01:510:261 Lecture Notes - Lecture 24: Baby Boom, Separate Spheres, Limited Government
13 May 2018
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Chapter 24 - An Affluent Society, 1953–1960
1. Trends in postwar economy
1. "Golden age" of American capitalism
1. Economic expansion, growth
2. Wide-ranging improvements in living standards
3. Breadth of access to a better life
1. Low unemployment
2. Decline in poverty rate
4. Industrial supremacy around world
2. Emergence of West and South as centers of military production,
mobilization
3. Twilight of industrial age
1. Gathering decline in manufacturing
2. Shift toward white-collar occupations
4. Transformations in agricultural America
1. Acceleration of trend toward fewer and larger farms
2. Mechanization of southern farming
3. Expansion of corporate farming out West
1. Fruits and vegetables
2. Migrant labor
2. Suburbia
1. Rise
1. Pace and magnitude
2. Central role in economic expansion
3. Symbols and manifestations
1. Levittown
2. Malls
3. California
1. Los Angeles; "centerless city"
2. Freeways, cars
3. Shopping centers
4. Lawns
2. Consumer culture
1. Growth and spread
2. Ideology of American consumerism
1. As core of freedom
2. As measure of American superiority
3. Key elements
1. Television
1. Spreading presence
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2. Growing prominence as leisure activity
3. Themes of programming, advertising
2. Automobile
1. Place in "standard consumer package"
2. Role in economic boom
3. Impact on American landscape, travel habits
4. Emergence as symbol of freedom
3. Female sphere
1. Place in labor force
1. Rising numbers
2. Limited aims
2. Ideal of male as breadwinner, woman as homemaker
3. Affirmation of family ideal
1. Younger marriage age
2. Fewer divorces
3. Baby boom
4. Separate spheres as Cold War weapon
5. Receding of feminism
4. Exclusion of blacks; racial wall between city and suburbs
1. Pervasiveness
2. Sources and mechanisms
1. Federal government
2. Banks and developers
3. Residents
3. Resulting patterns
1. Suburbs for whites
1. Fading of ethnic divisions
2. Fear of black encroachment
2. Urban ghettoes for blacks, Puerto Ricans
1. Bleakness of conditions and opportunities
2. Barriers to escape
3. Self-reinforcing dynamic of racial exclusion
3. Celebratory perspectives on postwar America
1. "End of ideology"; liberal consensus
2. "Judeo-Christian" heritage
1. Themes
1. Group pluralism
2. Freedom of religion
2. Underlying trends
1. Fading of religious bigotry
2. Secularization of American life
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3. "Free enterprise" as essential part of freedom
1. Marketing of "free enterprise"
2. Varieties of "free enterprise" outlooks
1. Conservative wing
2. Liberal wing
4. "People's capitalism"
1. Receptiveness to big business
2. Heralding of classless society
5. Two strains of conservative renewal
1. Libertarians
1. Ideas
1. Individual autonomy
2. Limited government
3. Unregulated capitalism
2. Special appeal among businessmen of South and
West
3. Leading voice: Milton Friedman
2. New conservatives
1. Ideas
1. Free World vs. communism
2. Absolute truth vs. toleration of difference
3. Christian values vs. moral decay
4. Community and tradition vs. excessive
individualism
5. Government as agent of moral regulation
2. Leading voices: Russell Kirk, Richard Weaver
3. Central points of divergence: "free man" vs. "good man"
4. Common targets during the Fifties
1. Soviet Union
2. "Big government"
4. Eisenhower era
1. Election of 1952
1. Republican ticket
1. Dwight D. Eisenhower
1. Political appeal
2. Decision to run as Republican
3. Nomination
2. Richard M. Nixon
1. Political rise
2. Anticommunist style
3. Reputation for opportunism, dishonesty
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