Nation of Nations 3/e Davidson, Gienapp, Heyrman, Lytle, and Stoff
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THE CHAPTER IN PERSPECTIVE

istorians often remark on the similarities between the 1950s and the 1920s. Both were prosperous decades, both had economies led by the automobile and construction industries, both had pro-business administrations in Washington, and both seemed marked by a retreat from social reform. Beyond those superficial similarities, the differences are perhaps more informative. By the 1950s the nation was rapidly becoming more suburban and less rural and urban. Twelve years of depression and five years of war had made the government, industry, and bureaucratic organizations far bigger and more impersonal. Further, the United States had become an activist member of the world community, as Chapters 27 and 28 have made clear. In the 1950s prosperity at home became not only an end, but an instrument to fight the Cold War.

OVERVIEW

As the introduction makes clear, the automobile and the culture of the highway were in many ways the ties that bound Americans to one another in the 1950s. Automobiles reflected the increasing abundance of the era. GM achieved record sales with Harley Earl’s newly designed models, presented yearly, and graced by ever more upswept tail fins. The fears of many Americans during the depression era--that differences of class might lead to social conflict--now gave way to concern that the rise of a consensus among Americans, in support of anticommunism and middle-of-the-road suburban values--might be breeding a suffocating conformity.

The Rise of the Suburbs

Two factors shaped suburban growth in the postwar era: the baby boom and prosperity. More children created a need for more housing, as well as for other goods and services. Rapid economic growth made home ownership practical for far more people. Developers like William Levitt used mass production techniques to build housing rapidly at affordable prices.

Levittown, begun in 1947, typified the new auto-dependent suburbs. The interstate highway system begun during the period encouraged suburban growth as the most popular form of housing. As highways paved the exodus to suburbs, cities began to decline. They were unable to provide recent African-American migrants from the South and Hispanics in the Southwest the opportunities that earlier immigrants had found.

The Culture of Suburbia

The new suburbs blurred class distinctions and celebrated the single-family dwelling. The notion of "civil religion"--that civic-minded Americans ought to hold some core of religious belief, regardless of the particular creed--gained in popularity. Public leaders proclaimed religion a weapon in the cold-war struggle against Communism.

At the center of this idealized world stood mother, father, and family. The public image of the ideal mother promoted the notion that housework and family provided sufficient outlet for female talent. Yet, more women than ever worked outside the home. At the same time, while two income families had more to spend, women’s wages fell to less than one half that of a man.

Emphasis on exclusive gender roles reflected a larger concern with sexuality. The research of Alfred Kinsey challenged a number of conceptions and taboos about normal sexual behavior. New sexual attitudes were also a consequence of increased leisure time. For most Americans, more free time meant more opportunity to gather in front of the television as the new medium became the center of family entertainment.

The Politics of Calm

Former General Eisenhower brought a gift for organization and political maneuvering to the White House. Reflecting the politics of the era, he resisted the demands of conservative Republicans to dismantle New Deal programs. He preferred his own brand of modern Republicanism and initiated a number of modest social welfare programs.

Political success depended upon how well the government managed the economy. Eisenhower maintained a pragmatic approach that led him to support programs like the Interstate Highway Act and the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway, neither of which took any funds from general revenues. Still, partisan politics flourished and recessions hurt the Republicans in Congressional elections of 1954 and 1958. Eisenhower's personal popularity remained so high, however, that he easily defeated Adlai Stevenson in the 1956 election.

The recessions marked temporary downturns in a generally expanding economy. Large multinational and conglomerate firms managed much of the private sector of the economy. To grow and protect themselves against recession, corporations pursued the strategies of diversification and conglomeration. New technologies such as computers made it easier to manage complex corporate empires.

Nationalism in the Age of Superpowers

The prosperity of the 1950s at home depended on maintaining a stable international system of markets and resources. Eisenhower shared responsibility for foreign policy with his experienced but somewhat belligerent secretary of state, John Foster Dulles. Under Dulles, U.S. anti-Soviet rhetoric became more confrontational, with an expressed willingness to push to the "brink" of nuclear war in order to counteract Soviet influence. As many nations worldwide clamored for independence and an end to the old colonial remnants of imperialism, both superpowers competed for the allegiance of former colonies and nonaligned nations. Although the Korean War ended in 1953, regional conflicts in Vietnam, Quemoy and Matsu, Hungary, Guatemala, Iran, and the Middle East all demonstrated how the cold war struggle inflamed international tensions. Often Eisenhower and Dulles supported covert action, as in Iran and Guatemala, when they wanted to topple popular governments that seemed to have a pro-Communist tilt.

The death of Stalin eased some cold war tensions. While Eisenhower made moves toward conciliation, they were offset by renewed rivalry (the U-2 incident, the race into space, Castro's Cuban revolution). Nationalism, especially in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, posed special problems. A brief war between Egypt and Israel, France, and Britain closed the Suez Canal. A simultaneous uprising in Hungary found the U.S. unprepared to act. To discourage Soviet gains in the Middle East, the administration won approval for the Eisenhower doctrine and briefly sent troops to Lebanon. The launching of the Soviet space satellite Sputnik in 1957 made Americans fear they had lost their edge in defense technology. In his farewell address, Eisenhower warned not to allow such unrealistic fears to lead to over-spending on the military-industrial complex.

Civil Rights and the New South

At home, the material prosperity of the 1950s did not spread evenly. At a time when many whites were moving to segregated suburbs, African-Americans were moving out of the rural South and into urban cities in large numbers. As black reformers began concentrating on ways to end legal segregation, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People succeeded in challenging the Supreme Court to overturn, in Brown v. Board of Education, the prevailing doctrine of allowing separate but equal facilities. That victory inspired civil rights leaders to adopt more assertive approaches. In Montgomery, Alabama, Martin Luther King, Jr. led a campaign to desegregate the city's bus system, while public school desegregation sparked conflict at Little Rock, Arkansas. President Eisenhower was forced to send in federal troops to assure respect for government.

Cracks in the Consensus

Thus, for all the rhetoric about "consensus" in the 1950s, the budding civil rights movement showed that the United States had not eliminated striking differences between racial or ethnic groups or economic classes and regions. Culturally, American society often seemed split. "Highbrow" intellectuals condemned television sitcoms, westerns, and other forms of "middlebrow" entertainment. They feared mass media would produce mass conformity reminiscent of the 1930s in fascist Europe. Large organizations added to a loss of individualism and a sometimes powerful pressure to conform.

Another group of social critics arose among the nation's adolescents. As baby boomers became teens, they adopted their own culture, exemplified by rock and roll idols like Bill Haley and Elvis Presley. Many conventional adults were alarmed by what they saw as "juvenile delinquency." But the revolution in rock and roll produced a new cultural idiom that paved the way for cultural and political ferment in the 1960s. So, too, did the "beatniks," an urban group that rejected mainstream values in search for "IT." Thus, as the 1950s ended, the seemingly calm United States stood on the brink of a profound upheaval.

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