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A 15-year economic expansion followed WWII
The Korean Conflict and Cold War spurred defense sector production
Consumer product industries boomed along with birth rates
The Southern and Western regions of the country experienced massive
Growth; farm regions and old manufacturing suffered
Life in the Suburbs
Made possible by the prominence of the automobile and highways
Promoted a drive-in, motel, shopping center culture
Promoted the prominence of the nuclear family (vs. extended)
Pushed the role of mother/wife
Ironically, expensive lifestyles led more married women to work outside of the home
Organized religion flourished
More school children, less federal aid until Sputnik
We finally launched the Explorer in January 1958 (Sputnik I—Oct ’57)
Congress moved to restore national confidence in US supremacy
NASA created in 1958
National Defense Education Act (NDEA)
Gave federal funding to public schools and colleges
Pushed science, math and foreign language
Increased Social Security and minimum wages
The Fair Deal included
National medical insurance
Federal aid to education
Fair Employment Practiced Commission to fight discrimination
New farm subsidy programs
Never enacted—blocked by the conservative coalition
Raised the minimum wage to $1 per hour
Expanded unemployment benefits
Federal Highway Act of 1956
Created interstate highways
Truman was successful in adding civil rights to the liberal platform
The Congress opposed the FEPC and anti-lynching laws
Truman desegregated the military through executive order
The Supreme Court desegregated schools in Brown v Board (1954)
A unanimous decision
To be undertaken with “all deliberate speed”
Confronted by “massive resistance” in the South
Decision not endorsed or encouraged by Eisenhower
The 1950s end with a promise of turmoil and change and the beginnings of a movement away from materialism and fear of
depression but toward a painful awakening of racial and military conflict that would threaten to tear the country apart.
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