Ch 28, Suburban Era
Terms
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- Worldwide Boom
- increase in birth rates in US (Baby Boom) & other industrialized nations in years right after the war
- "New Look" in Foreign Policy
- "Bigger Bang for the Buck" emphasis in tech, reduction of standing army
- US backs Ngo Dinh Diem
- Diem US installed leader of S. Vietnam, does not provide free elections (even though it was required by Geneva) supported by Dulles b/c communist Viet Minh would win if an election was held democratically
- Mossadeq Overthrown
- CIA overthrows nationalist Iranian Govt- Mohammed Mossadeq, Operation Ajax ('51)
- Bay of Pigs Invasion
- US invasion of Cuba, Humiliating disaster for JFK
- Big Steel Showdown
- Steel hikes prices agains Kennedy's will, JFK boycotts big steel, prices go down, JFK & business relations soured
- Working Women
- More women work outside home '40s - '60's & more go to college although less work professional jobs
- Consensus of the '50's
- general agreement in American culture based on values of the broad middle class "the American way" & mindless conformity
- Taiwan & Chiang Kai-Shek
- Dulles threatened to "unleash" Chiang on China from his post in Taiwan, China threatened to invade, Eisenhower sent 7th fleet to protect the island
- Catholic Issue
- JFK, 1st Catholic president, embraced it
- Nuclear Test Ban treaty
- Wake of Cuban Missile Crisis (climax of Cold War, closest weve ever come to nuclear war) Soviets & US agree to prohibit all above-ground nuclear tests, both nations choose to avoid annihilating the human race w/ nuclear war
- Eisenhower Doctrine
- President can preempt congress's power to declare war in times of crisis
- Cuban Naval Blockade
- result of soviet nuclear offensive site built on Cuba (90 mi from US coast), blockade keeps additional supplies from reaching the island
- Robert McNamara
- JFK Secretary of Defense, a "whiz kid" intelligent, comfortable w/ power, not afraid to use it
- Farm Policy
- response to surplus of agricultural goods; lower support payments system to discourage farmers from overproducing basic commodities (corn, cotton, wheat) soil bank program that paid farmers to take land out of production
- Suburbs
- Fled from cities, Minorities excluded, religious fervor & divisions btwn faiths upheld ('54 addition of "under god" to pledge of alliegence)
- Cuban Revolution & Castro
- US supported Batista overthrown in favor of Communist Castro
- Dien Bien Phu
- French Military base in Vietnam, Viet Minh overtook result; US steps in, Geneva, Ho Chi Minh withdraws troops N of 17th parallel
- Berlin Wall
- Wall erected through Berlin to prevent people from East Berlin (Soviet, economic trouble) moving to West Berlin (US, thriving)
- Alliance for Progress, Peace Corps
- Alliance w/ L. America based on economic progress, Program that provided support for developing nations
- Nikita Khrushchev
- Stalin's successor, eased iron fist of old regime amid bouts of nationalism in Soviet controlled Eastern Europe
- The Lonely Crowd, David Riesman
- '50 Reisman sociologist, condemned stifling conformity in book (mostly in the workplace)
- Missile Gap
- response to Sputnik, first Russian space satellite, possibility that Soviets have more missiles than US
- Media Portrayal of Women
- Madonna (Doris Day, housewife, mother etc) v. ***** (Marilyn Monroe, sexy, independent etc), no in-between
- Rock N Roll
- merger of 3 styles, pop, country & R&B, "Earth Angel"(crossover) - "Shake, Rattle, and Roll"(1st rock song #1 on pop charts), Elvis Presley
- Interstate Highway Act
- 1956 Eisenhower 20 yr plan to build 41,000 mi of highway, largest public works project in history
- U-2 incident
- Soviets shot down US spy plane, pilot found alive, Eisenhower had to admit he had authorized the spying
- Levittown, USA
- William Levitt applies mass production techniques to housing (Cape Codder houses), identical communities pop up all over the nation (called Levittowns)
- Guatemala's democracy crushed
- Guatemalan leader pissed off US business, branded a communist, CIA overthrows uncooperative Democracy in favor of a US cooperative Military Dictatorship
- The Organization Man, William Whyte
- '56 book that took Riesman critique from workplace to the home
- Space Program
- developed in competition w/ Russians, 1969 US lunar landing Apollo 11
- John Foster Dulles
- Eisenhower's Sec. of State, teamed up to develop new foreign policy
- Beat Generation
- Beatniks, self consciously rejected "excessive spiritual bankruptcy of middle class culture" jazz, philosophy, sex & drugs, Jack Kerouac "On the Road" ('57 novel)
- Juvenille Delinquency
- On the rise, centered in high schools "mini melting pots" middle class kids exposed to/adopt habits of lower classes (cigarette smoking/t-shirt wearing etc)
- Kinsey Report
- "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male ('48) & Female ('53)" scientific study by Alfred Kinsey, turned traditional presumptions about sex & marriage on its head