In the 1950s, Americans moved to the expanding suburbs and embraced a culture of conformity and consumerism. The GI Bill helped millions of veterans buy homes and get educated on the government's dime, leading to the rapid growth of suburbs like Levittown. Suburban living became synonymous with the American Dream of home ownership. Television celebrated traditional family values and middle class life. Car ownership skyrocketed and the new Interstate Highway System made the country more mobile. Teenagers emerged as a distinct demographic with their own culture as rock and roll music became popular. Religious observance increased during this period of prosperity and social pressure to conform.

1. America
In THE 1950s
Prosperity & Conformity
U.S. History
Chapter 23
#21

2. Assignment
1. Critical Thinking p. 809 Q. 1&2
2. Ch 23 Assessment p. 817-819 Q. 1-20
1. A - Closed Shop
Handwritten Due - Tuesday
Quiz
40 pts – Tuesday
Key Terms & People

3. Americans returned from WWII hoping to
find a better life than the one they left

4. The GI Bill
June 20,1944 -- FDR signed into law
“The Servicemen's Readjustment Act”
Prevent –Bonus March
• Loans for Homes
• $ for College Education

5. Suburban Living
- start at 45Sec(8min)
Levittown: “The American Dream”
1949-William Levitt began to mass produce
‘Cookie-Cutter Homes’
150 houses per wk
$7,990 or $60/month with no down payment.

6. Suburban Living:
The New “American Dream”
k 1 story high
k 12‟x19‟ living rm
k 2 bedrooms
k tiled bathroom
k garage
k small backyard
k front lawn
By 1960-1/3 of the U.S. pop. in the suburbs

7. Suburban Living
SHIFTS IN POPULATION
DISTRIBUTION
1940-1970
Central Cities
Suburbs
Rural Areas/
Small Towns
1940
31.6%
19.5%
48.9%
1950
32.3%
23.8%
43.9%
1960
1970
32.6%
32.0%
36.7%
26.4%
30.7%
U. S. Bureau of the Census
41.6%

8. Suburban Living:
The Typical TV Suburban Families
The Donna
Reed Show
1958-1966
Leave It
to Beaver
1957-1963
Father Knows Best
1954-1958
The Ozzie & Harriet Show
1952-1966

9. Suburban Living
“The American Dream”
Conformity was the desire

10. The Baby Boom
It seems to me that every other young
housewife I see is pregnant.
-- British visitor to America, 1958
1957 - 1 baby born every 7 seconds

11. The Baby Boom
Dr. Benjamin Spock
and the Anderson
Quintuplets
“spare the rod” to
create happy children

12. Baby Boom – Polio Eradicated
• 1952 – 58,000 cases of Polio
• Dr. Salk & his family became human
guinea pigs
• April 12, 1955 – CDC declared safe

13. Kid’s needs were catered to
- enjoyed a lifestyle of unprecedented privilege
Little League
Baseball

14. Consumerism
1950 - Introduction of the Diner‟s Card
* the first Credit Card in the World
All babies were potential consumers who
spearheaded a brand-new market for food, clothing,
and shelter. -- Life Magazine (May, 1958)

15. Consumerism

16. A Changing Workplace
Automation: from 1947-1957
factory workers decreased by 4.3%
eliminated 1.5 million Blue-Collar jobs
By 1956:more White-Collar than
Blue-Collar
jobs in the U. S.
1st Computers:
ENIAC & Mark I
U.S. Army & Navy

17. Women in the Workforce
• After WWII – Women were
encouraged to:
“Go back Home”
“Give your Job to a Vet”
• Women stayed in the workforce,
but in more traditional roles
- low pay
- faced discrimination for talents

18. The Culture of the Car
Car registrations:
1945 - 25,000,000
1960 - 60,000,000
2-family cars doubles from 1951-1958
1958 Pink Cadillac
1956 -
1959 Chevy Corvette
Interstate Highway Act
largest public works project in U.S.History!
Å Cost $129 billion
Å 41,000 miles of new highways built

19. Interstate Hwy Act-1956

20. “Death by Interstate”

21. The Culture of the Car
America became a more homogeneous
nation because of the automobile
First McDonald‟s
(1955)
Howard
Johnson‟s
Drive-In
Movies

22. The Culture of the Car
The U. S. pop. was on the move in the 1950‟s
“Sunbelt” states - southwest
1955 Disneyland opened in Southern California.
- 40% of the guests: outside California, most by car
Frontier Land
Main Street
Tomorrow Land

23. Television
1946 - 7,000 TV sets in America
1950 - 50,000,000 TV sets in Am.
“Television is a vast wasteland”
Newton Minnow, Chairman of the FCC -1961
Mass Audience - TV celebrated traditional
American values
Truth, Justice, and the American way!

24. Television - Family Shows
Glossy view of mostly
middle-class suburban life
I Love Lucy
The Honeymooners
BUT..Women secretly hoped their daughters
would have better lives than they had lived

25. Women’s talents were
put down
Gimbel’s Department store ad in 1952
Riddle – What’s College?
"That's where girls who are
above cooking and sewing go
to meet a man so they can
spend their lives cooking and
sewing."

26. Science Fiction
UFO Sightings skyrocketed in the 1950s.
War of the Worlds
Hollywood used aliens as a
metaphor for whom ??

27. The TV Culture
- for Society on the Go
Called TV dinners from 1953-62

28. Teen Culture
In the 1950s -the word “teenager” entered
the American language
By 1956- 13 mill. teens with $7 bill. to spend yr
1951 - “race music” - “ROCK „N ROLL”
Elvis Presley - “The King”

29. Teen Culture
“Juvenile Delinquency”
1951- J. D. Salinger‟s
A Catcher in the Rye
Marlon Brando in
The Wild One
(1953)
James Dean in
Rebel Without a
Cause (1955)

30. Teen Culture
The “Beat” Generation:
f Jack Kerouac  On The Road
f Allen Ginsberg  poem, “Howl”
Rejected materialism - experimented with drugs and sex
“Beatnik”
“Clean” Teen
Ultimately led to the counter-culture “hippie” of the 1960’s

31. Religious Revival
Today in the U. S., the Christian faith is back in
the center of things. -- Time magazine, 1954
Church membership: 1940 -
64,000,000
1960 - 114,000,000
Television Preachers:
1. Catholic
Bishop Fulton J. Sheen
“Life is Worth Living”
2. Methodist Minister
Norman Vincent Peale
The Power of Positive Thinking
3.
Rev. Billy Graham
- ecumenical message;
warned against the evils of Communism