The 1960s in America: US History Crash Course # 40
America right now, said former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1945, stands on top of the world in the 1950s, it was easy to see what Churchill meant that the United States was the strongest military power the world economy was booming, and the fruits of this new car prosperity, suburban homes and other consumer goods were available to more people than ever before, however, the 1950 also a time of great conflict for example, the movement of the nascent civil rights and the crusade against communism at home and abroad exposed the underlying divisions in American society.
Historians use the word boom to describe a lot about the 1950s, the booming economy, growing suburbs and especially the baby boom called The boom began in 1946, when a number record babies April 3 million is born in the United States about 4 million babies are born each year in the 1950s in all, when the boom finally faded in 1964, there were nearly 77 million baby -boomers.
When Rosa Parks died in 2005, she was the first woman to lie in honor in the Rotunda of the Capitol U S.
After World War II ended, many Americans were eager to have children because they were convinced that the future held nothing but peace and prosperity in many ways they were right Between 1945 and 1960, gross national product more than doubled, from $ 200 billion to over 500 billion much of this increase came from government spending building highways and schools, the distribution of benefits to veterans and especially the increase in spending military on products such as aircraft and new technologies like computers have all contributed to the decade's economic growth rates of unemployment and inflation were low, and wages were high people of the middle class had more money to spend than ever and because the variety and availability of consumer goods expanded and the econ Omie, they also had more things to buy.
The baby boom and the boom suburb were hand in hand almost from the Second World War ended, developers like William Levitt whose Levittowns in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania would become the most famous symbols of the suburban life in the 1950s began to buy land on the outskirts of towns and using mass production techniques to build modest houses cheap way there, the GI Bill subsidized mortgages at low cost for soldiers back, which meant that it was often cheaper to buy one of these suburban houses that he was renting an apartment in the city.
These houses were perfect for young families, they had informal family room, open floor plans and backyards and so suburban developments earned nicknames such as fertility Valley and Rabbit Hutch However, they are often not so perfect for women who lived in fact, the boom of the 1950s had a particularly confining effect on many books of advice for American women and magazine articles Do not be afraid to marry young, cooking for me poetry, femininity begins at home urged women to leave the workforce and embrace their role as wives and mothers the idea that the most important job was to have children and back was just another of a woman, but it started to generate a lot of dissatisfaction in women who aspired to a more fulfilling life in his book the Feminine Mystique in 1963, women s DEFE CE nseur rights Betty Friedan argued that the suburbs were burying women alive this dissatisfaction, in turn, contributed to the renaissance of the feminist movement in the 1960s.
Increasing numbers of Americans spoke against inequality and injustice in the 1950s, African Americans had fought against racial discrimination for centuries; in the 1950s, however, the fight against racism and segregation has entered the mainstream of American life, for example in 1954 in the historic building Brown v Board of Education case, the Supreme Court stated that educational institutions separated for black children were unequal by Nature This decision was the first nail in the coffin of Jim Crow.
Many Southern whites resisted Brown ruling They removed their children from public schools and enrolled in all-white segregation academies, and they used violence and intimidation to prevent blacks from asserting their rights in 1956 more than 100 members of the South Congress have even signed a manifesto declaring that the South would do everything possible to defend segregation.
Despite these efforts, a new movement was born in December 1955, was arrested a Montgomery activist named Rosa Parks for refusing to give up her seat on a city bus to a white person His arrest sparked a boycott of 13 months of city buses by its black citizens, who took no end when bus companies stopped discrimination against American passengers African acts of nonviolent resistance as the boycott helped shape the civil rights movement in the next decade .
The tension between the United States and the Soviet Union, known as the Cold War was another key element of the 1950s, after World War II, Western leaders began to fear that the USSR had this a US diplomat called the expansion trends; Moreover, they believed that the spread of communism threatened everywhere democracy and capitalism throughout Therefore, communism had to be contained through diplomacy, threats or force this idea shaped US foreign policy for decades .
It forms the internal politics and many people in the United States fear that the Communists or subversives could destroy American society from within and from outside Between 1945 and 1952, Congress held 84 hearings to put an end to a US federal government activities in universities and public schools and even in Hollywood these hearings have not found many treacherous activities or even many communists, but it does not matter, dozens of thousands of Americans have lost their jobs, their families and friends in the anti-communist Red Scare of the 1950s.
Prosperity booming 1950s helped create a widespread sense of stability, contentment and consensus in the United States, however, the consensus was fragile, and split for good in the tumultuous 1960s.
1950 Facts and Summary, 1950, the civil rights movement.