10 million men and women had been released from the armed forces and they were using the G.I. Bill to help with the cost of college, buy homes and farms, and establish small businesses.

1. scarcity

2. The OPA had also lifted its wartime price controls which was also a contributing factor

3.  Prices continued to rise until the supply caught up with demand.

John Kenneth Galbraith

He was an economist that called America of the 1950's the affluent society

1.  Concern over Soviet expansion kept defense spending high

2.  The marshall Plan helped weak European economies rebound, helping to create overseas markets for American goods as well.

Taft-Hartley Act

What were the four effects of Truman's meeting with African-American leaders in September of 1946?

1.  Congress refused to pass the measures or a measure to integrate the armed forces.

2.  Truman hmself took action and issued, in July of 1948, an executive order for the integration of the armed forces

3.  Truman also ordered an end of descrimination in the hiring of government employees

4.  The Supreme Court also ruled that lower courts could no bar African-Americans from residential neighborhoods

In the election of 1948 who did the democrats nominate?  Republicans?

The democrats nominatied Truman again although many Americans blamed him for the nations economic ills and labor unrest.

The Republicans nominated the Governor of New York, Thomas Dewey.

As election day approached all the polls seemed to indicate a large victory for who? (Dewey and Truman)

1.  Dealing with the rising hreat of communism

2.  Restoring the American econom to a strong footing after the war's end.

Truman called a special session of Congress and challegened them to pass bills supporting what?

1.  Minimum wage raised to 75 cents

2.  Social Security coverage extended

3.  Flood controll and irrigation projects

4.  Financial support for cities to clear out slums and build public housing.

During the Election of 1952 both the Republicans and the Democrats had their campaigns hit by the opposing side? How? How did the Republicans come out on top?

The Republicans made an issue of the stalemate in Korea, the failure of the Truman administration ot stop the spread of Communism, and alleged Corruption among Truman's political allies.

The Republicans campaign was hit, however, by the charge that Eisenhower's running mat, Congressman Richard Nixon of California was profiting from a secret "slush fund" set up by wealthy supporters. 

Nizon then made an emotional response on television.  in his famous "Checkers" speech Nixon denied any wrongdoing, but he did admit to accepting one gift from a supporter... a dog.  He used this dog to weasle his way into the hearts of all americans. 

Nixion's speech saved his place on the ticket and he and Eisenhower went on to captur 55% of the popular vote and most of the electoral votes to win the election.

1.  Sponsored programs that would balance the budget

2.  Sponsored programs that would cut taxes

3.  Raised the minimum wage

4.  Extended Social Security and unemployment benefits

5.  Increased funding for public housing

6.  Backed creation of the interstate Highway System

7.  Created Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare

It is a major corporation that includes a number of smaller companies in unrelated industries.

1.  Through this diversification, or investment in various areas of the economy, they sought to protect themselves from declines in individual industries.

2.  International telephone and telegraph, a communications giant, also holds ownership of car rental companies, insurance companies, and hotel and motel chains. 

Franchise

This is a company that offers similar products or services in many locations

1.  Often they are sold by the company to an individual who can now do business using the parent company's name and the system that the parent company developed.

He wrote a book called, "the Organization Man" that described how the new, large organizations created "company people"

1.  Companies would give personality tests to people applying for jobs to make sure that they would "fit in" or not be a rebel or individual.

2.  Points were awarded for teamwork, cooperation, and loyalty this countributed to the growth of conformity as a corporate ideal.

1.  reunion of husbands and wives after the war

2.  decreasing marriage age

3.  desirability for large families

4.  confidence in continued economic prosperity

5.  advances in medicine

Many drugs were developed inthe 1950's to prevent childhood diseases that sometimes took the lies of children.  What was the main example of this?

He was a famed pediatrician and the author of the best selling book on raising children: "Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care"

1.  It sold more that 10 million copies in the 1950's

Interstate Highway Act

President Eisnehower signed this act in 1956 and it stated:

1.  It created 41,000 miles of expressways that crisscrossed the nation

2.  The new roads in turn, created more suburbs further from cities

3.  Interstate highways also made long-haul trucking more economical which lead to a decline in the use of railroads for shipping.

4.  towns along the new highways prospered while many towns along older, less modern routes fell on hard times

List the many problems that came with the cars in the 1950's.

1.  noise and pollution

2.  middle class andupper class families abandoned cities

3.  Jobs often followed along

4.  public transportation declined

5.  the infrastructure of the cities without tax support began to crumble

6.  poor people in the inner cities were now left without jobs or vital services

7.  the economic gap between rich and poor began to widen

Manufacturers began using this new strategy to sell even more products.  Manufacturers purposley designed products to become obsolete... that is become worn or outdated... in a short period of time. 

1.  carmakers brought out new models every year, urging consumers to stay up-to-date

2.  Many Americans came to expect new and better products and they began to discard things that were barely used.

3.. Some critics were calling America "hoggish" and a "throwaway society"

Diners Club in 1950 and the American Express in 1958

1. This led to personal debt climbs

2.  Instead of saving money Americans were spending it confident that the prosperity would continue.  Kind of like before the Great Depression

By 1950 9%

By 1955 55%

They began around 1949 but reached only a small  portion of the East Coast, and offered only two hours of programming a week.

1.  No mention was made of poverty or social inequality

2.  African-Americans or Latinos rarely, if ever, appeared on TV

3.  There was little in the way of "educational" programming

4.  It glorified the "historical" conflicts of the western frontier

5.  It was basically a reflexion of an idealized and white world

They came up with new techonology and other advantages that state-of-the-art television could not hope to compete with:

1. large screen

2.  wide screen (cinemascope)

3.  Quality sound (stereo)

4.  color... television would not have a widespread use of color until the 1960's

5.  Novelty features:  Smell-o-vision and 3-D movies

a movement in literature, and of rock and roll in music that clashed with the tidy suburban view of life and set the stage for the counter culture that would burst forth in the 1960's

1.  it was centered in San Fran, Los Angeles, and new York City's Greenwich Village.

2.  It expressed the social and literary nonconformity of artists,  poets, and writers.

1. They lived nonconformist lives

2.  They tended to shun regular work and sought a hiher conciousness through  Zen Buddihsm, music and sometimes, drugs.

an author that captured the essence of the beat movement era through his long free verse poem HOWL in 1956

What were some African-American singers, composters and performers of the time?

Nat "King" Cole, Lena Horne, and Harry Belafonte

1.  Miles Davis

2. Sonny Rollins

3.  Charlie Parker

4.  Tholonious Monk

5.  Dizzy Gillesepie

millions of white, middle-class Americans left the cities for the suburbs, taking with them precious economic resources and isolating themselves from other races and classes.  At the same time nearly 5 million African-Americans moved from the rural South to urban areas. The urban crisis prompted by the "white flight" had a direct impact on poor whites and nonwhites. The cities lost not only people and businesses but also the income taxes they paid to support the urban infrastructure.

each year the federal government calculates the minimum amoun t of income needed to survive.

In 1959 the poverty line for a family of four was $2973.  In 2000 it was $17,601

a Mexican-American World War II hero who had been killed in the Philippines

1.  The only undertaker in his hometown in Texas refused to provide Longoria's family with funeral services.

2.  In the wake of the longoria incident, outraged Mexican-Americans stepped up their efforts to stamp out discrimination

3.  In 1948, Mexican -American veterans organized the G.I. Forum.

In 1944 Native Americans established this. They had two main goals:

1.  Ensure for Native Americans the same civil rights as white Americans had

2.  Enable Native Americans on reservations to retain their own customs

What brings about the end of the McCarthy investigations?

it is a foreign policy that brough our enemies to the brink of war.  Dulles initiated it.

Eisenhower's Secretary of State and he initiates brikmanship

Every area growed tremedously except for savings accounts.  People had the money so they spent it.