orson Welles
Leftist actor John Randolph
was one of many blacklisted
performers who resurfaced in
the 1960s
The United States from 1877 to 1977
Democratic Party 3-way split, 1948
Incumbent Harry
Truman
Strom Thurmond
and the
Dixiecrats
Henry Wallace and the
Progressive Party
The United States from 1877 to 1977
The
Presidential
election
of 1948
25,000,000
Truman (24.1
million)
Dewey (21.9
million)
Thurmond (1.6
million)
Wallace (1.1 million)
20,000,000
15,000,000
10,000,000
5,000,000
0
Thomas (139,000)
Popular vote
The United States from 1877 to 1977
The Smith Act (1940) and the
McCarran Act (1950)
• Smith Act: "Whoever knowingly or willfully
advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty,
necessity, desirability, or propriety of
overthrowing or destroying the government of
the United States . . . by force or violence . . .
• . . . shall be fined under this title or imprisoned
not more than twenty years, or both . . . ”
• McCarran Act: illegal to conspire to act in a way
that will "substantially contribute" to the
establishment of a totalitarian dictatorship in
America
The United States from 1877 to 1977
McCarthy era movies
• The Caine Mutiny, 1955
Based on the Herman
Wouk novel. The movie
required permission from
The Navy to be released!

• From Here to Eternity, 1953, a
novel cleaned up for The
Army!
Houses of prostitution turned into
USO clubs!
 In the novel the sadistic head of the
Army prison is promoted!
 In the film he gets fired!
 In the novel one adulterous Army
wife suffers from venereal disease!
 In the movie she has a miscarriage!

• On the Waterfront, 1954
The United States from 1877 to 1977
The flight to the suburbs
• Levittown, Long Island:
population 88,000
• 1950-1980: most major
cities lose population.
• Suburbs gain 60 million
people
• 83 percent of nation’s
growth takes place in
suburbs
• By 1970 more people live
in suburbs than in cities
The United States from 1877 to 1977
The racialized suburbs
• Federal Housing
Authority defines
minority communities as
financial risks
• Between 1934 and 1962,
the federal government
backed $120 billion of
home loans.
• More than 98% went to
white homebuyers
The United States from 1877 to 1977
Radio
Television
Growth of TV and Radio among
households (in millions)
Radio
Television
1940
1950
1960
30
42
50
6
48
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
1940
1950
1960
The United States from 1877 to 1977
Poverty in the 1950s
• 40 million Americans
still lived below the
poverty level (almost a
quarter of the
population)
• 2 million migrant
workers lived on
subsistence wages
• 27 percent of all
residential units were
substandard
• As whites migrated to
suburbs, many cities
lost their tax base
• slums proliferated
• Legal segregation and
racial discrimination
were rampant in the
south and the north
The United States from 1877 to 1977
The Kitchen Debate, 1959
Players:
Vice President
Richard
Nixon vs.
Soviet
Premier
Nikita
Khruschev
(with future
Premier
Brezhnev on
the right)
The United States from 1877 to 1977
Alfred Kinsey, 1894-1956
Sexual Behavior in the Human
Male, 1948, found that . . .
Most men masturbate
. . . and that’s fine . . .
One third of men have had a
homosexual experience . . .
and that’s ok too . . .
Sexual Behavior in the Human
Female, 1953, found that . . .
Most women achieve orgasm
more “efficiently” via means other
than vaginal penetration.
And, hey, that’s ok folks, just
relax . . .
The United States from 1877 to 1977
Founded in 1953 by
Hugh Hefner
Celebrated the
bachelor life
Celebrated home
technology for men
Championed civil
liberties for both men
and women, including
the right to choose
pregnancy