History 261 Week 11B: Suburban Nation (March 20)

I. Consumer Freedom

II. American Dream

III. Fifties Culture

I. Consumer Freedom

1. Domestic Containment

              **Kitchen Debate (1959)

              **Vice-President Richard Nixon vs. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev

              **Nixon: "The United States comes closest to the ideal of prosperity for all in a classless society."

**Nixon: "These washing machines are designed to make things easier for our women. To us, the right to choose is the important thing."

              **"Most American veterans can buy this home. Any steel worker could buy this house"

2. Growth Liberalism (Keynesian Economics)

              **Roosevelt's "Economic Bill of Rights" (1944)

              **"Decent standard of living"

              **GI Bill (1944)

              **1 million Americans per year move from working to middle class (1945-1960)

              **1/2 American families = middle-class consumer lifestyle (1960)

              **Home ownership rises from 40% to 60% (1/3 population in suburbs)

3. Fair Deal vs. "Free Enterprise"

              **Truman's "Fair Deal"

              **Higher Minimum Wage

              **Federal Low-Income Housing

              **Universal Health Insurance

              **Full Employment Legislation

              **Organized Labor: Permanent price controls

              **UAW Strike against General Motors (1945-46)

              **Walter Reuther: "Wage increases without price increases"

              **GM: "America is at the Crossroads"

              **Republicans regain Congress (1946)

              **Taft-Hartley Act (1947)

              **"Treaty of Detroit" (1950)

              **UAW wins annual cost-of-living adjustment, private system of pensions and health insurance benefit

II. American Dream

1. Levittown (1947)

              **70,000 residents

              **William Levitt: "If we sell one house to a Negro family, then 90 to 95 percent of our white customers will not buy into the community."

              **Federal Housing Administration: "If a neighborhood is to retain stability, it is necessary that properties shall continue to be occupied by the same social and racial classes"

              **$119 billion in investments (1940s/1950s)

              **Blacks excluded from 98% of new developments

2. Corporate Economy

              **Automobiles (GM, Ford, Chrysler)

              **Oil (Exxon, Mobil, Texaco)

              **Information Technology (AT&T, IBM, General Electric)

              **National Interstate and Defense Highways Act (1956)

              **William Whyte, The Organization Man (1956)

              **Vance Packard, The Status Seekers (1959)

3. Advertising the American Dream

              **"Therapeutic Ethos"

              **Television = "Selling Machine"

              **90% of homes have a TV (1960)

              **Middle-class "classless" norm excluding race and poverty

              **Cold War "freedom of choice"

III. Fifties Culture

1. Domestic Ideology (1945-1965)

              **"For the true woman, children and husband come first, way before self, for that is how her altruism expresses itself, pleasure in her woman's role and delight in her true femininity" (Good Housekeeping, 1960)

              **"Family Wage" = only one-third of married women work outside the home

              **Average marriage age for men = 22, for women = 20

              **Divorce rate below 10%

              **Median family = 3.2 children

              **Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (1963)

              **"The problem that dare not speak its name"

              **"A quiet desperation . . . a sense of dissatisfaction. . . . Each suburban wife struggled with it alone . . . afraid to ask even of herself the silent question--'Is this all?'"

              **"We can no longer ignore that voice within women that says: 'I want something more than my husband and my children and my home.'"

2. Baby Boom

              **76 million born (1946-1964)

              **Youth Subculture

              **Mickey Mouse Club (1955-59)

              **Jack Kerouac, On the Road (1957)

3. Juvenile Delinquency

              **Censorship of Comic Books

              **Frederic Wertham, The Seduction of the Innocent (1953)

              **Rebel Without a Cause (dir. Nicholas Ray, 1955)

              **Rock and Roll

              **Elvis Presley (1956)

              **American Bandstand (1957)

              **"The Silent Generation" (early 1960s)