This document summarizes key economic, social, and political developments in the United States during the postwar period of the 1940s-1960s. It describes the economic growth fueled by the postwar baby boom and suburban expansion. Scientifc and technological advances like the polio vaccine and computers transformed society. A mass consumer culture emerged along with television and rock music. However, poverty persisted for many Americans, leading to the civil rights movement challenging racial segregation under leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. The Cold War intensified under Presidents Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles.

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28: The Affluent Society
Alan Brinkley, The Unfinished Nation, 8th Edition

2. ©McGraw-Hill Education.
The American Birthrate, 1940–1960
This chart shows how the American birthrate grew rapidly during and after World War II (following
a long period of decline in the 1930s) to produce what became known as the “Baby Boom.” At the
peak of the Baby Boom, during the 1950s, the nation's population grew by 20 percent.

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The Economic “Miracle”
• Economic Growth
– The Baby Boom
– Suburban expansion
• The Rise of the Modern West
– Government-induced growth
– Demand for oil
– Technology-intensive industries

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The Economic “Miracle” (Continued)
• Capital and Labor
– AFL and CIO merge

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Workers Represented by Unions, 1920–2001
This chart shows the number of workers represented by unions over an eighty-year period.
In fact it understates the decline of unionized labor in the postwar era, since it shows union
membership in absolute numbers and not as a percentage of the rapidly growing workforce.

6. ©McGraw-Hill Education.
The Explosion of Science and
Technology
• Medical Breakthroughs
– Treatments for bacterial infections
– Immunizations
– Polio vaccine
– Rising life expectancy
• Pesticides
– DDT

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The Explosion of Science and
Technology (Continued)
• Postwar Electronic Research
– Television
– Transistors
– Integrated circuits
• Postwar Computer Technology
– UNIVAC
– IBM

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The Explosion of Science and
Technology (Continued, 2)
• Bombs, Rockets, and Missiles
– Nuclear fusion
– ICBMs
• The Space Program
– Sputnik
– NASA
– Apollo program
– The space shuttle

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Moon Walk
Edwin (“Buzz”) Aldrin is photographed by his fellow astronaut Neil Armstrong
in July 1969, when they became the first humans to set foot on the surface of
the moon.
NASA

10. ©McGraw-Hill Education.
People of Plenty
• The Consumer Culture
– Growth in consumer credit
– Growing focus on consumer goods

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People of Plenty (Continued)
• The Suburban Nation
– Levittowns
– Draw of the suburbs
– Segregated suburbs
• The Suburban Family
– Traditional gender norms reinforced
• The Birth of Television
– Growing popularity
– Social conflict accentuated

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People of Plenty (Continued, 2)
• Travel, Outdoor Recreation, and Environmentalism
– Interstate highway system
– National parks
– Echo Park controversy
– Sierra Club reborn

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People of Plenty (Continued, 3)
• Organized Society and Its Detractors
– The Organization Man
– The Lonely Crowd
– The Catcher in the Rye

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People of Plenty (Continued, 4)
• The Beats and the Restless Culture of Youth
– Beat writers
– On the Road
– “Juvenile delinquency”
– James Dean
• Rock ’n’ Roll
– Elvis Presley
– Black origins
– Motown Records
– Payola scandals

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Elvis
This photograph of the musician in performance is from very early in
his career.
© Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images

16. ©McGraw-Hill Education.
The Other America
• On the Margins of the Affluent Society
– The Other America
– Persistent poverty
• Rural Poverty
• The Inner Cities
– Growth of “ghettoes”
– Shrinking job opportunities

17. ©McGraw-Hill Education.
The Rise of the Civil Rights Movement
• The Brown Decision and “Massive Resistance”
– “Separate but equal” rejected
– Little Rock’s Central High School

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Little Rock, 1957
African American student Elizabeth Eckford passes by jeering whites on
her way to Little Rock Central High School, newly integrated by federal
court order.
© Everett Collection/SuperStock

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The Rise of the Civil Rights Movement
(Continued)
• The Expanding Movement
– Rosa Parks
– Martin Luther King Jr.
– SCLC
• Causes of the Civil Rights Movement
– Growing urban black middle class
– Political mobilization of northern blacks

20. ©McGraw-Hill Education.
Eisenhower Republicanism
• “What Was Good for…General Motors”
– Keynesian welfare state accepted
– Eisenhower’s fiscal conservatism
• The Survival of the Welfare State
– Federal Highway Act of 1956
– Election of 1956
• The Decline of McCarthyism
– Army–McCarthy hearings

21. ©McGraw-Hill Education.
Eisenhower, Dulles, and the Cold War
• Dulles and “Massive Retaliation”
– Brinkmanship
• France, America, and Vietnam
– Ho Chi Minh
– Dien Bien Phu
– U.S. involvement in Vietnam

22. ©McGraw-Hill Education.
Eisenhower, Dulles, and the Cold War
(Continued)
• Cold War Crises
– Israel recognized
– CIA-backed coup in Iran
– Suez crisis
– CIA in Guatemala
– Castro in Cuba
• The U-2 Crisis
– Capture of Francis Gary Powers
– “Military–industrial complex”

23. ©McGraw-Hill Education.
Patterns of Popular Culture
• On the Road
© CBS/Photofest

24. ©McGraw-Hill Education.
Consider the Source
• Eisenhower Warns of the Military–Industrial Complex

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The Unfinished Nation, 8th Edition
Next: Chapter 29
The Turbulent Sixties