20 - Prosperity and Anxiety: The 1950s

Summary: In the 1950s, many middle-class, white American families experienced a prosperity they had never known before. Many young couples moved to the suburbs and purchased their first home (for veterans, this could be partially financed by the GI Bill). Observers noted that Dwight Eisenhower was the perfect president for the seemingly placid 1950s. Many commentators wrote on the conformity of American suburban life in the period. However, there were also many Americans pushing for change. Proponents of civil rights for black Americans were heartened by the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation in public schools, yet found that their struggles would continue throughout this decade and all through the next. Many women felt frustrated in the role of housewife that they were expected to play in suburban America. Many teenagers rebelled in the decade as well, by emulating the "rebellious" movie star James Dean, by dabbing in Beat poetry, or by listening to the new rock 'n' roll music.

Keywords

Brown v. Board of Education (1954): Supreme Court decision stating that "separate but equal" schools for white and black students were unconstitutional and that school districts across America must desegregate with "all deliberate speed"; controversy over enforcement of this decision was to last for more than a decade.

Montgomery bus boycott (1955): effort by blacks in Montgomery, Alabama, to have the local bus company end discriminatory seating and hiring policies. The movement started with the arrest of Rosa Parks for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man; the boycott was later led by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Baby boom: From 1947 to 1962 Americans married and had children at a record pace; the "high point" of the baby boom was 1957.

The Feminine Mystique: book written by Betty Friedan describing the frustration felt by suburban women in the 1950s; this book was a landmark for feminists of the 1960s and 1970s.

James Dean: young actor whose character in the film Rebel Without a Cause inspired many rebellious young people of the 1950s

Beat Generation: literary movement of the 1950s; writers of this movement rejected the materialistic American culture of the decade. Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsburg, and William Burroughs were key writers of this movement.

ECONOMIC GROWTH AND PROSPERITY

Some economists feared that the ending of World War II would lead to economic recession. Instead, the American economy enjoyed tremendous growth in the period between 1945 and 1960. In 1945, the American gross national product (GNP) stood at just over $200 billion; by 1960, the GNP had grown to over $500 billion.

A significant reason for this growth was the ever-growing spending on defense during the cold war era. The "military-industrial complex" (a term coined y Dwight D. Eisenhower) was responsible for billions of dollars of new spending during the 1950s (and far beyond). Millions were spent on technological research throughout the era.

Other significant factors were responsible for the economic growth of the era. Consumers had accumulated significant amounts of cash during World War II, but had little to spend it on, as the production of consumer goods was not emphasized in the war era. With the war over, consumers wanted to spend. Credit cards were available to consumers for the first time; Diner's Club cards were issued for the first time in 1950. Two industries that benefited from this were the automobile industry and the housing industry.

Many American households had never owned a new automobile since the 1920s, and in the postwar era, demand for cars was at a record high. If consumers needed assistance in deciding on which automobile to buy, they could receive assistance from the advertisers who were working for the various automobile companies (advertising reached levels in the 1950s equal to the 1920s). As the 1950s wore on, consumers could buy cars with bigger and bigger fins and fancier and fancier interiors. President Eisenhower and Congress encouraged America's reliance on the automobile when they enacted legislation authorizing the massive buildup of the interstate highway system (at the expense of the construction of an effective mass transit system). The highway system was a by-product of national defense plans of the cold war; planners thought they would be ideal for troop movements and that airplanes could easily land on the straight sections of them.

The other industry that experienced significant growth in the postwar era was the housing construction business. There was a dire shortage of available housing in the immediate postwar era; in many cities, two families living in an apartment designed for one was commonplace. Housing was rapidly built in the postwar era, and the demand was insatiable. The GI Bill of 1944 authorized low-interest mortgage loans for ex-servicemen (as well as subsidies for education).

William Levitt helped ease the housing crisis when he built his initial group dwellings in Levittown, New York. Several other Levittowns were constructed; homes were prefabricated, were built using virtually assembly line practices, and all looked remarkably the same. Nevertheless, William Levitt and developers like him began the move to the suburbs, the most significant population shift of the postwar era.

The economy was also spurred by the mass of appliances desired by consumers for their new homes in the suburbs. Refrigerators, televisions, washing machines, and countless other appliances were found in suburban households; advertising helped ensure that the same refrigerator and television would be found in homes across the nation. Economist John Kenneth Galbraith noted that, by the 1950s, America had become an "affluent society." It should be noted, however, that even though the economy of the era enjoyed tremendous growth, the wages of many workers lagged behind spiraling prices. For many workers, real income declined; this led to labor unrest in the postwar era.

POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS OF THE POSTWAR ERA

It would have been difficult for anyone to follow Franklin Roosevelt as president, and Harry Truman, in the opinion of many, definitely suffered in comparison. Although Truman stated that "the buck stops here" when decisions were made, many critics felt that he had no consistent set of beliefs to guide him as he decided policy. Truman was considered antiunion by much of organized labor, yet he vetoed a key piece of legislation designed to take power away from labor unions. There were many strikes in 1946 and 1947, and the Taft-Hartley Act was passed by Congress in 1947 over the president's veto (several biographers claim that Truman's veto was primarily symbolic and was done for political reasons). This bill stated that if any strike affected the health and safety of the country, the president could call for an 80-day cooling off period, during which negotiations could take place and workers would go back to work, that the union contributions of individuals could not be used in federal elections, and that union leaders had to officially declare they were not communists. Unions were furious at these and other restrictions the bill imposed on them.

Truman declared a Fair Deal policy, in which he tried to expand the principles of the New Deal. Included in Truman's Fair Deal were plans for national health care and civil rights legislation; Truman also wanted to repeal the Taft-Hartley Act and increase government spending for public housing and education. In early 1948, he sent a civil rights bill to Congress (the first civil rights bill sent to Congress by a president since Reconstruction). Nevertheless, Truman's popularity in early 1948 was low. Republicans rallied behind second-time candidate Thomas Dewey (who had been defeated by Franklin Roosevelt in 1944) and felt that victory would be theirs. Truman's chances seemed especially dim when Strom Thurmond also ran as a Dixiecrat candidate (in opposition to a civil rights plank in the 1948 Democratic platform) and Henry Wallace, Truman's secretary of commerce, ran as a Progressive. The highlight of Truman's political career was his eventual victory over Dewey; Truman's success is attributed to the fact that he campaigned more against the "do-nothing" Republican Congress than he did against Dewey. Truman could never capitalize on his 1948 victory; in the years after his victory, charges of being "soft on communism" plagued the administration.

Truman decided not to seek re-election in 1952, and former general Dwight D. Eisenhower defeated Adlai Stevenson in the general election. As president, Eisenhower saw his role as a crafter of compromise, and not as a creator of new policies. He tried to oversee a scaling back of government shift of power to the courts and to Congress. Eisenhower also shifted much of the power traditionally held by the president to his cabinet and other advisors. He was similar to the Republican presidents of the 1920s in that he was extremely friendly to business interests; most of his cabinet were businessmen. At many levels, Dwight Eisenhower was the perfect president for the 1950s.

Eisenhower's vice president was Richard Nixon, a former member of the House of Representatives and U.S. Senate from California. Nixon had first made a political name for himself in the Alger Hiss case, and his role in the 1952 campaign was largely as an anti-communist hatchet man. Midway through the campaign, it was charged that supporters had set up an illegal campaign fund for his personal use. Candidate Eisenhower gave Nixon the opportunity to give a public speech to try to save himself. During the Checkers Speech, Nixon declared that he had done nothing wrong, that his wife Pat wore a "very respectable Republican cloth coat," and the only thing given to him had been a dog, Checkers. Nixon remained on the ticket, thus saving a political career that would make him one of the most dominant figures in American politics for the next 25 years.

CIVIL RIGHTS STRUGGLES OF THE POSTWAR PERIOD

Many black veterans who had gone overseas to fight for democracy were appalled to find that conditions for blacks had remained largely unchanged during the war years. After speaking to many leaders from NAACP and CORE in early 1948, Truman outlawed discrimination in the hiring of federal employees and ordered the end to segregation in the armed forces. Change in both the federal government and the armed forces was slow.

Black athletes had often been heroes for large segments of the black population. In the 1930s and early 1940s, it had been Joe Louis; starting in 1947, Jackie Robinson became the first black to play major league baseball, wearing the uniform of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Robinson had to endure threats and racial slurs throughout his first season. Nevertheless, Robinson maintained his dignity and was named National League Rookie of the Year in 1947.

Black leaders had long wanted to strike down the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case, which stated that as long as black and white schools or facilities were "equal," it was not unconstitutional that they were separate. In reality, schools in many districts were separate, but they were in no way equal; white schools would get 80 or 85 percent of the financial allocations in some Southern cities and towns. The case that challenged the 1896 law came from Oliver Brown from Topeka, Kansas, who sued the Topeka school district because his daughter had to walk by an all-white school to get to the bus that took her to an all-black school on the other side of town.

The case made it all the way to the Supreme Court and was argued there by NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall (later a U.S. Supreme Court justice). The case was heard by a court presided over by Earl Warren, former governor of California and appointed Chief Justice by Eisenhower in 1953. By a unanimous decision, the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision stated that "separate but equal" was unconstitutional, and that local districts should desegregate with "all deliberate speed." Parents, government officials, and students in many districts in the South responded: "2, 4, 6, 8. We don't want to integrate!" Earl Warren was chief justice from 1953 to 1969, during which the Court practiced "judicial activism," making important decisions on topics such as the rights of the accused and prayer in schools.

The main battlefield for civil rights in 1955 was in Montgomery, Alabama. Rosa Parks, a secretary for the Montgomery NAACP, refused to give up her seat for a white man to sit in, and was arrested. Civil rights leaders in Montgomery began the Montgomery bus boycott, during which blacks in the city refused to ride the city buses; instead they carpooled or walked. The bus company refused to change its policies; finally, the Supreme Court stepped in again and stated that segregation on city buses (like in schools) was unconstitutional. A 27-year-old minister by the name of Martin Luther King, Jr., became the main spokesperson for the blacks of the city.

Another major battle for civil rights took place in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957. A small number of black students were set to enroll in Central High School in Little Rock in the fall of 1957. The governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, sent the National Guard to Central High School to keep the black students out. President Eisenhower had personally been opposed to the Brown v. Board of Education decision, but saw this as a direct challenge to a Supreme Court decision and to the authority of the federal government. Eisenhower sent in federal troops and federalized the National Guard; under armed guard, the black students attended Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, that year. Decisions by the federal courts outlawing various forms of segregation, and federal troops in Southern states enforcing these federal court orders, would become an increasingly common sight in the 1960s.

THE CONFORMITY OF THE SUBURBS

Many young people who had grown up during the Great Depression and had come of age during World War II decided in the postwar era to move to the suburbs and to have families. It was decided by many that domesticity would be the avenue to happiness in the postwar world. As a result, the baby boom ensued, during which the birthrate soared beyond all expectations. The baby boom lasted from 1945 until 1962; during the peak of the baby boom, 1957, nearly 4.5 million babies were born.

The perfect place for large numbers of newly married couples to have these families was, as stated previously, in the suburbs. Many critics of the time noted the conformity of the suburbs: the houses looked much the same, everyone watched the same shows on TV, and because of TV advertising, everyone pretty much used the same appliances and wore the same clothes. Life (especially for women) was centered around their children, as there were endless rounds of PTA meetings, Little League practices, and Boy Scout meetings to get to. Social historians state that young people were using the comfort of the family and home as a buttress against any return to the disruptions they had felt earlier in their lives. William H. Whyte's The Organizational Man, written in 1956, analyzed the conformity and conservatism of suburban life.

Many men felt dissatisfaction with their lives in the postwar years. Many who had served in the "good war," World War II, found it difficult to return to civilian life. Many felt civilian jobs to be largely unrewarding; as the book and film The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit emphasized, a man who had fought in combat in World War II might find a 9-to-5 job in an office utterly unrewarding. Many men took on hunting and fishing as hobbies; here, they could at least symbolically duplicate the war experience. For men, the most popular magazines of the 1950s were Field and Stream and Hugh Hefner's Playboy.

Women felt equal frustration during this era. Many continued to work; yet women's magazines and other publications carried the clear message that now it was the woman's patriotic duty to return to the home and remain a housewife. Doris Day was the star of many films of the decade; she had a "girl-next-door" type of appeal, which was attractive to many women and men of the period. Women saw college as an avenue to meet potential husbands; many dropped out immediately after finding one. Many women did find fulfillment as mothers by doing volunteer work in the community. Yet, to others, family life was terribly unsatisfying. Women who felt dissatisfaction with their role in suburban life were routinely told by their doctors that they were neurotics; the sale of tranquilizers to women skyrocketed. Many, many suburban women experienced discontent with their lives in the 1950s and early 1960s. Betty Friedan in The Feminine Mystique maintained that the lack of fulfillment experienced by many housewives was the genesis of feminist revolution of the 1960s. Friedan would found NOW (National Organization for Women) in 1966.

Stereotypically, 1950s teenagers were seen as the "silent generation," interested in only hot rod cars, school mixers, and panty raids. There is a great deal of truth to this characterization. Teenagers in this era were the first teen generation to be targeted by advertisers; many teens wore the same styles and had similar tastes, as a result. Adults spent a great deal of time in ensuring that teenagers did nothing in any way rebellious. Educational films in schools taught students to obey authority, to fit in with the group, to control one's emotions, and to not even think about sex. Popular television shows of the era such as Ozzie and Harriet showed young people who acted in exactly that manner.

However, there was a youth rebellion in the 1950s. A few brave students would show it in their attitude and attire, using the main character played by James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause or Marlon Brando in The Wild One as models. Jackson Pollock and other artists were also at the vanguard of another form of cultural rebellion; the significance of their giant "abstract expressionist" painting moved the center of the art world to New York City. Other young people would attempt to copy the writings and attitudes of the Beat Generation, a group of writers and artists who rejected an American society obsessed with the atomic bomb and with material culture. In rejecting conventional society, many Beats and their followers enjoyed jazz and drugs, and studied Eastern religious thought. Key works of the Beats included Jack Kerouac's On the Road, in which the main characters travel simply for the joy of traveling, and Hawl, a poem by Allen Ginsburg that outlines in graphic detail the evils of modern society and what that society does to those attempting to live decent lives in it. It should be emphasized that few young people were actual members of the Beat Generation; a larger number went to coffeehouses, dabbled in writing poetry, and sympathized with the plight of Holden Caufield in Catcher in the Rye.

The main form of 1950s rebellion for young people was through rock 'n' roll. To many adults, rock 'n' roll was immoral, was the "devil's music," and caused juvenile delinquency, a few even charged that it was sent to America by the Communists as part of their plot to conquer the United States. Nevertheless, those who listened and danced to rock 'n' roll were, at some level, rejecting the core values of 1950s America. Young people were told to "control their emotions"; it was very hard to do that while listening to "Good Golly Miss Molly" sung by Little Richard.

The connection in the minds of many adults between rock 'n' roll blackness accounts for the reaction of many to Elvis Presley. To many, Elvis was very, very dangerous. He covered many black songs, and exuded sex during his live and television performances. For many who feared rock 'n' roll, the best thing that could have possibly happened was when Elvis went into the army in 1958. By the end of the decade, rock had lost much of the ferocity it possessed in 1956 to 1957.

The legacy of the cultural rebels of the 1950s would certainly have tremendous influence in the 1960s. The behavior of members of the Beat Generation would be copied by the hippies. In addition, the rules that were so carefully taught to 1950s teenagers would be very intentionally broken by many teens in the 1960s.

CHAPTER REVIEW

To achieve the perfect 5, you should be able to explain the following;

• • The 1950s is viewed by some as a decade of complacency and by others as a decade of growing ferment.

  • Large-scale economic growth continued throughout the 1950s, spurred by cold war defense needs, automobile sales, housing sales, and the sale of appliances,

  • The advertising industry did much to shape consumer desires in the 1950s.

  • The GI Bill gave many veterans low-income mortgages and the possibility of a college education after World War II.

  • Many families moved to suburbia in the 1950s; critics maintain that this increased the conformity of American society.

  • During the baby boom, the birthrate dramatically increased; the baby boom lasted from 1945 to 1962.

  • Presidents Truman and Eisenhower were both dwarfed by the memory of the personality and policies of Franklin Roosevelt.

  • Jackie Robinson did much to advance the cause of rights in the postwar era.

  • Brown v. Board of Education was a tremendous victory for those pushing for school integration in the 1950s.

  • The Montgomery bus boycott and the events at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, demonstrated the techniques that would prove to be successful in defeating segregation.

  • Many men and many women felt great frustration with suburban family life of the 1950s.

  • 1950s teenagers are often called the "silent generation," although James Dean, the Beat Generation writers, and Elvis Presley attracted followers among young people who did rebel in the 1950s.

Time Line

1944: GI Bill enacted

1947: Taft-Hartley Act enacted / Jackie Robinson first plays for Brooklyn Dodgers

1948: Truman elected president in stunning upset / Truman orders desegregation of armed forces

1950: Diner's Club credit card offered

1951: Publication of Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

1952: Dwight Eisenhower elected president

1953: Defense budget at $47 billion / Allen Freed begins to play rock 'n' roll on the radio in Cleveland, Ohio

1954: Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision

1955: First McDonald's opens / Rebel Without a Cause released / Bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama

1956: Interstate Highway Act enacted / Majority of U.S. workers hold white-collar jobs / Howl by Allen Ginsberg first read

1957: Baby boom peaks / Publication of On the Road by Jack Kerouac / Resistance to school integration in Little Rock, Arkansas

1960: Three-quarters of all American homes have a TV set