01:512:104 Lecture Notes - Lecture 27: The Lonely Crowd, Federal Housing Administration, The Feminine Mystique
15 May 2018
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Department
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Chapter 27 - America at Midcentury
American Society at Mid-century
- Americans needed to spend more time & money on the community, not
personal stuff
- Medical care, schools, etc
- Many tensions felt due to the Cold War - these shaped American life
The Eisenhower Presidency
- First 2 term Republican president since Grant
- Eisenhower had a very conservative vision of community
- Saw the US as corporate commonwealth, similar to Hoover’s “associative
state”
- Wanted to run the govt. in a businesslike manner
- Appointed 9 businessmen to his first cabinet
- 3 of these had contacts with GM
- Submerged Land Act: gave $40 billion in Oil back to the Gulf States
- Lax government regulations lead to harming the environment in Florida &
Louisiana
- Accepted the New Deal legacy of greater federal responsibility for social
welfare
- Refused to stop the Social Security system
- Created Dept of Health, Education & Welfare
- Eisenhower continued agricultural payments to sustain farming prices
Subsidizing Prosperity
- Many people gain middle class status after WWII thanks to financial aid
- 1934 - Federal Housing Administration (FHA) subsidized the housing
industry
- Mainly concentrated on the suburbs - as a result, inner city suffers
- Discourages multi-unit housing
- Discriminated against racially mixed communities
- Stability could only be achieved through same race and same lifestyles
- Suburbs: planned communities
- One of the first: Levittown, Long Island
- 1947 - built on what was formerly 1500 acres of potato fields
- Called the “perfect planned community”
- Prefabricated housing
- 1960 - Still no black residents
- 1944 - GI Bill of Rights: gave returning vets low interest mortgage &
business loans
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find more resources at oneclass.com
- Paid for some higher education
- 1956 - Federal Highway Act: $32 billion in National Interstate Highway
System
- After Sputnik, US government worries the country’s education system is
lagging behind
- Strengthens support for teaching math, science & technology
- National Defence Education Act: $280 million in grants for state universities
to upgrade science facilities & $300 million for college student loans
- NDEA represented a new agreement that high-quality education was
important
Suburban Life
- The “perfect housewife” was efficient, patient & charming
- Dominant image in the media
- Becoming a housewife was seen as a woman’s only path to happiness &
fulfillment
- The Feminine Mystique (Betty Friedan) tries to change these stereotypes
- Strong religious resurgence in 1940s & 1950s
- Cars became the centre of the suburban lifestyle
- Necessary for commuting & recreation
- California has most drive-in facilities in nation
- “Centreless city” - lives became very spread out and cars became a
necessity
Lonely Crowds & Organisation Men
- 1950 - The Lonely Crowd (David Riesman): introduced the “other-directed
man”
- Peer oriented instead of self-oriented
- 1956 - Organisation Men (W.H. Whyte):
- Study of Chicago suburb: people obsess with fitting into community and at
work
- Middle-class suburbanites want a comfortable secure niche
- 1951- White Collar: C. Wright Mills analyzes white collar workers
- Analyzed middle-class salaried & office workers
- Get jobs through skills & personalities - need to change to fit expectations
Expansion of Higher Education
- 800,000 more college students between 1950-60
- This number more than doubled to 7.2 million in 1970
- GI Bill & National Defence Education Act helped to make school accessible
- Many major in business & commerce
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find more resources at oneclass.com
- Gateway to the middle-class
- College life became like a business style work
- Administrators adopted business language, quality control, etc
Health & Medicine
- Improvements allowed Americans to enjoy a longer and healthier life
- Lots of money pumped into the health system
- Armed forces immunized against diseases from syphilis to tuberculosis
- Penicillin manufactured & mass distributed
- 1949 - National Institute of Mental Health created
- Epidemic diseases eradicated (tuberculosis, diphtheria & measles)
- Poliomyelitis eradicated through immunization after discovery in 1955 of
vaccine
- Many expensive treatments not available to the poor
- Many small towns didn’t have a hospital
- Decline of General Practitioner stops most house calls
- American Medical Assoc. does nothing to increase the flow of doctors
- Truman and Eisenhower made plans to offer assistance to private health
care
- AMA denounced proposals as “socialized medicine”
Youth Culture
- “Teenager” began being used to describe someone between the ages of 13
and 19
- Lots of media and social pressure to grow up quickly
The Youth Market
- High birth rates in the 1930s + post war baby boom = lots of teenagers
during the 1950s
- Kids obsessed with popular clothes & fads - eg getting a Cadillac
- More teens in school
- Books: How to Live with Your Teenager & Understanding Teenagers
- Educate adults on how to handle teens
- Traditional sources of adult authority - marketplace, schools, child-rearing
manuals, the mass media -- all reinforced the notion of teenagers as a special
community
Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll
- Transistor & car radios become common & youths want their own defining
music
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Americans needed to spend more time & money on the community, not personal stuff. Many tensions felt due to the cold war - these shaped american life. First 2 term republican president since grant. Eisenhower had a very conservative vision of community. Saw the us as corporate commonwealth, similar to hoover"s associative state . Wanted to run the govt. in a businesslike manner. Appointed 9 businessmen to his first cabinet. 3 of these had contacts with gm. Submerged land act: gave billion in oil back to the gulf states. Lax government regulations lead to harming the environment in florida & Accepted the new deal legacy of greater federal responsibility for social welfare. Refused to stop the social security system. Created dept of health, education & welfare. Eisenhower continued agricultural payments to sustain farming prices. Many people gain middle class status after wwii thanks to financial aid. 1934 - federal housing administration (fha) subsidized the housing industry.
