Chapter 30

The Economic Miracle

Sources of Economic Growth
1949, despite the continuing problems of postwar reconversion,
an economic expansion had begun that would continue with only brief
interruptions for almost twenty years
The causes of this growth varied. Government spending continued
to stimulate growth through public funding of schools, housing,
veterans benefits, welfare, and the $100 billion interstate highway
program
Technological progress also contributed to the boom1. Technological
progress also contributed to the boom
a. There was the development of electronic computers
b. The first modern computer emerged as a result of efforts
during WWII to
decipher enemy codes
c. Not until the 1980s did most Americans come into direct and
regular
contact with computers, but the new machines were
having a substantial
effect on the economy long before that
The national birth rate reversed a long pattern of decline with
the so- called
baby boom
1. The baby boom meant increased consumer demand and
expanding
economic growth
The rapid expansion of suburbs helped stimulate growth in
several
important sectors of the economy
Because of this unprecedented growth, the economy grew
nearly ten times as fast as the population in their thirty years after the
war
of living of

1. The American people had achieved the highest standard

any society in the history of the world

The Rise of the Modern West

No region of the country experience more dramatic changes as a
result of the new economic growth than the American West

By the 1960s some parts of the West were among the most important
industrial and cultural centers of the nation in their own right
As during WWII much of the growth of the West was a result of federal
spending and investment 1. Dams, power stations, highways, and
other infrastructure projects
The enormous increase in automobile use after WWII gave a large
stimulus to the petroleum industry and contributed to the rapid growth
of oil fields in Texas and Colorado
State governments in the West invested heavily in their universities
Climate also contributedThe New EconomicsThe exciting discovery
of the power of the American economic system
was a major cause of the confident, even arrogant tone of much
American political life in the 1950s
1. There was the belief that Keynesian economics made it possible for
government to regulate and stabilize the economy without intruding
directly into the private sector
By the mid-1950s, Keynesian theory was rapidly becoming a
fundamental article of faith
1. Armed with these fiscal and monetary tools, many economists now
believed, it was possible for the government to maintain a permanent
prosperity
If any doubters remained, there was ample evidence to dispel their
misgivings during the era
Accompanying the belief in the possibility of permanent economic
stability was the equally exhilarating belief in permanent economic
growth by the mid-1950s, reformers concerned about economic
deprivation were arguing that the solution lay in increased production
The Keynesians never managed to remake federal economic policy
entirely to their liking
1. Still, the new economics gave many Americans a confidence in their
ability to solve economic problems that previous generations had
never developed
Captial and Labor
A relatively small number or large-scale organizations controlled an
enormous proportion oft eh nations economic activity

A similar consolidation was occurring in the agricultural economy

Corporations enjoying booming growth were reluctant to allow strikes
to interfere with their operationsBy the early 1950s large labor unions
had developed a new kind of
relationship with employers 1. Postwar Contract
Workers in steel, automobiles, and other large unionized industries
were receiving generous increases in wages and benefits
1. In return the unions tacitly agreed to refrain from raising other
issues
The contract served the corporations and the union leadership well
Many rank-and-file workers resented the abandonment of efforts to
give them more control over the conditions of their labor The
economic successes of the 1950s helped pave the way for a
reunification of the labor movement1. 1955, the American Federation
of Labor and the
Congress of Industrial Organizations ended their 20 year rivalry
and merged to create the AFL- CIOBut success also bread stagnation
and corruption in some union
bureaucraciesWhile the labor movement enjoyed significant success
in winning
better wages and benefits for workers already organized in strong
unions, the majority of laborers who were as yet unorganized made
fewer advances
1. New obstacles to organizationa. Taft-Hartley Act and the state rightto-work laws
In the American South impediments to unionization were enormous 1.
Antiunion sentiment was so powerful in the South that
almost all organizing drives encountered crushing and usually fatal
resistance
The Explosion of Science and Technology
Medical Breakthroughs

The development of antibiotics had its origins=2 0in the discoveries

of Louis Pasteur and Jules-Francois Joubert.
Working in France in the 1870s they produced the first conclusive
evidence that virulent bacterial infections could be defeated by other,
more ordinary bacteria.
In 1920, in the meantime, Alexander Fleming accidentally discovered
the antibacterial properties of an organism that he named penicillin.
There was also dramatic progress in immunization-the development
of vaccines that can protect humans from contracting both bacterial
and viral diseases.
In 1954, the American scientist Jonas Salk introduced an effective
vaccine against the disease that had killed and crippled thousands of
children and adults.
Average life expectancy in that same period rose by five years, to 71.
Pesticides
The most famous pesticides was dichlorodiphenyl-dichloromethane
[DDT] a compound discovered in 1939 by Paul Muller.
Postwar Electronic Research
Researchers in the 1940s produced the first commercially viable
televisions and created a technology that made it possible to broadcast
programming over large areas.
In 1948 bell Labs, the research arm of AT&T, produced=2 0the first
transistor, a solid-state device capable of amplying electrical signals,
which was much smaller and more efficient than the cumbersome
vacuum tubes that had powered most electronic equipment in the
past.
Integrated circuits combined a number of once-separate electronic
elements and embedded them into a single, microscopically small
device.
Postwar Computer Technology
In the 1950s computers began to perform commercial functions for
the first time, as data-processing devices used by businesses and other
organizations.
The first significant computer of the 1950s was the Universal

Automatic Computer, which was developed initially for the U.S Bureau
of the Census by the Remington Rand company.
Bombs, Rockets, and Missles
In 1952, the U.S successfully detonated the first hydrogen bomb.The
development of the hydrogen bomb gave considerable impetus to
a stalled scientific project in both the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
The Space Program
The Shock of Sputnik , th e united states had yet perform any similar
feats , and the American government (and much of American society )
reacted to the announcement with alarm , as if the Soviet achievement
was also a massive American failure .
The centerpiece of space exploration , however . soon became the
manned space program , established in 1958 through the creation of a
new agency , the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA ) and through the selection of the first American space pilots , or
astronauts
They quickly became the nations most revered heroes .
The Apollo Program , Mercury and Gemini were followed by the Apollo
program , whose purpose was to land men on the moon .
July 20 , 1969 , Neil Armstrong , Edwin Aldrin , and Michael Collins
successfully traveled in a space capsule into orbit around the moon .
Armstrong and Aldrin , and Michael then detached a smaller craft
from the capsule , landed on the surface of the moon , and became the
first men to walk on a body other than earth .
People of Plenty
The Consumer Culture
At the center of middle-class culture in the 1950s was a growing
absorption with consumer goods
It was a result of:1. Increased prosperity
2. Increasing variety and availability of products
3. Advertisers adeptness in creating a demand for those product

4. A growth of consumer creditTo a striking degree, the prosperity of

the 1950s and 1960s was
consumer drivenBecause consumer goods were so often marketed
nationally, the
1950s were notable for the rapid spread of creation national
consumer crazes
The Suburban Nation
By 1960 a third of the nations population was living in suburbsThe
most famous of the postwar suburban developers, William Levitt,
came to symbolize the new suburban growth with his use of massproduction techniques to construct a large housing development on
Long Island, NY
1. They helped to meet an enormous demand for housing that had
been growing for more than a decade
Many Americans wanted to move to the suburbs1. One reason was
the enormous importance postwar
Americans place on family life after five years of war in which families
had often been separated or otherwise disrupted
2. They provided privacy3. A place to raise a large family4. They
provided security from the noise and dangers of
urban living5. They offered space for the new consumer goods6.
Suburban life also helped provide a sense of community
Suburban neighborhoods1. They were not uniform
The Suburban Family
For professional men, suburban life generally meant a rigid division
between their working and personal worldsFor many middle-class
married women, it meant an increase isolation
from the workplaceOne of the most influential books in postwar
American life was a
famous guide to child rearing 1. Baby and Child Care

a. Said that the needs of the child come before everything else
b. Women who could afford not to work faced heavy pressures to
remain in the home and concentrate on raising their children
c. Yet by 1960, nearly a third of all married women were in the paid
workforce
The increasing numbers of women in the workplace laid the
groundwork for demands for equal treatment by employers that
became and important part of the feminist crusades of the 1960s and
1970s
The Birth of Television
Television is perhaps the most powerful medium of mass
communication in history
The television industry emerged directly out of the radio industry
Like radio, the television business was driven by advertisingThe
impact of television on American life was rapid, pervasive, and
profound1. Television entertainment programming replace movies
and radio as the principal source of diversion for American
familiesMuch of the programming of the 1950s and early 1960s
created a
common image of American life1. An image that was predominately
white, middle-class,
and suburban2. Programming also reinforced the concept of gender
roles
3. Television inadvertently created conditions that could accentuate
social conflict
Travel, Outdoor Recreation, and Environmentalism

Organized Society and Its Detractors

Large-scale organizations and bureaucracies increased their influence
over American life in the postwar era
More and more Americans were becoming convinced that the key to a

successful future lay in acquiring the specialized training and skills

necessary for work in large organizations
1. The National Defense Education Act of 1958
a. Provided federal funding for development of programs in those areas
of science, mathematics, and foreign languages
2. As in earlier eras, many Americans reacted to these developments
with ambivalence, even hostility
Novelists expressed misgivings in their work about the enormity and
impersonality of modern society
The Beats and the Restless Culture of Youth
The most derisive critics of bureaucracy, and of middle-class society
in general, were a group of young poets, writers, and artists generally
known as the beats beatniks
The beats were the most visible evidence of a widespread
restlessness among young Americans in the 1950s In part, that
restlessness was a result of prosperity itself
1. Tremendous public attention was directed at the phenomenon of
juvenile delinquency and in both politics and popular culture there
were dire warnings about the growing criminality of American youth
Also disturbing to many older Americans was the style of youth
culture
1. The culture of alienation that the beats so vividly represented had
counterparts even in ordinary middle-class behavior
a. Teenage rebelliousness toward parents, youthful fascination with fast
cars and motorcycles, and an increasing visibility of teenage sex,
assisted by the greater availability of birth-control devices and the
spreading automobile culture that came to dominated the social
lives of teenagers in much of the nation2. The popularity of James
Dean was a particularly vivid
sign of this aspect of youth culture in the 1950sa. Dean became an
icon of the unfocused
rebelliousness of American youth in his time
Rock 'n' Roll

One of the most powerful signs of the restiveness of American youth

was the enormous popularity of rock n roll and of the greatest early
rock star
1. Elvis Presleya. Presley became a symbol of a youthful
determination to push at the borders of the conventional and
acceptable
b. Presleys music, like that of most early white rock musicians, drew
heavily from black rhythm and blues traditions
c. Rock also drew from country western music, gospel
music, even from jazzThe rise of such white rock musicians as Presley
was a result in part of
the limited willingness of white audience to accept black
musiciansThe rapid rise and enormous popularity of rock owed a
great deal to
innovations in radio and television programming1. Early in the 1950s, a
new breed of radio announcers
began to create programming aimed specifically at young fans of rock
music
a. Disk JockeysRadio and television were important to the recording
industry because
they encouraged the sale of records1. Also important were jukeboxes
Rock music began in the 1950s to do what jazz and swing had done in
the 1920s 40s
1. To define both youth culture as a whole and the experience of a
generation
The "Other America"
On the Margins of the Affluent Society
In 1962, The Other America was publisheda. Chronicles of the
continuing existence of poverty in
AmericaThe great economic expansion of the postwar years reduced
poverty

dramatically but did not eliminate itMost of the poor experience

poverty intermittently and temporarily This poverty was a poverty
that the growing prosperity of the postwar
era seemed to affect hardly at all
Rural Poverty
Among those on the margins of the affluent society were many rural
Americans
Not all farmers were poor1. But the agrarian economy did produce
substantial
numbers of genuinely impoverished peopleMigrant farm workers and
coal miners fell to the same kind of poverty The Inner CitiesAs white
families moved from cities to suburbs in vast numbers, more
and more inner-city neighborhoods became vast repositories for the
poor
1. Ghettos from which there was no easy escape a. African Americans
helped this growth
Similar migrations from Mexico and Puerto Rico expanded poor
Hispanic barrios in many American cities at the same time
For many years, the principal policy response to the poverty of inner
cities was urban renewal
1. The effort to tear down buildings in the poorest and most degraded
areas
a. In some cases, urban renewal provided new public housing for poor
city residents
b. In many cases, urban renewal projects replaced slums with middle
and upper-income housing, office towers, or commercial buildings
One result of inner-city poverty was a rising rate of juvenile crime
The Rise of the Civil Rights Movement
The Brown Decision and "Massive Resistance"
On May 17, 1954 the Supreme Court announced its decision in the
case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

1. Ruled that segregation in schools was unconstitutional The Brown

decision was the culmination of many decades of effort by
black opponents of segregationThe Topeka suit involved the case of
an African-American girl who had
to travel several miles to a segregated public school every day even
though she lived virtually next door to a white elementary school
1. The Court concluded that school segregation inflicted unacceptable
damage on those it affected
The following year, the Court issued another decision to provide rules
for implementing the 1954 order
1. It ruled that communities must work to desegregate their schools
with all deliberate speed, but it set no timetable and left specific
decisions up to lower courts
Strong local opposition produced long delays and bitter conflicts1.
More than 100 southern members of Congress signed a
manifesto in 1956 denouncing the Brown decision and
urging their constituents to defy it
Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham Board of Education (1958)1. Refused to
declare pupil placement laws, placing a
student in a school based on academic or social behaviors,
unconstitutionalThe Brown decision, far from ending segregation, had
launched a
prolonged battle between federal authority and state and local
governments, and between those who believed in racial equality and
those who did not
In 1957, federal courts had ordered the desegregation of Central High
School in Little Rick, Arkansas
1. An angry white mob tried to prevent implementation of the order by
blockading the entrances to the school
2. President Eisenhower responded by federalizing the National Guard
and sending troops to Little Rock to restore
order and ensure that the court orders would be obeyed

The Expanding Movement

The Brown decision helped spark a growing number of popular
challenges to segregation in the South
December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama,
when she refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus to a white
passenger
1. The arrest of this admired woman produced outrage in the citys
African-American community and helped local leaders organize a
successful boycott of the bus system to demand an end to segregated
seating
2. The bus boycott put economic pressure not only on the bus
company but on many Montgomery merchants
a. The bus boycotters found it difficult to get to downtown stores and
tended to shop instead in their own neighborhoods
A Supreme Court decision in 1956 declared segregation in public
transportation to be illegal
More important than the immediate victories of the Montgomery
boycott was its success in establishing a new form of racial protest and
in elevating to prominence a new figure in the movement for civil
rights
1. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.a. Kings approach to black protest was
based on the
doctrine of nonviolenceb. He urged African Americans to engage in
peaceful
demonstrations2. The popular movement he came to represent soon
spread throughout the South and throughout the country One
important color line had been breached as early as 1947, when
the Brooklyn Dodgers signed the great Jackie Robinson as the
first African American to play Major League Baseball President
Eisenhower signed a civil rights act in 1957
1. Providing federal protection for blacks who wished to register to vote
Cause of the Civil Rights Movement

Several factors contributed to the rise of African-American protest in

these years
1. Millions of black men and women had served in the military or
worked in war plants during the war and had derived from the
experience a broader view of the world and their place in it
2. Another factor was the growth of an urban black middle class
3. Television and other forms of popular culture were
another factor in the rising consciousness of racism among
blacksOther forces were at work mobilizing many white Americans to
support the movement once it began 1. The Cold War
2. Political mobilization of northern blacks
3. Labor unions with substantial black memberships By the early
1960s, this movement had made it one of the most
powerful forces in America
Eisenhower Republicanism
"What was Good for...General Motors"
The first Republican administration in 20 years was staffed mostly
with men drawn from the same quarter as those who had staffed
Republican administrations in the 1920s
1. The business communityMany of the nation's leading businessmen
and financiers ha
reconciled themselves to at least the broad outlines of the Keynesian
welfare state the New Deal had launched and had come to see it as
something that actually benefited them
To his cabinet, Eisenhower appointed wealthy corporate lawyers and
business executives
Eisenhowers leadership style helped enhance the power of his
cabinet officers and others
Eisenhowers consistent inclination was to limit federal activities and
encourage private enterprise

The Survival of the Welfare State

The president took few new initiatives in domestic policy Perhaps the
most significant legislative accomplishment of the
Eisenhower administration was the Federal Highway Act of 1956 1.
Authorized $25 billion for a ten-year effort to construct
over 40,000 miles of interstate highways2. The program was to be
funded through a highway trust
fund whose revenues would come from new taxes on the
purchase of fuel, automobiles, trucks, and tires In 1956, Eisenhower
ran for a second term
1. Republicans Adlai Stevenson
2. Eisenhower won Democrats still held power over Congress
The Decline of McCarthyism
In its first years in office the Eisenhower administration did little to
discourage the anticommunist furor that had gripped the nation
Among the most celebrated controversies of the new administrations
first year was the case of J. Robert Oppenheimer
1. He opposed the building of the Hydrogen Bomb
2. In 1953, the FBI distributed a dossier within the administration
detailing Oppenheimers prewar association with various left-wing
groups
a. In 1953, the FBI distributed a dossier within the administration
detailing Oppenheimers prewar association with various left-wing
groups
But by 1954, such policies were beginning to produce significant
opposition
1. The clearest signal of that change was the political demise of
Senator Joseph McCarthy
a. He overstepped his boundaries when he charged Secretary of Army
Robert Stevens
b. Army-McCarthy hearings2. In December 1954, he was condemned

for conduct
unbecoming a senator
Eisenhower, Dulles, and the Cold War
Dulles and "Massive Retaliation"
Eisenhowers secretary of state, and the dominant figure in the
nations foreign policy in the 1950s, was John Foster Dulles
He entered office denouncing the containment policies of the Truman
years
1. Arguing that the United States should pursue an active program of
liberation which would lead to a rollback of communism expansion
Massive Retaliation1. The United States would, he explained,
respond to
communist threats to its allies not by using conventional forces to local
conflicts but by relying on the deterrent of massive retaliatory power
(nuclear weapons)
By the end of the decade, the United States had become a party to
almost a dozen such treaties of mutual defense in NATO in all areas of
the world
France, America, and Vietnam

Cold War Crisis

Europe and the Soviet Union

Although the problems of the Third World were moving slowly to the
center of American foreign policy, the direct relationship with the
Soviet Union and the effort to resist communist expansion in Europe
remained the principal concerns of the Eisenhower administration
In 1955, Eisenhower and other NATO leaders met with the Soviet
premier, Nikolai Bulganin, at a cordial summit conference in Geneva
1. They could find no basis for agreementRelations between the

Soviet Union and the West soured further in

1956 in response to the Hungarian Revolution1. Hungarians were
demanding democratic reforms
a. Soviets came in to crush the uprising2. The suppression of the
uprising convinced many
American leaders that Soviet policies had not softened as much
as the events of the previous two years had suggestedThe failure of
conciliation brought renewed vigor to the Cold War and
greatly intensified the Soviet-American arms raceThe arms race not
only increased tensions between the United States
and Russia1. It increased tensions within each nation as well
The U-2 Crisis
In this tense and fearful atmosphere, the Soviet Union raised new
challenges to the West in Berlin
In November 1958, Nikita Khrushchev renewed his predecessors
demands that NATO powers abandon the city
1. The United States and its allies refused Khrushchev suggested that
he and Eisenhower discuss the issue
personally1. The United States agreed
Only days before Eisenhower was to leave for Moscow the Soviet
Union announced that it had shot down an American U-2, a spy plane,
over Russian territory
By the spring of 1960, Khrushchev knew that no agreement was
possible on the Berlin issue
The events of 1960 provided a somber backdrop for the end of the
Eisenhower administration
He warned in his farewell address of 1961 of the unwarranted
influence of a vast military-industrial complex
1. His caution, in both domestic and international affairs, stood in
marked contrast to the attitudes of his successors, who argued that the
United States must act more boldly and aggressively on behalf of its
goals at home and abroad